Fishermens News

The Alaska Board of Fisheries is accepting proposed regulation changes through 5 p.m. on April 10 for fisheries in the Bristol Bay, Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim and Alaska Peninsula/Aleutian Islands management areas. Proposals may be for commercial, subsistence, personal use, sport, guide sport and guided sport ecotourism finfish regulations. Finfish include salmon, herring, trout, groundfish, char, burbot, northern pike, whitefish, Pacific cod, sablefish, shark, and Pollock, but not halibut.Examples of “statewide finfish” regulations can be found in Title 5 of the Alaska Administrative Code and include, but are not limited to, policy for the management of sustainable salmon fisheries, policy for the management of mixed stock fisheries, policy for statewide salmon escapement goals, possession of...

By Terry DillmanA class action antitrust lawsuit filed in June 2010 against Clackamas, Oregon-based Pacific Seafood Group (PSG) is still tacking toward a requested court showdown, despite some legal course changes along the way.Initially filed by Portland law firm Haglund Kelley Horngren Jones & Wilder LLP for Brookings-based fishermen Lloyd Whaley and Todd Whaley and as many as 3,000 other “similarly situated fishermen and fishing vessel owners,” the lawsuit alleges monopolization of the Dungeness crab, Oregon coldwater (pink) shrimp, groundfish, and whiting seafood markets along the West Coast by PSG and its owner Frank Dulcich. Prices paid to fishermen are the central issue. The complaint alleges that PSG uses its market share of 50 to 70 percent in each of those four critical fishe...

Alaska’s seafood exports to China for the first 10 months of 2011 were valued at $762,795,549, out of the state’s total seafood exports of $2,242,202,197 for that period. Those are the preliminary figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, which values all commodities by the commercial invoices that accompany shipments, usually the first wholesale value, says Patricia Eckert of the Alaska Office of International Trade.Seafood, in fact, led all other exports from Alaska in value for those months in 2009 through 2011. Final export figures for 2011 are due out this coming spring.Those purchases by China are a jump up from $484,895,187 for the same months in 2010 and $400,543,908 in 2009.Seafood exports to Japan for the same months in those years were $527,392,711 in 2011, $464,830,703 in 2010 and $...

The size of the plant’s work force and product forms for pink salmon have not been determined yet, but Ocean Beauty Seafoods does plan to process wild Alaska pink, chum, coho and sockeye salmon this summer at its plant in Petersburg in Southeast Alaska.The pace may be somewhat slowed in anticipation of a lower pink salmon run. Tom Sunderland, vice president of marketing for Ocean Beauty, said the company has to make preparations based on the current forecast, but that on the other hand, maybe there will be more fish than the current forecast anticipates. Back in 2010, the company shuttered its Petersburg plant due to the low run of pink salmon.This season, “we will be buying salmon and putting it into some form,” Sunderland said. “I will know more as the winter goes on.”The highest pink sa...

An international 2000-mile personal watercraft (PWC) race proposed to attract 1,000 riders for a route from Whittier to Iliamna Alaska in May of 2013 is drawing interest and some concern in fishing communities that the race and its entourage would pass through.Planning for the Alaskan Wet Dog Race (www.wetdograce.com) has been in the works for several years and the deadline for commenting to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (at candice.snow@alaska.gov) for the land use permits race organizers are seeking is Jan. 26.Promoter John Lang, an Anchorage project engineer and former operator of a watercraft tour company at Whittier, said there have been hits on the race website from more than 100 countries. He said the race would bring $35 million into Alaska annually, including approxim...

The Alaska Board of Fisheries will meet Jan. 15-21 at the Sons of Norway facilities in Petersburg on proposals involving Southeast and Yakutat crab, shrimp and miscellaneous shellfish, including Dungeness, king and tanner crab. Then from Feb. 24 to March 4, the Board of Fisheries will be at the Ted Ferry Civic Center in Ketchikan for action on proposals offered on Southeast and Yakutat finfish, including salmon, herring and groundfish.The proposal package for Petersburg includes several dozen items on related to topics ranging from revising the Southeast red king crab management plan and revising the management plan for Southeast pot shrimp fisheries to a variable harvest strategy for sea cucumbers, and harvest strategies for geoducks.Nearly 150 proposals will be up for consideration at th...

By Margaret BaumanAlaska’s chief fish pathologist said Dec. 7 that the state’s wild Pacific salmon stocks are in no immediate danger from the infectious salmon anemia virus, a pathogen linked to fish farming that has killed millions of salmon in Chile and Europe.“I think science will prevail and at some point we will get some answers, but I don’t think our wild stocks are in immediate jeopardy,” said Ted Meyers, in a telephone interview from his Juneau office.“I think we need to get more information. We need to first corroborate the research that has already been done (in Canada) and reexamine it. The current testing in Canada has looked at over 5,000 farmed fish and 500 wild fish and they have never found a pathogenic virus,” he said.As for the newly released reports that the virus was de...

Commercial fisheries in Southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay, with its highly productive marine ecosystems and bountiful fisheries, generate economic activity equivalent to $4.1billion to $5.4 billion annually, the World Wildlife Fund says.The details are contained in a report prepared for the environmental organization by Ecotrust, in Portland, Oregon, and released in late December.Study authors said that the health of Bristol Bay fisheries is not only economically important to the region, but to the nation and the world as a whole, because participants in that fishery and the retailers from whom consumers purchase these wild seafood products come from all over the world.The Bristol Bay marine ecosystem is well known as the largest sockeye salmon run in the world. It also produces chum salmon, ...

A study published in the scientific journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) says bunker fuel spilled from a damaged cargo in 2007 had an unexpectedly lethal affect on Pacific herring embryos in San Francisco Bay.The study, published Dec. 26, by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and their collaborators, suggests an interaction between sunlight and the chemicals in oil might be responsible.The issue stems from the November 2007 spill of 54,000 gallons of bunker fuel, a combination of diesel and residual fuel oil, from the container ship Cosco Busan. The spill contaminated the shoreline near the spawning habitat of the largest population of Pacific herring on the West Coast. The Los Angeles Times noted that owners and operators of the v...

Updates on a number of research activities in progress on marine regions off Alaska and more will be presented at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage Jan. 16-20. The annual event, which began in 2002, has a number of federal, state and other marine fisheries sponsors, ranging from the North Pacific Research Board and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustees.The sessions, including keynote speeches, numerous workshops and poster sessions, are all open to the public at no charge. Exhibiting sponsors are being charged at cost.A list of venues, the agenda, workshops and exhibit information is posted online at www.alaskamarinescience.org.Keynote speeches this year, all scheduled for Monday, Jan. 16, include Eddy Carmack on Arctic issues; Carin Ashjian a...