Issue: October 2022

More aid to help feed people with insufficient access to food in the war-torn Ukraine is on its way, thanks to a $300,000 donation by the Alaska Legislature, led by Sen. Gary Stevens, R- Kodiak. Some 3,200 cases of canned Alaska pink salmon were to be loaded onto a container ship in Seattle on Aug. 8, headed to chefs with the World Central Kitchen in Ukraine, according to Bruce Schactler, food aid program and development director for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. The fish will provide some 400,000 meals for Ukrainians, Schactler said. World Central Kitchen was founded by celebrity chef Jose Andres in 2010 after a devastating earthquake in Haiti. Together with its partners, the kitchen has served well over a million meals to Ukrainians living in shelters, refugee camps and tr...

Researchers with NOAA Fisheries have released a report showing that stormwater runoff containing a toxic compound from automobile tires washed into streams is lethal to protected coho salmon, Pacific steelhead and Chinook salmon, while sockeyes appear to be largely unaffected. The report, which was released Aug. 24, could help inform mitigation efforts for construction and overhaul of highways on the West Coast, to protect salmon and steelhead in the future, researchers said. Steelhead are rainbow trout that migrate to the ocean like salmon. Some Western states are already designing highways with inexpensive filtration measures proven to protect salmon. According to Barbara French, a research scientist at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, biofiltration ap...

A report prepared for Congress by the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommends that National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) work with regional fishery management councils to identify and prioritize opportunities to enhance climate resilience of federal fisheries. The report to congressional committees, released Aug. 18, found that many fisheries managers are leading initiatives that could advance the use of climate information in operations, such as addressing distributional shifts in species. Initiatives include the creation of a special task force to identify actions and tools to better incorporate climate information in fisheries management. Several fisheries managers from the eight regional councils told GAO that they were not aware of climate-related fisheries mana...

Celebrity Chef Antonia Lofaso, an online cuisine influencer, will deliver the keynote address Oct. 17 at the fourth annual Wild Alaska Pollock annual meeting in Seattle. She is expected to detail ways to move the fish onto upscale restaurant menus during her address. “It’s no secret that Wild Alaska Pollock has often struggled to penetrate menus at higher-end restaurants across the United States,” Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) Chief Executive Officer Craig Morris said. “I’m eager for her to share candid thoughts on how wild Alaska Pollock can ‘break through’ in this channel and the opportunities for our fish in the future both for the home cook and the professional chef.” Lofaso also promotes wild Alaska Pollock in a GAPP campaign launched on social media in Ju...

Environmental Protection Agency officials, citing toxic contaminants in the Columbia River Basin as a serious risk to the region’s economic health, said that the EPA plans to invest $79 million over five years for protection and restoration of the river. EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said that up to $6.9 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Clean Water Act grants would be awarded during 2022 alone to reduce toxics in fish and water and address climate impacts in communities throughout the area. “The Columbia River Basin is a vital economic engine and an irreplaceable environmental asset, providing a broad range of benefits from agriculture to recreation to electricity, but toxic contaminants in the basin pose a serious risk,” Regan said in an Aug. 10 announcement. The E...

Ten-year-old Henri Dochtermann, son of veteran Bristol Bay harvester Shawn Dochtermann, of Kodiak, Alaska, celebrates a good catch of wild sockeye salmon in the Egegik District of the Bay during the height of the run. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Blue Sheet calculated the preliminary Bristol Bay harvest through mid-August at nearly 60 million sockeyes, including over 16 million red salmon from the Egegik District. 

The commercial fishing vessel Aleutian Isle sank off the San Juan Islands in Washington state on Aug. 13. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, all five crewmembers were rescued by a Good Samaritan as the vessel sank. The vessel was reported by the USCG to have about 2,600 gallons of diesel fuel onboard, as well as 100 gallons of hydraulic fluid and lubricant oil. After the vessel sank, responders observed a sheen spanning about three miles, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Response and Restoration. OR&R providing trajectory assistance for the spilled oil, as well as facilitating Endangered Species Act consultation with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service for Southern Resident killer whales that are at risk in the area. Days after the ...

Federal legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate would blacklist vessels engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing from entering U.S. ports and waters. The Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvest (FISH) Act would bolster U.S. Coast Guard enforcement capabilities and advance international and bilateral negotiations to reach enforceable agreements and treaties, according to Senators Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who introduced the bill on Aug. 25. The FISH Act would direct the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to establish a blacklist of foreign vessels and owners who have engaged in IUU fishing, direct the Coast Guard to boost its at-sea inspection of foreign vessels suspected of IUU fishing, and coordinate with regional fishe...

Trident Seafoods’ Joe Bundrant, omega-3 researcher Joseph Hibbeln and executive chef Kelly Armetta are being honored by the Seafood Nutrition Partnership (SNP) for their support of the partnership’s mission to raise public awareness about the essential benefits of eating seafood. SNP said in an Aug. 2 announcement that all three honorees are passionate about improving the lives of Americans through nutrition and have demonstrated an exceptional impact. They are to be formally honored at an SNP gala on Sept 21. Bundrant will receive the Seafood Industry Visionary Award for collaborations that focus on the public health benefits of the partnership’s mission of increasing seafood consumption for the health of all Americans. He was a founding investor in SNP nearly a decade ago, and his effo...

A University of British Columbia study concludes that ocean waters contributed nearly $5 billion to the provincial gross domestic product in 2015, and that the sum is likely underestimated, as it included only sectors most closely linked to the ocean. But the initial estimate raises additional questions, a starting point for policy to generate some sort of informed decision, said authors of the report published in the free online journal MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute). The authors suggest that their estimate could be used by non-economists to work out a baseline of what oceans contribute to the economy, as part of achieving the United Nations’ goal of sustainable oceans by 2030. Senior author Rashid Sumalia, a professor at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fis...