Fishermen’s News – Page 46

3Aug

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Round 2 CARES Act Fisheries Relief Applications Due By Oct. 31

Applications for Round 2 CARES Act for Alaska fishery participants are available now on the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission website. They must be filled out and postmarked by Oct. 31 to be eligible for relief funds. The announcement from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game refers to aid being made available to fishermen financially impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic, which is ongoing more than two years after it began. The relief funds are from the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, which was signed into law on March 27, 2020 in response to the economic fallout of the pandemic. ADF&G officials noted that applicants need to carefully review Alaska’s spend plan, https://relief.psmfc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/A...

3Aug

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Collaborative Effort to Bring Salmon Relief to Yukon River Villages

A collaborative effort between six seafood processors and the nonprofit SeaShare on Bainbridge Island, Washington is resulting in the donation of about 49,000 pounds of frozen king and chum salmon to Lower Yukon River residents who are banned from fishing this summer on a commercial or subsistence level because of low salmon runs. SeaShare, a strategic partner of food banks nationwide, said that the donation was from Silver Bay Seafoods, Alaska General Seafoods, Leader Creek Fisheries, OBI Seafoods, North Pacific Seafoods and Trident Seafoods. The donations come in the wake of a record-breaking harvest season in Bristol Bay, with harvesters delivering over 59 million fish to processors. The overall statewide catch through Tuesday, Aug. 2, totaled over 110 million salmon, includin...

Salmonfest Returns to Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula Fairgrounds This Weekend

3Aug

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Salmonfest Returns to Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula Fairgrounds This Weekend

Salmonfest 2022, a weekend-long concert celebrating everything salmon, gets underway Friday, Aug. 5, at Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula Fairgrounds, with five stages, 65 bands, and over 100 vendors. Headliners this year range from Texas musician Shakey Graves to Rising Appalachia, the California Honeydrops, Kyle Hollinsworth and Canadian-American singer-songwriter and guitarist Steve Poltz. Since 2015, Salmonfest has donated over $150,000 to salmon and related initiatives. All 5,200 tickets to the event are sold out. The event also includes nearly 1,000 staff, vendors, plus band guests and another 1,000 children eligible for free admission and others over three-days of Salmonfest. Events on tap at the 2022 festivities include the Smoked Salmon Super Bowl, sponsored by Salmonfest a...

27Jul

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NOAA Extends Comment Period on Draft Climate Science Action Plans

Federal fisheries officials have extended to Friday, July 29, the deadline for comments on the proposed NOAA Climate Science Regional Action Plans to make fisheries and protected resources more resilient to climate change. Copies of the draft regional action plans are available for the Western Region, including California, the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, Eastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The initial Western Regional Action Plan, released in 2016, focused on implementing NOAA Fisheries’ Climate Science Strategy (NCSS) in the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem over three to five years. The current draft builds on previous efforts and describes proposed actions in 2022-2024 to provide decision makers with information to prepare for and respond to changing conditions in th...

27Jul

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Alaska Commercial Salmon Harvests Exceeds 101M Fish

Commercial harvesters delivered some 101 million salmon to processors through Tuesday, July 26, in the 2022 Alaska fisheries, wrapping up a record harvest season. That includes nearly 59 million fish in the Bristol Bay area alone, led by the Nushagak District with over 22 million fish, the Egegik District exceeding 15 million fish, the Naknek-Kvichak District with over 14 million fish and the Ugashik District with nearly six million fish. Retail prices for the Bristol Bay fillets were holding at about $12.95 a pound for fillets in most Alaska retail shops, but prices dropped in the last week of July to about $10.99 a pound, while retail demand remained high. New Sagaya fish counters in Anchorage had fillets of Alaska salmon at $41 a pound with five-pound purchases. Both New Sagay...

Norton Sound Fishermen Harvest 308,623 Pounds of Red King Crab

27Jul

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Norton Sound Fishermen Harvest 308,623 Pounds of Red King Crab

Alaska’s only summer red king crab fishery concluded on Sunday, July 24, with the entire guideline harvest of 308,623 pounds of the succulent crab delivered by Norton Sound small boat fishermen, with retail prices commanding up to $74.95 a pound. Biologists with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said they expected that by that date the quota would be achieved, given the catch rate for the open access fishery which began on June 15. Eight permit holders for the 2022 winter commercial fishery harvested 7,357 pounds of the 27,328-pound guideline harvest level for the winter fishery. The average weight of the king crab caught in the fishery is about 2.8 pounds, according to ADF&G biologists. The total Norton Sound red king crab guideline harvest level is 341,600 pounds, w...

NOAA Fisheries Initiative Would Improve Seafood Sector Working Conditions

27Jul

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NOAA Fisheries Initiative Would Improve Seafood Sector Working Conditions

A new public-private initiative from NOAA Fisheries aims to promote legal and safe working conditions in order to end forced labor in the commercial fishing and seafood industry. The Collaborative Accelerator for Lawful Maritime Conditions in Seafood, aka CALM-CS, aims to put a halt to illegal and inhumane working conditions, such as forced labor. NOAA Fisheries officials said these conditions contribute to destabilization of maritime security and supply chains, and the degradation of fisheries and broader marine ecosystems, and also undermine U.S. economic competitiveness, national security and fishery sustainability. Senior officials from the Departments of Commerce, State and Labor, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S Agency for International Development recently met with represe...

New Halibut Catch Sharing Plan Proposed for IPHC Area 2A

27Jul

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New Halibut Catch Sharing Plan Proposed for IPHC Area 2A

NOAA Fisheries has published a proposed rule in the Federal Register to create a permitting system for the Pacific halibut commercial and recreational charter halibut fisheries in International Pacific Halibut Commission Regulatory Area 2A offshore of Washington Oregon and California. The action would also establish a regulatory framework for the Area 2A Pacific halibut directed commercial fishery that allows the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine each year dates and times the fishery is open and set harvest limits for those periods of time. The IPHC currently handles permitting and management activities for area 2A. Under the proposed action, NMFS would assume responsibility for issuing vessels permits to fish for Pacific halibut in commercial and recreational charte...

UW Study Supports ‘Safety in Numbers’ Hypothesis for Pacific Salmon

20Jul

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UW Study Supports ‘Safety in Numbers’ Hypothesis for Pacific Salmon

A University of Washington study published in late June found that Pacific salmon in large groups face a lower risk of being consumed by predators, although for some salmon species that tradeoff means more competition for food. While most people think of salmon spawning in freshwater streams, they also spend a huge amount of time in the ocean feeding and growing, said Anne Polyakov, lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Science Advances. “One of the reasons why this study is so unique is that we essentially can’t observe these fish at all in their natural ocean environment, and yet we’re able to pull out these really strong results on how grouping affects predation risk and foraging success for individual fish using this incredibly valuable dataset,” said P...

Record Catch of Bristol Bay Sockeyes in High Retail Demand

20Jul

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Record Catch of Bristol Bay Sockeyes in High Retail Demand

Soaring harvests of Bristol Bay’s famed wild sockeyes salmon run leaped by millions of pounds a week in July, as eager consumers were placing individual orders of up to 30 pounds each, while freezer container supplies ran low. Bristol Bay preliminary commercial harvest data posted by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game jumped from nearly 47 million to 57 million fish between July 12 and July 19, while the statewide harvest rose from nearly 69 million to 89 million salmon. Fishermen in the Nushagak District alone caught over two million sockeyes that week, bringing their catch total to nearly 23 million salmon, ADF&G data show. The robust harvest vastly exceeded expectations and the availability of freezer containers. Maritime transport company Alaska Marine Lines notified ...