Article Category: News

Federal Agriculture Department officials are accepting applications from U.S. states through Nov. 23 for the Agricultural Marketing Service’s Seafood Processors Pandemic Response and Safety (SPRS) block grant program, which is expected to award about $50 million in assistance early in 2022. Distribution of funds to seafood industry recipients will depend on each state’s plan, a USDA spokesperson said. USDA has allocated funding to certain states and territories based on a formula that considers economic activity as demonstrated through commercial fisheries landings, as detailed in the request for applications. The program is funded through pandemic assistance funds provided in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. Once USDA has awarded the funds, state agencies will provide those...

Alaska’s 2021 commercial salmon season drew to a close in mid-September, with the preliminary catch standing at an estimated 219.3 million fish, and sockeye and pink harvests exceeding the forecast. While the novel coronavirus pandemic raged on in Alaska, combined efforts of harvesters, processors and others to stem the spread of COVID-19 through vaccinations, testing, masking and social distancing resulted in much less of an overall impact of the multi-million-dollar fishery in 2021 than in the first year of the pandemic. Commercial fisheries consultant Dan Lesh, who produces in-season commercial salmon updates for McKinley Research Group on behalf of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, noted that while harvest numbers were large that the low average fish sizes led to much less impr...

A University of British Columbia study has concluded that climate change, overfishing, habitat destruction and pollution have dramatically diminished the capacity of coral reefs to provide ecosystem services relied on by millions of people worldwide. While the cumulative impact of this decline is unknown, UBC researchers have determined that global coverage of living coral has declined by over half since the 1950s. The study was published on Sept. 17 in the online journal One Earth. “We know coral reefs are biodiversity hot spots,” said the study’s lead author, Tyler Eddy, who conducted the study as a research associate at the UBC Institute for Oceans and Fisheries. “Preserving biodiversity not only protects nature but supports the humans that use these species for cultural, subsistenc...

Coast Guard entities from six nations, led by the U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area, gathered virtually for three days in mid-September for their annual forum summit, to discuss topics including the need for coordinated responses to challenges in the North Pacific. Also under discussion was the Japan Coast Guard’s best practices and lessons learned in support of the Tokyo Olympics. The North Pacific Coast Guard Forum, formed in 2000, comprise the coast guard and maritime law enforcement agencies of Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States. Its main focus includes combating illegal trafficking, combined operations, emergency response, fisheries enforcement, information exchange and maritime security. A non-binding memorandum of cooperation signed by all participating n...

Crews aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Kimball and Royal Canadian Navy military vessel Harry DeWolf conducted a joint exercise in late September off the coast of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, in the latest of the Coast Guard’s international joint exercise efforts. Crews representing both nations exchanged radio communications on Sept. 23, after both crews saluted in formation rendering honors from their respective ship’s port railings. Coast Guard officials said the joint exercise offered a significant opportunity for crews to demonstrate international operability and reaffirms a longstanding relationship between the U.S. and Canada. The alliance between the two Arctic nations continues to contribute to maritime security in the increasingly critical region, they said. Capt. Thomas D’Arcy, com...

A new NOAA Fisheries study now underway is looking into the relationship between fish condition and reproductive success in varied habitats, with a focus on deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems. Part of this research includes developing methods to accurately assess the condition of rockfish by measuring their fat content, since for Alaska rockfish fat signifies health. Evidence compiled by researchers suggests that fish with higher energy reserves (of fat) are more reproductively successful and therefor more productive. Several species of rockfish in Alaska have been shown to skip spawning in certain years. Scientists are uncertain if this reproductive failure is related to body condition. The focus of the study is the most commercially important rockfish in the Gulf of Alaska and Aleu...

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has announced $3.9 million in grants for conservation partnerships, including several projects to improve instream flows in an anadromous salmonid stream in California, and three in Washington state. The projects, which were announced on Sept. 21, are expected to benefit stream reaches where insufficient flows are identified by a state or federal agency as a key limiting factor for fish survival. A project to restore streamflow for coho and steelhead in California’s Gold Ridge Resource Conservation District would provide technical assistance and engineering to landowners along salmonid-bearing streams to improve instream flows, promote groundwater recharge and enhance instream habitat, with special emphasis on watershed devastated by recent catas...

Donations of thousands of pounds of chum salmon are coming to Alaska’s Yukon River villages, but the big gap left when record low fish runs resulted in a ban on all commercial and subsistence fishing remains a challenge. Overall donations from commercial processors and the state of Alaska through the third week of September were about 94,000 pounds, according to processors and the office of Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy. That amounts to about five to 10 fish per household, probably closer to five, said Jack Schultheis, general manager of Kwik’Pak Fisheries in Emmonak. Most Yukon River household puts up 50 to 150 chums a year and maybe 20 to 25 kings, depending on family size, he said. Yukon River residents fish commercially and for subsistence, but there were not enough fish for the harvest ...