Tag: fisheries

NOAA Fisheries Speaks at UN On Ecosystem Approaches to Fisheries Management
8Jun By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
Fishermen's News Online, News

NOAA Fisheries Speaks at UN On Ecosystem Approaches to Fisheries Management

NOAA Fisheries is taking a lead on the global stage in sharing its ecosystem approaches to fisheries management with interested nations, including opportunities at a recent United Nations conference. “For the United Nations to prioritize discussing ecosystem approaches to fisheries management is not trivial,” NOAA Fisheries Senior Scientist for Ecosystems Jason Link said. “It is indicative of how important the topic has become around the world.” The UN holds theme-based consultations annually as an international forum for member countries to advance fisheries issues. The focus May’s meeting was to explore how well countries are implementing ecosystem approaches to fisheries management. This approach is codified as part of International Law and Ecosystem-based Fisheries Managem...
Read More
NOAA Report Shows Huge PSC of Chum Salmon By Pollock Fleet
8Jun By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
Fishermen's News Online, News

NOAA Report Shows Huge PSC of Chum Salmon By Pollock Fleet

New federal and state reports show that while salmon runs in Alaska have in some cases reached a crisis point, that trawlers are catching and discarding more Chinook and chum salmon from the Yukon and Kuskokwim river systems than subsistence and direct fishers are allowed to harvest. The issue of declining salmon stocks remains a complex, multi-faceted one, involving much discussion on topics ranging from trawl bycatch to climate change to the impact of juvenile hatchery fish produced in Alaska, Washington state, Japan, Russia and South Korea. NOAA Fisheries’ genetic studies of trawl salmon bycatch in 2020 and 2021 released at the end of May determined that 52% of the Chinook bycatch from the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Pollock trawl fishery in 2020 included an estimated 16,7...
Read More
Pacific Fishery Management Council Meets June 8-14
25May By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
Fishermen's News Online, News

Pacific Fishery Management Council Meets June 8-14

Federal fisheries managers meeting in Vancouver, Washington, June 8-14 have several key items on their agenda, including final action to adopt harvest specifications, management measures and exempted fishing permits for the 2023-2024 groundfish fisheries. Other key actions for consideration at the meeting include adopting a final limited entry fixed gear catch share program review document and providing guidance on whether to concurrently develop new management measures, adoption of the coastal pelagic species essential fish habitat phase 2 action plan, and adoption of preliminary highly migratory species exempted fishing permits. The council also plans to adopt a range of alternatives for hard bycatch caps in the drift gillnet fleet. The Pacific Fishery Management Council not...
Read More
NOAA Prepares EIS For SoCal Aquaculture Opportunity Area
25May By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
Fishermen's News Online, News

NOAA Prepares EIS For SoCal Aquaculture Opportunity Area

NOAA Fisheries has published a notice of intent in the Federal Register announcing preparation of the Southern California Aquaculture Opportunity Area Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. The EIS seeks to assess impacts of identifying one or more aquaculture opportunity areas in federal waters of the Southern California Bight, a 430-mile stretch of curved coastline that runs from Southern California to the Mexican peninsula of Baja California. The notice of intent initiates a formal 60-day public scoping period for the programmatic EIS that closes on July 22. During this time, NOAA would seek public comment to inform the scope and content of the programmatic EIS. NOAA Fisheries’ effort is in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District. U.S...
Read More
U.S. Commerce Dept. Allocates $144M for Fisheries Disasters
11May By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
Fishermen's News Online, News

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...
Read More
Congress Approves American Fisheries Advisory Committee Act
4May By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
Fishermen's News Online, News

Congress Approves American Fisheries Advisory Committee Act

Legislation to create an industry-led committee to assist in administration of fisheries marketing research and development grants has now passed both houses of Congress and headed to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law. Approval on S.497, the American Fisheries Advisory Committee Act, came late last week in the U.S. House. The measure, sponsored by Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, earlier passed the Senate. Among the co-sponsors were Senators Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. Sullivan hailed passage of the bill, saying that once signed into law “our fishermen will again have a seat at the table to offer appropriate input and oversight of the Saltonstall-Kennedy grant process, identify opportunities for improvement and growth, and maintain Alaska’s status ...
Read More