Article Category: News

A University of British Columbia study predicts that climate change will force 45% of fish stocks that cross two or more exclusive economic zones to shift significantly from their historical habitats and migration paths by 2100, possibly leading to stock ownership conflicts. The report released on Tuesday, Jan. 18, says that by 2030, when United Nations Sustainable Development Goals should be met, 23% of these “transboundary” fish stocks will have changed their historical habitat range. The UBC modeling study also projects that 78% of exclusive economic zones, where most fishing occurs, will see at least one shifting fish stock. By 2100, this climbs to 45% of stocks, with 81% of EEZs seeing at least one stock shift if nothing is done to halt greenhouse gas emissions. Lead author Julia...

In what could be considered a win-win for commercial fisheries and marine wildlife, newly released research indicates that using lighted nets greatly reduced accidental bycatch of sharks, rays, sea turtles and unwanted finfish. Publishing their results in the journal Current Biology, researchers found that lighted gillnets reduced total fisheries bycatch by 63%, which included a 95% reduction in sharks, skates and rays, an 81% reduction in Humboldt squid and a 48% reduction in unwanted finfish, while maintaining catch rates and market value of target fish. Authors of the study include Jesse Senko, an assistant research professor with Arizona State University; Hoyt Peckham, a small-scale fisheries director with the Wildlife Conservation Society; Daniel Aguilar-Ramirez, a fisheries biolo...

New ecosystem reports by NOAA Fisheries cover the impact of climate change on Alaska’s marine ecosystems in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, including heatwave periods and sustained warm conditions. NOAA scientists note that the Gulf of Alaska has been in transition since marine heatwave periods that took place from 2014 through 2016 and again in 2019, with some marine populations decreasing and others increasing. The year 2021 was the second consecutive year without such conditions. Mixed trends were noted in the prey base in the Gulf, with the abundance of zooplankton that provides food for fish, whales and other marine life either below average or average overall. The abundance of forage fish, including herring and age-one Pollock, was higher than in previous ye...

In an economy challenged by a global pandemic and rising transportation costs, more Alaska seafood should be processed in the United States and more effort put into increasing domestic consumption, according to veteran Kodiak seafood harvester, processor and marketer Duncan Fields. “With transportation costs going up, I think there are opportunities for companies to process more seafood in America,” said Fields, who was appointed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy in January to a harvester seat on the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. Fields, who holds a law degree from the University of Oregon School of Law, began fishing commercially in Alaska in 1960. He is the owner and marketer for Fields Wild Salmon in Kodiak, and is also a fisheries consultant. He has served on the North Pacific Fishery Ma...

A new management framework for the anchovy population adopted in November by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) goes into effect in January, requiring a regular review of anchovy numbers and adjusting catch levels as needed based on annual abundance surveys and other information. The independent non-profit Pew Charitable Trusts hailed that change as a more responsive, holistic management approach, which will benefit more than 50 species of marine wildlife, from albacore tuna and Chinook salmon to least terns and humpback whales. The PEW report notes that fishery managers had for years used fixed-catch limits, no matter how much the anchovy population or ocean health declined. In addition, for more than two decades, management of California’s anchovy population was based on i...

An updated economic report on Alaska’s seafood industry says preliminary 2021 data reflects a partial rebound in the wake of a 2020 season when the industry suffered from widespread impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic and biological issues in several key fisheries. Information included in the 2022 update of “The Economic Value of Alaska’s Seafood Industry” report, released Jan. 12 by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, notes that unlike previous years, economic impacts were calculated solely on 2019 data as opposed to averaging two years of data. “While the report includes some 2020 data, averaging 2019 data with the pandemic-disrupted 2020 season would not produce an accurate picture of the seafood industry’s economic impact in Alaska,” said Jim Calvin, vice president of McKi...

Seven Alaska fisheries, from the Yukon River to Southcentral to Southeast Alaska, have been approved by Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo for disaster relief. The relief had been requested by Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy for multiple fishery disasters that impacted Alaska’s seafood industry from 2018 through 2021. The fisheries include the Upper Cook Inlet East Side Set Net for 2018, Upper Cook Inlet salmon fisheries for 2020; Copper River Chinook and sockeye salmon fisheries for 2018; Prince William Sound salmon fisheries for 2020; Copper River Chinook, sockeye and chum salmon fisheries for 2020; Eastern Bering Sea Tanner crab for 2019-2020; Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska for 2020; and 2020 salmon fisheries for Norton Sound Yukon River, Chignik, Kuskokwim River and Southeast Alaska....

Residents of the Alaska Peninsula fishing community of King Cove say they are hopeful that Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will visit their fishing community on Alaska’s Aleutian Chain soon and remove barriers to completing a one-land gravel road to the all-weather airport at nearby Cold Bay. King Cove is the home of Peter Pan Seafood’s largest facility, a year-round seafood plant processing king, bairdi and opilio tanner crab, Alaska Pollock, Pacific cod, salmon, halibut and black cod delivered from fisheries in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The plant has the largest salmon-canning capacity of any plant in Alaska. At peak season there are some 500 employees working there. The community lies between two volcanic mountains near the end of the Alaska Peninsula, 625 miles southwest of...

The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service for failing to protect endangered Pacific humpback whales from deadly entanglements in sablefish pot gear off the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington. The lawsuit, filed Jan. 10, challenges the federal permit given to the fishery in December. Fishing-gear entanglements are a major threat to endangered humpbacks that migrate along the West Coast, where 48,521 square nautical miles were designated as critical habitat last April. “These migrating whales shouldn’t have to dodge deadly commercial fishing gear, especially in national marine sanctuaries,” Center for Biological Diversity attorney Catherine Kilduff said. “This is critical habitat for endangered humpbacks, but it’s full ...