Issue: October 2023

Appointees to Alaska Salmon Research Task Force Named

Appointees to Alaska Salmon Research Task Force Named

Nineteen people have been announced as appointees to the new Alaska Salmon Research Task Force, which will study the increased variability in Pacific salmon populations in Alaska, including unprecedented declines in some regions. The group is expected to eventually provide recommendations on research priorities to support the understanding of the salmon species. The task force was formed as a result of the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force Act, legislation introduced by Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan in the Senate and introduced in the House by the late Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska). It was later carried by Young’s successor, Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola in the House, then signed into law in 2022. The legislation directs the Research Task Force to form a working grou...
NOAA Fisheries Issues Final Rule Regarding Pacific Cod Harvests  in BSAI

NOAA Fisheries Issues Final Rule Regarding Pacific Cod Harvests in BSAI

NOAA Fisheries has issued a final rule allocating a Pacific cod harvest quota to qualifying groundfish License Limitation Program license holders and qualifying processors. The goal, the agency has said, is to improve management of the fishery, increase its value and minimize bycatch to the extent practicable. The final rule, Amendment 122, for groundfish management in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI), establishes the new Pacific Cod Trawl Cooperative Program PCTC). The rule was printed in the Federal Register on Aug. 8 and goes into effect on Sept. 7. Fishing under the PCTC program is scheduled to begin on Jan. 20, 2024. Jon Kurland, NOAA regional administrator for Alaska, noted that PCTC also aims to provide for the sustained participation of fishery-dependent communities,...
NOAA: Climate Change  Will Likely Send West Coast Fish Farther Offshore

NOAA: Climate Change Will Likely Send West Coast Fish Farther Offshore

Scientists at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center say their research shows that shifting ocean conditions associated with climate change will likely send high-value sablefish into deeper waters off the West Coast. This means vessels may have to travel farther and fish deeper in order to keep catching fish. The new report, which provides a glimpse of what West Coast fisheries will look like with climate change, notes that fishing crews must always balance the value of different commercial species against the distances involved in catching them, but that climate change could alter that equation in new ways. Researchers studied how four species of West Coast groundfish commonly caught together may respond to climate change. They include sablefish, Dover sole, shortspine thornyhead an...
U.S. Coast Guard Alaska Responds to Multiple Fishing Vessel Medevacs

U.S. Coast Guard Alaska Responds to Multiple Fishing Vessel Medevacs

On Aug. 25, Coast Guard District 17 command center personnel received a medevac request from the fishing vessel Northern Eagle at 6:20 a.m. for a 26-year-old crewmember experiencing abdominal pain. An MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter air crew launched from Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak and hoisted the crewmember at 8:15 p.m. about 23 miles northwest of St Paul Island. The man was then flown to St. Paul where he was transferred to commercial emergency medical services at 9 p.m. for further care in Anchorage.   Also on Aug. 25, Coast Guard District 17 command center personnel received a medevac request from the fishing vessel Asian Majesty at 4:25 p.m. for a 41-year-old male crew member experiencing chest pain. At the time of the request, the vessel was about 483 miles southwest of Dutch Harbor a...
BSAI Crab Issues Top Agenda for NPFMC’s October Meeting

BSAI Crab Issues Top Agenda for NPFMC’s October Meeting

Sales were hot as autumn approached for fresh and frozen shellfish at Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, with golden king crab legs and claws going for a teaser rate of $55.99, with Dungeness and Bairdi all ready to ship. “We are trying to get them to get a whole king salmon to go with it,” said fishmonger Stewart Wolfe, also the shipping manager at the world-famous market. Holidays—from Father’s Day and July 4th to Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s—attract the biggest demand for these succulent shellfish, whose abundance is dwindling with climate change and other issues impacting the world’s oceans. Overall, demand in the fall of 2023 was about the same as for the same months a year earlier, Wolfe said. Shellfish orders were averaging about five pounds. Pike Place fi...
Catch Processing Equipment: State of the Industry 2023

Catch Processing Equipment: State of the Industry 2023

In recent years, the rise in the consumption of seafood by consumers in North America and around the world has raised the demand for fish-based products and processed fish. Consequently, at least in part, the demand for fish processing equipment has been on the rise, according to recent market studies. The processing equipment market is anticipated to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.9% between 2023 and 2033, according to a report released in mid-August by Delaware-based research firm Future Marketing Insights. The market currently holds a valuation of just over $308 million, and is forecast to cross $451.6 million in 10 years, according to the report. Among the reasons cited for the projected rise: Government support to small businesses in some locales via subsidies to h...
Battery-Electric Fishing Vessel to Be Tested in Alaska

Battery-Electric Fishing Vessel to Be Tested in Alaska

Harvesters with the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA) are collaborating with the Department of Energy’s Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP) to test the future of energy-efficient low emissions fishing vessels powered by battery-electric motors. Plans are for a 46-foot commercial fishing boat, the I Gotta, to cruise into the cold waters of Sitka this fall, cut its diesel engine and turn on a low-and zero-emissions propulsion system, becoming one of the first low-emissions fishing vessels ever deployed in Alaska. Officials with the federal Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo. announced Aug. 22 that when using a unique parallel hybrid battery-diesel system, the boat can travel at full speed using its diesel eng...
Western Towboat Celebrates Its 75th Anniversary

Western Towboat Celebrates Its 75th Anniversary

Bob Shrewsbury Jr. was just five years old when he took his first trip aboard a tug in Puget Sound. The experience began a lifelong love of working on the water, as he followed in his father’s footsteps. Bob Shrewsbury Sr. was a man of his word, committed to holding himself to the highest standards while juggling the roles of business agent, captain and engineer. His hands-on, honest work ethic has been passed down to the growing generations of his family, evidenced by the company’s solid reputation for providing quality service. In 1947, Bob Sr. acquired a 38-foot wooden-hulled tug, N.D. Tobey, built in 1901 and powered by a single co-diesel engine. With the vessel in hand, he officially launched Western Towboat the following year. Today, the company boasts a fleet of 22 custom, in-h...
Onboard De-Escalation

Onboard De-Escalation

Fishermen work in a stress-rich environment. There’s trip planning and preparation, forecasting weather and sea conditions and risk of mechanical failure. There’s business issues too—fish prices, inflation, making delivery schedules, managing crew, debt and regulatory agencies, fish management schemes and fish stock conditions. There are plenty of triggers to cause agitation on a vessel. Agitation is actually an acute behavioral emergency that requires immediate intervention. Stress can lead to an explosion of verbal, mental or physical abuse that can take the form of bullying, aggression or hostility. In the physical and mentally demanding environment of fishing, getting along on the vessel is a highly valued skill. There isn’t an option to just walk out the door and go home while at se...
Toxic Tires: Getting 6PPD Out

Toxic Tires: Getting 6PPD Out

The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and the fishing folks we represent have never been timid about taking on hard tasks, especially when it comes to protecting our fisheries. PCFFA was formed in 1976 for the specific purpose of protecting—and where necessary, restoring—sustainable commercial fishing as a way of life, including using the combined strength of the many local fishermen’s organizations that make up the PCFFA to take on all the hard tasks involved. Since salmon has long been a major West Coast ocean fishery (in spite of recent collapses) our mission also means working hard to protect and restore damaged salmon habitat wherever salmon occur, all the way up to the tops of coastal watersheds. PCFFA’s sister organization, the Institute for Fisheries Resources...