Issue: May 2023

On April 6, the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) unanimously voted to recommend a full closure of California’s commercial and recreational ocean salmon season due to a variety of factors. This action follows recent projections showing Chinook salmon abundance off California’s coast is at historic lows. It’s expected that the National Marine Fisheries Service will take regulatory action to enact the closure, effective in mid-May. In addition, the California Fish and Game Commission is expected to consider whether to adopt a closure of inland salmon fisheries during a May 17 teleconference. “This decision, while difficult, is intended to allow salmon to recover in order to provide future fishing opportunities, California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Director Charlton ...

Four zones of the state’s commercial Dungeness crab fishery from the Sonoma and Mendocino county line to the U.S. Mexico border were closed down at noon April 15 to protect humpback whales, California fisheries officials said. The announcement of the closure was made March 30 by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). The closure impacts Zones 3, 4, 5 and 6. Zones 1 through 6 also remain under a fleet advisory for both the commercial and recreational Dungeness crab fisheries. The action came in the wake of the department’s entanglement risk assessment, according to CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham. The take and possession of Dungeness crab is prohibited as of that time and date, to minimize entanglement risk for humpback whales as they return to forage off the coast of C...

On April 6, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis announced a request for a federal fishery disaster declaration to support the salmon fishing industry as it faces a closure for the 2023 salmon season. The action followed projections that indicate California’s Chinook salmon abundance is at historic lows. Kounalakis, on behalf of Newsom, submitted the request to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo after the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) recommended a full closure of California’s commercial and recreational ocean salmon season—a recommendation the National Marine Fisheries Service is expected to implement in mid-May. “The expected closure of the 2023 California commercial salmon fishery will result in loss of 100% of the five-year average annual ex...

Ryuichi ‘Rudy’ Tsukada, chief operating officer for the Coastal Villages Region Fund (CVRF), one of six Western Alaska Community Development Quota (CDQ) Program groups, has been nominated to fill the state of Alaska seat on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC). Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy nominated Tsukada on March 15 in a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, under provisions of Section 302 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA). In second place for the Alaska seat on the federal council, the governor nominated Samuel Rabung, director of the Alaska Division of Commercial Fisheries. The third person Dunleavy listed for consideration was Tom Taube, deputy director of the Alaska Division of Sport Fisheries. Dunleavy cited Tsukada for...

Federal funds totaling $65.9 million have been awarded to modernize and repair the Trinity River Hatchery in Lewiston, Calif. The award was announced by California Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman in early April. The project is one of 83 projects in 11 states that was selected as part of a nearly $585 million investment from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to improve water conveyance and storage, increase safety, improve hydropower generation and provide water treatment. The Trinity River Hatchery project entails installing a SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system; replace corroded and leaking piping; install new filtration system and incubator jars; abate hazardous noise from hatchery operations; and replace deteriorated iron supports for 150 shallow tro...

Fisheries scientists, using a combination of modern genomics and field observations, have determined that the small population and isolation of endangered Southern Resident killer whales in the Pacific Northwest has led to inbreeding—a contributing factor to their demise. The study by researchers at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle was published in mid-March in the online journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. It adds new data to the question of why this group of 73 orcas is declining, and whether the major factor in the problem is solely the lack of a sufficient amount of Chinook salmon. The researchers also attempted to find out if several other factors have contributed. The Washington state-based environmental group Wild Fish Conservancy is suing in federa...

A NOAA Fisheries researcher in Seattle who’s leading an international team of scientists has compiled a model to predict growth, survival and reproductive strategies for all known fish species in the world. “We’re using a Robin Hood approach,” said Jim Thorson, the leader of the Habitat and Ecological Process Research (HEPR) program at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. “Steal from the data-rich fish, give to the data-poor,” he said in a report released March 27 by NOAA Fisheries. “Our study extends the approach to life-history theory.” The model advances NOAA’s ability to predict impacts of climate change. Besides improving the knowledge of many species traits, it offers the capability to include hundreds of fish species simultaneously in ecosystem models. Global resul...

NOAA Fisheries officials on March 15 proposed listing the sunflower sea star, once common along the Pacific coast of North America, as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), due to its sharp decline and the threat of a lethal pathogen. More than 90% of sunflower sea stars were killed from 2013 to 2017 by Sea Star Wasting Syndrome, in what was considered the largest marine wildlife disease outbreak on record.  Sea stars that contract the syndrome become lethargic, develop lesions, lose their arms and within days disintegrate into gooey masses. Sunflower sea stars are voracious predators that consume a wide variety of benthic species and can influence ecosystem structure by virtue of their predatory habits. They prey on sea urchins, which consume kelp and other marine vegetat...

Three U.S. House of Representatives members are calling on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to expand and update the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), while also advocating for SIMP expansion to all species. Rep. Jared Huffman of California, ranking member of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries, along with fellow subcommittee member Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona and Rep. Jimmy Panetta, also of California, in a letter to NOAA, pointed out perceived shortcomings of the agency’s recent proposed rulemaking on SIMP.  Other signers of the letter included representatives from California, Texas, North Carolina and Hawaii. The March 27 letter said that as the world’s largest seafood-importing country, the U.S. has the purchasing...