Author: Fishermen's News Online

A new report from the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission says North Pacific-wide total salmon catches for 2019 remained near all-time high levels, but were particularly low for some salmon species in commission member countries. Russia led with 499.1 thousand metric tons, or 51 percent, followed by 406.9 thousand metric tons, or 42 percent by the United States, of which 401.9 metric tons was caught in Alaska. Japanese harvesters caught 59.5 thousand metric tons, or 6 percent; Canadian fishermen harvested 2.9 thousand metric tons, less than 1 percent, and Korean harvesters brought in 130 metric tons. Pink salmon constituted the majority of the total commercial catch, 54 percent by weight, followed by chum, 24 percent, and sockeye salmon 19 percent. Coho comprised 2 percent of the ...

The 2020 Alaska salmon season may be off to a slow start, but fisheries economist Garrett Evridge of the McDowell Group, in Anchorage, says it is too early to draw any conclusions. In an average year less than 10 percent of the annual harvest occurs in May and June and Evridge notes that harvest typically expand modestly over the next two weeks before climbing sharply in early July. Early season harvest figures for 2020 are below historical averages. Preliminary harvest figures from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game through Tuesday, June 16, showed that commercial harvesters in Alaska had delivered some 440 thousand wild salmon, including 28,000 Chinook, 189,000 sockeye and 223,000 chum. The bulk of harvests to date have been in Prince William Sound, with a cumulative preliminary ...

A Canadian mining firm intending to develop a rich copper, gold and molybdenum deposit in Southwest Alaska says they have created a Pebble Performance Dividend that will distribute a percentage of revenue generated by the mine to year-round residents of Bristol Bay. According to Pebble Partnership CEO Tom Collier, every year-round resident of Bristol Bay who wants to participate can register and learn more about the offer online at www.pebbledividend.com Collier said once the mine is fully operational and profitable the plan would distribute 3 percent of net profits from the mine to registered Bristol Bay residents. The PLP acknowledge that if permitted, the mine would not yield any profits for the first several years of development, but that the PLP would ensure a minimum distribution b...

After years of storing large quantities of its flash frozen seafood with a Seattle cold storage firm, Copper River Seafoods is investing in its own cold storage facility in Anchorage, one with a capacity of two million pounds of frozen seafood. “Since Copper River Seafoods is Alaska’s seafood processing company, being the only one of the big eight seafood processors operating in Alaska that is owned and operated as an Alaska and US company, it only makes sense to continue our growth by investing in Alaska, by bringing this critical business function of cold storage in house to meet our storage needs,” says Jim Kostka, the company’s marketing director. “This meets a CRS major objective, that is tied to the business/supply chain cycle of bringing wild and sustainable Alaska seafood to the ...

Four weeks into Alaska’s famed Copper River salmon fishery just half of the potential 12-hour commercial openers have been fished and inseason harvest estimates compiled by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game stand at a grand total of some 78,177 fish. Deliveries from the four commercial drift gillnet fisheries – the latest on June 1 – brought to processors some 5,751 Chinooks, 71,370 sockeye and 1,056 chum salmon. The largest catch to date came on May 25, with 457 deliveries of a total of 1,451 king, 33,777 red and 611 chum salmon. With other commercial fisheries in Prince William Sound starting to open up, hope lies in the pink and chum salmon returns, which are forecast to be 19 percent above the 10-year average. Meanwhile drift gillnetters in the Eshamy Main Bay district have ca...

One new death and 11 new cases of COVID-19 in six communities reported by state health officials on Tuesday, June 9, boosted Alaska’s total number of resident cases to 573 and the statewide death toll to 11. The addition of two new nonresident cases, both of them seafood industry workers, meanwhile brought the number of nonresident cases to 49. One of the nonresident cases is in the Aleutians East Borough and the other in the combined Bristol Bay and Lake and Peninsula boroughs. Another case previously reported as an Alaska resident in the Kenai Peninsula Borough has been reclassified as a nonresident case in the wake of follow-up interviews. The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities said that six additional Alaska Marine Highway employees aboard the M/V Tustumena tes...

Count the Alaska Peninsula fishing community of King Cove down but not out in the latest courtroom battle over a proposed one-lane gravel road that would provide for ground transportation to Cold Bay’s all-weather airport in medical emergencies. “We’re totally disheartened, (but) we won’t give up,” said Della Trumble, president of the King Cove Corp., an Alaska Native village corporation. King Cove, which lies some 600 nautical miles southwest of Anchorage, is the home of Peter Pan Seafoods largest processing facility. Deliveries to the plant include king crab, bairdi and opilio tanner crab, Polllock, cod, salmon, halibut and black cod harvested in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. Peter Pan has operated facilities in King Cove for more than 100 years and is a major contributor to the lo...

NOAA Fisheries has announced the renewal of two prohibited species donation permits to SeaShare, authorizing the Washington state nonprofit organization to distribute Pacific salmon and Pacific halibut to economically disadvantaged people under the PSD program. The permits apply to salmon and halibut caught incidentally during directed fisheries for groundfish with trawl gear off the coast of Alaska. They will be effective through May 28, 2023. Retention of incidentally caught prohibited species is prohibited in groundfish fisheries except for salmon and halibut for the purposes of the PSD program. The salmon donation program was approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service on July 10, 1996 and expanded to include halibut as part of the PSD program on May 6, 1998. SeaShare was foun...

Eighty-six of 126 crewmen on board the American Seafoods factory trawler American Dynasty have tested positive for COVID-19 in the wake of a fishing trip off the coast of Washington State, the company has confirmed. The vessel is now moored at Seattle, under lockdown, with one crewmember hospitalized and others quarantined and monitored by medical personnel. American Seafoods Chief Officer Mikel Durham said crewmembers on the American Triumph and the Northern Jaeger are also being tested today, June 3, for COVID-19 as a precautionary measure. The Triumph docked today at Bellingham and the Jaeger arrives later today. One crewmember aboard the Northern Jaeger reported feeling ill on board last week, was transported to a hospital, and tested negative. Durham said the rest of the crew was...

With the cancellation of ship-based Alaska Pollock surveys due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NOAA Fisheries is counting on Saildrones to conduct the summer eastern Bering Sea survey to support management of Alaska pollock. Three unmanned, wind-powered surface vehicles are currently sailing autonomously from Alameda, California on a six-week journey to the eastern Bering Sea. They are expected to arrive in early July to begin the 60-day survey, during which they will cover roughly the same area normally included by standard research vessels there to estimate Pollock abundance. The Saildrones are equipped with low-power sonar instruments known as echosounders, a fish finder technology that detects the presence of fish using sound, although it is less effective at differentiating among species...