Tag: alaska

Alaskans Celebrate 7th Annual Wild Salmon Day
10Aug By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Alaskans Celebrate 7th Annual Wild Salmon Day

Alaskans are celebrating the seventh annual Wild Salmon Day on Aug. 10 in Anchorage to honor shared connections to salmon and the importance of health salmon habitat. Organizers said the free event at Anchorage’s Westchester Lagoon from 6-8 p.m. will feature live music, several vendors, activities for children and the Salmon Hookup food truck, selling menu items made with fresh Cook Inlet sockeye salmon. Participation organizations include Trout Unlimited, SalmonState, the Alaska Public Interest Research Group (AKPIRG), Citizens Climate Lobby and others. Speakers include Suzanne Little, who oversees Pew’s land conservation issues in Alaska. Her goal is to ensure that local people are heard on land use issues, including policy debates relating to conservation of Alaska lands. T...
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Alaska Salmon Harvest Swells to 68.8 Million Fish
13Jul By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Alaska Salmon Harvest Swells to 68.8 Million Fish

Commercial harvests of salmon in Alaska jumped from 37.6 million to 68.8 million fish in a week’s time, with the catch in Bristol Bay alone swelling from 26.7 million to 46.8 million fish. Processors were keeping up with deliveries from fishing tenders in a very robust harvest. Fisheries economist Sam Friedman, who produces the in-season commercial salmon updates for McKinley Research Group on behalf of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, said the week that ended July 9 would likely be the peak salmon harvest of the summer. The Bristol Bay sockeye harvest continues to propel statewide harvest totals, with 21 million reds caught last week alone up 36% from the peak week in 2021. Early data on fish size from Bristol Bay show that sockeyes have averaged about 4.9 pounds per fish...
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Demise of Yukon River Chum Salmon Remains Point of Contention
13Jul By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Demise of Yukon River Chum Salmon Remains Point of Contention

On a cool, cloudy summer day at Emmonak, on Alaska’s Lower Yukon River, not a single commercial fishing boat was delivering its catch to Kwik’Pak Fisheries. Instead, families along the lower Yukon were awaiting delivery of state donated sockeye salmon being sent to them by Kwik’Pak, a subsidiary of the Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association, which had received a fresh batch some 5,000 pounds of sockeyes from the state of Alaska. Another 6,800 pounds of sockeyes, also purchased by the state from a processor, were delivered to the Tanana Chiefs Conference in Fairbanks, for delivery to communities along the upper Yukon River. The problem with the demise of Yukon River chums, known for their rich Omega-3 oils, dates back to 2020. When the fish didn’t show up, ADF&G shut do...
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Alaska’s Commercial Salmon Catch Swells to Nearly 38M Fish
6Jul By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Alaska’s Commercial Salmon Catch Swells to Nearly 38M Fish

A surge of salmon returning to Bristol Bay has boosted the harvest of the famed sockeye salmon fishery to nearly 27 million fish and the statewide preliminary catch estimate to nearly 38 million salmon, including 33.6 million sockeyes. The overall catch through Tuesday, July 5, stood at over 30% ahead of the year-to-date 2021 (2020 for pinks) harvest, driven by the large, early sockeye harvest in Bristol Bay, noted Sam Friedman of McKinley Research Group in Anchorage, which produces in-season commercial salmon harvest reports on behalf of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. For the period ended July 2, nearly 18 million sockeye salmon were caught in Alaska, including over 16 million in Bristol Bay. This is larger than last year’s peak of 17 million fish, and there is still an...
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Melting Glaciers Likely to Boost Healthy Salmon Spawning Habitat: Study
15Jun By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Melting Glaciers Likely to Boost Healthy Salmon Spawning Habitat: Study

Dramatic increases in the melting of Alaska’s massive glaciers in the midst of global warming reflect a silver lining for wild salmon, but once the melting has concluded, such benefits will likely not be realized, according to Peter Westley, a fisheries researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Westley highlighted recent work led by colleagues at Simon Fraser University that quantified the rich bounty of salmon habitat currently hidden, but soon to be revealed, by rapidly melting glaciers. The current rate of melting glaciers in Alaska is much higher than salmon have experienced in a long, long time, said Westley of UAF’s Salmonid Evolutionary Ecology & Conservation (SEEC) Lab. Currently, glaciers are helping cool the waters and create new habitat for wild salmon, ...
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GAPP to Announce Funding Awards for Product Proposals by Mid-September
15Jun By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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GAPP to Announce Funding Awards for Product Proposals by Mid-September

A major promoter of wild Alaska Pollock plans to announce by mid-September matching grants for its latest round of partnership funding in a competition to expand markets for wild Alaska Pollock products worldwide. All proposals are due to Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) by Aug. 12. “The global food sector is now, perhaps more than ever, ripe for disruptive innovation and break-through promotions,” GAPP Chief Executive Officer Craig Morris said. GAPP’s research has identified key growth areas for wild Alaska Pollock that are of particular interest in this round of funding. Specifically, the organizations has said that it will give particular emphasis to programs that take place in “favorable” or “very favorable,” as identified by Wild Alaska Pollock 2040 research. GA...
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Next Copper River Commercial Fishery Opener Planned for May 26
25May By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Next Copper River Commercial Fishery Opener Planned for May 26

In the wake of a moderate first opener and weak second opener of the Copper River commercial salmon fishery, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said ‘no’ to a third 12-hour fishing period, but that the next opener is anticipated for tomorrow Thursday, May 26. ADF&G biologists stationed in Cordova, Alaska, did allow subsistence harvesters a 12-hour fishing period on Monday, May 23, within the Copper River District, while closing waters within the Chinook salmon expanded inside closure area for those harvesters for that period. The biologists issued their decision after the second opener on Thursday, May 19, resulted 416 deliveries of a total of 14,750 fish, including 2,690 kings and 11,705 sockeye salmon. The first opener on May 16 had harvesters making 401 deliveries of 1...
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U.S. Commerce Dept. Allocates $144M for Fisheries Disasters
11May By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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U.S. Commerce Dept. Allocates $144M for Fisheries Disasters

The State of Alaska, the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation and the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe in Washington state will share in $144 million awarded by the U.S. Department of Commerce for fisheries disasters suffered between 2018 and 2021. The allocation, announced May 5 by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, applies to previously declared fishery disasters including the 2019 Norton Sound king crab fishery, the Port Gamble Tribe’s 2018 Puget Sound coho salmon fishery, the Chehalis Tribe’s 2019 Chehalis River spring Chinook salmon fishery. Eligible fisheries in Alaska that experienced disasters between 2018 and 2021 and are eligible include the 2018 Upper Cook Inlet East Side Set net and 2020 Upper Cook Inlet salmon fisheries, the 2018 Copper River Chinook and sockeye...
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Navy Responds to Plea Against Gulf of Alaska War Games in Spring 2023
11May By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Navy Responds to Plea Against Gulf of Alaska War Games in Spring 2023

Joint military exercises in the Gulf of Alaska, which take place every other spring on the eve of the Copper River commercial salmon fishery, are already drawing fire from entities concerned about adverse impact on the area’s fishery and environment in the spring of 2023. While the actual scheduling of the Northern Edge war games will be determined by the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, opponents of holding these exercises in May are asking the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Northwest to cease holding the event in May of 2023. The Copper River District has been experiencing below average harvests for several years and when it opens for 12 hours on Monday, May 16, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is expected to take a conservative management approach for the start o...
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Pebble Mine Opponents Fundraise for Politicians Who Also Oppose
20Apr By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Pebble Mine Opponents Fundraise for Politicians Who Also Oppose

Opponents of the proposed Pebble Mine that would be adjacent to the Bristol Bay watershed in Southwest Alaska have embarked on a fundraising effort to support federally elected officials also opposed to the mine’s construction and development.  Alaskans for Bristol Bay Action, a 527 (tax exempt) political organization, said in mid-April that it anticipated having $600,000 in cash to report for its first fundraising quarter of 2022.  Former Alaska State Senate President Rick Halford, a senior advisor to Alaskans for Bristol Bay Action, said the early fundraising was a testament to how significant each federal candidate’s position on Bristol Bay would be in the months ahead.  “We fully intend to leverage these resources to support champions who are fighting to end the threat of ...
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