March 2022 – Page 3 – Fishermens News

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 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 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...

COVID-19 Created Huge Challenges, Losses for Alaska, West Coast Fisheries

A global pandemic raising havoc in health care and the nation’s economy, prompting cost-of-living increases and supply-chain disruptions, has cost the seafood industry in Alaska and Western states millions of dollars since the spring of 2020. If there’s a silver lining in those challenges, along with climate-change issues facing fisheries, it is that consumer demand for seafood is up, and so is the market price. When the novel coronavirus, aka COVID-19, began spreading rapidly two years ago, thousands of restaurants shut down, and customers of the food-service industry, ranging from universities to the tourism industry, also substantially decreased or halted their orders. With millions of people sick and many dying of COVID-19, seafood processors operating in Alaska and the U.S. West...

Vessel Profile: F/V Kiska Sea

The 125-foot crab vessel F/V Kiska Sea has returned to the snow crab grounds along the Russian border after a successful haul out at the Port of Toledo, Oregon. The haul out was the first of its kind for the Kiska Sea at the location. “The Port of Toledo was very accommodating,” vessel Capt. Mike Wilson from the helm via satellite phone. “They were good people.” Wilson has skippered the Kiska Sea since it launched in 1990 and was involved with design of the vessel when it was built, namely the functional elements of the deck layout. He began his fishing career when he was 17 in a Kodiak cannery. “Then I got a deck job and slowly worked my way to the wheelhouse,” he told Fishermen’s News. I’ve been skippering for close to 40 years now.” Owned by Seattle-based Aleutian Spray Fisheries,...

Divisiveness Should Not Have a Role in Commercial Fisheries

On January 15th, an underwater volcano erupted near the Tonga islands in the Pacific Ocean. This eruption sent tsunami waves around the world that day, closing beaches, flooding marinas and activating emergency plans in California. A four-foot spike in water levels was observed in Port San Luis, Calif., while Arena Cove, Calif., reported a 3.5-foot jump. Crescent City, Calif., got a 2.7-foot spike, and a tsunami of 2.8 feet was seen in King Cove, Alaska. At the time of this writing, the amount and extent of damage done to Tonga remains unknown. We share our thoughts and prayers to those impacted. All fishermen should take this opportunity to review your emergency plans and consider drafting a tsunami plan. Different West Coast ports are likely to be impacted in different ways. Divis...