Issue: October 2023

A collaborative rapid response group at the Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF), with funding from the Province of British Columbia, has approved $76,000 (in Canadian dollars) to activate four projects to help combat adverse impacts of climate change on salmon. The effort to save salmon from drought conditions was announced by the PSF in early September. Project goals include digging dry gravel bars in the Coldwater River at sites supporting high densities of salmon, to creation of cool groundwater refuge areas for fish, to narrowing channel width and increasing water depth at Joseph Creek to ensure that salmon fry at Dunn Creek Hatchery have enough water to migrate through. The Coldwater River project is led by Scw’exmx Tribal Council and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DF...

NOAA’s 2023 Report to Congress on Improving International Fisheries Management identifies seven nations and entities engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU), including incidents involving force labor and targeted or incidental shark catches. The report, released Aug. 31, said the U.S. will work with identified parties to address IUU issues and forced labor activities and support effective management of protected species and shark catch. “IUU fishing and other unsustainable fishing practices undermine U.S. and global efforts to sustainably manage fisheries and conserve marine resources,” Janet Coit, assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries, said. “Combating these practices is a top priority of the United States, and we’ll work with each identified nation and entity ...

On Aug. 22, the San Diego Regional Policy & Innovation Center revealed that plans are underway to revive the San Diego Fishermen’s Marketing Association, a nonprofit that has been inactive since 2013. The revival is being made possible through a $323,442 grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service as part of its Local Food Promotion Program. Through the association’s revival, the center seeks to strengthen and shorten the region’s supply chain to increase local fish purchasing, grow the percentage of profits captured by local fishermen and raise the profile of the local fishing community. “San Diego has a long and rich history as a commercial fishing hub,” said Pete Halmay, director and founder of the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market. “Howe...

Seafood industry veteran Alvin Richard Burch, who helped develop the groundfish fisheries in Alaska and the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, died in Kodiak on Aug. 8, surrounded by family and friends. He was 86. Burch, who was previously involved in the shrimp industry and helped found an association of shrimpers, turned to groundfish in the early 1980s when shrimp and crab fisheries were dried up, and went on to serve on state, national and international fisheries boards and committees, including 30 years on the advisory panel of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. He was the founder and executive director of the Alaska Draggers Association, now called the Alaska Whitefish Trawlers Association, for nearly 40 years. He traveled extensively to work on treaties, share k...

Alaska Wildlife Troopers say that as part of a summer enforcement program, they conducted boardings in the Alaska Peninsula and Unimak Island commercial salmon fishery known as Area M, and issued citations in nine incidents where commercially caught fish were discarded. A recent trooper report said that collectively, troopers boarded more than 100 commercial vessels, with some 300 commercial fishermen contacted and 21 citations issued. Of those 21 citations, nine were issued to captains and crew who were observed discarding commercially caught salmon from their vessels after the fish were brought on board. Alaska Department of Public Safety spokesperson Austin McDaniel said all nine individuals cited for dumping commercially caught fish must appear before a judge, and that his agency had...

The Federal Highway Administration has announced grants totaling $196 million for tribal, state and local governments to fix or remove 169 culvert barriers nationwide – including ones in Alaska, Oregon and Washington – to improve fish passage. The Biden-Harris administration said this past week that outdated culverts and other infrastructure may cause roads to flood and severely restrict or block fish passage. Repairing or removing such blockages, the announcement said, is key to the health of fish runs and important to commercial and recreational fishing and tribal communities. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said that through the investment, the government would protect jobs and mitigate flooding risk nationwide. More than $19 million is earmarked for 26 projects in Oregon...

U.S. Coast Guard officials with the National Maritime Center (NMC) say they’ll provide duplicate merchant mariner credentials at no charge to mariners whose credentials were lost or destroyed during wildfires in Hawaii. Affected mariners are asked to provide a statement of loss to NMC via fax at (304) 433-3412 or email the statement to IASKNMC@uscg.mil. The statement should include the mariner’s full name, date of birth, current mailing address, current phone number and/or email address, and the mariner’s reference number. If that is unknown, the last four digits of the mariner’s social security number may be sent. The statement should also describe the circumstances surrounding the loss/destruction of the credential. Unless otherwise requested, any duplicate merchant mariner credential...

NOAA Fisheries has awarded $2.5 million to partners nationwide for bycatch reduction research projects through its Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program (BREP), including three each on the West Coast and Pacific Islands and two for research in Alaska. The grants include $179,873 to the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission in Portland, Ore.; $228,876 to the Pfleger Institute of Environment Research in Oceanside, Calif.; and $199.500 to the Wild Fish Conservancy in Seattle. Other grants include $78,700 to Eric Gilman LLC in Honolulu; $139,659 to the University of California, San Diego; $221,309 to the University of Washington; and $199,870 to the International Pacific Halibut Commission, which is headquartered in Seattle. Six projects in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic and Southeast/Gu...