News – Page 64 – Fishermens News

Study: Melting Glaciers Likely to Boost Healthy Salmon Spawning Habitat

Dramatic increases in the melting of Alaska’s massive glaciers in the midst of global warming reflect a silver lining for wild salmon, but once the melting has concluded, such benefits will likely not be realized, according to Peter Westley, a fisheries researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Westley highlighted recent work led by colleagues at Simon Fraser University that quantified the rich bounty of salmon habitat currently hidden, but soon to be revealed, by rapidly melting glaciers. The current rate of melting glaciers in Alaska is much higher than salmon have experienced in a long, long time, said Westley of UAF’s Salmonid Evolutionary Ecology & Conservation (SEEC) Lab. Currently, glaciers are helping cool the waters and create new habitat for wild salmon, but even...

NOAA Offers Grants to Remove In-Stream Barriers

NOAA Fisheries has restored millions of dollars in grants to aid in fish passage through the removal of in-stream barriers under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Up to $65 million in funding will support transformational projects that reopen migrator pathways and restore access to healthy habitat for fish nationwide, the agency announced in late June. Selected partners, in collaboration with NOAA, will be able to use the funds to implement locally-led removals of dams and other in-stream barriers to rebuild sustainable fisheries, contribute to the recovery of threatened and endangered species, enhance watershed health and improve economic vitality, the agency said. The application process is open to institutions of higher education, non-profits, commercial organizations, U.S. territor...

Canada’s DFO Concerned About Whales’ Learned Depredation Behavior

Canadian fisheries officials, expressing concern about whales snatching fish from fishing gear, are urging commercial fishermen to avoid inadvertently encouraging such behavior. Fisheries and Oceans Canada said in a statement issued in mid-June that depredation (the act of plundering) by killer and sperm whales has been reported in the groundfish longline fishery in British Columbia, and that there have been increased reports this year of depredation by killer whales on groundfish longline fisheries in Washington state waters, yet no current increase of reporting in BC waters. Depredation is learned behavior that can spread throughout whale social groups and once established is impossible to eliminate, Fisheries and Oceans officials say, adding that as whale populations transverse boun...

Commercial Seafood Harvesters Help Document Changing Ecosystem

Commercial seafood harvesters collaborating with conservationists and tribal partners hope to gather more information this summer on ecological changes in fisheries and oceans to help state and federal fisheries managers better manage commercial fisheries. The Skipper Science effort is being led by SalmonState’s Salmon Habitat Information Program (SHIP), with the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island Tribal Government and the Aleutian Bering Sea Initiative, according to SHIP manager Lindsey Bloom. One of the Skipper Science program’s key tools is a smartphone app that allows fishermen to log observations in real time from the fishing grounds. Skipper Science is also equipping up to six vessels with data collection instruments to record water temperature, salinity and other data, Bloom sai...

Columbia Riverkeeper Sues USACE Over Water Pollution

Columbia Riverkeeper, a nonprofit advocate for the water quality of the Columbia River, is suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over allegations that the Corps is illegally polluting the waterway with hot water, oil and toxic chemicals. The complaint, filed in early December in U.S. District Court for the eastern District of Washington, contends that four dams operated by the Corps on the Columbia River between Portland, Oregon and Tri-Cities, Washington, discharge illegal pollution in violation of the Clean Water Act. Columbia Riverkeeper announced the lawsuit on its website, citing government studies that show that dams on the Columbia River make the water too hot for endangered salmon and steelhead trout. Last summer Columbia Riverkeeper photographed what it describes as graphic ima...

ZP3 Gene Holds Secrets to Future of Pacific Cod Stocks

Pacific cod—already weathering climate change in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, far from their ancestral home—face new challenges due to global warming, with the answers to their ability to adapt perhaps centered on the impact of the ZP3 protein in their genome. NOAA Fisheries scientists in Seattle are researching a specific gene region of the genome called zona pellucida, or ZP3, to assess its role in geographic variation among Alaska’s Pacific cod stocks. The fishery comprises the second largest commercial groundfish harvest off Alaska, a multi-million dollar business that provides hundreds of jobs in the hook-and-line, bottom trawl, jig, pot and longline catch- and-processing facilities. According to NOAA Fisheries, the 2019 commercial harvest alone of Pacific cod totaled about ...

Commercial Poachers Convicted or Illegal Fishing in Protected California Waters

A San Diego County judge has imposed a $5,000 fine on a Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel (CPFV) operating in a Marine Protected Area (MPA), the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in mid-January. The fine represents the first implementation of increased commercial poaching fines and penalties under Assembly Bill 2369, authored by former San Diego Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, who resigned from office in early January. AB 2369, which is specific to illegal activity in California MPAs, went into effect in January 2019. The case was initiated in December 2020 by wildlife officers aboard the state patrol boat Thresher as a crew monitored Swami’s State Marine Conservation Area, one of many regions of California’s coast protected by designation as an MPA. Swami’s is ...

Wild Alaska Pollock Wins Sustainability Award

Management and sustainability efforts within the wild Alaska Pollock fishery have been recognized by the Marine Stewardship Council, which awarded its 2021 Ocean Champion Award to the Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers. Bob Desautel, GAPP’s chief executive officer and sustainability committee chair, accepted the award Jan. 20 during the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Marketing Conference in Orlando, Fla. The award, established in 2017, recognizes fisheries and companies engaged with MSC who show continued leadership on sustainability exceeding MSC fisheries or chain of custody standards. Mikel Durham, chair of the GAPP board of directors, said the association feels so strongly about conserving its fisheries that they self-funded an industry-wide, third-part...

Alaska Bycatch Task Force Members Named

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has released a list of 11 Alaskans who will serve on the state’s Bycatch Review Task Force, which has been given the job of better understanding the unintended bycatch of fish such as halibut and salmon caught in state and federal waters. Bycatch is defined as fish that are harvested in a fishery but are not sold or kept. The state revealed the 11 appointees on January 7. Members of the Alaska legislature will fill two other non-voting seats on the task force. “While Alaska’s healthy and sustainable fisheries are an example for the entire world to follow, bycatch has remained a contentious issue of concern of all Alaskans,” Dunleavy said. “The 11 Alaskans who stepped forward to serve on the Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force represent key stakeholder groups and...

Off-the-Boat Dungeness Crab Sales Begin in San Francisco

A pilot program under which fresh crab may be sold fresh off the boats of commercial fishermen has been launched in San Francisco. The Port of San Francisco began allowing live Dungeness crab sales direct from fishing vessels in Fisherman’s Wharf at the start of the commercial crab season on Dec. 29. This is the first crab season in San Francisco where consumers are able to buy live crabs directly from local fishers. Off-the-boat crab sales were authorized for a pilot program by the San Francisco Port Commission in November. “The kickoff of San Francisco’s commercial crab season is a highlight for so many of us, especially with it coming just in time for New Year’s Eve,” Mayor London Breed said. “This new program will support our family-run businesses and provide the incredible experi...