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Protection of salmon habitat ranks very high with the majority of Alaskans, according to results of a poll released this week in Juneau by The Nature Conservancy. The non-profit conservation group leads salmon habitat projects in Bristol Bay, the Matanuska-Susitna Basin in Southcentral Alaska and the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska.Ninety-six percent of some 500 registered voters polled said salmon are essential to the Alaskan way of life and an important part of the state’s economy. Nature Conservancy spokesman Randy Hagenstein said that across the board, Alaskans truly understand the kind of habitat salmon need and support investment needed to keep that habitat healthy.Mark Kaelke, project director for Trout Unlimited in Southeast Alaska, said those poll numbers show that Ala...

A court decision on a salmon initiative that could severely restrict large-scale mines, such as the proposed Pebble Mine, in Southwest Alaska, is expected within a week, in the wake of oral arguments on the Lake and Peninsula Borough case.The proposed mine is backed by individuals and groups who see it as a means of further economic development and jobs. It is opposed by a large contingent of commercial, sport and subsistence fishermen, environmental groups and others, who feel such a huge copper, gold and molybdenum mine threatened the habitat of salmon in Bristol Bay.With judicial approval the measure could possibly be on the borough’s Oct. 4 general election ballot, but if approved could face further legal challenges.The Save Our Salmon initiative was certified May 30 to be placed on th...

A court decision on a salmon initiative that could severely restrict large-scale mines, such as the proposed Pebble Mine, in Southwest Alaska, is expected within a week, in the wake of oral arguments on the Lake and Peninsula Borough case.The proposed mine is backed by individuals and groups who see it as a means of further economic development and jobs. It is opposed by a large contingent of commercial, sport and subsistence fishermen, environmental groups and others, who feel such a huge copper, gold and molybdenum mine threatened the habitat of salmon in Bristol Bay.With judicial approval the measure could possibly be on the borough’s Oct. 4 general election ballot, but if approved could face further legal challenges.The Save Our Salmon initiative was certified May 30 to be placed on th...

July 2011The 8th Annual Washington Troll Salmon Lunch at Lark in Seattle, sponsored by Washington’s Makah Tribe and the Washington Trollers Association, featured local hook and line-caught Marbled Chinook salmon, donated by the Cape Flattery Fishermen’s Co-op and prepared by James Beard Award-winning Chef John Sundstrom.The annual event is organized to introduce local food writers and commercial fishermen, giving the former a chance to speak with the latter and sample some of the delicious salmon harvested by the trollers off the coast.“Marbled” salmon describes Chinook salmon whose flesh is neither red nor white, but a combination of the two, “marbled” throughout the body. The distinctive fish occur only in the troll fisheries of Washington and southwest British Columbia, and the in-river...

Fishermen delivering salmon and king crab to Norton Sound Seafood Products, a division of Norton Sound Economic Development Corp., are getting a boost this year for their harvest.NSSP said it would pay fishermen 72 cents a pound for chums and 25 cents a pound for pinks landed at the dock in Unalakleet to begin the 2011 season. That’s a 20 percent increase for chum and 25 percent increase for pinks over last year, when fishermen were paid 60 cents a pound for chums and 20 cents a pound for pinks at the dock.NSSP said it would start the season with three tenders on the fishing grounds to support its harvesters. Deliveries to tenders in 2011 will initially net fishermen 67 cents a pound for chum and 20 cents a pound for pinks. Early season fishing will primarily be delivered to tenders with d...

Jim Harmon, executive director of SeaShare, in Seattle, and Scott Blake, president of Copper River Seafoods, were among those honored for their achievements at the recent Global Food Alaska 2011 conference in Soldotna. Harmon was named Alaska champion in the competition among food service, restaurant, distributor, wholesaler, broker and retail partners for individuals who played a significant role in putting Alaska food, beverage or bio products into the marketplace on a local, national or international level. Blake won in the manufacturer/processor category as the individual who has demonstrated the most leadership in processing or manufacturing Alaska food, beverage or bio products.Seashare’s seafood donation program solicits and collects donated seafood from Alaska and Pacific Northwest...

Legislation that would prohibit the federal Food and Drug Administration from approving genetically modified salmon for human consumption has passed in the US House but still awaits action in the Senate, where Senators Mark Begich, D-Alaska and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, have also voiced opposition.The action came as an amendment by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, to the $125.5 billion Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for 2012. That amendment would prohibit the FDA from spending funds to approve an application from Massachusetts-based AquaBounty to have genetically modified salmon approved.AquaBounty says the genetically modified salmon is safe and environmentally sustainable. Young says the so-called Frankenfish is uncertain and...

Alaska Department of Fish and Game preliminary statistics show that a total of 4,094,000 wild Alaska salmon were harvested through June 17, including 3.1 million sockeyes, 862,000 chums, 55,000 kings, 44,000 pinks and 3,000 coho. Just one week earlier the statewide total was 1.7 million wild salmon, including 1,050,000 reds, 694,000 chums, 17,000 kings and less than 1,000 each of coho and pink salmon.Economists specializing in fish harvests are forecasting a good year price-wise, thanks to worldwide demand, the strength of the Euro and Japanese yen against the dollar and still recovering Chilean farmed salmon markets.In the Copper River the harvest as of June 17, the latest date for which statewide preliminary totals were available, was 1,038,000 reds, 16,000 kings and 11,000 chum salmon. ...

By Margaret BaumanJune 2011Concern for the ecosystem, coupled with the hard reality that a good portion of wild caught seafood is being wasted and the federal government may not put up with it much longer is prompting increased effort to make full utilization of Alaska fish.“Long term, people are going to see the whole fish, that there is something to do with every part of it,” says Richard Mullins, a partner with Patrick Simpson, president of Scientific Fishery Systems, Inc., in Anchorage, in a project on Southcentral Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula to extract nutritious oils and also find uses for the viscera of wild salmon.“In the Lower 48, there is no dumping of fish wastes,” said Mullins, who grew up in Cordova and has been in the fish business for most of his life, first as a harvester in B...

Research efforts under way in Alaska with an aim at improving the health and well being of the population could bode well for the fishing industry.A research project at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, funded by over $1 million from the US Department of Agriculture, is looking at ways to increase the connection of Alaska school children with traditional foods, while improving local markets for fish harvested sustainably.At the same time, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium is working with a prominent Alaska chef on using traditional foods, including fish, in contemporary dishes.Andrea Bersamin is the principal investigator on the USDA funded research project. She explained that researchers ill determine what product forms of fish schools feel students will eat, plus whether the s...