March 2022 – Page 2 – Fishermens News

New Reports Outline Changes in Alaska Marine Ecosystems

New ecosystem reports by NOAA Fisheries cover the impact of climate change on Alaska’s marine ecosystems in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, including heatwave periods and sustained warm conditions. NOAA scientists note that the Gulf of Alaska has been in transition since marine heatwave periods that took place from 2014 through 2016 and again in 2019, with some marine populations decreasing and others increasing. The year 2021 was the second consecutive year without such conditions. Mixed trends were noted in the prey base in the Gulf, with the abundance of zooplankton that provides food for fish, whales and other marine life either below average or average overall. The abundance of forage fish, including herring and age-one Pollock, was higher than in previous ye...

New ASMI Board Member Urges More Domestic Seafood Processing

In an economy challenged by a global pandemic and rising transportation costs, more Alaska seafood should be processed in the United States and more effort put into increasing domestic consumption, according to veteran Kodiak seafood harvester, processor and marketer Duncan Fields. “With transportation costs going up, I think there are opportunities for companies to process more seafood in America,” said Fields, who was appointed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy in January to a harvester seat on the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. Fields, who holds a law degree from the University of Oregon School of Law, began fishing commercially in Alaska in 1960. He is the owner and marketer for Fields Wild Salmon in Kodiak, and is also a fisheries consultant. He has served on the North Pacific Fishery Ma...

New Anchovy Protections Seen as Boost for Ocean Health

A new management framework for the anchovy population adopted in November by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) goes into effect in January, requiring a regular review of anchovy numbers and adjusting catch levels as needed based on annual abundance surveys and other information. The independent non-profit Pew Charitable Trusts hailed that change as a more responsive, holistic management approach, which will benefit more than 50 species of marine wildlife, from albacore tuna and Chinook salmon to least terns and humpback whales. The PEW report notes that fishery managers had for years used fixed-catch limits, no matter how much the anchovy population or ocean health declined. In addition, for more than two decades, management of California’s anchovy population was based on i...

New ASMI Report Hails Seafood Industry as Essential Driver of Alaska Economy

An updated economic report on Alaska’s seafood industry says preliminary 2021 data reflects a partial rebound in the wake of a 2020 season when the industry suffered from widespread impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic and biological issues in several key fisheries. Information included in the 2022 update of “The Economic Value of Alaska’s Seafood Industry” report, released Jan. 12 by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, notes that unlike previous years, economic impacts were calculated solely on 2019 data as opposed to averaging two years of data. “While the report includes some 2020 data, averaging 2019 data with the pandemic-disrupted 2020 season would not produce an accurate picture of the seafood industry’s economic impact in Alaska,” said Jim Calvin, vice president of McKi...

Seven Alaska Fisheries Approved for Disaster Relief

Seven Alaska fisheries, from the Yukon River to Southcentral to Southeast Alaska, have been approved by Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo for disaster relief. The relief had been requested by Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy for multiple fishery disasters that impacted Alaska’s seafood industry from 2018 through 2021. The fisheries include the Upper Cook Inlet East Side Set Net for 2018, Upper Cook Inlet salmon fisheries for 2020; Copper River Chinook and sockeye salmon fisheries for 2018; Prince William Sound salmon fisheries for 2020; Copper River Chinook, sockeye and chum salmon fisheries for 2020; Eastern Bering Sea Tanner crab for 2019-2020; Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska for 2020; and 2020 salmon fisheries for Norton Sound Yukon River, Chignik, Kuskokwim River and Southeast Alaska....

King Cove Renews Hope of Approval for Road for Medical Access

Residents of the Alaska Peninsula fishing community of King Cove say they are hopeful that Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will visit their fishing community on Alaska’s Aleutian Chain soon and remove barriers to completing a one-land gravel road to the all-weather airport at nearby Cold Bay. King Cove is the home of Peter Pan Seafood’s largest facility, a year-round seafood plant processing king, bairdi and opilio tanner crab, Alaska Pollock, Pacific cod, salmon, halibut and black cod delivered from fisheries in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The plant has the largest salmon-canning capacity of any plant in Alaska. At peak season there are some 500 employees working there. The community lies between two volcanic mountains near the end of the Alaska Peninsula, 625 miles southwest of...

NMFS Sued for Allegedly Failing to Protect Humpback Whales

The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service for failing to protect endangered Pacific humpback whales from deadly entanglements in sablefish pot gear off the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington. The lawsuit, filed Jan. 10, challenges the federal permit given to the fishery in December. Fishing-gear entanglements are a major threat to endangered humpbacks that migrate along the West Coast, where 48,521 square nautical miles were designated as critical habitat last April. “These migrating whales shouldn’t have to dodge deadly commercial fishing gear, especially in national marine sanctuaries,” Center for Biological Diversity attorney Catherine Kilduff said. “This is critical habitat for endangered humpbacks, but it’s full ...

Support Urged for Moratorium on Deep Seabed Mining in International Waters

Six Canadian entities have relaunched a parliamentary petition calling on the federal government to help establish an international moratorium on deep seabed mining through the International Seabed Authority, based in Kingston, Jamaica. The parliamentary petition was originally launched in June 2021 by MiningWatch Canada, Oceans North, the Canadian Parks & Wilderness Society, Nature Canada, Northern Confluence and West Coast Environmental Law, but was ended after the most recent national election. Over 1,400 people have signed the petition, sponsored by Gord Johns, a member of Parliament with the New Democratic Party Caucus in British Columbia, and enough signatures have been gathered to assure that the petition will be presented for discussion in Parliament in Ottawa, according to...

USDA Invests $500,000 to Help Increase Mariculture Processing Capacity in Southeast Alaska

The United States Department of Agriculture in mid-January announced a $500,000 investment to help a regional economic development organization, the Southeast Conference, create a blueprint for a mariculture (seaweed and other sea products) processing facility on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. The investment, according to the Agriculture Department, is an effort to support a federal government commitment to support economic, cultural and natural resources sustainability in Southeast Alaska. “USDA is investing in this effort by engaging with local tribes, governments and community leaders to encourage economic growth that reflects the region’s rich diversity, cultural heritage and natural resources,” Department of Agriculture Under Secretary for Rural Development Xochitl Torres Small s...

From the Editor: Omicron

Just as things in the commercial fishing industry seemed to be getting back on track and trending in the right direction, up pops the obstacle known as the Omicron variant, pulling everything backward again. Omicron, as you hopefully know by now, is a mutated form of the dreaded COVID-19 disease that has cause havoc within global fishing community, as well as most other industries, not to mention nearly everyone’s daily lives. Among the issues the virus and its latest variant have caused are costly shutdown, drops in revenue and manpower shortages. Many of these ongoing problems are detailed in an article on page 24 of this issue of Fishermen’s News by our Alaska bureau chief, Margaret Bauman. In the story, she details how the pandemic has affected commercial fishing over the past couple...