Fishermen’s News Online

NOAA Promoting New Steps to Combat IUU Fishing
Fishermen's News Online, News

NOAA Promoting New Steps to Combat IUU Fishing

NOAA is proposing new measures to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities and forced labor in the seafood supply chain. The proposed changes are part of a rulemaking process that will include a public comment period after these proposed changes are published in the Federal Register. NOAA’s proposal broadens the scope of activities that can be considered under the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act when identifying nations for IUU fishing, including pervasive and persistent fishing activities in waters under the jurisdiction of a nation, without authorization or in violation of that nation’s laws. In addition, fishing activities in waters beyond any national jurisdiction that involve the use of forced labor may be considered by NOAA...
BOEM Invites Public Comment on Draft Fisheries Mitigation Strategy
Fishermen's News Online, News

BOEM Invites Public Comment on Draft Fisheries Mitigation Strategy

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on June 23 issued draft guidance on mitigating potential impacts of offshore wind development on commercial and recreational fishing and is inviting public review and comment. The draft mitigation document is the next step in development of guidance for offshore wind companies that began in 2021 via a request for information from the fishing industry, government agencies, non-government organizations and the public, in consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service. BOEM director Amanda Lefton said the agency is seeking open and honest conversations focused on finding solutions to potential challenges, with a goal of providing clean, safe domestic energy, plus good jobs, and building a U.S. supply chain to support this effort...
Coalition Petitions EPA to Update Proposed Rule on Dispersant Use
Fishermen's News Online, News

Coalition Petitions EPA to Update Proposed Rule on Dispersant Use

A coalition of Gulf Coast advocates and environmental entities is petitioning the Environmental Protection Agency to supplement its proposed rule on dispersant use of oil spill response, a rule that hasn’t been updated since it was proposed in January 2015. The proposed rule would allow unlimited amounts of toxic dispersants to be used for unlimited durations on the sea surface and in the deep sea, which is what happened in response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster on April 20, 2010. One of the largest marine oil spills in history, the Deepwater Horizon incident was caused by the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, some 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana, and the subsequent sinking of the oil rig two days later. Four million barrels of oil...
USCG Conducts Dockside Exams on 300-Plus Bristol Bay Fishing Boats
Fishermen's News Online, News

USCG Conducts Dockside Exams on 300-Plus Bristol Bay Fishing Boats

Coast Guard inspectors from Anchorage say that during a two-week deployment to Bristol Bay in mid-June, they completed 351 dockside exams and issued 276 safety decals for fishing vessels in communities throughout the region. Examiners said the exams focused on safety and addressed items such as flares, charts, navigational signals, fire extinguishers, emergency position indicating radio beacons and serviceability of immersion suits. Every vessel that passed the exam earned a decal, according to the USCG. From June 13 through June 24 they also removed 117 immersion suits from service because they were not serviceable. Most vessel owners replaced the unserviceable suits with new ones, the Coast Guard said. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer David Schaeffer, fishing vessel safety ex...
EPA’s Revised Proposed Determination Scrutinized
Fishermen's News Online, News

EPA’s Revised Proposed Determination Scrutinized

Proponents and opponents of the proposed Pebble mine project converged on the cities of Dillingham and Newhalen, and virtually in Southwest Alaska this past week to testify on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s revised proposed determination regarding a Clean Water Act permit, which they see as a long term way to stop construction of the mine. Their testimony came as fishermen and seafood processing workers headed for Bristol Bay to harvest and process the millions of red salmon forecast to return to the Bay in 2022. Several dozen opponents of the large-scale copper, gold and molybdenum mine turned out at the Dillingham hearing to testify. Mine boosters, including John Shively, chief executive officer of the Pebble Partnership, testified at Newhalen, contending that such ...
NPFMC Urges Pollock Industry to Reduce Bycatch, Declines to Impose Restrictions
Fishermen's News Online, News

NPFMC Urges Pollock Industry to Reduce Bycatch, Declines to Impose Restrictions

Federal fisheries managers have acknowledged the ongoing crisis in Alaska salmon stocks, and have opted to respond with additional research and a request to the Pollock industry to institute immediate measures to reduce chum bycatch during the summer fishery. At its June meeting in Sitka, Alaska, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council requested a discussion paper on chum salmon bycatch building on the previous analysis, which was performed in 2012. But for now, the council has opted not to impose new restrictions that would impact the Pollock trawl vessels whose bycatch of chum salmon in 2021 reached 546,043 fish. Additionally, the Pollock industry was asked to report back at the end of the B season on how bycatch reduction efforts worked. During the meeting, the council...
Recycling Company Braces for Influx of Nets from Bristol Bay
Fishermen's News Online, News

Recycling Company Braces for Influx of Nets from Bristol Bay

Net Your Problem, a Seattle-based company led by research scientist Nicole Baker, is forecasting an onslaught of commercial fishing nets for recycling at the end of the Bristol Bay salmon fishery in July, to ultimately be made into new plastic products. Baker said in a dispatch from Bristol Bay on the eve of that fishery that Net Your Problem had launched a new collection site across from a city dock in Naknek, Alaska, and was spreading the word to fishermen and fishing industry related entities to drop off worn out fishing nets at season’s end. Baker, a former North Pacific groundfish fisheries observer, now works at the University of Washington in Seattle as a research scientist, but said she is working on expanding her footprint to other fishing ports to make this a full-time ...
Desautel Named GAPP Board Chair
Fishermen's News Online, News

Desautel Named GAPP Board Chair

Bob Desautel, co-founder, president and chief executive officer of Global Seas and Nina Fisheries, has been selected to serve as chairman of the board for the Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP), replacing outgoing chair Mikel Durham of American Seafoods. GAPP CEO Craig Morris said Desautel has plans to redouble previous efforts to increase industry investment in the nonprofit focused on promoting wild Alaska Pollock in major whitefish markets worldwide. Desautel was an active harvester in the North Pacific from 1978 to 2000. In 1994, he co-founded Nina Fisheries, which expanded globally to Chile and Argentina four years later. In 2001, Desautel co-founded Global Seas, a subsidiary of Nina Fisheries, which became one of the West Coast’s premier vessel managemen...
North Pacific Research Board Looks to Fill Seats on Science Panel
Fishermen's News Online, News

North Pacific Research Board Looks to Fill Seats on Science Panel

The North Pacific Research Board, created by Congress in 1997 to recommend marine research activities to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, is accepting applications through Aug. 22 to fill four seats on its science panel. Desired qualifications include expertise in one or more of the seven categories, which include: marine fish and/or marine invertebrate ecology; stock assessment and fisheries management; salmon life history and ecology; quantitative ecology; climate and earth systems models; genetics; and physiology. Candidates, according to the Research Board, should demonstrate active engagement in science and research applied expertise, knowledge of pressing fisheries management issues, research needs, and priorities of state and/or federal managers. They should also be comf...
Melting Glaciers Likely to Boost Healthy Salmon Spawning Habitat: Study
Fishermen's News Online, News

Melting Glaciers Likely to Boost Healthy Salmon Spawning Habitat: Study

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, ...