Issue: December 2023

Nominations are open for advisors to fill positions on the commercial and recreational advisory groups from Washington and Oregon to provide input on fishing seasons on the Columbia River. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) announced Oct. 13 that they’re accepting nominations through Nov. 3 for appointees to three-year terms on the Columbia River Commercial Fishing Advisory Group and the Columbia River Recreational Fishing Advisory Group. The new terms begin in January 2024 and run through December 2026. Each group meets two to four times annually to develop recommendations for salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and smelt fisheries. The recreational advisory group focuses on recreational fisheries jointly managed by Washingt...

Climate resilience specialist Alex Harper has joined the extension team at California Sea Grant, CSG announced in late October. In her new role, Harper is expected to focus on strengthening coastal resilience and growing the Blue Economy through high-quality ocean information sharing. Harper joins CSG while also working as a program manager with the Central of Northern California Ocean Observing System (CeNCOOS), where she oversees the regional ocean observing and spearheads activities related to ocean acidification, hypoxia, marine carbon dioxide removal, as well as tribal and stakeholder engagement and communications. “Ocean observing is being the eyes and the ears of the ocean,” said Harper, who draws data from oceanographic buoys and sensors on piers that measure temperature, salinit...

Results of University of Alaska Fairbanks DNA analysis of a massive database on pink salmon shows a remarkable ability of these fish to spawn at nearly the same spot within streams as their parents spawned. The project, which reviewed genetic data from over 30,000 pink salmon, taps into an ongoing study in Alaska’s Prince William Sound that has collected DNA samples from pink salmon carcasses since 2011. The Alaska Hatchery Research Program (AHRP) samples pink salmon in 30 streams, including five where researchers try to obtain samples from every salmon returning to spawn. The AHRP is a collaboration of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), nonprofit hatcheries, the fishing industry and academia, largely focused on the impact of hatchery fish on wild salmon populations. T...

Kitty Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (commonly known as Wespac) has said that after 40 years at the helm, she plans to step down from her position after a successor has been found. In mid-October, Simonds told the Honolulu Civil Beat news website that she’s not ready to reveal the identities of any of her possible successors or the people that she and others have had conversations with about the position, but indicated that the process has already been in progress for months. The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional fishery management councils established by Congress in 1976. It has authority over fisheries seaward of state/territorial waters of Hawai'i and the U.S. Pacific Islands. Wespac’s primary r...

Concerns over warming waters in the Bering and Chukchi seas and reduction in the extent and duration of seasonal sea ice have prompted the North Pacific Research Board (NPRB) to issue a request for pre-proposals for its Northern Bering Sea Integrated Ecosystem Research Program. The NPRB has stated that it’s specifically interested in how environmental conditions and processes in the Northern Bering Sea influence species of commercial, ecological and subsistence importance, and implications for state and federal fisheries management and communities dependent on the resources.  About $6.5 million has been made available by NPRB to pursue answers to these questions in the Northern Bering Sea, in hope that partners may offer additional funding to support research of mutual interest. The NPR...

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) is scheduled to meet in December in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, to negotiate a new tropical tuna measure, covering key tuna stocks of skipjack, yellowfin and bigeye. The meeting comes in the wake of an informal meeting in September of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC) and the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority, (MIMRA), who met at WCPFC headquarters in Pohnpei, Micronesia, to discuss longline fishery management components of the WCPFC. Workshop participants included individuals from the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), Parties of the Nauru Agreement (PNA), other Pacific Island Countries, the United States, Taiwan and South Korea. The workshop was the third one held this year by...

Trident Seafoods will accept applications for 10 spots in its 2024 Skilled Trades Trainee Program, to meet industry needs for skilled trades personnel for shore-based plant processing operations, from March 1-31, 2024. The Seattle-based seafood processing giant announced Oct. 15 that through a partnership with Alaska Vocational Technical Center (AVTEC) Trident will embark on its 2024 class of a two-year skilled trades training course, with an additional two-year post-commitment of employment with the company. Trident welcomed its inaugural class of four trainees in 2022, and expanded enrollment to 10 new trainees this fall. The company focused on recruiting efforts within Alaska by visiting Kodiak, Cordova, Anchorage, Petersberg, Wrangell, Ketchikan, Craig and Metlakatla, as well as col...

Alaska’s Bristol Bay red king crab fishery opened on Oct. 15 after being closed for two years due to stocks not meeting minimal levels for fishing. The assigned quota was 2.15 million pounds, slightly lower than the 2020 opener quota of 2.6 million pounds. Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Executive Director Jamie Goen said that while members were anxious to get back on the water, they wanted to do so with minimal impact so that the crab resource remains sustainable for generations to come. “They are tracking closely the science around the health of crab stocks and want to help crab continue to rebound,” she said. “We’re adding extra measures this season during our directed pot fishery for crab to reduce our interactions with crab. We’re increasing communication with the fleet on best handling ...

Washington Department of Natural Resources’ so-called “net pen ban,” which last November effectively banded commercial net-pen fish farming is not legally binding, a Superior Court judge has ruled. During an Oct. 20, Summary Judgment Hearing regarding a Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe-Northwest Aquaculture Alliance’s (NWAA) complaint against the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Thurston County Superior Court Judge Indu Thomas ruled that DNR’s ban on net pens is only an internal directive to begin the rulemaking process regarding commercial net pens in state aquatic lands. This decision essentially declares that the “ban” on commercial net pens that Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz touted last November has no legal effect in Washington. Franz’s announcement had made it clear ...