Fishermen's News Online

NPFMC Takes Up Salmon Bycatch, GOA Cod Issues

2012-03-07T11:59:00.000-08:00

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has set aside 12 hours of its schedule for its spring meeting in Anchorage March 28-April 3 to deal with the contentious issue of chum salmon caught incidentally to groundfish fisheries in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. Also on the agenda, which is online at www.fakr.noaa.gov/npfmc, is a 10-hour slot for habitat conservation issues, eight hours for halibut issues, including final action to allow Area 4B fish-up, and six hours for Gulf of Alaska Pacific cod issues. The last will include an updated discussion paper on Pacific Cod jig management, a discussion paper on limiting other gear on jig vessels, and a discussion paper on Gulf of Alaska Pacific cod A-season opening dates.

Also noted on the council’s website is an upcoming workshop for the council and the International Pacific Halibut Commission April 24-25 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Seattle.

The workshop is to include short summary presentations from agency science staffs and invited industry science representatives, with a scientific panel to be charged with providing a review of the discussion and its findings. The panel is to include staff from IPHC, the Council, the NMFS Alaska Fisheries Science Center, the council’s SSC, Canada’s DFO, independent scientists sponsored by the fishing industry and two independent, external scientific experts on bycatch issues.

The council is evaluating proposed reductions to the halibut prohibited species catch limits for trawl/longline fisheries in the Gulf of Alaska. The council notes in a draft document that on bycatch estimation, “there is broad agreement that the current levels of bycatch in the Gulf of Alaska are poorly understood, partly beause of necessary extrapolations to vessels not subject to observer coverage, and are not subject to high confidence intervals.

“Recognizing that the groundfish observer program in the GOA is being restructured to address these deficiencies and to provide better use of available observer coverage, a review and assessment of bycatch estimation at this workshop could be very informative to that restructuring process,” the council document said.

Alaska Crab Fisheries Enter Peer Review Stage

2012-03-07T11:57:00.001-08:00

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute says that Alaska’s crab fisheries have entered the peer review stage for FAO-based responsible fisheries management certification. The review will include Bering Sea/Aleutian Island king and snow crab, Bristol Bay red king crab, St. Matthew blue king crab, and Eastern Bering Sea snow crab commercial fisheries.

Based on the technical expertise required to carry out the fishery assessment, Global Trust Certification Ltd. has chosen for its external peer review team Earl Krygier and Jerry Ennis. Krygier is a retired long time employee of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game who also served as the Marine Conservation Alliance Foundation’s cooperative research coordinator. Ennis is a retired researcher from the University of Liverpool’s Department of fisheries and Oceans.

Peer review is a technical review of the evidence documented by the assessment team that demonstrates the level of conformity of the fishery to the FAO code and guides. Ultimately, peer reviewers provide a critical evaluation of the consistency of the recommendation made by the assessment team as to whether the fishery is recommended for certification.

The peer review must be undertaken by two independent experts who are not members of the certifying body nor the assessment team. The outcome of the peer review is included in the final assessment report and is submitted, along with any assessment team responses to peer comments, to the certification committee.

More information is at http://sustainability.alaskaseafood.org/crab-certification

ComFish Agenda Ranges from Salmon Markets to Mining Perspectives

2012-03-07T11:56:00.001-08:00

ComFish Alaska, Kodiak’s annual commercial fisheries forum and trade show, set for April 12-14, will cover a range of topics this year, from salmon market trends and new safety regulations to perspectives on the Chuitna coal and Pebble mine projects.

University of Alaska Anchorage fisheries economist Gunnar Knapp will deliver a 20 year overview of Alaska’s salmon markets, along with a look at future opportunities. Tyson Fick of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute will likewise address current market conditions, challenges and opportunities for Alaska seafood around the world.

Ken Lawrenson, the US Coast Guard commercial fishing vessel safety coordinator, will discuss the latest updates on dockside exams and safety training, life rafts, building to class and more related to new fishing vessel safety regulations. Jennifer Lincoln of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health will speak on advances in fishing safety, from vessel hatch and door monitors to other new life saving items.

Forum organizer Laine Welch, who reports on commercial fisheries from Kodiak, says she has also lined up an unprecedented mining block, with speakers from the state of Alaska’s large mine permitting team, the Chuitna coal project and the Pebble project. The state officials will discuss permitting and state process on both hard rock metal and coal mines and explain differences on requirements for coal between the state Department of Natural Resources and federal Office of Surface Mining.

Also on tap is a pre-ComFish workshop. The sponsors, Alaska Marine Conservation Council and Alaska Sea Grant, will advise on how to participate effectively in the upcoming North Pacific Fishery management Council meeting in Kodiak in June. That event, with complementary seafood chowder, is set for the evening of April 11

Federal Court Upholds Fishing Restrictions to Protect Steller Sea Lions

2012-03-07T11:14:00.001-08:00

Federal Judge Timothy Burgess is upholding fishing restrictions put in place to reduce the competition between commercial fisheries and endangered Steller sea lions in the Aleutian Islands.

The US District Court judge announced his decision on March 5 in the case filed by the state of Alaska, Alaska Seafood Cooperative and the Freezer Longline Coalition against administrator Jane Lubchenco of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Marine Fisheries Service. The court found that the National Marine Fisheries Service based its decision on good science and reiterated that the protections currently in place are both justified and necessary.

The court has also ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to prepare an environmental impact statement by March 2, 2014 to allow for more public input. In its summary judgment, the court concluded that NMFS violated the National Environmental Policy Act in failing to prepare an EIS, as opposed to an environmental assessment, and did not provide the public with a sufficient opportunity for review and comment on the environmental assessment.

“Given that NEPA is a procedural statute, thee violations are significant regardless of whether they affected the outcome of NMFS’s decision making process,” the court ruled. The NEPA violations “caused irreparable harm to the plaintiffs’ and the public’s procedural rights which cannot be remedied through damages,” the judge said. “The harm is exacerbated by the fact that the restrictions may continue indefinitely.”

The environmental organization Oceana, meanwhile, hailed the Burgess decision to uphold the sea lion protections. “The tide is turning for Aleutian sea lions,” said Susan Murray, Oceana’s senior director, Pacific. Murray said the decision “can serve as an example of how to move away from single species money fish management and toward ecosystem-based approach that takes into account the needs of apex predators in our oceans.”

Seattle Blessing of the Fleet

2012-02-29T11:07:00.000-08:00

The 84th annual Blessing of the Fleet has been scheduled for Sunday, March 18, 2012 at 2:00 pm at the Fishermen's Memorial site at Fishermen's Terminal in Seattle, Washington.

Originated by the late Pastor O.L. Haavik of Ballard First Lutheran Church 82 years ago, the service will be conducted by Pastor Erik R. Wilson Weiberg and Pastor Laurie A. Jones, both of Ballard First Lutheran Church. The pastors will offer thanks to God for the fishing community, remembering the risks they take each day to provide seafood for our tables, and pray that their families will be healthy and protected during their time of separation. The ceremony will also serve as a remembrance for those who went out to sea and never returned. As in past years, various representatives from the government and the fishing industry have been invited to bring greetings.

The spring departure of the commercial fishing fleet for the sometimes dangerous Pacific and Alaska waters has been regularly observed since Pastor Haavik started the tradition, and the public is invited to attend this celebration, asking God's blessing for a bountiful season, peace upon the unpredictable sea, and a safe journey home. Coffee and cookies will be served following the service.

Icicle Will Acquire Snopac Products

2012-02-29T11:06:00.002-08:00

Icicle Seafoods Inc. announced today that it has reached a preliminary agreement to acquire Snopac products Inc., a small independently owned and operated seafood processing company with operations in Alaska, and Seattle. The transaction is subject to completion of due diligence and other customary closing conditions and the financial terms were not disclosed, nor were operational details.

Snopac operates a seafood processing plant at Dillingham and a seafood processing vessel, the M/V Snopac Innovator. Together they enable the company to process more than one million pounds of round weight per day. Snopac has a significant presence in the Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishery and also participates in herring and pink salmon fisheries with the Innovator.

Dennis Guhlke, president and chief executive officer of Icicle Seafoods, said his company is excited about the transaction, which allows Icicle “to expand its operations through a modernized shore-based processing facility and an efficient vessel processing platform.”

Guhlke said Snopac is known for its strong relationships with its markets and fishermen, as well as its top quality products. “This strategic acquisition is another step in our growth strategy as a leading processor of salmon and other seafood products,” Guhlke said. “We are pleased to welcome and work with such a highly respected, experienced management team and employee base.”

Greg Blakey, chief executive officer of Snopac, said his company is already well acquainted with icicle Seafoods and admires the way they operate their highly diversified business.

“Given Icicle’s significant operational history and strong commitment to its fishing fleet and its employees, we think this is a perfect match for Snopac,” he said. “While we take a lot of pride in being one of the last independent family owned processors in Alaska, we know that a combination with Icicle is the best long term solution for our employees and fleet.”

EPA’s Draft Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment Due Out in April

2012-02-29T10:59:00.001-08:00

The US Environmental Protection Agency has issued an update on progress made to date on its analysis of the Bristol Bay watershed, in advance of a draft assessment of its findings due out in late April.

The goal of the EPA’s scientific analysis is to better understand how future large-scale mining may affect the salmon fishery in Bristol Bay. Information gathered during the assessment will be used to make decisions to protect salmon resources and habitat on which salmon and other fish depend.

The assessment is focused on the Kvichak and Nushagak watersheds because those drainages are open to development of mineral resources.

The goal of the EPA’s analysis it to better understand how large-scale mining may affect the Bristol Bay salmon fishery. The EPA plans to use information gathered during the assessment to make decisions to protect the resources, including habitat on which salmon and other fish depend.

The EPA schedule calls for public meetings in Anchorage and in Bristol Bay communities in May, a scientific peer review panel holding a meeting open to the public in Anchorage in August, and release of a final assessment in November.

The EPA initiated the assessment in response to petitions from nine Alaska tribes and other stakeholders who asked the EPA to take action to protect salmon because they were concerned about risks posed by large-scale mining, in particular the proposed Pebble mine, which is now in the exploration phase.

The mining effort is backed by the Pebble Partnership, an alliance between London-based Anglo American and Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. The area is believed to contain vast quantities of copper, gold and molybdenum, which is used as an alloying agent in cast iron and steel.

The EPA said it has already compiled the best available information on Bristol Bay salmon, resident fish, wildlife, culture, economics and roads, plus traditional ecological knowledge from interviews with tribal elders and culture bearers.

Updated information is posted online at www.epa.gov/region10/bristolbay.

The Pebble Partnership earlier in February released a 27,000 page environmental baseline document, also online at www.pebbleresearch.com, and available from the Pebble Partnership as a DVD.

Alaska Board of Fisheries Takes Action on Rockfish Proposals

2012-02-29T10:58:00.000-08:00

The Alaska Board of Fisheries has voted down a proposal to increase the sport allocation of demersal shelf rockfish to 25 percent, but also approved a conservation measure designed to improve survival rates for bycatch rockfish.

The action came earlier this week at the state board meeting in Ketchikan on measures proposed by the Southeast Alaska Guides Organization.

Back in 2006, the state board made an allocation for rockfish in the Eastern Gulf of Alaska area, based on historic harvest, with 84 percent going to commercial fishermen and 16 percent to the guide charter fleet.

“They told both sectors to learn to live within their allocations,” said Linda Behnken, ALFA’s executive director. “We spent a couple of years figuring out how we could help our fleet get better at avoiding rockfish.”

ALFA developed the Fishery Conservation Network, within which some 70 commercial fishermen worked together to reduce rockfish bycatch rates and map seafloor habitat. They gathered and verified catch and bycatch rate data in the longline halibut and sablefish fisheries, collected bathymetric data and napped areas of the ocean floor, and compiled detailed naps to help them avoid seafloor structures where rockfish congregate.

The boats within the fishery conservation network reduced their bycatch by 20 percent., and the commercial fleet stayed within its allocation, Behnken said. The charter industry did not stay within its limit, said rockfish bycatch was unavoidable, and that they needed a larger allocation for sport harvest, but the board voted them down.

ALFA and SEAGO came together however on consensus language to develop a key conservation measure regarding demersal shelf rockfish, in a regulation approved by the state board that goes into effect in 2013.

That measure is designed to increase the survival rate of rockfish released as a result of existing bag and catch limits. SEAGO executive director Heath Hilyard said the new regulation stipulates that as of 2013 charter operators will have a deep-water release mechanism onboard for rockfish. Such devices are anticipated to result in lowering mortality rates from as high as 90 percent to as low as 10 percent, if fish are handled very carefully and returned immediately to depth and not caught in really deep water.

“What is most significant is that the two sectors, that have been traditionally at odds regarding a variety of fisheries management issues, were able to come together on a new regulation, Hilyard said.

Funds Sought to Restore Salmon Watersheds in Tongass National Forest

2012-02-29T10:57:00.000-08:00

Several fishermen and tour operators are heading for Washington D.C. next week to lobby for changes in the US Forest Service budget to emphasize salmon conservation and watershed restoration in Tongass National Forest.

Their travel from Southeast Alaska is sponsored by Trout Unlimited and the Sitka Conservation Society, who note that the Forest Service budget currently includes about $25 million annually for timber and road building, compared to about $1.5 million for restoration of salmon watersheds damaged by past logging.

Their effort has the support of the Seafood Producers Cooperative, with offices in Sitka, Alaska, and Bellingham, Wash., as well as the Alaska Trollers Association in Juneau.

Dale Kelley, executive director of the Alaska Trollers Association noted in a letter to the Department of Agriculture that Tongass National Forest provides roughly $1 billion in annual revenues to commercial, sport and subsistence fishermen, and that about 24 percent of Alaska’s annual statewide salmon harvest is spawned in the Tongass. Kelly noted Forest Service reports indicate that logging has impacted about 46 percent of salmon watersheds in Tongass.

“We have been informed that over $100 million is needed to restore lost habitat,” Kelly said. “With current investment rates in the ballpark of $1.5 million per year, it will take the Forest Service more than 50 years to address the habitat problems affecting wild salmon in the Tongass.”

By investing in watershed restoration, the Forest Service could improve salmon habitat and production and in turn create new jobs and economic opportunities for Southeast Alaska, she wrote.

Listeria Found in Vancouver, British Columbia Fish Products

2012-02-29T10:55:00.000-08:00

A research team at the University of British Columbia has found traces of the bacteria listeria in 40 sampled ready-to-eat products in the metropolitan areas of Vancouver, British Columbia.

UBS microbiologist Kevin Allen led the study, which drew on purchases from seven large chain stores and 10 small retailers in the Vancouver metro area, including such products as lox, smoked tuna, candied salmon and fish jerky.

Their finding, published in the journal Food Microbiology, found that listeria was present in 20 percent of the ready-to-eat fish products, and of these five percent had the more virulent variety of listeria monocytogenes.

Allen said that while the listeria monocytogenes levels in the ready-to-eat fish products met federal guidelines, the bacteria can multiply during handling and storage, particularly toward the end of shelf life.

Additional handling of ready-to-eat foods in stores, such as slicing, weighing and packaging may increase the potential for cross-contamination” he said. “While listeria bacteria can be killed by high heat, most people eat these fish products without further cooking.”

Allen said pregnant women, the elderly and anyone with a compromised immune system should be aware of the health risks.

The problem is not with the fish itself, which arrives at processing facilities uncontaminated. The bacteria listeria can be picked up at a processing facility if it is not properly cleaned.

Two Alaska seafood processors interviewed for this story said the industry is well aware of the problems listeria can pose and take steps to avoid it, including routine sanitizing of all surfaces, swab tests and sending samples of product out for testing.

The standard procedure is wet down, wash down, soap down, rinse down and then sanitize, said one processor, speaking on condition of anonymity. There is rigorous adherence to protocols so that the listeria doesn’t show up in the facility. His facility is also frequently inspected, he said, by municipal, federal and state officials.

Leader Creek Fisheries’ Norm Van Vactor said the company’s plant does such cleaning and sanitizing routinely, as well as swabbing and testing product for listeria on a very systematic schedule during the fishing season. The environmental testing of the fish itself is done by a fisheries laboratory in Seattle, he said, while the quality assurance staff at Leader Creek oversees sanitizing of facilities.

Thousands of Coastal Fishermen to Rally in Washington DC On March 21

2012-02-29T10:47:00.000-08:00

In another historic show of solidarity, US recreational and commercial fishermen will gather at Upper Senate Park in Washington DC on March 21, 2012 starting at noon in an organized demonstration supporting sensible reform of the Magnuson Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act.

This is a follow-up to a rally in February of 2010 that brought some 5,000 recreational, commercial and party/charter vessel owners, fishermen and people in fisheries dependent businesses from all over the country to Washington. Twenty plus Members of the Senate and House of Representatives spoke regarding efforts to reform Magnuson.

Signed into law in 1976, the 36-year-old law most notably aided in the development of the domestic fishing industry by phasing out foreign fishing.

"In recent years however, the act has been transformed from its original intent into a weapon employed by a handful of mega-foundations and the so-called marine conservation organizations they subsidize aimed at reducing overall participation in our nation’s rich fisheries while driving both commercial and recreational fishermen off the water," said Nils Stolpe, executive director of FishNet USA which represents the interests of US commercial fishermen.

Rally organizers are asking legislators for help to amend the law to provide a better balance of marine conservation and coastal commerce, as it was originally intended to do.

The upcoming rally is being billed as Keep Fishermen Fishing, and once again unites the commercial and recreational sectors under one common message, “fix Magnuson now.” There were more than 40 chartered buses filled with rally participants in 2010, and efforts are once again underway in many coastal states to transport fishermen back and forth to the rally.
“Those who didn’t attend or perhaps chose not to support the original rally are mostly unaware of the strides we’ve taken since 2010,” said Jim Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance and one of the rally organizers. “With the support of the two dozen members of Congress who addressed us at Upper Senate Park, leaders from both sides of the aisle have pushed to make Magnuson reform a Congressional priority. As a result, the House Natural Resources Committee is now reviewing eight different pieces of fisheries reform legislation.”

“Our coastal fishermen represent the true spirit of Main Street America, as over-burdensome regulations supported only by organizations and individuals supported by a handful of mega foundations is forcing third and fourth generation fishermen off the water and away from sustainable public resources,” said Stolpe. “The plight of our coastal fishermen is finally getting the media and legislative attention it deserves, and we hope to keep that momentum moving forward on March 21.”

Keep Fishermen Fishing organizers thus far include Recreational Fishing Alliance, Southeastern Fisheries Association, National Association of Charterboat Operators, Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Association, Garden State Seafood Association, United Boatmen, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, Panama City Boatmen, Viking Village Dock, Fishermen’s Dock, Hull’s Seafood Markets, Lund's Fisheries, Westport Charterboat Association, Southern Off Shore Fishing Association, Garibaldi Charters, Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen's Association, New York Fishing Tackle Trades Association, Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund, New York Sportfishing Federation, Monkfish Defense Fund, Atlantic Capes Seafood, and North Carolina Watermen United.

For more information including bus details, visit www.keepfishermenfishing.com.

NOAA Designates Critical Leatherback Turtle Habitat Off West Coast

2012-02-22T10:57:00.003-08:00

By Terry Dillman

Commercial and recreational fishing interests are looking askance at the recent designation of 41,914 square miles of “critical habitat” off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California, despite assurances from NOAA officials that it won’t further impede fishing activities.

The two separate areas collectively comprise the largest ever set aside in the nation’s waters to protect sea turtle habitat.

One area encompasses 25,004 square miles east of the 2,000-meter depth contour extending from Cape Flattery, Wash. to Cape Blanco, Ore. The other is 16,910 square miles east of the 3,000-meter contour stretching from Point Arena to Point Arguello, Calif. The designation covers waters from the surface to a maximum depth of 262 feet.

NOAA’s action stems from a court settlement after Oceana, the Center for Biological diversity and the Turtle Island Restoration Network sued to get action on a petition they filed in 2007. Their initial proposal covered 70,600 square miles, extending along the entire Washington coast, as far south as Winchester Bay on the Oregon Coast, and from Point Arena north of San Francisco to Point Vicente south of Los Angeles along the California coast. While the environmental groups didn’t get everything they wanted (the designated areas don’t protect the turtles’ migration pathways), Ben Enticknap, Oceana’s Pacific project manager, said the critical habitat designation is a major step forward, being the first to ever focus on leatherback foraging grounds.

Still, turtle advocates said it doesn’t go far enough, especially in dealing with detrimental impacts from drift net, longline and gillnet fishing for tuna, swordfish and shark.

Fishing advocates noted that such fishing is already restricted in Oregon and California waters during summer and autumn, when leatherbacks forage there, to cut down on bycatch.

Leatherbacks – the largest of the marine turtles, with some reaching lengths of up to nine feet and weighing 2,000 pounds – have the largest range of any living reptile and are found in all oceans. They feed primarily on jellyfish and lay their eggs on tropical and subtropical beaches. While leatherbacks are primarily open ocean creatures, they forage for jellyfish in coastal waters, traversing the 3,700 miles between breeding and feeding grounds. Although very little is known about their lifespan, biologists estimate leatherbacks can live for 45 years or longer. They were placed on the federal endangered species list in 1970. Environmentalists say the Western Pacific population has declined by more than 95 percent since the 1980s, and as few as 2,300 adult females remain. Federal biologists estimate about 4,000 adult females are left.

In the Jan. 20 announcement about the effort to provide added protection for endangered leatherback sea turtles along the West Coast, NOAA officials said the designation “will not directly affect recreational fishing, boating and other private activities,” but would boost scrutiny of federally permitted projects – such as tidal and wave energy projects and offshore drilling - that could adversely modify or destroy such protected areas.

Already reeling under the weight of regulations from all angles, fishermen are naturally skeptical.

Since the early 1990s, NOAA’s Office of Protected Resources has enacted sea turtle conservation measures for fisheries, among them the requirements for turtle exclusion devices in trawl fisheries, large circle hooks in longline fisheries, time and area closures for gillnets, and modifications to pound net leaders. Other measures “to reduce sea turtle interactions in fisheries” emerged in regulations and permits required under the Endangered Species Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

In 1998, NOAA and US Fish and Wildlife Service designated critical habitat for leatherbacks along Sandy Point Beach on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and adjacent Atlantic coastal waters. And in 2003, federal regulators developed the Strategy for Sea Turtle Conservation and Recovery to evaluate and respond to “domestic sea turtle bycatch comprehensively across jurisdictional (state and federal) and fishing sector (commercial and recreational) boundaries on a per-gear basis” for Pacific fishermen worry whether another such federal effort looms in the wake of this designation.

They say incidental capture in fishing gear, while a serious matter, is only one of many threats the turtles face. Pollution, poaching and accidental ingestion of plastic bags that can look like jellyfish also contribute to turtle demise.

Terry Dillman can be reached at tdwordwright@gmail.com

Alaska Commercial Salmon Forecasts Project a 2012 Decrease

2012-02-22T10:53:00.003-08:00

The new run forecasts and harvest projections for 2012 Alaska salmon fisheries predict a decrease in overall commercial salmon catches in 2012 due to the projected decrease in pink salmon harvests. The report says the 2012 total commercial salmon catch projection of 132.1 million fish is expected to include 120,000 king salmon in areas outside southeast Alaska, 38.4 million sockeye salmon, 4.3 million coho salmon, 70.2 million pink salmon and 19.1 million chum salmon. The projected pink salmon harvest is about 40 percent lower than the harvest of 116 million pinks last year.

The projected sockeye salmon harvest is about 4 percent lower than last year’s catch, while the projected chum salmon harvest is some 12 percent higher than in 2011.

Last year the Alaska all-species salmon harvest totaled 177.1 million fish, about 26.4 million less than the preseason forecast of 203.5 million fish. The combined harvest included 468,000 Chinook salmon, 40 million sockeyes, 3.5 million cohos, 116.1 million pinks and 17 million chums.

In Bristol Bay, the 2011 inshore sockeye salmon run of some 30.3 million fish and catch of 21.9 million reds ranked 14th over the 20 year period fro 1991 through 2010 and was 18th below the average run of 37.1 million sockeyes for those years.

At Kodiak, the commercial harvest of 18,615 kings, 2.3 million sockeyes, 190,483 cohos, 16.6 million pinks and 824,562 chum salmon totaled 20 million salmon of all species, which was below the previous 10-year average of 24.3 million salmon.

In southeast Alaska and the Yakutat region last year total harvests included 346,000 kings, 1.2 million reds, 2.3 million silvers, 59.1 million pinks, and 10.7 million chum salmon. With strong pink and chum salmon harvests, average pink and chum salmon weights, and strong prices, the ex-vessel value of $200 million was a record for that region since statehood.

The full report is at www.adfg.alaska.gov/FedAid/PDFs/SP12-01.pdf

Opilio Crab Catch Grows as Harvesters Struggle With Ice at St. Paul Harbor

2012-02-22T10:52:00.001-08:00

The challenge of massive amounts of ice on the waters notwithstanding, more than 30 million pounds of the 88,894,000 allowable harvest of snow crab was delivered through Feb. 21, and more should be coming in soon if weather forecasts are true.

According to Heather Fitch, area management biologist for shellfish at the Dutch Harbor office of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the forecast is for the ice that has been blocking a number of deliveries at St Paul will be north of the island within a week. The presence of massive amounts of ice at St Paul earlier in February made it impossible for some boats to make any deliveries to St. Paul.

Trident Seafoods hired a tugboat to help break up the ice at St. Paul.

Meanwhile in Juneau, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, program administrator Jessica Gharrett of NOAA’s restricted access management program had the latest harvest figures Feb. 21.

In the northern section 13,366,409 pounds, of opilios, or 40.51 percent of the allowable 32,992,600 pounds had been landed. Another 14,011,960 pounds, or 37.36 percent of the 37,508,792 allowable pounds were landed in the southern sector. Harvesters who do not have a regional delivery requirement, including crew quota and catcher processor quota, landed another 2,840,875 pounds, or 29.89 percent of their allowable 9,503,196 pounds., she said.

While the fishery officially begins Oct. 15, most crabbers wait until mid-January to begin dropping pots.

APICDA Moves Toward Year-Round Processing at False Pass, Atka

2012-02-22T10:51:00.000-08:00

The Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association plans to invest millions of dollars into turning its processing facilities at False Pass and Atka into year round operations.

The community development quota group’s chief executive officer, Larry Cotter, made the announcement Feb. 17 during the annual Anchorage summit of the Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference.

Cotter said that at False Pass APICDA had faced a struggle with Bering Pacific Seafoods, losing some $1 million a year, and at one point shut down its operations. Now APICDA plans to invest $8 million this year, plus an additional $2 million over the next two years, to expand Bering Pacific Seafoods facilities at False Pass, including the purchase of lots from the local Alaska Native corporation to build housing. Plant managers, engineers and other staff for the facility will be full time residents. “We are going to encourage families to move to False Pass with children so that we can keep the school going and hopefully they re going to work at our facility, earning meaningful wages and benefits,” Cotter said. “We think that is how to define for ourselves what we want Alaska communities to look like.”

State of Alaska data shows False Pass, on the Alaska Peninsula, currently has a year round population of 28 people, while Atka boasts a population of 58 residents.

There is concern in both communities of schools closing if the population gets too small.

At Atka, in the Aleutian chain, APICDA plans expansion of Atka Pride Seafoods, again with the goal of bringing back families to that community. Atka Price, formed in 1994 by APICDA and the Atka Fishermen’s Association, has been operating in the black for about seven to 10 years, Cotter said.

“Every penny has stayed in the company, or has been paid out to local fishermen and plant workers,” he said.

Coastal Management Options Back Before Alaska Legislature

2012-02-22T10:47:00.003-08:00

Legislation to re-establish a coastal management program in Alaska is back before the state House in Juneau., with eight House members, from both parties, co-sponsoring the legislation offered by Majority Leader Alan Austerman, R- Kodiak.

Meanwhile it appears that an initiative to establish a coastal management program for Alaska will qualify for a place on this year’s general election ballot.

Should legislators pass substantially similar legislation, the ballot measure could be pre-empted. Co-sponsors of the legislation to date include Representatives Paul Seaton, R-Homer, Peggy Wilson, R-Wrangell, Bob Herron, D-Bethel, Bryce Edgmon, D-Dilingham, Reggie Joule, D-Kotzebue, and Beth Kertulla, D-Juneau.

The old Coastal Management Program ended last summer after the Legislature could not come to agreement on some changes in the existing federally funded program.
Those backing the initiative feel that the state lost its legal authority when the old program ended to have a voice in natural resource extraction issues along Alaska’s 6,640 miles of coastline – issues ranging from mining to off-shore drilling for oil and gas.

In his sponsorship statement, Austerman said that with the initiative, Alaskans have sent a strong message to the Legislature that reestablishment of an Alaska Coastal Austerman said that with HB 325, residents can engage in dialogue to determine if there are elements of the initiative that should be corrected or clarified in order that the program as enacted best meet the needs and intent of Alaskans. With the initiative, he said, there would just be an up-down vote.

Austerman’s House Bill 325 is online at www.legis.state.ak.us.

Sea Otters Proving Costly to Dive Fisheries

2012-02-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

February 2012

An updated report on growing sea otter impacts on commercial fisheries in Southeast Alaska says the overall value loss to sea cucumber, geoduck, red sea urchin and Dungeness crab fisheries since 1995 totaled $28.3 million.

State fisheries biologists and a private research firm estimate that the sea cucumber fishery lost 3.2 million pounds with an estimated ex-vessel value of $5.3 million and wholesale value of $8.95 million from 1996 through 2011.

The geoduck fishery lost 530,500 pounds with an estimated ex-vessel value of $3.2 million and estimated wholesale value of $4.2 million from 2005-2011, and the red sea urchin fishery lost 3.1 million pounds worth an estimated $1 million ex-vessel and nearly $4 million wholesale, from 1995 through 2005. The Dungeness crab fishery meanwhile lost 2.7 million pounds, with an estimated ex-vessel value of $3.3 million and wholesale value of $5.3 million from 2000 thru 2010.

The McDowell Group, in Juneau, prepared the report for the Southeast Alaska Regional Dive Fisheries Association.

The McDowell Group found that commercial harvest closures have resulted in measurable economic impacts on the seafood sector and on communities in Southeast Alaska, including lost employment, wages, tax revenue and related economic activity.

The association contracted with McDowell group to quantify and explain these impacts in 2005. Since that report was completed, otter populations have continued to grow, further impacting dive fisheries and crab fisheries.

The updated report, completed in late 2011, uses current Alaska Department of Fish and Game data and sea otter research to update the impacts of sea otter predation on Southeast Alaska fisheries and communities, the report said.

Researchers at McDowell Group found that the wholesale value loss due to the impact of sea otter predation on the red sea cucumber, geoduck clam, red sea urchin, and Dungeness crab fisheries was $22.4 million from 1995 through 2011, with the multiplier impact on the regional economy being an additional $5.8 million.

Dive fisheries and Dungeness crab fisheries in Southeast Alaska had a first wholesale value of $25 million in 2010, employing roughly 625 fishermen as well as processing workers and tender operators, the report said. The secondary economic activity resulting from these fisheries is estimated to be $6.5 million or equivalent to 59 full-time jobs.

Since 1995, the report said, the sea cucumber fishery has lost an estimated 3.3 million pounds worth $9 million in wholesale value and $5.3 million in ex-vessel terms, due to sea otter predation. Sea otter impacts were found to be particularly harmful in 2011, with a loss of an estimated 235,000 pounds worth $2.23 million in wholesale value. The average commercial diver harvesting sea cucumbers in 2011 lost an estimated $7,000 in ex-vessel value. Since 1992, ADF&G has closed seven areas either specifically due to sea otter predation or presumably due to sea otter predation, the report said.

Since 2005, the geoduck clam fishery has lost an estimated 530,500 pounds worth $4.2 million in wholesale terms, and $3.2 million ex-vessel terms, due to sea otter predation. Impacts were particularly costly in 2011, with an estimated 140,900 pounds with a wholesale value of $2 million lost due to predation. The average commercial diver harvesting geoducks in 2011 lost an estimated $30,00 in ex-vessel value, the report said.

While no geoduck harvest areas have been closed due to sea otter predation, ADF&G has identified 27 fishery areas with evidence of sea otter predation, the report said. About 70 percent of the commercial geoduck harvest comes from these 27 fishery areas, where surveys note large craters and shell fragments left over from sea otter predation.

Red sea urchin harvests have declined substantially since 2006. Industry sources indicate only one or two divers harvested urchins in 2011, with only one active buyer. Sea otter predation impacts since 2005 have not been compiled, due to the decline of the fishery and the confidential nature of most data associated with it. The decline of the red sea urchin fishery in recent years is market related and not due to sea otter predation, the report notes. Prior to 2006, an estimated 3.1 million pounds of sea urchin harvest with a wholesale value of $4 million was lost due to sea otter predation.

Despite a declining commercial fishery, sea otter predation continues to negatively impact stocks. The 2011/12 red sea urchin guideline harvest level is 3.28 million pounds, down 40 percent from the 2008/2009 guideline harvest level of 5.44 million pounds.

Sea otters also eat Dungeness crab.

The three-year average harvest from districts with significant sea otter presence was 975,000 pounds less in 2008 through 2010 than from 2000-2002, a decline of 38 percent, the report said.

In comparison, districts with less sea otter presence saw average harvests increase 151,000 pounds for the same two periods, an increase of 7 percent.

Researchers said the Southeast Alaska Dungeness crab fishery has lost an estimated 2.7 million pounds of commercial harvest worth $3.3 million in ex-vessel value and $5.3 million in wholesale value since 2000.

Sea otters were removed from their natural range in Southeast Alaska due to intense pressure from fur traders in the 18th and 19th centuries. Prior to that time, sea otter populations in the entire North Pacific Rim, from Japan to Alaska to Baja California, ranged from 200,000 to 300,000 animals.

In 1911, the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention was passed to protect sea otter populations in the United States, Russia and Japan from further intensive exploitation.

From 1965 to 1969, a total of 402 sea otters from the Aleutian Islands and Prince William Sound were reintroduced to Southeast Alaska. That population remained low until 1987, when it began a period of rapid growth.

The most recent population survey, conducted in 2002 and 2003, estimated the Southeast sea otter population at 8,949 animals. The report also quotes results of aerial surveys done in 2010 that estimate Southeast Alaska sea otter populations to be growing at a rate of 12 percent annually.

The complete report is online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/74857876/MCDOWELL-GROUP-2011-Sea-Otter-Impacts-Report.

Fisheries Technologists Discuss Byproducts, Freeze-Dry Potential

2012-02-15T12:28:00.000-08:00

A researcher with the University of Alaska’s Seafood Science and Technology facilities at Kodiak says great progress is being made in utilization of Alaska fish processing byproducts, and that there is profit to be made too.

Peter Bechtel, who is also affiliated with the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service at Kodiak, addressed the subject this week before the 63rd annual meeting of Pacific Fisheries Technologists at Anchorage. Bechtel said current fish byproduct uses include human supplements, ingredients for human food, ingredients for human food, industrial use, pet food, aquaculture, pig and chicken feed, and fertilizers and fuels.

Once the fillets are taken, the remaining fish skins, frames and heads all have specific uses, ranging from gelatin as a binding agent to omega-3 oil extraction. There are also markets for fish livers, fish stomachs, and milt (the male reproductive tissue), he said.

The value of fish processing byproducts has increased because of price increases for fishmeal and fish oil over the past decade, he said. There is currently a lot of interest in extracting more of the oil from byproducts including salmon heads and white fish livers, good sources of oils rich in long chain omega-3 fatty acids and other components, Bechtel said.

Bechtel was one of more than a dozen presenters at the meeting, several of them from the Kodiak campus.

Alexandra Oliveira discussed at length research on development of a shelf stable, flavored freeze-dried pink salmon for use in a variety of products ranging from military meals read to eat to nutritional snacks for athletes involved in extreme sports, as well as the general public.

Oliveira, an associate professor on the Kodiak campus, said researchers are still working on developing recipes and shelf life studies., and that there is work yet to do on cost assessment, to know how much it costs to produce a kilogram of the freeze dried salmon.

The meeting began Feb. 12 and concludes today. Next year’s annual meeting is scheduled for Mazatlan, Mexico.

Processor With a Mission Wins Top Prize in Alaska Symphony of Seafood

2012-02-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

Top honors in the 2012 Alaska Symphony of Seafood went to a fish processor on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula whose winning entry of Alaska salmon bacon was born of a desire to help a grandchild suffering from food allergies.

Fred West of Tustumena Smokehouse in Soldotna was overcome with emotion when he learned on Feb. 11 that Kylee’s Alaska salmon bacon placed first in the smoke fish competition, and also earned him the grand prize. West said he developed the product because Kylee suffered an allergic reaction to beef, chicken and pork containing growth hormones and steroids. His product is made of all natural ingredients, no preservatives, is gluten free and contains no MSG or nitrates.

Other first place winners include Sweet Potato Crunch Alaska Pollock Sticks by American Pride Seafoods in the food service category, and AquaCuisine Naturally Smoked Salmon Frank by AquaCuisine in the retail category.

Tracy’s Alaskan King Crab Bisque, from Tracy’s Crab Shack in Juneau, won the People’s Choice awards in both Seattle and Anchorage.

First place winners from each category and the grand prize winner all receive booth space at the International Boston Seafood Show in March, as well as round trip airfare.

Since 1993, the Alaska Symphony of Seafood has celebrated creative and innovative ideas in the seafood industry, bringing together a host of new products before a panel of judges and the public.

The competition was created by the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation to promote new product development for seafood harvested in Alaska waters, by encouraging participation and sponsorship from a variety of companies and organizations that together are building the future of the Alaska fishing industry.

The competition annually brings entries from major processors, as well as smaller, independent entrepreneurs.
AFDF was first chartered as a fisheries development corporation in 1978, after passage of the Magnuson Stevens Fisheries

‘Salmon Locator’ Launched to Help Folks Find Copper River Fish

2012-02-15T12:26:00.001-08:00

The Copper River/Prince William Sound Marketing Association has officially launched its new “Salmon Locator” for the Internet site Facebook just prior to the International Boston Seafood Show, which takes place March 11-13. The trade launch will be followed by a consumer launch announcing the start of the 2012 season. The object is to direct fans to retailers and restaurants that carry king, sockeye and coho salmon during their respective seasons.

Retailers carrying Copper River salmon this season can take advantage of the free promotion by adding their locations to the app at www.findcopperriver.org, or they or can contact jessyka@copperrivermarketing.org directly to be included in the app.

By logging on to www.findcopperriver.org shoppers can find salmon by simply inputting their city, address or zip code or tag it if they want to share the name and address of a store or restaurant that carries Copper River salmon with other salmon lovers.

In addition to helping shoppers find their way, the app will also help the region’s fishermen connect with where their product is being sold. Additionally, a group of food bloggers in 15 key markets will be helping to find and tag Copper River Salmon in their cities.

Wild Alaska king, sockeye and coho salmon from the Copper River has become almost a brand name in its own right thanks to extensive advertising promotions over the years.

In cooperation with Alaska Airlines, which flies a great deal of the freshly harvested salmon to Seattle each spring, a popular media event is planned to celebrate the arrival in Seattle of the first load of wild salmon from the Copper River.

One major processor said customers also place their orders in advance each year for first run Copper River kings and sockeyes. Copper River salmon is available fresh from May through September and available frozen throughout the year.

Freezer-Longliner Hailed as One of the Largest, Most Eco-Friendly Ever

2012-02-15T12:25:00.000-08:00

Alaskan Leader Fisheries LLC is hailing a large new freezer-longliner due for delivery in April 2013 as one of the largest, most eco-friendly commercial fishing vessels in the nation.

Alaskan Leader Fisheries and J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corp. of Tacoma, Wash. announced the contract on Feb. 14..

The Fishing Vessel Northern Leader will be a 184-foot by 42-foot by nearly 19-foot freezer-longliner designed for service in longline fisheries of the North Pacific, Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.

Its crews will target Alaska cod, sablefish and other groundfish species, with a capacity of more than 38,000 cubic feet of refrigerated fish hold and estimated capacity of 1.8 million pounds of frozen seafood.

Alaskan Leader Fisheries is one of the largest Alaskan longline companies with four freezer-longliners, a seafood marketing company, a vessel management firm and a marine equipment fabricating enterprise. Alaskan Leader Fisheries was established in Kodiak in 1990 by seven Alaskan fishing families. Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp. in Dillingham and the original founding families today have an equal ownership interest in the company.

When the Northern Leader is completed in the spring of 2013 it will be home ported in Kodiak with the primary port of operation being Dutch Harbor.

Robin Samuelsen, chairman of Alaskan Leader Fisheries and chairman and chief executive officer of Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., said the ship will be one of the most technologically advanced an innovative commercial fishing vessels ever built. “Our ship design will combine an extremely ecosystem friendly fishing system, onboard processing capacities featuring complete utilization of the vessel’s targeted catches, and propulsion and generator systems that will substantially reduce fuel usage,” he said.

NOAA, Partners Complete Epic Southeast Alaska Coastal Mapping Project

2012-02-08T11:54:00.001-08:00

Fishermen’s News Alaska Bureau

People around the world can now get an eagle’s-eye view, without leaving home, of the entire Southeast Alaska coastline from Dixon Entrance to Yakutat, thanks to completion of a project known as the ShoreZone Partnership.

The project involved mapping some 19,000 miles of coastal habitat; a milestone equivalent to surveying the entire Pacific coastline of Washington, Oregon and California, twice, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Jan. 11.

NOAA and other members of the ShoreZone Partnership were to do a presentation on the recently completed seven-year project January 19 at the 2012 Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage.

The habitat mapping effort followed ShoreZone protocols that have been applied throughout British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and the remainder of the Gulf of Alaska. The 30,000 km of Southeast Alaska data has been added to the larger statewide ShoreZone dataset.

The project also marks the first time Southeast Alaska’s entire coast has been mapped at the lowest tides of each year.

“One of the amazing aspects of this project is that the entire shoreline is imaged at low tide, which took a lot of planning,” said John Harper, project manager for Coastal & Ocean Resources, a partner and the primary contractor for the project. “Only some of the images on Google Earth have been collected at low tide. So this is the first time we are able to see the entire intertidal zone.”

The Alexander Archipelago, or Alaska’s panhandle, is known for its myriad of well over 1,000 islands and represents almost 40 percent of Alaska’s coastline. Imagery was collected during 20 separate summer surveys since 2004. The Alaska data and imagery – including more than one million video captures and 178,000 high-resolution photographs – are all available online at NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Regional Office website: http://alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/shorezone/.

One of the most exciting aspects of the project is the wide range of ways the images and information can be used, said Jon Kurland, assistant regional administrator for Habitat Conservation for NOAA Fisheries Alaska Regional Office.

“The Alaska ShoreZone data is available on our website in a format that’s easy for the public to use” said Kurland. “It’s a great resource for regulatory agencies, land owners, developers, oil spill responders, and others to help identify important coastal habitat features and even sensitive habitats such as salt marsh or eelgrass.”

The main ShoreZone website where imagery and data can be viewed online is at http://alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/shorezone.

Fuglvog Fined, Sentenced for Federal Fisheries Violations

2012-02-08T11:37:00.002-08:00

Commercial fisheries veteran Arne Fuglvog, who rose to prominence on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and as an aide to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has been fined and sentenced to prison for violation of federal fisheries regulations.

Under the initial plea agreement, he could have been sentenced to up to 10 months in prison for the misdemeanor offense, but federal attorney Aunnie Steward and Fuglvog’s attorney, Jeff Feldman, asked the court for the five-month term, since Fuglvog is aiding prosecutors in another case.

US District Court Judge H. Russel Holland listened intently in an Anchorage courtroom on Feb. 7 as Fuglvog, at times almost tearfully, apologized to the court for falsifying 2005 records about how much sablefish he caught and where he caught it.

Holland then sentenced Fuglvog to five months in federal prison, ordered him to pay a $50,000 fine, and to give the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation $100,000 for use in improving fish habitat in the coastal areas of the Gulf of Alaska.

Holland noted that Fuglvog had no prior criminal record and was unlikely to ever again be involved in commercial fisheries or their regulation. The very serious offense, Holland said, was not so much for the monetary gain or to the fishery resource, but more to the public confidence in the integrity of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, of which Fuglvog was a member when some of the violations occurred. There is damage to public confidence when public officials don’t abide by the law, Holland said.

The Lacey Act provision that Fuglvog admitted violating prohibits knowingly submitting a report that falsely identifies the statistical areas in which the holder of an individual fishing quota caught sablefish. Fuglvog admitted in his plea agreement that between 2001 and 2006 he had IFQ permits authorizing him to fish for sablefish and halibut in the Gulf of Alaska and that he owned and operated a fishing vessel for that purpose. On a number of occasions in different years, he caught fish in one statistical area but submitted reports that he knew asserted falsely that the fish had been caught in a different statistical area, the sentencing memorandum noted.

After he left the federal council in 2006, Fuglvog took a job in Washington D.C. as a fisheries aide to Murkowski. While working in the senator’s office he was also considered as a top candidate to head the National Marine Fisheries Service, but Fuglvog withdrew his candidacy for the post now filled by Eric Schwaab.

NPFMC Decision Limits Sources for Crab Economic Data Reporting

2012-02-08T11:37:00.001-08:00

Federal fisheries manager have made a final decision on collection of crab fishery economic data reports, one that leaves out use of crew contracts and settlement sheets as part of the data.

The decision reached by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council at its February meeting in Seattle to approve a modified version of alternative 3 for EDR data collection came after extensive testimony.

Those opposed to use of crew contracts and settlement sheets expressed concern for possible accidental disclosure of personal crew information, and the cost and time involved in collecting these forms of data.

Among them was Mark Gleason, executive director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, who said his group wanted to limit data collection to that which can be reported by the industry and can be done at a reasonable cost. Gleason expressed particular concern over what he said would be the tremendous cost and possibility of errors and accidental disclosure of personal information if crew contracts and settlement sheets were used.

Shawn Doctermann, a veteran fisherman from Kodiak and head of the Crewmen’s Association, said he had 170 signatures of crewmembers who supported using information on crew contracts and settlement sheets. “You can call any of them and ask them if they would like to see their contracts and settlement sheets collected,” he said.

The council’s scientific and statistical committee noted in its recommendations to the council that the crab rationalization program initiated by congressional action and elaborated by the council was expressly framed as a social contract between the public and those private individuals and entities that were recipients of substantial economic value, embodied in tradable individual fishing quota and individual processor quota access guarantees.

“That social contract was founded partly on exchanging privately held access privileges for detailed proprietary economic data with which to understand the changes caused by rationalization (i.e. quasi-rents, shares markets, crew compensation, community stability and welfare effects, wealth consolidation, behavioral changes in fishing and processing practices and behaviors, net welfare changes to the nation).

“The alternatives under consideration by the council seem to represent a retreat from the balance struck in this contract,” the SSC said.

Pebble Releases Environmental Baseline Document

2012-02-08T11:36:00.001-08:00

A massive new environmental baseline document unveiled by backers of the Pebble mine is billed by mine proponents as information characterizing the physical, biological and social environments of the Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet regions.

Initial reaction to the release from commercial and sport fishing interests, as well as an environmental group based in Dillingham, Alaska, has been one of skepticism.

The document, online at www.pebbleresearch.com, is some 27,000 pages, nearly 2 gigabytes long, too large, the Pebble Limited Partnership acknowledges, to be made available as a single download. Instead, it is suggested visiting the individual chapters to download PDFs of the 53 individual chapters.

Copies of a DVD of the document are available upon request from the Pebble Limited Partnership, which was also handing them out at Forum on the Environment in Anchorage during the second week of February.

Bob Waldrop, executive director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association; Kimberly Williams, executive director of Nunamta Aulukestai (Caretakers of the Land), and Tim Bristol, director of Trout Unlimited Alaska, issued a statement Feb. 3 saying that the data release from the Pebble Partnership has done little to help foster a “more factual” debate on the mine, as proponents of the mine have been calling for in a television advertising campaign.

“The known facts of this proposed project remain the same: It is a giant and diffuse sulfide ore body in a seismically active zone beneath the salmon-rich headwaters of the Nushagak and Kvichak drainages,” they said. “Any project to develop the ore body at Pebble puts the Bristol Bay Basin’s aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as the region’s world class salmon fishery, at risk.”

Waldrop, Williams and Bristol noted that the information presented in the document had already been presented to a number of agencies and government officials in Anchorage at meetings to which the general public was not invited. Instead they were limited to access through an online webcast until, after objections were raised, one representative from each Bristol Bay tribe was allowed to attend.

Seafood Profits Will Aid 17 Communities in Western Alaska

2012-02-08T11:35:00.000-08:00

Seventeen western Alaska villages within the region of the Norton Sound Economic Development Corp. will share in nearly $1 million in funds whose distribution was announced by the community development quota group in early February.

NSEDC officials said the projects funded range from new safety equipment for whalers at Savoonga to renovation of a teen center at Shaktoolik.

NSEDC has provided grants to regional entities since the mid-1990s and has formally operated its outside entity funding program for nearly a decade, providing grant funds to municipal governments, federally recognized tribal governments, non-profit organizations, and local, state and federal agencies located in NSEDC member communities. The program is currently under the jurisdiction of the Western Alaska Community Development Quota program and a coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

On Feb. 6 the NSEDC board announced approval of $647,342 toward projects requested by 17 entities in its member communities. An additional $100,000 was divided between two regional projects and $213,126 was approved for two fisheries-related projects.

On the regional level, the CDQ organization funded proposals of $75,000 for the Nome Volunteer Fire Department for firefighting equipment that will be stored in flight-ready packs, and $25,000 for an elder assistance project in Unalakleet.

NSEWDC is one of six private non-profit corporations established by the state of Alaska in 1992 to promote fisheries related economic development in western Alaska. The program is a federal fisheries program that involves a total of 65 communities who are members of one of the CDQ groups. The program allocates a portion of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Island harvest amounts of Pollock, halibut, Pacific cod, crab and bycatch species to the CDQ groups.

Vigor Industrial to Acquire Alaska Ship & Drydock

2012-02-08T11:34:00.000-08:00

Alaska Ship and Drydock Inc. (ASD) and Vigor Industrial yesterday jointly announced their intent to make ASD a Vigor company.

ASD will transition its business and assets to Vigor pending approval of the transfer of ownership by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), the owner of the Ketchikan Shipyard where ASD is based. The private companies hope to finalize their agreement on or before March 1st.

ASD would operate the Ketchikan Shipyard (KSY) as the Alaska Ship & Drydock LLC subsidiary, in continuation of its thirty year AIDEA operating agreements.

“The purchase of ASD by Vigor will increase the capacity and competitiveness of the Ketchikan Shipyard in many ways, positioning Ketchikan and the State of Alaska to not only continue our high level of service to existing customers, but to significantly participate in exciting new markets emerging in the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans,” said ASD owner Randy Johnson, a Ketchikan resident who has directed operations at KSY since 1994.

Vigor Industrial currently owns and operates several maritime services in the Pacific Northwest at facilities from Portland through Puget Sound.

The combined companies would offer a full range of ship building, repair and modernization services in seven facilities in Alaska, Washington and Oregon with ten drydocks, more than 17,000 feet of pier space as well as large-scale fabrication facilities, specialty coatings and other industrial services. Upon approval, the companies will employ close to 2,000 workers across the Pacific Northwest.

Adam Beck, currently general manager of the Vigor Marine subsidiary’s regional operations, will take on added duties as ASD’s President. Beck worked at the Ketchikan yard for five years prior to joining Vigor Industrial in Portland.

Groundfish Quota Plan Marks First Anniversary with Mixed Reviews – More Changes Loom Through 2013

2012-02-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

By Terry Dillman

February 2012

A long-debated groundfish management system that officially weighed anchor last January remains controversial as everyone involved tries to adjust to new relationships and managers continue to tinker with and tweak procedures.

The Northwest Regional Office of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service inaugurated what’s known as a catch share or quota system for groundfish trawlers who harvest off the coasts of Oregon, Washington and California on Jan. 11, 2011. The overall aim, according to NOAA officials, is to “increase individual fishermen’s accountability, fully harvest the quota the trawl fishermen are granted, increase the economic and biological stability in the fishery, and sustain fishing jobs and fishing communities.”

Managers say the fishery – which includes popular species like sole, and Pacific whiting – is worth as much as $40 million per year, and the quota system is designed to stabilize it, making it safer and more efficient.

The catch share program divvies up the total allowable catch into specific allocations – or shares – for fishermen, cooperatives, communities, processors, and others. They can only fish until they reach their assigned limit. Shares are typically allocated based on historical participation levels in the fishery. The fishermen can decide how to catch their allotment when weather, markets, and their individual business conditions are most favorable. New regulations established formal allocations for limited entry trawl participants, along with procedures for initial permit issuance, endorsements, and quota shares.

With the system’s first anniversary in the hold, reviews – while decidedly mixed – are steering toward guardedly optimistic.

Things are “going pretty good,” said Sara Skamser, who runs Foulweather Trawl in Newport, Oregon. “We’re crazy busy here.”

Skamser is a seasoned trawl manufacturer, developing and marketing “excluders” (including a key one to keep halibut out of trawl nets) and other gear designed to help fishermen avoid catching non-target, over-fished or endangered species. As such, she has direct contact with fishermen from Alaska to California almost daily, and is keenly aware of how catch shares have impacted the fishery, from small boats to large trawlers, as well as supporting marine-related businesses.

Some fishermen, she noted, stayed out of the fishery this season, afraid of the implications and taking a wait-and-see stance. Others took the plunge.

“They had to face facts, and those who stayed were pretty happy,” said Skamser, noting that many were able to deliver more pounds of fish at a better price. “It’s doing what it’s designed to do in terms of conservation and environmental impact. It made the guys fish cleaner. It’s really clean fishing.”

Advocates like David Jincks of Newport, a commercial trawler and member of the Port of Newport’s board of commissioners, say the system is working, making the West Coast trawl fishery “the most accountable” in the nation. They say fishermen are earning more for their catches; are working together, replacing the usually fierce competition with communication and collaboration; and experimenting with new gear innovations and modifications designed to reduce or eliminate bycatch of unwanted species.

By providing guaranteed individual shares and ending the rush to sea to catch fish before a competitor does, he said fishermen can take their time and “fish smarter.”

There are some drawbacks.

Skamser referred to the “mountains of paperwork” required for involvement in the program, and the glitches related to managing all that paper. The system also put fishermen with lease permits – mostly smaller vessels – out of business, as many observers expected. Participating fishermen are also required to share the costs of having observers on all fishing trips, along with an overhanging “buy-back fee” that collects five percent of the value of fish deliveries.

Members of the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC), fishermen, federal and state government leaders and others are watching closely as the process unfolds.

During its June 2011 session, the council established the ad hoc Cost Recovery Committee (CRC) to provide recommendations on ways to recover at least some of the costs. The Magnuson Stevens Act requires a regional fishery management council to develop a catch recovery program for fisheries managed under a quota system, paid for by the fishing industry up to a limit of three percent of the value of the fishery. In the end, fishermen say the three percent value would amount to far higher than three percent of the profit from the fishery, and the CRC is in place to help shape a fair and equitable cost recovery program.

Jincks, who heads up the Midwater Trawlers Cooperative (MTC) in Newport, is the committee’s shoreside whiting representative, and had referred to the fishery having turned into “a derby nightmare” long before management agencies began steering a course toward developing the quota system. He and others say the former fishery management system of trip limits, area closures and gear restrictions designed to protect and restore fish populations wasn’t working.

The quotas, they note, are needed to revive fisheries and to protect and restore fishing communities and jobs, noting that catch shares decrease costs and boost fishermen’s revenue through greater efficiency, yields and dockside prices.

Now they need to figure out how to pay the piper and work out other glitches. Skamser said the fishery is moving from a doom-and-gloom, end-of-the-fishery attitude and moving forward, despite ongoing trepidation on the part of many who remain skeptical of the system and others who simply outright give it two fins down. “There will probably be a lot fewer boats,” she said.

Advocates say the remaining vessels and operators will be much more viable.

Getting Here From There
NOAA Fisheries Service mailed applications to more than 270 trawl fishermen and processors along the West Coast near the end of 2010, requesting their participation in what many consider the most vital course change in West Coast trawl fisheries management in a generation of fishing. Those application forms were a critical step for any fisherman who wanted access to a specified share of the valuable bottomfish trawl harvest.

NOAA officials endorsed the system, which amended the Pacific Coast Groundfish Management Plan that governs trawl groundfish harvests off the coasts of Oregon, Washington and California. They said the proposed system would for the first time ever “make a major shift in how certain West Coast fish harvests are managed” - a change that could benefit both fish and fishermen, and lead to “economic efficiencies that are difficult to obtain under traditional management schemes.”

They also said the system had gained the support of the trawl industry after undergoing a controversial process initiated by PFMC in 2003.

Sustainable fisheries are considered an “essential component” of national ocean policy, and a new NOAA policy adopted in 2009 supports catch shares as a way to manage fisheries at sustainable levels, and boost their economic performance. According to the agency, well-designed catch share programs “help rebuild fisheries and sustain fishermen, communities, and vibrant working waterfronts, including the cultural and resource access traditions that have been a part of this country since its founding.”

Will Stelle, NOAA Fisheries Service northwest regional administrator, said the program “can benefit both fish and fishermen,” and “lead to economic efficiencies that are difficult to obtain under traditional management, while sustaining healthy fish stocks.” He has noted that traditional methods create a situation of “too many vessels going after too few fish.”

Share and Share Alike?
By whatever name – trawl rationalization, catch share or quota – the system replaces the conventional practice of setting a fleet-wide quota of fish and setting the fishermen loose to compete with each other and catch as much of the quota as possible before the fishery closes. Catch share programs divvy up the total allowable catch into specific allocations - or shares - for fishermen, cooperatives, communities, processors, and others, who can only fish until they reach their assigned limit.

Advocates deem it a more equitable way to allocate the harvest, dividing each season’s total allowable catch or quota into shares controlled by individual fishermen or processors. Environmental groups say catch shares reduce waste and accidental catch of protected species.

NOAA’s top administrator Jane Lubchenco, who hails from Oregon, is making catch shares a vital piece of NOAA’s fishing policy. A NOAA task force is busy looking at other fisheries for potential conversion to individual catch shares.

Opponents still say quotas could decimate the fishery, calling it de facto privatization of a public resource, and another regulatory burden in an already over-regulated industry. More than a few fishermen feel they are caught in a situation over which they have no control. Some estimate that about 40 to 60 percent of the drag fleet will eventually disappear, leaving ports in an economic lurch. Many said the catch share plan would affect all fishermen. Those who voluntarily or involuntarily drop out of the groundfish fishery, but want to continue fishing, would cast their lot with other lucrative fisheries, such as pink shrimp and Dungeness crabs, intensifying competition in those already tight markets.

Fishery managers are determined to move forward. Much work remains.

The PFMC continued to focus on a variety of “trailing actions” during its November 2011 meeting. The council will continue to look at the issues, aiming to take action during the March and April 2012 meetings, and put council recommendations in place by Jan. 1, 2013. Other issues, among them reduction of observer costs, must wait until 2014.

Perhaps the biggest looming change of all is allowing permit holders to sell their permits, beginning in 2013. Opponents say it will bring the death knell for smaller trawlers no longer able to compete under the quota system.

Terry Dillman can be reached at tdwordwright@gmail.com

IPHC Sets 2012 Quotas

2012-02-01T10:25:00.000-08:00

The International Pacific Halibut Commission wrapped up its 88th annual meeting in Anchorage on Jan 28, with recommendations for combined Canadian-US catch limits in 2012 of 33,540,000 pounds, down 18.3 percent from 41,070,000 pounds in 2011.

The cut was no surprise to those in attendance, who expressed growing concern over the declining resource. The IPHC itself expressed concern over continued declining catch rates in several areas and took aggressive steps to reduce harvests.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which is meeting today through Feb. 7 in Seattle, has set aside eight hours for an initial review of a fishery management plan amendment to set Gulf of Alaska halibut prohibited species catch limits.

A number of halibut fishermen also would like to see the council place full observer coverage on groundfish vessels harvesting in the Gulf of Alaska for what they feel would produce a more accurate count of halibut caught incidentally to that fishery.

In its revised gulf halibut PSC plan issued late last year, the council noted that current gulf groundfish harvest specifications annually establish a 2,000 mt halibut PSC limit for trawl gear and a 300 mt halibut prohibited species bycatch for hook and line gear.

Jeff Stephan, who is the manager of United Fishermen’s Marketing Association in Kodiak, said an assortment of factors impact the productivity of the halibut, but that the cumulative and additive impacts of more than 25 years of underestimating halibut bycatch and not understanding or factoring the extent of such bycatch on the health of the resource for many years likely has had a significant impact on parameters of resource distribution, health and productivity.

Stephan said the structure of the current federal observer program has not provided an accurate portrayal of bycatch removals and that it is not yet reasonably clear that the revised observer program structure will meet the necessary objectives for estimating halibut bycatch.

Former council member Linda Behnken, president of the Halibut Coalition in Sitka, said her organization is “deeply concerned about the financial impacts of this quota reduction on small family owned businesses throughout Alaska. “The quota reductions are painful, but commercial fishermen will respect the limits that have been set,” she said. We expect the guided sport industry to do the same. Everyone has to share in conserving and rebuilding the resource.”

Southeast Alaska Crab Fisheries Begin Feb. 16

2012-02-01T10:24:00.000-08:00

Southeast Alaska harvesters are gearing up for the start of the golden king and tanner crab fisheries, which open concurrently at noon on Feb. 16. The guideline harvest level for the golden king crab fishery is 625,000 pounds. Adam Messmer of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game notes that the quotas are set on a three-year basis and this is the third year for that quota allowance.

For the golden king crab fishery, vessels are limited to 100 pots; for the tanner crab fishery, 80 pots. Vessels fishing for both harvests are limited to 10 pots.

The registration deadline for both fisheries was Jan. 17 and there is a $45 late fee for registration after that date. Last year a total of 35 vessels were registered for the golden king crab fishery, which is about average, Messmer said.

In some areas with smaller quotas the golden king crab fishery can run through November, but in 2011, harvesters were done by the beginning of June, thanks to high prices. Pay at the docks started at about $6 a pound and soared to about $9.70 a pound.

The tanner crab fishery is set up differently, based on whether there is a 2.3 million pound mature male abundance, and will be open this February. Messmer said that the average price for tanner crab last year was $2.85, compared to $1.63 in 2010, and $1.78 in 2009. Last year harvesters fished in the core areas for a total of seven days and in non-core areas for 12 days.

Final Action on Crab Economic Data Reports

2012-02-01T10:17:00.000-08:00

Final action on Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands crab economic data reports revisions is scheduled this week during the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s meeting at the Renaissance Hotel in Seattle. In advance of the meeting, council staff prepared a regulatory impact review and initial regulatory flexibility analysis, which is online at www.fakr.noaa.gov/npfmc/PDFdocuments/catch_shares/Crab/CrabEDR212.pdf

Staff note in their report that, as part of the crab rationalization program which went into effect in 2005, the council developed an economic data collection program to provide information to analysts to assess effects of the program and future amendments to the program.

The nine crab fisheries managed under the rationalization program include Bristol Bay red king crab, Bering sea Chionocetes opilio, Eastern Bering Sea bairdi, Western Bering Sea bairdi, Pribilof red and blue king crab, St. Matthew island blue king crab, Western Aleutian Islands red king crab, Eastern Aleutian islands golden king crab, and Western Aleutian Islands golden king crab.

Based on reviews of the data, it has been established that certain data elements collected are not accurately or consistently reported across respondents, preventing their use for some intended purposes, and other elements are wholly or partially redundant with other data collection, staff said. The council therefore initiated action to review data collection.

The review and analysis discusses several alternatives, including status quo, for catcher vessels, shore plant and floating processors and catcher processors.

Pebble Mine Bill Before Alaska Legislature

2012-02-01T10:14:00.000-08:00

The second session of the 27th Alaska Legislature now underway has before it several measures dealing with fisheries related issues, including Senate Bill 152, to require legislative approval for operation of a large scale metallic sulfide mining in Southwest Alaska.

The measure by Sen. Hollis French, D-Anchorage, does not name the Pebble Mine. It states simply that the legislators would have to approve operation of such a mine that could aversely affect the waters of the Bristol Bay Fisheries Reserve. The measure is specific that it would not apply to existing mining operations in Alaska or mines that do not affect the waters of Bristol Bay. The bill has been referred to the Senate Community and Regional Affairs Committee chaired by Sen. Donny Olson, D- Golovin.

House Bill 184, sponsored by Rep. Peggy Wilson, R-Wrangell, and Rep. Steve Thompson, R-Fairbanks, would amend state statutes to allow 75 percent of the fisheries business tax paid by fish processors to go to communities, up millions of dollars from the current 50 percent.

State officials have projected revenue from this tax for 2012 is about $60 million, up from about $44 million in 2010. This means that communities would get some $45 million, including about $15 million that would have otherwise gone into the state’s general fund.

House Bill 261, sponsored by Rep. Bryce Edgmon, D-Dillingham, and aimed at increasing participation of Alaskans in commercial fisheries, has moved from House Fisheries to House Finance since its introduction in January, but was not yet scheduled for a hearing. The measure has the backing of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp. and Bristol Bay Native Corp. The Alaska Commercial Fisheries and Agriculture Bank has voiced concerns about the effectiveness of the measure.

Follow the progress of these and other bills through the current session at www.legis.state.ak.us

No Immediate Danger from ISA Virus Says Pathologist

2012-01-25T12:20:00.001-08:00

By Margaret Bauman

Alaska’s chief fish pathologist said Dec. 7 that the state’s wild Pacific salmon stocks are in no immediate danger from the infectious salmon anemia virus, a pathogen linked to fish farming that has killed millions of salmon in Chile and Europe.

“I think science will prevail and at some point we will get some answers, but I don’t think our wild stocks are in immediate jeopardy,” said Ted Meyers, in a telephone interview from his Juneau office.

“I think we need to get more information. We need to first corroborate the research that has already been done (in Canada) and reexamine it. The current testing in Canada has looked at over 5,000 farmed fish and 500 wild fish and they have never found a pathogenic virus,” he said.

As for the newly released reports that the virus was detected a decade ago, Meyers said “ It would have been nice if the scientific community had been apprised of those results. If the information had been released then (in 2002) it would have diffused the hysteria of the rediscovery.”

Meyers, who has been in steady contact with his Canadian counterparts, spoke after news emerged of an unpublished report that the virus was detected a decade ago off British Columbia’s coast. The virus is not harmful to humans, but it is known to devastate farmed salmon stocks and there is concern that the ISA could spread to wild Pacific stocks.

Meyers noted that there are different strains of ISA virus, the pathogen strains found in Atlantic salmon, and the ancestral or wild strain, which is non-pathogenic and found in wild stocks in Norway.

The pathogenic strain causes destruction of cells and produces disease in the host fish, while the ancestral strain co-exists very nicely with the host fish without causing disease, he said.

“It’s like a virus in humans,” he said. “Some are benign and some are not.”
What likely happened is that when fish farming was put into place in Canada the ancestral strain mutated into the farmed Atlantic salmon, and it is entirely feasible that we have our own Pacific strain as well, he said.

Canadian authorities have been doing required testing of farmed salmon in that nation for about eight years and no pathogenic strains of the virus have been found, he said. The PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test is a molecular test to detect nucleonic acids from the target organism researchers are trying to detect.

“They have not, to their knowledge, imported any pathogenic virus from wherever they have gotten their Atlantic salmon eggs, he said, “so they need to corroborate the 2002 information of a non-pathogenic strain in wild stocks and then we can go from there,” he said.

Alaska, meanwhile is participating in a planning program with the state of Washington and federal agencies, for similar testing, but it will take a while to establish what will be done, what laboratories will do it, and to be sure surveillance tests are in place.

“We would sample our own fish in Alaska, incorporate those fish into our usual programs for other disease pathogens,” he said. “We do it every year. We look at our own stocks for different viruses and would incorporate ISA virus testing as one of those.”

News of the unpublished 2002 studies has prompted much concern, with the Los Angeles Times calling the issue “Salmongate,” and the News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington expressing its editorial viewpoint that there is something fishy about Canada’s response to salmon virus reports.

Almost a decade ago, it turns out, there were reports of a European strain of ISA in 117 fish from Alaska to Vancouver Island, though none of the fish were sick, the newspaper noted. This led the fisheries biologist Molly Kibenge to surmise that a nonlethal form of ISA may be present in Northwest wild salmon.

“The fear with ISA has always been that it could mutate into a lethal form. Yet Canadian fishery officials failed to follow up on Kibenge’s research and neglected to inform their American counterparts of her findings. The only reason the news is getting out now is that Kibenge and her husband, a noted fish virologist, went public after her request to publish her old data was denied.”

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, on Dec. 1 expressed her concern on the status of the virus reports. “These troubling reports reinforce the need for a coordinated, multi-national strategy to control the spread of this virus threat,” Cantwell said. “American and Canadian scientists need to have access to all relevant research on this deadly virus. We can’t afford to leave the Pacific Northwest’s fishery jobs at risk.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, asked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration what details, if any, were known by the US of the previous research, and how this new information is being taken into account in plans to expand testing efforts.

Murkowski said she was troubled when reports appeared earlier this fall of the ISA virus being in fisheries. “But now I am absolutely alarmed that this was not the first our neighbors to the east had heard of this, and had sat on critical information for ten years, putting us 10 years behind in addressing this situation,” she said.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margieb42@mtaonline.net.

Lower-Interest Loans for Entry Permits to be Considered by Alaska Legislature

2012-01-25T12:09:00.001-08:00

Legislation introduced in the second session of the 27th Alaska Legislature by Rep. Bryce Edgmon, D- Dillingham, would amend the state’s Commercial Fishing Loan Act to allow lower-interest loans for entry permits under section B of the revolving loan fund.

Edgmon said the purpose of the legislation, currently before the House Fisheries Committee, is to increase Alaskan ownership of Alaskan fisheries by enabling a larger number of state residents to purchase limited entry commercial fishing permits.

House Bill 261 would modify Section B of the Commercial Fishing Loan Act to allow loans for entry permits of two percent below the prime rate with an interest floor of three percent, Edgmon said. Additionally, to address the reality of today’s permit costs, the bill would increase the maximum loan amount for entry permits under section B from $100,000 to $200,000, he said.

These loans would only be available to Alaska resident borrowers who are not eligible for financing from commercial banks, so they would not put the state in competition with private sector lenders.

“This legislation holds special promise for young Alaskan entrepreneurs, who in recent years have found it more difficult to secure the large amounts of capital needed to launch gainful, life-long fisheries businesses,” Edgmon said. “By helping a larger number of young Alaskans pursue ownership-level careers in fisheries, HB 261 will contribute to efforts to reverse the ‘graying of the fleet’ – the worrying increase in the average age of resident skippers in commercial fisheries across Alaska.”

The Dillingham Democrat said that support of HB 261 would strengthen one of the Commercial Fishing Loan Act’s most important purposes, to develop predominantly resident fisheries in Alaska. “In turn, by helping to put a greater number of limited entry permits in residents’ hands and by keeping a greater proportion of fisheries earnings in the state, HB 261 will strengthen Alaska’s economy,” he said.

Also before the Alaska House Fisheries Committee are several other bills introduced in the first half of the 27th session of the Legislature, last winter, including House Bill 237, to declare June 10 of every year Alaska Wild Salmon Day.

That measure, introduced by Edgmon, has a number of sponsors, but has not moved out of committee yet. It would honor the enormous bounty that wild king, sockeye, coho, chum and pink salmon bring to the state year after year.

Court Rules That NMFS Properly Imposed Fishing Restrictions to Protect Sea Lions

2012-01-25T12:08:00.000-08:00

A federal judge in Anchorage says that commercial fishing restrictions to protect Steller sea lions in the western Aleutian Islands were properly imposed, but likely will order the National Marine Fisheries Service to prepare an environmental impact statement.

US District Judge Timothy Burgess handed down his decision Jan. 19 in Anchorage, in litigation brought against NMFS by the state of Alaska and the Alaska Seafood Cooperative. Burgess set a Feb. 8 deadline to file briefs responding to the court’s proposed decision. The case is seen by some as critical to the future of the commercial Pacific cod and Atka mackerel fisheries in the western Aleutians, and by others as critical to the future survival of the endangered Steller sea lions.

Commercial fishing interests engaged in the Pacific cod and Atka mackerel fisheries in the western Aleutians say the initial rule is causing them to lose millions of dollars annually in fish they cannot harvest. By NMFS’s own estimate, “the loss to the groundfish industry is $44 million to $61 million annually,” said Linda Larson, an attorney for the Alaska Seafood Cooperative.
John Gauvin, an industry veteran currently working as science director for the Alaska Seafood Cooperative, said he was disappointed that the judge didn’t see that NMFS misapplied the jeopardy standard.

The trend for the western Aleutians was that the Stellers were declining, he said.

“They used that to conclude that the overall population of Stellers was in jeopardy. The bi-op (biological opinion) doesn’t demonstrate that the decline in one small population area jeopardized the overall population of sea lions. In fact, NMFS admitted that overall the western population is increasing overall by 1.5 percent,” he said.

Environmental attorneys with Oceana, who intervened in the case, meanwhile applauded the judge’s decision to keep the protections in place, to reduce competition for fish between large-scale commercial fisheries and the endangered Steller sea lions.

“It’s a good day for our oceans,” said Susan Murray, Oceana’s senior director for the Pacific region.

On the heels of the Burgess ruling came a report from researchers at Oregon State University and the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward noting that killer whales and other ocean predators are killing Steller sea lions pups in increasingly high numbers.

The researchers had monitored 36 juvenile sea lions in Alaska’s Kenai Fjords and Prince William Sound region of the Gulf of Alaska from 2005 through 2011 and documented, using tag data transmitted by satellite, the deaths of 11 pups. Results of their work, plus a computer model o survival rates, “suggest predation on juvenile sea lions as the largest impediment to recover of the species in the eastern Gulf of Alaska region,” the researchers said in a report published online Jan. 17 in the scientific journal PLoS One.

Major Processors, Newcomers, Compete in 2012 Alaska Symphony of Seafood

2012-01-25T12:07:00.000-08:00

Seafood industry veterans and newcomers alike are vying for top honors in the 2012 Alaska Symphony of Seafood, with judging in Seattle on Feb. 2 and winners to be announced at a gala soiree in Anchorage on Feb 10.

First place winners in the retail, food service and smoked products categories, along with grand prize and people’s choice winners, will get a trip to and booth space at the International Boston Seafood Show in March.

Among the competitors in retail products are Trident Seafoods, with Trident Cheddar Crumb encrusted Pollock and Wild Alaskan Smoked King Salmon, Ocean Beauty Seafoods’ Echo Falls Sockeye Salmon Pinwheels and Louvier’s Wild Alaskan Salmon Cajun Rice Dressing.

Maria Louvier, who owns the fledging Anchorage company Louvier’s with her husband, Jason, said their entries use wild Alaska salmon as the main ingredient in the dressing. The couple rented space in a church kitchen for the competition, she said, because they got rave reviews for the dressing, which is like stuffing, from friends and family. Louvier’s has also entered its wild Alaskan Salmon Cajun Rice Dressing Croquette in the food service competition.

Eleven of the 19 entries are from Alaska based firms, including Pickled Willys of Kodiak, Tracy’s King Crab Shack of Juneau, Tustumena Smokehouse of Kasilof, and Kwik'Pak Fisheries of Emmonk.

Rounding out the entries are others from Trident Seafoods- last year’s grand prize winner – plus others from AquaCuisine, American Pride Seafoods, and Triad Fisheries.

More information on the competition is at www.symphonyofseafood.com

NOAA Biologists Brave Winter Seas on Sablefish Research Cruise

2012-01-25T12:01:00.000-08:00

Federal fisheries scientists say they hope to get some concrete answers on the age when female sablefish become reproductively active by examining fish ovaries gathered during stormy winter cruise near Kodiak.

During the December 2011 cruise aboard the chartered FV Gold Rush, the scientists collected data on the length, age, weight and anatomical features, along with ovaries from 385 female sablefish.

The study is a joint effort led by Jim Stark of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s Resource Assessment and Conservation Engineering division, with Katy Echave of the Auke Bay Laboratories division, with support from NOAA’s Alaska regional office.

Although NOAA has been conducting maturity observations on sablefish in Alaska since 1979, the research was always done in summer months when maturity is difficult to assess. By conducting the research in winter, when scientists can clearly identify mature females that will spawn during the next annual spawning cycle, scientists will be able to provide the first accurate estimate of the age that female sablefish become reproductively active, NOAA officials said.

Cara Rodgveller, another NOAA biologist involved in the study, said that mid--December is a good time to sample maturing fish since almost all fish were preparing to spawn but have not yet spawned. Since there is very little knowledge of the winter distribution of sablefish preparing to spawn, Echave placed satellite tags on several individual sablefish to monitor their movements during the spawning season over the next few months.

These tags were set to pop up to the surface in mid-January and February and transmit data to a satellite.

Other fishery scientists will use the information collected during the sablefish cruise to determine the spawning stock size and ultimately set sustainable catch levels for Alaska waters.

Oregon’s Pink Shrimp Fishery Trying to Net Eco-Recertification

2012-01-18T11:01:00.001-08:00

By Terry Dillman

Yaquina Bay, ORNewport’s fishing fleet casts reflections in Yaquina Bay in the early morning light of a tranquil day. Oregon’s pink shrimp fishery based in Newport, Charleston and Astoria was the first fishery in the state and the first shrimp fishery worldwide to earn eco-friendly certification from the international Marine Stewardship Council in 2007. Fishery managers are currently seeking recertification. Photo by Terry Dillman.

In 2007, Oregon’s pink shrimp fishery became the state’s first fishery and the world’s first shrimp fishery to earn certification – and the blue eco-label on their products signifying the achievement – from the international Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

At the time, then-Gov. Ted Kulongoski called the designation “a very important milestone in sustainability that will bring international attention to our state. This achievement represents a significant step in identifying Oregon as a leader in sustainable resource management.”

Now fishery leaders and managers, seeking to sustain the label, have voluntarily entered a full reassessment process to obtain recertification.

An international non-profit organization, MSC operates the world’s leading independent certification program for wild fisheries, bestowing its coveted blue eco-label on those fisheries it deems well-managed and sustainable, and using that label to educate consumers about those fisheries. Council officials said they are “dedicated to improving the health of the world’s oceans and creating a sustainable global seafood market.”

Focusing on three main principles – fish stock health, fishery management and the fishery’s effects on the ecosystem, council certification for pink shrimp involved an intense process that began with pre-assessment in 2003, followed by full assessment beginning in 2005 and wrapping up late in 2007. The Oregon Trawl Commission (OTC), which represents Oregon’s traditional groundfish, whiting and pink shrimp fisheries, funded and provided documentation for the fishery’s certification review. The trawl commission provides support for education, research and marketing, and advocates for proposed legislation on behalf of those fleets and fisheries.

The certification, which lasts five years with annual surveillance audits, featured improvement actions for the fishery to put in place, among them recording additional data in vessel logbooks and obtaining more independent research about the fishery’s catch and ecosystem impacts to glean information for fishery managers.

“Certification confirms to the public, retailers, the conservation community and our government officials that the Oregon pink shrimp fishery is managed to the highest standards in the world,” said Brad Pettinger, OTC director. He said they look forward to the recertification effort to prove that the fishery “is deserving of the right to use” the MSC’s blue label.

Intertek Moody Marine will conduct the independent reassessment process, which officials expect to take about a year.
Value and Viability
Fished from the cold waters of the Pacific, Oregon pink shrimp or ocean shrimp (often erroneously called bay shrimp or simply salad shrimp) are – compared to the larger species usually found in supermarkets and restaurants – the real “shrimps” of the shrimp world, with 100 to 160 whole shrimp comprising one pound.

Started in 1957, Oregon’s commercial pink shrimp fleet is considered one of the most consistently valuable commercial trawl fisheries in the state. Centered off the Oregon coast with operations extending from Washington to northern California, the 50 to 60-vessel fleet works out of Newport, Charleston, and Astoria. With short at-sea trips and immediate on-board icing, pink shrimp fishermen quickly deliver their catch to shore for cooking, peeling, and freezing.

Best of all, they do it in an ecologically friendly manner.

Pettinger said fishery activities and shrimp landings are carefully monitored “to maintain an ecologically sustainable trawl fishery.”

While many shrimp species exist in the ocean off Oregon’s shores, pink shrimp is the only species found in quantities large enough for commercial harvest. Populations vary widely from year-to-year, and their life history makes them somewhat naturally resistant to overharvest, since overall numbers determine take.

The season is open from April 1 to October 31 to avoid interfering with the typical December-to-March reproductive cycle and taking the emerging young shrimp. Pink shrimp have a life span of just four years, with two-year-olds the most common age found in the commercial catch. That catch must average 160 or fewer shrimp per pound, so fishermen shy away from areas with higher populations of one-year-old or younger (and smaller) shrimp.

Primary management tools - beyond mandatory commercial fishing licenses and limited entry shrimp fishing permit system - are season, shrimp size (age) and gear modifications, said Pettinger, noting that the fishery historically concentrates on four beds - “areas of commercially sustainable populations” where the bottom is relatively flat and smooth, consisting of mostly green mud or sand. Those beds expand or shrink each season, depending on the shrimp population at the time.

Boats generally work during the day, since shrimp migrate off the bottom at night to feed, and most are double-rigged, with nets set at depths of 450 to 750 feet (75 to 125 fathoms).

“Trawls used to catch Oregon pink shrimp do not have full contact with the sea floor, which means that bycatch of unwanted fish is greatly reduced,” an OTC fact sheet notes.

In addition, boats often work together to locate the highest densities and largest sizes of pink shrimp.

Feeling ‘Grate’
However, the main key to the fishery’s latest eco-exploits involves harvesting with trawl nets containing a Bycatch Reduction Device (BRD) known as the Oregon Grate, a “fish sorter” placed in the net to separate the shrimp from other fish and prevent excessive incidental capture of other species, such as hake and rockfish. Developed through a long-term collaboration between the fishery and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) and its Marine Resources Program (MRP), the grate keeps the shrimp in the net while allowing most fish to escape, guided by either rigid aluminum grids (preferred by most fishermen) or soft panels through a large opening at the top of the net.

ODFW/MRP scientists say shrimp trawl fisheries worldwide are notorious for high levels of fish bycatch. They cite on-going monitoring and research during the past three decades, along with mandatory logbooks, biological sampling, and population dynamics modeling, as factors in raising the ecological profile of Oregon’s pink shrimp fishery.

But the collaborative effort with the fishery in developing and mandating use of BRDs really made the difference.

Use of the grates – mandatory in Oregon since April 1, 2003 - helped make the Oregon pink shrimp fishery one of the “cleanest” fisheries, with little or no impact on other commercial species. Their use first led to a “Best Choice” recommendation from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, which also caters to environmentally concerned seafood consumers, and played a major role in earning the MSC sustainability nod.

Jeff Boardman, who has 31 years of shrimping experience, 25 aboard his trawler F/V Miss Yvonne, helped develop the grate in 2001 and credited the cooperative research effort – research that he said actually began in 1994 – for getting the fishery to this pinnacle of success. In particular, he gave ODFW’s Bob Hannah, Steve Jones, and Keith Matteson his seal of approval. Matteson, he noted, “did a lot of underwater camera work” to show the effectiveness of BRDs. Based in Newport at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, Hannah and Jones – project leaders for the commercial pink shrimp fishery – were instrumental in assisting the OTC in the certification effort.

They also publish an annual pink shrimp newsletter, which outlines trends, issues, and other vital information with fishery participants.

“This should prove to fishermen these things are actually working,” Boardman said. “It makes the fishing a lot cleaner and the product a lot fresher, with a lot less effort on deck.”

Long-time commercial fisherman and current Lincoln County Commissioner Terry Thompson called the 2007 certification “a real success story” that began when the state legislature under former Gov. John Kitzhaber restored ODFW research funding. He also lauded ODFW for not forcing the BRD issue.

“They let the fleet work on it,” he noted. “The fishermen perfected the device.”

Thompson also pointed to the pink shrimp fishery as a prime example of the best way to manage ocean resources. “When we go after shrimp, we catch shrimp,” he added.

“Although we produce just two percent of the world’s coldwater shrimp supply, Oregon is leading the way for other shrimp fisheries, and providing a best case example of how to run and manage a sustainable fishery,” said Pettinger.

Yields during the past decade tell the tale: Shrimpers took 6.1 million pounds in 1998, followed by 20.5 million (1999), 25.5 million (2000), 28.5 million (2001), 41.6 million (2002), 20.6 million (2003), 12.2 million (2004), 15.8 million (2005), 12.2 million (2006), 20.1 million (2007), 25.6 million (2008), 22.1 million (2009) and 31.4 million (2010).

Market Boost?
Fresh pink shrimp are available at local and regional markets during the season (April 1 to October 31), while canned and frozen shrimp are marketed throughout the year.

Going green and earning the blue was touted as a way to keep this vital Oregon fishery in the pink, or at least out of the red. Reality has yet to even get within shouting distance of the hype in terms of boosting ex-vessel prices, but most shrimpers remain pragmatic about it, knowing that numerous other factors beyond catering to the folks of the green revolution are at work.

From a marketing standpoint, Oregon Department of Agriculture and fishery officials said in 2007 that certification would help the fishery maintain existing access and possibly provide access to new markets, since it allows Oregon pink shrimp to go to market as a premium product. “This program is targeted to consumers,” Katy Coba, director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, said when the fishery first earned the designation. “The MSC eco-label goes onto the product and consumers will see that label at the retail level. This certification gives a boost to the credibility of Oregon wild fisheries in both the domestic and international marketplace.”

MSC officials said global demand for independently certified and labeled sustainable seafood is growing, and certification allows Oregon pink shrimp to go to market as a premium product.

Little has changed since then, as possible fell short of probable, at least at the fishermen’s level.

Corey Rock, skipper of Newport-based F/V Kylie Lynn, said he really saw no up-tick in market prices during the past four seasons, but slapping the MSC label on their products did broaden the market scope.

“It might not help us to have it at the moment, but it could hurt us not to,” he said, noting continued public clamor for sustainable commercial fisheries that are conservation-minded and eco-friendly as a result. That clamor, Rock added, is only likely to intensify in the years ahead, making the overt endorsement conferred on pink shrimp by the MSC label almost a must to stay in business at any viable level.

During testimony about a separate matter at a hearing of the Senate Committee on General Government, Consumer and Small Business Protection in March, Boardman noted that Oregon’s shrimp fishermen “have been leaders in developing a fishery that is certified as sustainable” by the MSC.

Boardman, a member of the Shrimp Producers Marketing Cooperative since 1986, told the Senate committee that wholesale and retail prices for pink shrimp have risen, ex vessel prices paid to the fishermen have dropped. He cited data from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Urner Barry – “the industry’s leading tracker of wholesale seafood prices” – indicating that while wholesale price for pink shrimp “has moved up substantially” during the past five years, ex vessel prices for pink shrimp landed in Oregon have remained at or below 50 cents per pound since 2006, and stood at 31 cents per pound on average in 2009 and 35 cents in 2010.

“I am fortunate not to have any mortgage on my fish boat, but it has still become harder and harder to make a decent living in my fishery over the last five years,” Boardman noted.

The fault for the “disconnect” between wholesale/retail and ex vessel prices, he said, lies elsewhere, and many shrimpers say enhancing marketability of pink shrimp with the MSC label could never make up for it. But they take pride and satisfaction in earning the label, knowing that it’s best to pursue anything that might open up new markets or maintain or enhance existing ones.

Fishery officials continue to hold out hope that the labeling will help fetch a higher price for the fishery, which generates hundreds of seasonal harvesting and processing jobs along the Oregon coast. Stock-wise, the fishery is in good shape, they noted, and landings are up. Overall, the cold water shrimp market is improved worldwide, and they hope to take the product to the next level.

Consumers, however, are fickle and price “seems to rule the marketplace.”

Boardman agreed, but is bothered by something else he hopes this ongoing recognition can amend. “If we can just get them to stop calling them bay shrimp,” he concluded, finding the misnomer grating. “They’re Oregon pink shrimp.”

Terry Dillman can be reached at tdwordwright@gmail.com

Major Processors Pulling Out of MSC Salmon Certification Program

2012-01-18T11:00:00.001-08:00

Eight major primary processors of wild Alaska salmon are phasing out their financial support for the Marine Stewardship council salmon certification program.

The board of the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation (AFDF), the client for the certification process, voted on Jan. 16 to maintain certification only through Oct. 29, after the eight processors said they were withdrawing support.

The reason for the decision by Trident Seafoods, Icicle Seafoods, Ocean Beauty Seafoods, Peter Pan Seafoods, Alaska General Seafoods, Kwik’Pak Fisheries, E & E Foods, and North Pacific Seafoods was not disclosed. The group represents about 75 percent of the salmon harvest.

Industry sources said that the current required annual surveillance audit, plus recertification for the next five years, would cost the industry approximately $400,000, based on a rate of $500 per million pounds, and annual harvests totaling about 800 million pounds. AFDF took over clientship for MSC certification of Alaska salmon in December 2009, after the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said it would no longer carry out the duties required of the client to verify the sustainability of the salmon fisheries.

Jim Browning, executive director of AFDF, said that the individual companies noted that MSC certification has been welcome and valuable for more than a decade. “MSC has offered independent affirmation of what the Alaska industry and fishery managers have held since statehood, that Alaska salmon fisheries are sustainably managed,” Browning said.

However, the majority of these processors now feel it is time to redirect their resources toward a broader marketing message.

Kerry Coughlin, MSC Americas regional director, said the organization regrets the decision. “We hope this fishery will re-enter assessment, maintain the market advantage of MSC certification, and continue to showcase their sustainability.”

Coughlin said the number of fisheries and supply chain companies using the MSC program continues to expand worldwide, and consumer appreciation for the MSC ecolabel on products is increasing.

Ray Riutta, executive director of ASMI, noted that the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute also provides a third party program for certification of sustainable fisheries, one that Riutta said equals or exceeds any method currently in the marketplace.

Arni Thomson, president of United Fishermen of Alaska, said that UFA fully supports the processors’ decision, and believe it is in the best interest of the Alaska salmon fishery.

Copper River Seafoods in Recovery Mode in Cordova

2012-01-18T10:51:00.002-08:00

A winter storm that all but brought Cordova, Alaska, to a standstill did severe damage to facilities owned by Copper River Seafoods, and the company has been busy cleaning up and assessing the damages. Pip Fillingham, a company owner who lives in Cordova, has been overseeing the work crews reinforcing company structures, cleaning up debris and securing boats and supplies stored there.

As of this week, nearly one third of one of the company’s warehouse buildings damaged by very heavy snow on the roof had been torn down. Of the 20 fishing vessels stored inside that warehouse, three boats sustained minor damage and one more severe damage, said Robin Richardson, company spokesperson. Copper River Seafoods representatives are meeting with owners of each vessel on the status of their boats and arrangements are being made on a case-by-case basis for handling and movement, she said.

Severe weather conditions that delayed the arrival of equipment have hampered the cleanup operation. Once the equipment arrives, the warehouse will be demolished and the vessels and supplies that were stored in lockers in the warehouse will be secured, she said.

In the wake of the storm, Copper River Seafoods shipped specially made snow shovels, a snow blower, a 40,000 pound front end loader and a 12-yard dump truck to Cordova to begin the cleanup.

Cordova’s harbor itself sustained only minor damage of a finger float, according to the harbormaster’s office. Owners of vessels stored there are required to have a watchman to make sure each of the vessels is secure. In the aftermath of the stormy weather dozens of people came down to the harbor to tend to their own vessels and also pitched in to remove snow from other vessels that were unattended, said Glenn Anderson, operations and maintenance supervisor at the harbor.

Alaska Marine Conservation Council to Host a Tanner Crab Soiree

2012-01-18T10:51:00.001-08:00

A Taste of Kodiak, a celebration of tanner crab, conservation and community based fishing opportunities in Alaska, is set for Monday, Jan. 23, at ORSO restaurant in Anchorage, hosted by the Alaska Marine Conservation Council and ORSO.

Along with the tasty menu of unique creations fresh crab, wines and other hors d’oeuvres harvested mostly in the Gulf of Alaska, guests will get to mingle with crab fishermen and learn more about the work of AMCC, a non-profit organization with a “boots on deck” approach to maintaining healthy fisheries and working waterfronts in Alaska.

The tanner crab soiree is part of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council’s Catch of the Season program, which aims to connect residents of the Anchorage area with the network of independent fishermen committed to stewardship of the marine resources that they depend on.

All proceeds from the soiree will go to AMCC’s working waterfronts program. AMCC officials said they hope this will be the first among many events to highlight locally caught sustainable seafood and community fishermen.

AMCC has worked for years with local Kodiak fishermen to protect the tanner crab habitat around Kodiak Island.

Earlier this year, AMCC offered subscriptions to tanner crab from Kodiak through its catch of the season project.

AMCC, founded in 1994, is a community-based organization dedicated to protecting the long-term health of Alaska’s oceans and sustaining the working waterfronts of coastal communities. Its membership includes fishermen, subsistence harvesters, marine scientists, small business owners, conservationists, families and others concerned about Alaska’s oceans. AMCC supports an ecosystem approach to research and marine resource management that incorporates the best science, experiential knowledge and the wisdom of tradition.

Marine Science Symposium Showcases Ocean Research

2012-01-18T10:25:00.000-08:00

Dozens of marine scientists from the United States, Canada and beyond converged on Anchorage this week to report on research projects pertinent to fish and fish habitat, and much more in the Arctic, Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska.
The annual event, organized by the North Pacific Research Board, is sponsored by a variety of federal and state agencies, plus commercial fisheries, conservation and environmental organizations. It is open to the public and continues through Friday.
This year’s keynote speakers included Eddy Carmack of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada, speaking on the interconnected roles of the Arctic and subarctic oceans in global change. By looking at and understanding the changes taking place in the Arctic, scientists may develop potentially powerful tools to manage and cope with emerging global-scale issues, Carmack said.

Carin Ashjian of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and Jeff Napp of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center did a keynote presentation on understanding ecosystem processes for the Bering Sea. Their research is part of an effort of the North Pacific Research Board and National Science Foundation in support of a comprehensive multi-million dollar investigation of the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem to understand how climate change and associated changes in sea-ice are impacting this ecosystem and consequences of these changes on fish, seabirds, marine mammals and ultimately people. The partnership is now in its sixth year

Jamal Moss and Olav Ormseth of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center spoke about the Gulf of Alaska integrated ecosystem research program. Their research is focused on identifying and quantifying the key processes that regulate recruitment of five commercially and ecologically important groundfish species.

Complete details on the symposium are online at www.alaskamarinescience.org,
Including abstracts for every presentation scheduled for the gathering.

Today's Catch - Happy New Year!

2012-01-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

With the January issue we are happy to welcome our newest contributor, Terry Dillman, who will be reporting on commercial fisheries issues in Oregon and Northern California. Terry is a seasoned writer, editor and photographer with 34 years of newspaper and magazine experience. He is the assistant editor and business editor of the News-Times, a twice-weekly newspaper in Newport, Oregon, where he writes about ocean issues, including commercial fishing.

His first contribution, on the delay of the Dungeness crab season due to meat quality issues, ran last month. This month he reports on Oregon’s pink shrimp fishery (page 1), the Pacific Seafood Antitrust suit (page 8) and marine reserve restrictions in Oregon (Page 18).

We are also happy to announce the promotion of veteran Alaska correspondent Margaret Bauman to a full-time staff position as Alaska editor. Margie is an Alaska journalist and photographer with an extensive background in Alaska’s commercial fisheries and environmental issues related to those fisheries, and has written for Fishermen’s News in a freelance capacity for almost 20 years. A long-time Alaska resident, she has also covered news of national and international importance in other states on the staff of United Press International, the Associated Press and CBS News.

In her new position Margie will continue to provide editorial for the Fishermen’s News print and online publications, as well as representing the company in Alaska while reporting on issues of importance to the commercial fisherman, including legislative, environmental and business issues.

We’re happy to have both Terry and Margie onboard in their new positions, and we wish them and their audience a successful and prosperous 2012.

Chris Philips
editor@fishermensnews.com

Trident Seafoods Adds 60 to St. Paul Crab Processing Crew

2012-01-11T11:20:00.001-08:00

Trident Seafoods, bracing for an exceptionally large amount of snow crab in the Bering Sea, has hired on an additional 60 workers for its processing facilities at St. Paul Island.

Joe Plesha, chief legal counsel for the Seattle based seafood company, said yesterday that the last of those workers was arriving this week, making a full crew of some 320 workers. “We’re doing this because of a larger quota, substantially larger this year than last year,” Plesha said.

Trident facilities at St. Paul Island have the greatest capacity in the northern region of the Bering Sea for crab processing. Only one other company has processing facilities in that region.

The total allowable catch aside, the harvest will be dictated somewhat by weather conditions, which can be particularly harsh in winter months in the Bering Sea.

As mid-January approached, temperatures ranged from the low teens up to about 30 degrees, with snow showers more likely than not, and winds up to 40 miles an hour.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced in early October a Bering Sea snow crab season with a total allowable quota of 88,894,000 pounds of snow crab, including 80,004,600 to holders of individual fishing quota and 8,889,400 pounds for community development quota groups.

A year earlier, the state agency had the total quota set at 54,281,000, including 48,852,900 pounds of the opilio to holders of individual fishing quota and 5,428,100 allocated to community development quota groups.

The quota is set each year based on analysis of a National Marine Fisheries Service trawl survey of Bering Sea snow crab stocks.

The 2011/2012 total allowable catch is based on abundance and biomass estimates from the NMFS stock assessment model.

There is no pot limit or buoy tag requirement for the Bering Sea snow crab fishery. Vessel operators may register up to 20 groundfish pots and may register gear operation cooperatives with other registered vessels.

Judge Sets Trial Date for Pebble Initiative for February 2013

2012-01-11T11:19:00.001-08:00

Alaska Superior Court Judge John Suddock on Jan. 10 consolidated two lawsuits aimed at halting enforcement of an initiative to forbid permitting large-scale mines that could significantly impact on salmon streams, and set a trial date for Feb. 11, 2013.

Suddock made his decision after hearing comments in the Anchorage courtroom from all parties involved in the litigation. Both the Pebble Limited Partnership, which wants to develop the prospect, and the state of Alaska are challenging the legality of the initiative.

The case could be resolved on motions before the actual trial date.

Voters in Southwest Alaska’s Lake and Peninsula Borough approved during a general election last November an initiative aimed at blocking development of the massive Pebble mine prospect at the headwaters of Bristol Bay. The Save Our Salmon initiative was the work of a group concerned that development of the copper, gold and molybdenum Pebble prospect could have a devastating effect on Bristol Bay’s wild sockeye salmon, salmon spawned in the river systems of the Bristol Bay watershed.

The initiative, approved by a vote of 280-246, changes borough law to forbid the permitting of large mines that would have “significant adverse impact” on salmon streams, which are in abundance in the region.

The main thrust of the initiative is that it would add language to the borough’s permitting code that states “where a resource extraction activity could result in excavation, placement of fill, grading, removal and disturbance of the topsoil of more than 640 acres of land and will have a significant adverse impact on existing anadromous waters, a development permit shall not be issued by the (planning) commission.”

The initiative also changes the preferred order in which permits are applied for. Prior to passage of the initiative, the borough code required that an applicant seeking a borough permit must have already secured all state and federal permits. The initiative strikes that language and states, “the applicant should obtain its development permit from the borough prior to obtaining state and federal permits.”

Copper River Seafoods Cleaning up Cordova Facilities Hard Hit by Storm

2012-01-11T11:18:00.000-08:00

Copper River Seafoods has begun assessment of damage from heavy snowfall to the roof of one of its buildings in Cordova, which houses 20 boats and associated fishermen’s lockers, valued at more than $2 million.

The roof of the two-story building collapsed on Jan. 6, in the wake of a snowstorm so severe that the Alaska National Guard is now on the scene helping residents shovel out.

Although Cordova residents are used to heavy snowfall, so much snow fell in early January that residents say they are running out of places to put it.

Copper River Seafoods officials say they have not yet determined the extent of damages, or whether there was impact to the first floor, where boats are stored.

“Our first concern, is, of course, the safety of those in our community of Cordova”, said Scott Blake, company president. “Beyond the safety of the community, we are making every effort to recover the fishing fleet that is staged over the winter in our facility.”

Copper River Seafoods has dispatched equipment to Cordova, including aluminum shovels custom made for this particular snow situation, a snow blower, a 40,000 pound front end loader and a 12-yard dump truck. Company employees are working to clear snow from around the fish processing company’s facilities on the waterfront.

Company employees were also making assessments on each and every piece of equipment in storage. Pip Fillingham, a Cordova resident and one of the company owners, is on site overseeing the cleanup and assessment.

The affected building is adjacent to the main seafood processing facility. It is a 7,000 square foot metal construction building erected in the late 1970's.

While, weather officials forecast more snow for the area, Copper River Seafoods is moving equipment and staff to Cordova to secure the area and protect the fishing fleet in a situation of very challenging weather conditions, company officials said on Jan. 10.

Alaska Fisheries Board Seeks Proposed Regulation Changes for Fisheries

2012-01-11T11:16:00.000-08:00

The Alaska Board of Fisheries is accepting proposed regulation changes through 5 p.m. on April 10 for fisheries in the Bristol Bay, Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim and Alaska Peninsula/Aleutian Islands management areas. Proposals may be for commercial, subsistence, personal use, sport, guide sport and guided sport ecotourism finfish regulations. Finfish include salmon, herring, trout, groundfish, char, burbot, northern pike, whitefish, Pacific cod, sablefish, shark, and Pollock, but not halibut.

Examples of “statewide finfish” regulations can be found in Title 5 of the Alaska Administrative Code and include, but are not limited to, policy for the management of sustainable salmon fisheries, policy for the management of mixed stock fisheries, policy for statewide salmon escapement goals, possession of sport-caught fish, and fishing by proxy.

Proposals may be submitted by mail, fax, or online. The board is currently unable to accept proposals via email but hopes to soon be able to offer this option.

Mail proposals to ASD&F, Boards support Section, P.O. Box 115526, Juneau, AK 99811-5526; fax to 1-907-465-6094, or send online to http://boardoffisheries.adfg.alaska.gov/
Writers of proposals should use the Board of Fisheries proposal form, available from the Boards Support Section or online at http://www.boards.adfg.state.ak.us/fishinfo/index.php

Proposals must include a contact telephone number and address, as well as the name of the individual or organization making the proposal.

Fisheries board staff caution that language that is emotionally charged detracts from the substance of the proposal. The board's proposal review committee will review each proposal prior to publication.

The proposal review committee reserves the right to edit proposals containing offensive language. Proposals published in the proposal book will be referenced with the appropriate Alaska Administrative Code citation and include a brief description of the action requested. Following publication, proposal booklets will be available to advisory committees and the public for review and comment.

For more information, please contact the Alaska Board of Fisheries executive director at (907) 465-4110.

Pacific Seafood Antitrust Lawsuit Still On Course

2012-01-04T11:58:00.000-08:00

By Terry Dillman

A class action antitrust lawsuit filed in June 2010 against Clackamas, Oregon-based Pacific Seafood Group (PSG) is still tacking toward a requested court showdown, despite some legal course changes along the way.

Initially filed by Portland law firm Haglund Kelley Horngren Jones & Wilder LLP for Brookings-based fishermen Lloyd Whaley and Todd Whaley and as many as 3,000 other “similarly situated fishermen and fishing vessel owners,” the lawsuit alleges monopolization of the Dungeness crab, Oregon coldwater (pink) shrimp, groundfish, and whiting seafood markets along the West Coast by PSG and its owner Frank Dulcich. Prices paid to fishermen are the central issue. The complaint alleges that PSG uses its market share of 50 to 70 percent in each of those four critical fisheries and coordinates with other processors to drive down those prices, thus violating federal antitrust laws.

The original complaint also featured an allegation of conspiracy to restrain trade, which disappeared in the filing of a first amended complaint in August 2010. The plaintiffs’ lead attorney Michael Haglund said they re-filed after learning that Dulcich owns PSG outright and is not just a majority partner.

Antitrust laws say “you can’t conspire with yourself,” said Haglund, noting that they weren’t aware of the 57-company conglomerate’s full organization at the time of the initial filing, and that it’s common to re-file a case after such discoveries.

The complaint has since undergone two more iterations, and the latest re-filing in July 2011 added Newport-based pink shrimp fisherman Jeff Boardman, Brookings-based fisherman Brian Nolte and Dynamik Fisheries, Inc. and Miss Sarah LLC as plaintiffs.

The monopoly allegations remain, and the law firm’s website prominently features a section devoted to the lawsuit. It describes the actions taken so far, a copy of the complaint to download and peruse, and lists seven categories of alleged anticompetitive conduct:

• Price fixing – using “multiple tactics to set and enforce low prices to fishermen, including “retaliation against processors who dare to deviate from Pacific’s set prices.”

• Theft from fishermen by manipulating scales, misreporting actual weights, or “arbitrarily designating a portion of a delivered catch as an unusable ‘weighback’” and deducting it from the paid poundage, yet still processing and selling the “unusable” fish.

• Acquiring 18 West Coast seafood processing plants – some through “predatory tactics” that set up a vulnerable company for acquisition “at a bargain price.”

• Widespread use of “exclusive dealing and tying arrangements.”

• Restricting crab, shrimp and groundfish harvest outputs.

• “False representations” to the Pacific Fisheries Management Council that “have impacted” council decisions.

• “Miscellaneous dirty tricks” – among them, “illegally targeting” threatened fish stocks (criminally prosecuted by the state in 2001), and “fraudulently manipulating a delay” in the start of the 2005-2006 crab season.

The lawsuit remains on course toward a potential courtroom showdown, despite a setback at the end of February.

During the discovery process, Haglund said they found out that Pacific aimed at boosting its market share even more by purchasing Westport, Washington-based Ocean Gold, the largest whiting processor and owner of the single largest seafood processing plant on the West Coast.

Founded in 1991 by Washington fisherman Dennis Rydman, Ocean Gold now employs 700 people and processes more than 100 million pounds of fish annually.

In 2006, Ocean Gold and Pacific inked a 10-year deal that made Pacific Seafood “solely responsible” for setting “raw material costs” (fishermen’s prices), and obligated Ocean Gold to sell all fish it buys from fishermen to Pacific. The companies split the profits 50-50. Dulcich currently owns 32 percent of Ocean Gold, and was recently negotiating to buy it outright until Haglund took legal action to try to stop it with a preliminary injunction, asking the court to keep the two companies from communicating with each other about the prices they are paying fishermen, except as needed for accounting. It also asked to halt any communications “intended to direct fishing vessels to particular seafood processing plants.”

Pacific Seafood put the purchase on hold in December 2010, awaiting the outcome.

At the end of February, US District Court Judge Owen Panner rejected the request to keep PSG from communicating with Ocean Gold about how much to pay for whiting, and from which boats to buy the fish.

The judge also noted that Haglund failed to prove that Pacific has used its market share to suppress prices paid to fishermen.

“Plaintiffs have not shown at this stage that they are being harmed by defendants’ alleged illegal price-fixing,” Panner wrote. “On the other hand, the defendants have presented evidence that the proposed injunction would interfere with their business operations.”

Haglund, who won an $82 million judgment against Weyerhaeuser in 2007 following a seven-year legal fight that went to the US Supreme Court, remained undaunted, noting that the decision did not reflect on the merits of his case. He said the case against Weyerhaeuser started out much weaker than the case against Pacific Seafood.

Ocean Gold is also now a named defendant in the antitrust lawsuit.

‘Without Merit’
Craig Urness, PSG’s general counsel, has said the claims “are completely without merit,” and the lawsuit contains “gross misinterpretations.”

Launched in 1941 as a small, fresh seafood retail operation, PSG has since expanded to encompass 57 companies that together put PSG at the top of the seafood seller food chain, with $1 billion in annual global sales. The group’s holdings include Pacific Shrimp in Newport, added to the fold in 1996.

“We plan to aggressively defend against the allegations,” Urness noted. “Pacific Seafood has a long history on the Oregon coast. For more than 25 years, we’ve prided ourselves on providing value, service and jobs on the Oregon coast to our partners in the fishing and seafood industries. We will continue this commitment into the future.”

Attorneys for PSG and Ocean Gold say that most of the complaint field by Haglund focuses on actions that took place outside the statute of limitations, and that neither company has hurt either the fishermen or the industry. They say the companies open up new markets, put more fishermen to work, and allow those fishermen “to earn substantially more money” than they could without the companies’ influence and purchasing power.

But Haglund said the evidence already on the record indicates that Dulcich built his conglomerate in violation of federal antitrust laws, and has used the network of companies to illegally dictate prices, harming not just the fishermen, but also the coastal communities that rely on their incomes.

And his team is still immersed in the discovery process.

In fact, the website offers a questionnaire for commercial fishermen to use to describe “any predatory tactic directed at you or known by you” pertaining to PSG. “Although we spent many months investigating this case, we believe there is considerable additional evidence of anticompetitive behavior by Pacific Seafood Group which is not detailed in the complaint,” it states. “We want to hear from everyone who has evidence of anticompetitive conduct by Pacific Seafood Group.”

Any fishermen with a tale to tell can go to www.hk-law.com and fill out the questionnaire.

Permit Limits?
State Rep. Wayne Krieger (R-Gold Beach) introduced Senate Bill 668 that would limit the number of commercial fishing permits any individual or company could hold in any fishery to no more than three. Krieger said the bill derived from his frustration over Pacific’s ability to hinder competition in fish prices.

PSG attorney Urness said the bill unfairly targets a successful, family-owned Oregon company that has developed new markets for fishermen.

Pacific Seafood was just named as one of Oregon’s 10 most admired companies in the agriculture and forest products category for 2011 during the seventh annual recognition event held Dec. 7 in Portland. The company earned similar honors in 2007 and 2009.

The Portland Business Journal sponsors the program aimed at recognizing Oregon’s “leading businesses.”

But fishermen claim PSG leads the way in much less flattering and admired categories. Several of them testified in favor of Krieger’s bill during the March 14 hearing of the Senate Committee on General Government, Consumer, and Small Business Protection, and repeated many of the accusations made in the antitrust case.

“I am fortunate not to have any mortgage on my fish boat, but it still has become harder and harder to make a decent living in my fishery over the last five years,” Newport-based Jeff Boardman, skipper of the F/V Miss Yvonne, told the committee. Boardman has been an Oregon coast shrimper since 1967.

“Although the wholesale and retail prices for our shrimp have been rising since 2006, the ex vessel prices paid to fishermen for pink shrimp have been on the decline during this same period,” he added. “I strongly believe that all of the fault for this disconnect between wholesale prices and ex vessel prices lies with Pacific Seafood. With more than three permits, any large processor just has too much power to dictate price. I believe we have been receiving prices that are 10 to 15 cents below what we would be paid if the processor market was truly competitive.”

With 30 million pounds of shrimp landings during an average year, that price difference means a loss of $3 million to $4.5 million to fishing families and Oregon coastal communities.

Steve Bodnar, executive director of the Coos Bay Trawlers (which favors the bill), testified as a private citizen in relation to specific comments about Pacific Seafood. He said Urness called the president of the organization and “asked him to stop me from testifying.” As a result, Bodnar said he “was told not to say anything negative about Pacific Seafood” in his testimony.

“I cannot in good conscience testify in a way that keeps this committee in the dark,” he said.

Emily Dunn has fished on the West Coast for 26 years, the past eight out of Garibaldi with her husband, Edward, primarily for Dungeness crab. She told the committee that it had become “increasingly difficult to make a good living” during the past five years as operating costs rose and prices paid to crabbers “flat-lined,” averaging about $2 per pound. At the same time, she noted, wholesale prices rose substantially.

“None of this increase has been shared with fishermen, and I place all the blame for this at the door of Pacific Seafood,” she stated. “Competing processors are intimidated by Pacific and wait to see what price Pacific Seafood will set at the beginning of each season. With their market share and reputation, Pacific Seafood can veto the higher prices that would be set in a competitive market.”

Darus Peake, who owns and operates Garibaldi-based Tillamook Bay Boathouse, which processes crab, tuna, salmon and some groundfish and has eight employees. He is currently chairman of the Oregon Salmon Commission, and has served as a port commissioner in Garibaldi.

Peake participated in the 2010 crab price negotiations sponsored by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, and said he “came away disgusted” over Pacific Seafood’s refusal to budge above $1.675 per pound, even though he and “a number of other processors” were willing to pay prices higher than the 2009 opening price of $1.75 per pound. PS representatives also insisted on delaying the season to Dec. 10 to set crab pots, and first deliveries in Dec. 12.

“Because of their market share and the practice of requiring complete consensus on the processor side in those negotiations, we ended up with no choice but to stick with the prices proposed by Pacific Seafood,” said Peake. “I see the financial stress encountered by many fishing families on Oregon’s north coast and I see the declining level of maintenance throughout the Oregon fleet. If competitive conditions do not improve, I fear that we will lose a significant share of our fleet, and it will gradually be taken over through acquisitions of fishing vessels and permits by Pacific Seafood.”

Unlike the PS business model, which he said aims to dominate and buy up fishermen, he has a vision “where free and fair competition results in more processors, more fresh as opposed to frozen product, and more fishing industry jobs in Oregon.”

Krieger’s bill is still stuck in the committee process.

Seeking Compensation
The lawsuit alleges that PSG uses vertically integrated acquisitions, multiple tactics to set and enforce ex-vessel prices, exclusive dealing and tying arrangements, restrictions on output, “theft of seafood commodities” from fishermen, “fraudulent representations” to public agencies, and “miscellaneous dirty tricks.” The lawsuit requests a trial by jury, and asks the court, among other things, to declare PSG’s conduct illegal, and award the fishermen and fishing vessel owners a class judgment of $131.5 million to $173.5 million for actual damages, and to triple those damages to between $394 million and $520 million “as a result of the antitrust violations.”

The attorneys squared off in front of Judge Panner in October, with PSG’s legal eagles trying to convince the judge that the lawsuit doesn’t merit class action status. As of this writing, Panner had yet to rule on motions from Ocean Gold and Pacific to dismiss the lawsuit, or determine whether or not it merits class action status.

The trial was originally scheduled to begin in February 2012.

Terry Dillman can be reached at tdwordwright@gmail.com.

China’s Hunger for Alaska Seafood Rising

2012-01-04T11:49:00.001-08:00

Alaska’s seafood exports to China for the first 10 months of 2011 were valued at $762,795,549, out of the state’s total seafood exports of $2,242,202,197 for that period. Those are the preliminary figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, which values all commodities by the commercial invoices that accompany shipments, usually the first wholesale value, says Patricia Eckert of the Alaska Office of International Trade.

Seafood, in fact, led all other exports from Alaska in value for those months in 2009 through 2011. Final export figures for 2011 are due out this coming spring.

Those purchases by China are a jump up from $484,895,187 for the same months in 2010 and $400,543,908 in 2009.

Seafood exports to Japan for the same months in those years were $527,392,711 in 2011, $464,830,703 in 2010 and $483,401,577 in 2009, and Koreans purchased seafood valued at $274,556,271 in 2011, up from $251,393,089 in 2010 and $216,959,105 in 2009.

Eckert said the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute has estimated that 70 percent of the seafood going to China is for reprocessing, and later re-exporting to Japan, Europe and other areas of the world, while 30 percent is for domestic use for China’s rising middle class. A decade ago, maybe less than 10 percent of that seafood was for domestic consumption, she said.

One reason more seafood is being processed in China is because of lower labor costs and because China has come into compliance with the European ISO (International Organization for Standardization) system, she said.

Ocean Beauty Will Process Wild Salmon in Petersburg This Summer

2012-01-04T11:48:00.002-08:00

The size of the plant’s work force and product forms for pink salmon have not been determined yet, but Ocean Beauty Seafoods does plan to process wild Alaska pink, chum, coho and sockeye salmon this summer at its plant in Petersburg in Southeast Alaska.

The pace may be somewhat slowed in anticipation of a lower pink salmon run. Tom Sunderland, vice president of marketing for Ocean Beauty, said the company has to make preparations based on the current forecast, but that on the other hand, maybe there will be more fish than the current forecast anticipates. Back in 2010, the company shuttered its Petersburg plant due to the low run of pink salmon.

This season, “we will be buying salmon and putting it into some form,” Sunderland said. “I will know more as the winter goes on.”

The highest pink salmon harvest in Southeast Alaska since 1998 was 77.8 million pounds in 1999, according to data compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In 2010, the Southeast Alaska pink salmon harvest totaled 23.4 million pounds, then rose to 58.5 million pounds in 2011.

This year the National Marine Fisheries service is forecasting a harvest of 19 million pink salmon, while the Alaska Department of Fish and Game anticipates a harvest of 17 million pinks. An actual harvest of 17 million pinks would be well below the 10-year average of 40 million pinks, ADF&G officials said.

The state’s forecast is an average of two forecasts: a forecast of the trend in the harvest and the forecast trend adjusted using 2011 juvenile pink salmon abundance date provided by the NOAA Fisheries, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Auke Bay Laboratories.

Proposed Watercraft Race for Alaska Draws Interest in Fishing Communities

2012-01-04T11:48:00.001-08:00

An international 2000-mile personal watercraft (PWC) race proposed to attract 1,000 riders for a route from Whittier to Iliamna Alaska in May of 2013 is drawing interest and some concern in fishing communities that the race and its entourage would pass through.

Planning for the Alaskan Wet Dog Race (www.wetdograce.com) has been in the works for several years and the deadline for commenting to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (at candice.snow@alaska.gov) for the land use permits race organizers are seeking is Jan. 26.

Promoter John Lang, an Anchorage project engineer and former operator of a watercraft tour company at Whittier, said there have been hits on the race website from more than 100 countries. He said the race would bring $35 million into Alaska annually, including approximately $500,000 to $1 million to each community the race passes through. All participants would participate in a pre-race orientation workshop covering everything from safety equipment operation to wildlife and cultural awareness, said Lang.

Some residents of fishing communities like Cordova, King Cove and Kodiak have expressed caution, however.

Former Cordova Mayor Tim Joyce, a federal wildlife biologist, said he felt that from a tourism perspective it would be good for the Prince William Sound community, but that environmentally he is divided. He said he has concerns about the environmental impact of all those watercraft going by fish and wildlife habitat and possible interaction with commercial fish harvesters.

King Cove Mayor Henry Mack said nobody has ever contacted officials in that fishing community on the Alaska Peninsula about the race, and Kodiak’s city manager, Aimee Kniaziowski expressed concern about putting a strain on Kodiak resources. Kniaziowski said the first she heard of the race was when she got a notice from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources in late November advising that public comment on the race was being accepted through Jan. 26. One of her concerns is the demand on harbor services. While it sounds like a great activity, said Kniaziowski, the boat slips at Kodiak’s harbor are spoken for and she wonders where all those watercraft and support vessels would be parked.

Petersburg and Ketchikan Will Host Upcoming Alaska Board of Fisheries Meetings

2012-01-04T11:47:00.000-08:00

The Alaska Board of Fisheries will meet Jan. 15-21 at the Sons of Norway facilities in Petersburg on proposals involving Southeast and Yakutat crab, shrimp and miscellaneous shellfish, including Dungeness, king and tanner crab. Then from Feb. 24 to March 4, the Board of Fisheries will be at the Ted Ferry Civic Center in Ketchikan for action on proposals offered on Southeast and Yakutat finfish, including salmon, herring and groundfish.

The proposal package for Petersburg includes several dozen items on related to topics ranging from revising the Southeast red king crab management plan and revising the management plan for Southeast pot shrimp fisheries to a variable harvest strategy for sea cucumbers, and harvest strategies for geoducks.

Nearly 150 proposals will be up for consideration at the Ketchikan session, on Southeast groundfish, Southeast herring, Southeast commercial salmon management, allocation plans, special harvest areas and terminal harvest areas, as well as sport, subsistence and personal use issues. Proposal 285 would repeal the 58-foot vessel limit in the Southeast salmon purse seine fishery in combination with a form of permit reduction to reduce capacity and enhance the value of the fishery. The proposal from Eric Rosvold and Ryan Kapp, argues that the board’s adoption of excluding the “bulbous bow” from the length measure of a salmon purse seine vessel was progress. “It should now repeal the 58-foot limit on the length of vessel in the salmon purse seine fishery coupled with an additional permit requirement to address the problem of potential excesses capacity within the Southeast salmon seine fishery,” they said. Their proposal also suggests that existing 58-foot vessels could be lengthened on the stern for better flotation so aft holds could produce fish with better quality. Another proposal, from Larry Demmert, would increase the length limit for Southeast salmon seiners to 75 feet, to allow more room for custom processing, fresh packaging or freezing on board.

No Immediate Danger from ISA Virus Says Pathologist

2011-12-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

Economic Value of Bristol Bay Fisheries Estimated at $4.1-$5.4 Billion Annually

2011-12-28T12:10:00.000-08:00

Commercial fisheries in Southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay, with its highly productive marine ecosystems and bountiful fisheries, generate economic activity equivalent to $4.1billion to $5.4 billion annually, the World Wildlife Fund says.

The details are contained in a report prepared for the environmental organization by Ecotrust, in Portland, Oregon, and released in late December.

Study authors said that the health of Bristol Bay fisheries is not only economically important to the region, but to the nation and the world as a whole, because participants in that fishery and the retailers from whom consumers purchase these wild seafood products come from all over the world.

The Bristol Bay marine ecosystem is well known as the largest sockeye salmon run in the world. It also produces chum salmon, Chinook salmon, red king crab, Pacific halibut and other commercially valuable species.

Average annual landings value from 2005 to 2008 for Bristol Bay commercial fisheries was $463 million, including $154 million for the salmon fishery alone.

The total economic value of commercial harvest may range from a high of $889 million annually to a low of $673 million annually, with the Bristol Bay salmon fishery alone supporting total economic activity in the range of $246 million to $253 million per year, the report said.

Study authors note that the direct value of the fishery at every step supports secondary economic activities. They write that “as the fishery input moves along the value-chain, fishermen and their crew; bait and tackle shop owners and their employees, processors and their workers and suppliers, and retailers earn income,” the report notes. “To the extent that they spend that income on other consumer goods and services, they induce even more secondary economic activity. The multiplier effect captures the indirect and induced economic activity resulting from each step along the supply chain.”

Study Shows Unexpectedly High Ecological Effects of Oil Spills on Herring

2011-12-28T12:09:00.000-08:00

A study published in the scientific journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) says bunker fuel spilled from a damaged cargo in 2007 had an unexpectedly lethal affect on Pacific herring embryos in San Francisco Bay.

The study, published Dec. 26, by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and their collaborators, suggests an interaction between sunlight and the chemicals in oil might be responsible.

The issue stems from the November 2007 spill of 54,000 gallons of bunker fuel, a combination of diesel and residual fuel oil, from the container ship Cosco Busan. The spill contaminated the shoreline near the spawning habitat of the largest population of Pacific herring on the West Coast. The Los Angeles Times noted that owners and operators of the vessel agreed in September to pay $44.4 million to cover government claims, cost of the cleanup and restoration programs. In addition to tarring about 30 percent of the herring spawning grounds in the bay, the spill killed some 6,800 seabirds and closed beaches for months, the Times said.

Two decades of toxicity research since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound has shown that fish embryos and larvae are particularly vulnerable to spilled oil.

Most catastrophic spills, such as the Exxon Valdez event, involve large volumes of crude oil. However, residual oils used in bunker fuels are the leftovers of crude oil refining, and are not as well studied as crude oils, the study notes. Bunker fuel is used in maritime shipping worldwide and accidental bunker spills are more and more common and widespread than large crude oil spills.

In this study, scientists found that herring embryos placed in cages in relatively deep water at oiled sites developed subtle but important heart defects consistent with findings in previous studies. In contrast, almost all the embryos that naturally spawned in nearby shallower waters in the same time period died. When scientists sampled naturally spawned embryos from the same sites two years later, mortality rates in both shallower and deeper waters had returned to pre-spill levels.

NOAA toxicologist John Incardona, lead author of the study, said based on what scientists know about the effects of crude oil on early life stages in fish, they expected to find live embryos with abnormal heart function, so it was a surprise to find so many embryos in the shallow waters literally falling apart.

“The study has given us a new perspective on oil threats in sunlit habitats, particularly for translucent animals such as herring embryos,” Incardona said. “The chemical composition of residual oils can vary widely, so the question remains whether we would see the same thing with other bunker fuels from around the world.”

Alaska Marine Science Symposium Begins Jan. 16 in Anchorage

2011-12-28T12:08:00.000-08:00

Updates on a number of research activities in progress on marine regions off Alaska and more will be presented at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage Jan. 16-20. The annual event, which began in 2002, has a number of federal, state and other marine fisheries sponsors, ranging from the North Pacific Research Board and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustees.

The sessions, including keynote speeches, numerous workshops and poster sessions, are all open to the public at no charge. Exhibiting sponsors are being charged at cost.

A list of venues, the agenda, workshops and exhibit information is posted online at www.alaskamarinescience.org.

Keynote speeches this year, all scheduled for Monday, Jan. 16, include Eddy Carmack on Arctic issues; Carin Ashjian and Jeff Napp on the Bering Sea and Aleutians; Jamal Moss on the Gulf of Alaska, and Randy Olson on education and outreach.

Carmack will present on the interconnected roles of the Arctic and Subarctic oceans in global change. Ashjian and Napp will present on understanding ecosystem processes for the Bering Sea and Moss will speak on the Gulf of Alaska project, an integrated ecosystem research program. Olson has chosen to explore story telling as a way for scientists to communicate more effectively. Olson said he will explore what the structure of a story is, why it is such a crucial aspect of communication, and how scientists can do better at it at all scales, from five seconds to five hours.

Sitka Sound Sac Roe Herring Fishery Gets Preliminary GHL of 29,008 Tons

2011-12-28T12:07:00.000-08:00

A final forecast won’t be announced until late February, but the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has put the preliminary guideline harvest level for the 2012 Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery at 29,008 tons. Last year’s guideline harvest level for that fishery was 19,430 tons.

Winter test fisheries for this lucrative harvest will take place in January. The forecast and GHL will be finalized using average weight-at-age from sampling of the winter test fishery, state officials said.

This GHL is based on a 20 percent harvest rate of the forecast biomass of 145,042 tons of mature herring. The forecast indicates that the spawning stock will consist of 13 percent age 3, 24 percent age 4, 25 percent age 5, 14 percent age 6, 11 percent age 7, and 13 percent age 8 and older herring.

State biologists use an age-structure-analysis model to estimate abundance, survival rates and maturation rates needed to forecast the biomass of mature herring expected to return to Sitka Sound during the upcoming spawning season. The model uses a long time series of abundance and age composition data from department surveys conducted during and following the spring fishery.

Herring abundance is estimated using aerial surveys designed to map the length of shoreline receiving spawn, and dive surveys, which estimate the density of eggs and the average width of the spawn. In the spring of 2011, the department documented 78.3 nautical miles of herring spawn in the greater Sitka Sound area.

Last year the ASA model estimated 132,000 tons of herring spawned in the Sitka Sound area and the commercial sac roe herring harvest was 19,430 tons for a total return of 151,430 tons.

Pacific Seafood Antitrust Lawsuit Still On Course

2011-12-21T10:35:00.001-08:00

By Terry Dillman

A class action antitrust lawsuit filed in June 2010 against Clackamas, Oregon-based Pacific Seafood Group (PSG) is still tacking toward a requested court showdown, despite some legal course changes along the way.

Initially filed by Portland law firm Haglund Kelley Horngren Jones & Wilder LLP for Brookings-based fishermen Lloyd Whaley and Todd Whaley and as many as 3,000 other “similarly situated fishermen and fishing vessel owners,” the lawsuit alleges monopolization of the Dungeness crab, Oregon coldwater (pink) shrimp, groundfish, and whiting seafood markets along the West Coast by PSG and its owner Frank Dulcich. Prices paid to fishermen are the central issue. The complaint alleges that PSG uses its market share of 50 to 70 percent in each of those four critical fisheries and coordinates with other processors to drive down those prices, thus violating federal antitrust laws.

The original complaint also featured an allegation of conspiracy to restrain trade, which disappeared in the filing of a first amended complaint in August 2010. The plaintiffs’ lead attorney Michael Haglund said they re-filed after learning that Dulcich owns PSG outright and is not just a majority partner.

Antitrust laws say “you can’t conspire with yourself,” said Haglund, noting that they weren’t aware of the 57-company conglomerate’s full organization at the time of the initial filing, and that it’s common to re-file a case after such discoveries.

The complaint has since undergone two more iterations, and the latest re-filing in July 2011 added Newport-based pink shrimp fisherman Jeff Boardman, Brookings-based fisherman Brian Nolte and Dynamik Fisheries, Inc. and Miss Sarah LLC as plaintiffs.

The monopoly allegations remain, and the law firm’s website prominently features a section devoted to the lawsuit. It describes the actions taken so far, a copy of the complaint to download and peruse, and lists seven categories of alleged anticompetitive conduct:

• Price fixing – using “multiple tactics to set and enforce low prices to fishermen, including “retaliation against processors who dare to deviate from Pacific’s set prices.”

• Theft from fishermen by manipulating scales, misreporting actual weights, or “arbitrarily designating a portion of a delivered catch as an unusable ‘weighback’” and deducting it from the paid poundage, yet still processing and selling the “unusable” fish.

• Acquiring 18 West Coast seafood processing plants – some through “predatory tactics” that set up a vulnerable company for acquisition “at a bargain price.”

• Widespread use of “exclusive dealing and tying arrangements.”

• Restricting crab, shrimp and groundfish harvest outputs.

• “False representations” to the Pacific Fisheries Management Council that “have impacted” council decisions.

• “Miscellaneous dirty tricks” – among them, “illegally targeting” threatened fish stocks (criminally prosecuted by the state in 2001), and “fraudulently manipulating a delay” in the start of the 2005-2006 crab season.

The lawsuit remains on course toward a potential courtroom showdown, despite a setback at the end of February.

During the discovery process, Haglund said they found out that Pacific aimed at boosting its market share even more by purchasing Westport, Washington-based Ocean Gold, the largest whiting processor and owner of the single largest seafood processing plant on the West Coast.

Founded in 1991 by Washington fisherman Dennis Rydman, Ocean Gold now employs 700 people and processes more than 100 million pounds of fish annually.

In 2006, Ocean Gold and Pacific inked a 10-year deal that made Pacific Seafood “solely responsible” for setting “raw material costs” (fishermen’s prices), and obligated Ocean Gold to sell all fish it buys from fishermen to Pacific. The companies split the profits 50-50. Dulcich currently owns 32 percent of Ocean Gold, and was recently negotiating to buy it outright until Haglund took legal action to try to stop it with a preliminary injunction, asking the court to keep the two companies from communicating with each other about the prices they are paying fishermen, except as needed for accounting. It also asked to halt any communications “intended to direct fishing vessels to particular seafood processing plants.”

Pacific Seafood put the purchase on hold in December 2010, awaiting the outcome.

At the end of February, US District Court Judge Owen Panner rejected the request to keep PSG from communicating with Ocean Gold about how much to pay for whiting, and from which boats to buy the fish.

The judge also noted that Haglund failed to prove that Pacific has used its market share to suppress prices paid to fishermen.

“Plaintiffs have not shown at this stage that they are being harmed by defendants’ alleged illegal price-fixing,” Panner wrote. “On the other hand, the defendants have presented evidence that the proposed injunction would interfere with their business operations.”

Haglund, who won an $82 million judgment against Weyerhaeuser in 2007 following a seven-year legal fight that went to the US Supreme Court, remained undaunted, noting that the decision did not reflect on the merits of his case. He said the case against Weyerhaeuser started out much weaker than the case against Pacific Seafood.

Ocean Gold is also now a named defendant in the antitrust lawsuit.

‘Without Merit’
Craig Urness, PSG’s general counsel, has said the claims “are completely without merit,” and the lawsuit contains “gross misinterpretations.”

Launched in 1941 as a small, fresh seafood retail operation, PSG has since expanded to encompass 57 companies that together put PSG at the top of the seafood seller food chain, with $1 billion in annual global sales. The group’s holdings include Pacific Shrimp in Newport, added to the fold in 1996.

“We plan to aggressively defend against the allegations,” Urness noted. “Pacific Seafood has a long history on the Oregon coast. For more than 25 years, we’ve prided ourselves on providing value, service and jobs on the Oregon coast to our partners in the fishing and seafood industries. We will continue this commitment into the future.”

Attorneys for PSG and Ocean Gold say that most of the complaint field by Haglund focuses on actions that took place outside the statute of limitations, and that neither company has hurt either the fishermen or the industry. They say the companies open up new markets, put more fishermen to work, and allow those fishermen “to earn substantially more money” than they could without the companies’ influence and purchasing power.

But Haglund said the evidence already on the record indicates that Dulcich built his conglomerate in violation of federal antitrust laws, and has used the network of companies to illegally dictate prices, harming not just the fishermen, but also the coastal communities that rely on their incomes.

And his team is still immersed in the discovery process.

In fact, the website offers a questionnaire for commercial fishermen to use to describe “any predatory tactic directed at you or known by you” pertaining to PSG. “Although we spent many months investigating this case, we believe there is considerable additional evidence of anticompetitive behavior by Pacific Seafood Group which is not detailed in the complaint,” it states. “We want to hear from everyone who has evidence of anticompetitive conduct by Pacific Seafood Group.”

Any fishermen with a tale to tell can go to www.hk-law.com and fill out the questionnaire.

Permit Limits?
State Rep. Wayne Krieger (R-Gold Beach) introduced Senate Bill 668 that would limit the number of commercial fishing permits any individual or company could hold in any fishery to no more than three. Krieger said the bill derived from his frustration over Pacific’s ability to hinder competition in fish prices.

PSG attorney Urness said the bill unfairly targets a successful, family-owned Oregon company that has developed new markets for fishermen.

Pacific Seafood was just named as one of Oregon’s 10 most admired companies in the agriculture and forest products category for 2011 during the seventh annual recognition event held Dec. 7 in Portland. The company earned similar honors in 2007 and 2009.

The Portland Business Journal sponsors the program aimed at recognizing Oregon’s “leading businesses.”

But fishermen claim PSG leads the way in much less flattering and admired categories. Several of them testified in favor of Krieger’s bill during the March 14 hearing of the Senate Committee on General Government, Consumer, and Small Business Protection, and repeated many of the accusations made in the antitrust case.

“I am fortunate not to have any mortgage on my fish boat, but it still has become harder and harder to make a decent living in my fishery over the last five years,” Newport-based Jeff Boardman, skipper of the F/V Miss Yvonne, told the committee. Boardman has been an Oregon coast shrimper since 1967.
“Although the wholesale and retail prices for our shrimp have been rising since 2006, the ex vessel prices paid to fishermen for pink shrimp have been on the decline during this same period,” he added. “I strongly believe that all of the fault for this disconnect between wholesale prices and ex vessel prices lies with Pacific Seafood. With more than three permits, any large processor just has too much power to dictate price. I believe we have been receiving prices that are 10 to 15 cents below what we would be paid if the processor market was truly competitive.”

With 30 million pounds of shrimp landings during an average year, that price difference means a loss of $3 million to $4.5 million to fishing families and Oregon coastal communities.

Steve Bodnar, executive director of the Coos Bay Trawlers (which favors the bill), testified as a private citizen in relation to specific comments about Pacific Seafood. He said Urness called the president of the organization and “asked him to stop me from testifying.” As a result, Bodnar said he “was told not to say anything negative about Pacific Seafood” in his testimony.

“I cannot in good conscience testify in a way that keeps this committee in the dark,” he said.

Emily Dunn has fished on the West Coast for 26 years, the past eight out of Garibaldi with her husband, Edward, primarily for Dungeness crab. She told the committee that it had become “increasingly difficult to make a good living” during the past five years as operating costs rose and prices paid to crabbers “flat-lined,” averaging about $2 per pound. At the same time, she noted, wholesale prices rose substantially.

“None of this increase has been shared with fishermen, and I place all the blame for this at the door of Pacific Seafood,” she stated. “Competing processors are intimidated by Pacific and wait to see what price Pacific Seafood will set at the beginning of each season. With their market share and reputation, Pacific Seafood can veto the higher prices that would be set in a competitive market.”

Darus Peake, who owns and operates Garibaldi-based Tillamook Bay Boathouse, which processes crab, tuna, salmon and some groundfish and has eight employees. He is currently chairman of the Oregon Salmon Commission, and has served as a port commissioner in Garibaldi.

Peake participated in the 2010 crab price negotiations sponsored by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, and said he “came away disgusted” over Pacific Seafood’s refusal to budge above $1.675 per pound, even though he and “a number of other processors” were willing to pay prices higher than the 2009 opening price of $1.75 per pound. PS representatives also insisted on delaying the season to Dec. 10 to set crab pots, and first deliveries in Dec. 12.

“Because of their market share and the practice of requiring complete consensus on the processor side in those negotiations, we ended up with no choice but to stick with the prices proposed by Pacific Seafood,” said Peake. “I see the financial stress encountered by many fishing families on Oregon’s north coast and I see the declining level of maintenance throughout the Oregon fleet. If competitive conditions do not improve, I fear that we will lose a significant share of our fleet, and it will gradually be taken over through acquisitions of fishing vessels and permits by Pacific Seafood.”

Unlike the PS business model, which he said aims to dominate and buy up fishermen, he has a vision “where free and fair competition results in more processors, more fresh as opposed to frozen product, and more fishing industry jobs in Oregon.”

Krieger’s bill is still stuck in the committee process.

Seeking Compensation
The lawsuit alleges that PSG uses vertically integrated acquisitions, multiple tactics to set and enforce ex-vessel prices, exclusive dealing and tying arrangements, restrictions on output, “theft of seafood commodities” from fishermen, “fraudulent representations” to public agencies, and “miscellaneous dirty tricks.” The lawsuit requests a trial by jury, and asks the court, among other things, to declare PSG’s conduct illegal, and award the fishermen and fishing vessel owners a class judgment of $131.5 million to $173.5 million for actual damages, and to triple those damages to between $394 million and $520 million “as a result of the antitrust violations.”

The attorneys squared off in front of Judge Panner in October, with PSG’s legal eagles trying to convince the judge that the lawsuit doesn’t merit class action status. As of this writing, Panner had yet to rule on motions from Ocean Gold and Pacific to dismiss the lawsuit, or determine whether or not it merits class action status.

The trial was originally scheduled to begin in February 2012.

Senate Hears Criticism of Genetically Engineered Salmon

2011-12-21T09:44:00.002-08:00

Environmental risks of genetically engineered salmon were the subject of a Senate subcommittee hearing this past week. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, who has labeled the product “Frankenfish,” chaired the session of the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard. Begich and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced legislation in October to ban the interstate commerce of genetically engineered fish. Among those testifying with written and/or oral testimony were Sen. John (Jay) Rockefeller, D- W. VA., Ron Stotish, president of AquaBounty Technologies; Illinois fisheries geneticist John Epifanio; fisheries author Paul Greenburg; and George Leonard, aquaculture program director for Ocean Conservancy.

Leonard told the subcommittee that genetically engineered salmon could potentially damage already-struggling wild salmon populations through competition for food and habitat, pathogen and disease transmission, disruption of reproduction and interbreeding. “If such impacts come to pass, they could have real-world and far-reaching impacts people, industries and the environment” Leonard said. “Congress should ensure that key questions are answered before GE salmon are approved for commercial production,” he said.
“It is clear to me that we need to operate under the assumption that these fish will escape, and that warrants a thorough examination of the harm that this could cause,” said Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Epifanio said a robust and formal risk assessment is warranted. “We need to consider the scientific issues surrounding the risks of genetically engineered salmon and other fishes based on the appropriate and full range of scientific fields to shape the policy discussions,” he said.

Greenberg called Begich’s decision to hold the hearing an important one toward achieving a better understanding of the full suite of environmental risks posed by genetically modified salmon. The environmental risks posed by genetically engineered salmon specifically and GE fish in general are real, he said.

Congress should take legislative action to ensure that the full weight of environmental risks is thoroughly understood before we proceed, he said.

AquaBounty Technologies’ Ron Stotish noted the high demand for seafood in the US has resulted in the nation importing some 300,000 metric tons of Atlantic salmon each year from a variety of foreign producing countries, while producing less than 17,000 metric tons from aquaculture. Stotish said the cultivation of Atlantic salmon would not likely impact the wild caught Alaska salmon fishery market. Stotish also said the company’s facilities are located in areas that are highly unfavorable to the survival, establishment and spread of AquAdvantage salmon, should there be an escape.

NOAA Still Looking for Answers in Deaths of Ringed Seals, Walruses

2011-12-21T09:44:00.001-08:00

Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are still trying to determine what is killing ringed seals and walruses in Northwest and Arctic Alaska.

Since mid-July, more than 60 dead and 75 diseased seals – mostly ringed seals – have been reported in Alaska, and reports continue to come in. Scientists with the US Fish and Wildlife Service also identified diseased and dead walruses at the annual mass haul-out-at Point Lay on the Arctic Slope. It is not known whether the unidentified disease can be transmitted to humans or other sea life.
Necropsies and laboratory tests to date have found skin lesions in most cases, as well as fluid in the lungs, white spots on the liver, and abnormal growths in the brain. Some seals and walruses have undersize lymph nodes, which may indicate compromised immune systems, according to NOAA.

Federal agencies and partners have been consulting with the working group in marine mammal unusual mortality events to consider if the seal and walrus deaths met the criteria for an unusual mortality event.

Last week, the working group recommended that NOAA and the Fish and Wildlife Service declare an unusual mortality event for the ringed seals. That decision triggers a focused, expert investigation into the cause. A decision is pending with the US Fish and Wildlife Service for a similar for the walruses.

NPFMC Advances BSAI Alternatives for Analysis

2011-12-21T09:42:00.001-08:00

Bering Sea and Aleutian Island crab issues continue to move slowly forward through the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. At its December meeting the council advanced for analysis alternatives that would require persons acquiring quota shares to meet minimum requirements for active participation in the crab fisheries.

Under the proposed alternatives, active participation requirements could be satisfied by the quota shareholder either maintaining a minimum ownership interest in a vessel or a minimum participation as a crewmember.

Council members also asked staff to prepare a discussion paper examining the potential for cooperatives to develop provisions that would establish minimum crew compensation standards, maximum lease rates, maximum lease charges or deductions against crew compensation, and measures to promote quota share ownership by crew and active participants in those fisheries.

In related action, the council considered stakeholder comments concerning the performance of the binding arbitration system, which is used to settle price harvester/processor disputes for individual fishing quota landings that must be delivered to holders of individual processing quota. The council asked their chairman to appoint a work group to consider development of a process for the price formula for the golden king crab fishery, and letters of nomination are being accepted at the council office until Jan. 10.

The council also reviewed its pending action to modify community provisions, including rights of first refusal on processor quota shares. After testimony, the council made minor technical revisions to one alternative concerning the lapse of rights and added an action to require processor quota share holders to provide certain notices to right holders and NMFS to ensure the right holders and the right agency are informed concerning the status of rights and whether those rights have been triggered.

Halibut Catch Sharing Plan Has Unanimous Support From Federal Council

2011-12-21T09:32:00.000-08:00

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is unanimous in its continued support of a halibut catch sharing plan to resolve long standing allocation and management issues between the commercial and charter halibut sectors. The council also recognized during its December meeting in Anchorage that there are deficiencies in the current analysis that it needs to address before implementation can take place.

During the December meeting the council provided clarifications to six main issues raised in public comment to the proposed rule. The council asked for additional analysis and revisions to the halibut catch sharing plan that more specifically address public comments outlined in the National Marine Fishery Service report on the catch-sharing plan.

The council intends to review the supplemental analysis during its April meeting, to determine what, if any, additional changes are needed in order for the catch sharing plan to meet council objectives. The council also has asked NMFS for a report by the April meeting as to whether the additions and revisions to the catch sharing plan will require a new proposed rule, so that the council can establish a timeline for implementing the catch sharing plan.

The council also asked staff for a discussion paper analyzing several items for potential use in future halibut management, including the use of Alaska Department of Fish and Game log books for official harvest reporting, and the use of a common pool purchase of quota shares by the charter sector.

Red King Crab Prices Rocket to New Heights

2011-12-14T10:39:00.000-08:00

By Margaret Bauman

A fast-paced Bristol Bay red king crab season, with the quota slashed to 7.8 million pounds, bodes well for the commercial harvesters and processors in the short term, as wholesale buyers scramble for as much as they can purchase.

Where this will all lead in the marketplace is the unanswered question.

The fishery began on Oct. 15 and by Nov. 1, 82 percent of the total allowable harvest for individual fishing quota shares was landed, with just 1.2 million pounds of IFQ to go, said Heather Fitch, area management biologist for shellfish at Dutch Harbor for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Of the total 7.8 million pounds, 7,050,600 pounds went to the IFQ permit holders, with another 783,400 pounds to community development quota entities, whose harvest pace is generally the same as that of the IFQ entities, Fitch said.

Sixty-two vessels were participating in the 2011-2012 crab harvest, down three from a year ago, she said.

“It was a weird season,” said Rob George, of the Las Vegas based Crab Broker, who was there at Dutch Harbor to watch vessels deliver at that port. “It kind of reminded me a little bit of the old derby style days.

“Most of the boats were on the crab. A couple of boats came in with their quota after three to four days. Fishermen were saying there are crab all over the place.”

George, who generally spends 30 to 40 days at Dutch Harbor while the king crab are coming in, said he arrived on Oct. 20, saw his first delivery on Oct. 21 and departed on Oct. 28 this year.

“The weather wasn’t bad,” he said. “All of our planes of fresh got out on time. It was less stressful because we shipped less fresh crab daily, because of the high prices.”

That’s $20 a pound delivered to buyers in Japan this year, and domestic consumers “will be paying north of $20 (a pound), depending on what they are buying,” he said.

One harvester said he was getting $9 a pound for crab delivered, compared to about $7.50 a pound a year ago, not counting the additional retro money once prices were established.

A year ago, with the total allowable catch set at 13.4 million pounds for the IFQ program and 1.5 million pounds for the CDQ groups, Japanese prices were $14 a pound to wholesalers, and first wholesale prices domestically were $14.50 to $15.25 a pound.

There is no cheap crab on the market right now and most consumers won’t be able to find true Alaska king crab in most stores, George said.

Russian king crab is starting to come over and since the Japanese bought the vast majority of the Russian small king crab, the big king crab is coming in the United States, at price just below Alaska king crab prices, he said. “As long as people keep buying it, they will keep selling it at those prices,” he said.

Also on the bright side, George said, many skippers and crews told him they had a lot of undersized crab in their pots that they returned promptly to the ocean, which should bode well for the 2012-2013 red king crab season.

George said some skippers were telling him the water temperature this year was back up to where it was five or six years ago, and so they went to where they found an abundance of crab back then, and sure enough, there they were.

Kodiak harvester Mark Israelson, the skipper aboard the Island Mist, which delivered 100,000 pounds of red king crab at King Cove, was one of those concerned about the survey that led to the slashed quota. “They (ADF&G) go to the same areas (every year) and do their survey. They tow in exactly the same areas every year. We move around in those areas differently than they do,” to find the crab, he said.

The abundance of all that crab left some harvesters puzzled over why the Alaska Department of Fish and Game had slashed the quota by 47 percent, but Fitch, as well as Jeff Regnart, the department’s director of commercial fisheries, said the department was following standard procedures of several kinds of data, including that collected by trawl surveys, to determine the allowable catch. “They think we are being too conservative, but we try to do the best job possible with the money we have,” Regnart said.

In-season data from the 2011-12 fishery will be used to determine next year’s quota.

While harvesters are making more money per pound this year, they are mindful that that the quota was markedly lower, and were not that happy with the high prices, George said.

“Typically when you see these prices increase, they pay for it down the road. It gets taken off the menus. It’s not good for the industry at these prices,” he said.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margieb42@mtaonline.net.

NOAA Legislation Would Protect US Fishermen From Pirates

2011-12-14T10:17:00.001-08:00

Sen. Daniel Innoye, D-Hawaii, has introduced legislation in Congress to stop pirate fishing vessels from unloading their illegally caught seafood at ports in the United States. The administration bill, which implements an international agreement the United States helped negotiate, would benefit American fishermen, seafood buyers and consumers by keeping illegal seafood out of global trade. Co-sponsors of the legislation include Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

The pirate fishing practices are also referred to as illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

Announcement of the new legislation came from NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, who said illegal fishing undermines fishermen in the United States and other nations who fish sustainably and legally. These illegal practices also can result in devastating fish stocks and ocean ecosystems, Lubchenco said.

“As one of the top importers of seafood globally, the US is committed to combatting illegal fishing and ensuring a level playing field for our fishermen,” she said. “The international agreement and this bill will close the world’s ports to illegal fishing.”

The legislation is rooted in the first binding global agreement to focus on combatting these illegal fishing practices, the agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing. NOAA officials said this international accord is recognized globally as a landmark agreement.

Pollock Earns Certification for Meeting Fishery Management Standards

2011-12-14T10:16:00.000-08:00

An independent auditing firm, Global Trust, has certified a fourth Alaska commercial fishery as being in compliance with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s responsible fisheries management criteria.

The announcement of certification of the Alaska Pollock fishery on Dec. 9 comes on the heels of similar certifications for Alaska salmon, halibut and black cod (sablefish). The certification of Alaska crab remains in process.

The announcement came this past week from the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, which was directed by its board of directors to contract with Global Trust to verify that all five fisheries were in compliance with the UN organization’s code of sustainable management practices.

The certification lasts for five years and entails annual surveillance assessments.

Randy Rice, ASMI”s technical program director, based in Seattle, said ASMI’s board wanted to offer the seafood industry in Alaska alternatives to eco-label certification.

“We are not in the logo selling business,” Rice said. “This is a service to verify that Alaska fishery management practices adhere to international standards of fishery management. This is a cost effective alternative using the FAO code of conduct.

How certification of the Pollock fishery will affect the marketability of Alaska Pollock remains to be determined, he said.

The certification covers the fishery management of Alaska Pollock commercial fishery employing pelagic trawl gear within 200 miles of Alaska shores under federal and state management.

A Global Trust certification committee, composed of fishery, certification and accreditation experts performed a qualitative review of the formal processes, assessment reports and recommendations provided by the fishery assessment team and peer reviewers appointed to assess the Pollock fishery. The certification committee unanimously agreed with the assessment team’s findings that the Alaska Pollock commercial fishery is responsibly managed by effective management organizations, using robust fishery management plans and practices based on objective science and information, ASMI officials said.

Groundfish Quotas Set by North Pacific Fishery Management Council

2011-12-14T10:06:00.003-08:00

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, meeting in Anchorage, has set the 2012 quotas for groundfish in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska. All quotas are still subject to approval by US Commerce Secretary John Bryson. After much discussion, the federal panel set the Eastern Bering Sea Pollock quota at 1,200,000 metric tons, down 4.2 percent from a year ago. The Pacific cod quota was set at 261,000 metric tons, up 14.5 percent. Other quotas include yellowfin sole, 202,000 metric tons, up 3.1 percent; Atka mackerel, 50,763 metric tons, down 4.4 percent; Pacific Ocean perch, 24,700 metric tons, unchanged; and black cod (sablefish), 4,280 metric tons, down 9.9 percent.

In the Gulf of Alaska, the NPFMC set the total allowable catch at 116,444 metric tons for Pollock, up 21 percent. For Pacific cod, the quota was raised 0.9 percent to 65,700 metric tons. The quota for Pacific Ocean perch was dropped 0.5 percent to 16,918 metric tons, while the quota for black cod (sablefish) was raised 14.8 percent to 12,960 metric tons.

Alaska Seafood Promotions Fan Out Over Seattle, Anchorage and Juneau

2011-12-14T10:05:00.001-08:00

Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute is moving forward with plans for the Great Alaska Seafood Cook Off, to be held May 14 in Anchorage. Also on ASMI’s agenda in December was a fish taco photo shoot in Seattle, using recipes provided by the Alaska Seafood Chef Alliance and Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Fenigar of Bravo’s Top Chef, the Food Network’s Two Hot Tamales, and the owners of Border Grill restaurants. ASMI officals said the recipes feature Alaska black cod, cod, halibut, salmon, crab and Pollock. The images and recipes produced at Seattle’s Iridio Studios will be used to promote Alaska fish tacos during Leten and Cinco deMayo holiday promotions. ASMI’s food service division also shot 60 new photos featuring all five species of Alaska salmon, featuring raw portions, pan-seared, grilled and teamed/poaches cooking methods.

The Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation meanwhile is gearing up for the 18th annual Alaska Symphony of Seafood, with events in Seattle, Anchorage and Juneau. In Seattle on Feb. 3, entries in the 2012 competition for retail, food service and smoked products will be sampled and judged, and participants in the gala soiree will be asked to vote for their favorite products too. Only the people’s choice awards will be revealed in Seattle. Then on Feb. 11 in Anchorage, AFDF will holds another gala soiree, where participants again will choose the people’s choice winners in retail, food service and smoked seafood categories, and the judges’ decisions for first, second and third place in all categories will be announced. Winners of first place in all three categories, plus the people’s choice winners, will win airfare and booth space at the International Boston Seafood Show in late March. AFDF will then conduct a third venue in Juneau on March 8, where participants again will get to vote for their people’s choice for the best entries.

Officials Delay Commercial Dungeness Crab Harvest

2011-12-07T10:06:00.001-08:00

By Terry Dillman

December 2011

The commercial Dungeness crab season from Point Arena, Calif., to the Washington-Canada border is on hold until at least Dec. 15, due to recalcitrant crabs who failed their first two meat quality tests.

Officials from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) announced the delay in a Nov. 10 press release.

Commercial crab harvest in Oregon’s bays and estuaries closed on Dec. 1, but will reopen as soon as the commercial ocean fishery sets sail. Recreational ocean crabbing is also delayed, but remains open in the bays and estuaries.

Kelly Corbett from the ODFW Marine Resources Program located at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport said fishery managers from Washington, Oregon and California decided to delay the opening “to allow crab quality to improve.” Crabs in most test areas failed to meet the minimum preseason test criteria of at least 25 percent meat content (23 percent north of Cascade Head, Oregon) during early November testing. The next round of testing was expected in late November or early December.

What effect the delay might have on harvest numbers is anybody’s guess.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever guessed right,” said Nick Furman, executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission (ODCC) when asked to predict potential landings. “(The crabs) are on their own schedule. I’m cautiously optimistic.”

Furman said pushing back the start date should, however, ease some of the tension normally associated with price negotiations between fishermen and processors. Those negotiations, involving representatives from port crab marketing associations, seafood processing companies and the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA), were scheduled to start Nov. 16.

But Furman said everyone agreed that “it makes no sense to rush” the negotiations. “We decided it’s probably best to delay them to keep them in sync with the delayed opening,” he noted.

It also gives them a chance to glean more information, first providing what Furman deemed “a great opportunity” to spend at least an entire month observing what transpires from the central California Dungeness season, which opened Nov. 15, and to find out what the next round of meat quality tests reveals before heading to the negotiation table.

Under normal circumstances, the central California Dungeness fishery opens just a fortnight prior to the Oregon coast season. While that gives some indication of how things might go for the fleet from Oregon, Washington and northern California, the extra two weeks this year offers a chance to watch the effects in the marketplace and to get some initial answers to questions that are usually still open-ended when dickering about initial prices for Oregon crabbers, especially so close to the Thanksgiving holiday.

With the additional market and meat quality information in hand, Furman said, “There shouldn’t be much more to talk about except price. Everybody is looking forward to a good year.”

Crabbers say they would love a repeat of last season or better, but being pragmatic, they say they also know anything could happen, considering the vagaries of the market, weather and other factors, including crab quality.

Stellar Results
The season also started late last year as representatives from five port crab marketing associations and seven seafood processing companies negotiated, emerging from the bargaining process with an opening price of $1.65 per pound, pending a request from processors for additional pre-season testing by ODFW to determine crab meat quality. Processors also wanted crabbers to wait until Dec. 12, rather than venture out on traditional Dec. 1 opening date, and if they did, the negotiated price edged up to $1.675, which was still well below the 2009-2010 opening price of $1.75 per pound.

As it turned out, crabbers had a banner year value-wise as they caught fewer crabs than the previous season, but hauled in more money.

The season ended Aug. 14 with the fourth largest catch on record, as the 325-boat Oregon fleet landed 21.2 million pounds and exceeded 20 million pounds for the fifth time in the past 10 seasons.

Newport’s fleet helped the city live up to its designation as “The Dungeness Crab Capital of the World” by delivering 7.5 million pounds of crabs to the port’s seafood processors. Charleston’s fleet hauled in 5.3 million pounds, followed by Astoria with landings of 4.3 million pounds. While those were excellent numbers – well above the average annual harvest of about 10 million to 12 million pounds during the past three decades – numbers nearer and dearer to the crabbers’ hearts and wallets made the season a more resounding success.

“The real story is the landed value of this season’s catch,” said Furman when announcing the results in September. “Strong demand in the marketplace pushed boat prices up, so although fishermen caught fewer crabs, they made more money.”

The to-the-boat harvest value reached almost $49 million, which Furman said was the second most valuable Oregon crab season in history. Associated processing activity upped the economic impact for Oregon’s coastal communities from Astoria to Brookings to more than $100 million.

It fell short of the $52.9 million commercial crabbers gleaned from the 2004-2005 season, but that amount derived from a record-setting harvest of 33.6 million pounds. The 2009 landings reached 23.1 million pounds (Newport again led the way with 6.8 million pounds, edging out Charleston’s 6.7 million and outdistancing Astoria’s take of 4.6 million), the third largest ever, but with a lower to-the-boat harvest value of $44.6 million, and overall economic impact of $90 million.

Furman said crabbers are well aware of the cyclical nature of the Dungeness crab population, and they can expect drop-offs in landings after a boom. Harvests reached record levels from 2003 to 2006, peaking with the 2004 haul, followed by landings of 27.5 million worth $44.6 million in 2005, before dropping to 15.1 million pounds valued at $32.9 million in 2006. In 2007, crabbers hauled 12.3 million pounds of Dungies worth $29.3 million into Oregon ports, and the 2008 effort netted about 13 million pounds, before the 2009 rebound.

Those natural boom-and-bust cycles, crabbers note, puts them “at the mercy of” the marketplace, and Furman has said that successive high yield years can flood the market, pinching prices and leading to holdover inventories.

Fishery leaders have turned their attention to marketing efforts to help offset those drawbacks.

To Market, To Market
ODCC represents 433 limited entry crab permit holders, who fish primarily within 10 miles of Oregon’s coast. Those who go out are all vying for a piece of that market.

Oregon leads the way in Dungeness crab production, with harvested crabs sold live, whole fresh or frozen, or as picked meat, legs and sections. Products are shipped around the world, although the United States remains the main market.

Analysts say strong marketing and promotion efforts have heightened the image of Dungeness crab, creating demand that is transforming it from primarily a regional favorite to a more nationwide appeal in restaurants and other seafood outlets, including supermarket chains.

An industry marketing partnership with ODA is focused on promoting Dungeness crab in as many key markets as possible, including internationally. ODA officials, ODCC, fishermen and processors have collaborated to successfully introduce Dungies to many markets, including Japan and Korea.

ODA also plays a pivotal role by supervising negotiations for the season-opening crab price, which is vital to the crabbers’ livelihoods. Even with a set opening price, crabbers remain at the mercy of the markets, and the flow of crabs from pots to boats to docks to markets still hinges on bringing in most of the annual catch during the first two months, providing a surge that benefits processors, who depend on volume to meet holiday market demand.

They are working to change that, Furman said, and part of the effort involved obtaining certification by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a designation the fishery earned in 2010 – one of only three crab fisheries worldwide and the only one of the West Coast Dungeness crab fisheries (Oregon, Washington, California, Alaska, British Columbia) to do so – based on good management practices, sustainable harvest methods and neutral environmental impacts. MSC is the world’s leading independent certification program for sustainable fisheries, with science-based environmental standards and methodology, and a certification process that focuses on three principles: health of the fishery stock, fishery management, and the effects of the fishery on the overall ecosystem. The evaluation uses a number of performance measures and individual guidelines to determine certification.

“This sets the Oregon Dungeness brand apart from all other Dungeness in the marketplace,” Furman noted at the time. “This simply substantiates what we and a lot of other people have known all along – this is a well-managed, sustainably-harvested, environmentally-neutral fishery that just happens to also produce a wonderful gourmet product.”

Along those lines, they are following in the wake of two other unique Oregon fisheries. Oregon’s pink shrimp fishery received its initial MSC certification in 2007 and is currently immersing itself in the recertification process, and virtually all Oregon albacore tuna is MSC-certified.

“Oregon has been harvesting Dungeness crab for over a century,” Furman noted. “Landings this past decade have been off the charts, and nature continues to provide us with healthy stocks. But to attain MSC certification, we made some modifications and conducted additional scientific research to prove our sustainability.”

The next step, he noted, is creating consumer awareness and demand for the brand.

Furman believes the MSC certification could provide a definite economic boost for what is already the state’s most valuable fishery, due to a growing trend in the retail, food service, and restaurant trade to offer products from sustainable fisheries certified by an independent entity using a proven scientific process. He sees it as a big step in the right direction, as more consumers demand seafood from fisheries that can prove their harvest and management practices meet high standards for sustainability.

In fact, some wholesalers and retailers are committing to – sometime in the not-too-distant future - selling only certified seafood, so having the MSC blue label on Dungeness crab should translate into future successful marketing venues.

For now, crabbers say they are simply focused on the pending new season, and looking forward to getting gear in the water whenever they get the green light.

Grain Free Salmon Treats Now Include Fruits and Veggies

2011-12-07T09:59:00.001-08:00

Gourmet pet food entrepreneur Brett Gibson, who recognized 13 years ago the marketing potential of thousands of pounds of salmon scraps, has added grain-free salmon treats to his canine offerings, complete with fruits and vegetables.

Offerings include Yummy Chummies salmon with cranberries and blueberries, salmon with sweet potato, salmon with carrots, kelp and spinach and the very popular Yummy Chummies Gold, complete with a dash of rosemary extract.

“I think it (grain-free) will be a hot item,” said Gibson, whose Anchorage firm also produces a supply of salmon and cod protein for pet food manufacturers, and salmon oil products. November, December and January are the highest demand period for the gourmet treats.

The fact that they are made in the USA is also a huge selling point, he said.
Yummy Chummies Original soft and chewy salmon treats, meanwhile, continue to grow in popularity, offering nutritious wild Alaska salmon and its omega-3 oils for canines, and an outlet for fish processors who need to dispose of the rest of the fish after filleting or roe stripping.

The pet treats are available nationwide, from retail giants like Costco and Wal-Mart to online companies who tell potential customers “A million dogs can’t be wrong. Yummy Chummies are the premiere gourmet dog treat.”

While market demand keeps on growing, Gibson said he’s continuing to fight the higher cost of doing business in Alaska, from his calculations nearly twice the cost he would face if his business were based in the Pacific Northwest.

While Arctic Paws keeps a good inventory of product ingredients on hand, an unexpected order recently forced the company to pay $3,600 to have two ingredients trucked north over the Alaska Highway, four times the cost of bringing it up on a barge.

Gibson said he would like to see more effort on the state’s part to reduce the cost of manufacturing in Alaska, to back up their claims that they want to see more value added manufacturing, with creative ways to reduce the cost of shipping to Alaska ingredients needed to manufacture his products and the cost of shipping out the finished products too.

Senators Want Answers on New Salmon Virus Reports

2011-12-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washingotn, are voicing concern over new reports that Canada kept secret decade-old findings that a virus was detected in wild Pacific salmon.

“These troubling reports reinforce the need for a coordinated, multi-national strategy to control the spread of this virus threat,” Cantwell said. “American and Canadian scientists need to have access to all relevant research on this deadly virus. We can’t afford to leave the Pacific Northwest’s fishery jobs at risk.”

Murkowski meanwhile asked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration what details, if any, were known by the U.S. about earlier detection of the infectious salmon anemia virus, which is not known to be harmful to humans, but has devastated fish stocks in South America and Europe.

“Call it Salmongate,” said the Los Angeles Times, writing about reports that Canadian authorities allegedly knew about the virus a decade ago.

The Canadian Press is also reporting on an unpublished paper by scientists at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Atlantic Veterinary College in Prince Edward Island. The paper concluded that an asymptomatic form of ISA was occurring in some wild salmon stocks in the North Pacific as far back as 2002.

The report of earlier detection of ISA surfaced on the blog site www.Superheroes4salmon.com in late November.

Canadian fisheries officials issued a statement weeks ago saying reports of ISA detected in British Columbia salmon had not been verified by federal officials through established processes. A state of Alaska fisheries pathologist, Ted Meyers, said he was in daily contact with his Canadian counterparts and once a second round of tests was complete, the state would take appropriate action. Meyers cautioned that state officials did not want to overreact before they had more definitive information from the Canadian authorities.

Canadian Report Ranks Eco-Labels on Seafood Products

2011-12-07T09:47:00.002-08:00

A University of Victoria report released today (Dec. 7) ranks eco-labels intended to distinguish seafood produced with less damage to the environment. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, this is the first study to evaluate how eco-labels for farmed marine fish compare to unlabeled options for the marketplace.

“How Green is Your Eco-label?” is designed to help seafood buyers sort through competing sustainability claims and better identify those labels that result in farming methods with less damage to the ocean.

The report concludes that many eco-labels are not much better than conventional farmed seafood options when it comes to protecting the ocean environment.

“Scale is a big challenge for eco-labels,” the report said. “For the most part, eco-labels are awarded based on an individual farm’s environmental footprint.”

John Volpe, a marine ecologist at the University of Victoria and lead author of the report, said research shows that “most eco-labels for farmed marine fish offer no more than a 10 percent improvement over the status quo.

“With the exception of a few outstanding examples, one-third of the eco-labels evaluated for these fish utilize standards at the same level or below what we consider to be conventional or average practice in the industry.”

The authors used 10 environmental factors to assess the eco-labels, including antibiotic use, the ecological effect of farmed fish that escape from pens, sustainability of the fish that serve as feed, parasiticide used, and industrial energy needed in aquaculture production.

According to Chris Mann, director of Pew’s aquaculture standards project, the eco-labels can help fish farmers produce and consumers select environmentally preferable seafood, but only if the labels are based on meaningful standards that are enforced.

Man said that seafood buyers at the retail or wholesale level should demand that evidence of sustainability be demonstrates, no merely asserted.

The report concludes that government policies and regulations, as well as effective eco-labels, are necessary to limit the environmental impacts of production.

Funds Sought for Transition of Observer Program in Alaska

2011-12-07T09:47:00.001-08:00

Alaska’s congressional delegation is asking the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to provide $3.8 million in start up funds for the North Pacific Fishery management Council’s restructured groundfish observer program.

The delegation sent a letter to NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco this past week, noting that the restructured program will be funded by the industry, but that it requires start up funds.

Senators Mark Begich, D-Alaska, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, with Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, said that lacking federal funding in the first year, fishermen would have to pay for coverage under the existing program while being assessed a fee to support future observer coverage under the new program. It would also delay implementation of the new program for at least a year and prolong expected improvements in catch and bycatch estimates and annual catch limit management, they said.

The delegation noted that NOAA has made commitments to fund observers in other regions while the transition to catch share programs. They said they are concerned that funding observers in these other regions might jeopardize NOAA’s ability to provide start-up funds for the restructured North Pacific groundfish observer program, while imposing an unwarranted burden on fishermen in Alaska’s small boats and 60-125 foot vessel fleets.

Catch Shares Back Before NOAA Fisheries

2011-11-30T10:43:00.000-08:00

By Margaret Bauman

A proposed halibut catch sharing plan for Southcentral and Southeast Alaska that many thought was in the bag is back under public scrutiny again, much to the dismay of the setline harvesters, and applause of sports fishermen.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced its decision on Sept. 29, citing some 4,000 public comments received on the proposed rule to implement a halibut catch sharing plan.

Those comments raise issues that may require additional input from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council before NOAA Fisheries can proceed to a final rule, said Glenn Merrill, head of NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Region division of sustainable fisheries.

“We are still moving forward with the rulemaking process, but we are getting some issues clarified and refining the rule based on public comments and additional council input,” he said.

Merrill cited concerns about management implications at lower levels of abundance, economic impacts of the catch sharing plan and methods for calculating the average weight for guided angler fish that may be leased from commercial individual fishing quota operators reporting guided angler fish.

Further review of public comments may also raise other technical issues that may require additional input from the council, he said. While certain issues could be resolved by NOAA Fisheries, others raise important policy and implementation questions that are best addressed by the council, he said.

The council has reserved time for the catch share issue at its December meeting in Anchorage.

Linda Behnken, executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association at Sitka, said setline harvesters are very disappointed with the delay.

We believe it shows either a lack of understanding facing the serious issues facing the resource, or an inability of managers to stand up to political pressure,” Behnken said in a telephone interview. “It’s always politically safe to say we need to study this more and the sense that you can save the fish and the fishermen, but at some point, you have to save the fish.”

Commercial fishermen are taking a 76 percent reduction in area 2C (Southeast Alaska) and the guideline harvest level in 2C is down 45 percent, while the charter fleet meanwhile has exceeded their allocation by 22 percent to 115 percent on an annual basis, she said.

Behnken, herself a longline fish harvester, has spoken out often to advocate for protection of the halibut resource and for the charter halibut industry to share the burden of conservation with the setline fleet.

“The guideline harvest level has failed to prevent charter overage,” she said. “We have stocks in poor shape and huge impact to commercial fishing. The charter catch is disproportionate to abundance in areas 2C and 3A (Southcentral Alaska), ” she said. “The commercial fleet is being asked to carry the whole burden of conservation.”

The catch share program would level the playing field between the setline harvesters and the charter industry, she said. “The commercial sector provides fish to the public. It is a much broader based public than is serviced by the charter industry.”

Because NOAA fisheries has opted to delay implementation of the catch share plan, the International Pacific Halibut Commission has to take action in 2012 to make sure that the guideline harvest levels for halibut are not exceeded.

Behnken said the guideline harvest level for the charter fleet in area 3A is close to stair stepping down if abundance drops more and the commercial catch limit will likely take a 50 percent hit over the past six years.

The Kenai River Sportfishing Association meanwhile applauded the decision, saying the proposed plan would have severely limited the guided halibut industry in Southcentral Alaska as early as next season.

“We feel it is appropriate to take the time to better understand how to optimize halibut stocks, and believe sportfishing plays an important role in making the most of the fish available,” said Ricky Gease, executive director of KRSA.

The economic battle between the commercial harvesters who sell their fish to the public and the guided sport fishing industry has been steaming for years and shows no sign of abating, despite the fact that some veteran charter operators have worked closely with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to come to compromise agreements that would work for both.

While both industries contribute millions of dollars to the state’s communities, in dollars taxed and spent, the debate continues on who delivers more. Advocates for commercial harvesters living on the Kenai Peninsula, for example, are quick to point out that while the fishermen sometimes work in Alaska fisheries far from home, they bring those dollars home and spend them on the Kenai Peninsula. Advocates for the charter halibut fisheries point to the significant sums spent by tourists beyond the fee for fishing on a charter, in hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops.

One commercial setline fisherman, Brent Western, in an opinion piece published recently in the Anchorage Daily News, noted that fisheries management is complex and the catch-sharing plan is no exception. The catch-sharing plan, said Western, “establishes a framework that provides resource protection management stability for the halibut industry and an essential mechanism for transfer between sectors. Well-informed public comment and discourse contributed to that decision, he said. Speculation and misinformation do nothing but fuel conflict,” said Western, whose family has fished for halibut, herring and salmon in Alaska since the 1960s.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margieb42@mtaonline.net.

IPHC to Announce Preliminary Recommended 2012 Catch Limits

2011-11-30T10:33:00.001-08:00

The International Pacific Halibut Commission planned a webcast for today (Nov 30) to announce stock assessments and the IPHC staff preliminary recommended catch limits for halibut in 2012. Final action on catch limits will be made at the IPHC annual meeting in Anchorage Jan 24-27. This announcement, the IPHC notes, will impact both the commercial and charter sectors.

The Halibut Coalition, whose broad membership base includes more than a dozen fisheries associations, is planning a webcast of its own on IPHC research on Dec. 1. To sign up, follow the instructions given online at http://halibutcoalition.org/.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, at its December meeting next week in Anchorage, will be discussing and taking some action on the catch sharing plan and providing guidance to the IPHC for 2012.

The federal council is scheduled to hear the IPHC report on 2012 staff recommendations, an Alaska Department of Fish and Game report on 2010-2011 sport catch estimates, and logbook versus statewide harvest survey comparison. The council will also review the charter halibut committee report on revising the catch sharing plan tier 1 management measures and review the National Marine Fisheries Service report on catch sharing plan deficiencies and provide council direction.

Veteran halibut harvester Linda Behnken of Sitka, a spokesperson for the Halibut Coalition, noted that it’s all conjecture until the IPHC announces its annual limits.

If abundance is down, the commercial catch will be reduced more, and if abundance drops by a couple million more pounds, that will trigger a 15 percent reduction in the guideline harvest level for the charter fleet.

PSPA Says ‘No’ to Pebble Mine

2011-11-30T10:32:00.002-08:00

An umbrella group representing seafood processors operating throughout coastal Alaska has had a change of heart about development of a massive copper, gold and molybdenum mine in Southwest Alaska.

After careful consideration of its initial stance four years ago, the Pacific Seafood Processors Association says it has concluded that the level of risk to fisheries posed by the Pebble mine is simply too high.

PSPA said that “while we acknowledge the potential short-term economic benefits of this enormous project, we can see no way that it can be developed, operated and concluded without – at some point- causing irreparable harm to the watersheds, ecosystems, fishery resources, businesses, people and communities of the region.

“Furthermore, we know from past experience that actual or perceived damage to the purity of the waters or fish of the Bristol Bay region would harm the marketability of Alaska salmon and other seafood species, even from other regions of the state.”

PSPA noted that since the organization became active in 1914 it had never before taken a position in opposition to any specific development project or category of projects of other natural resource industries.

Still, after careful consideration, PSPA said, the organization feels compelled to oppose development of the mine because of its unique location, size and potential harm.

Back in 2007, PSPA’s board of directors was generally supportive of allowing the project to proceed to the exploration, research and permit application stages, but even then noted that PSPA would oppose the mine unless the developer can ensure that there will be no negative impacts to the region’s water quality or to Alaska’s fishery resources and their marketability.

Corporate members of PSPA include those with a major presence in Bristol Bay, including Peter Pan Seafoods and Trident Seafoods. The association also has several dozen associate members doing business in the seafood industry.

Symphony of Seafood Comes to Seattle, Anchorage

2011-11-30T10:32:00.001-08:00

The call is out for product entries for the 19th annual Alaska Symphony of Seafood, coming to Seattle on Feb. 2 and Anchorage on Feb. 10.

Entry information is online at http://www.symphonyofseafood.com/. Considered products must be market ready by the date of the competition. The entry deadline is Jan. 6, 2012.

The Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation organizes the annual event.

For the 2012 competition, judging and a reception will be held on Seattle Feb. 2, with the annual gala soiree and awards presentation Feb. 10 in Anchorage.

The event’s multiple locations give fisheries and seafood promoters the opportunity to introduce new and innovative value-added seafood products from Alaska fisheries and to gain exposure with industry and culinary experts, seafood distributors and national media, said Jim Browning, executive director of AFDF.

Browning noted that AFDF is relying on industry sponsorship to a much greater degree this year as grant funding has declined, but that regular sponsors have increased their sponsorship level and new companies are stepping up to support the event.

Competition is grouped into one of three categories. Salmon, whitefish and shellfish compete in retail or food service competition, with a separate competition for smoked seafood products.

Entries will be judged on the product’s packaging and presentation, overall eating experience, price and potential for commercial success.

Once judges have finished their work, chefs, manufacturers, buyers, sellers and media will be invited to vote on their favorite product at the Seattle reception for the Seattle People’s Choice Award, which is announced at the end of that event in Seattle.

The overall grand prize, first, second and third place winners in each category are announced on Feb. 10, at Anchorage, where participants there also get to vote for the Anchorage People’s Choice Award.

Those who place first in each category receive complimentary booth space at the International Boston Seafood Show in March, the industry’s biggest event of the year, as well as free round trip airfare.

Canadian Study Focuses on Climate Change Effects on Fisheries

2011-11-30T10:31:00.001-08:00

A new Canadian study on the effects of climate change on fisheries predicts that fisheries in the far north may benefit from climate change, while many other regions, particularly in the tropics, can expect revenue losses.

The University of British Columbia study quotes Rashid Sumaila, principal investigator of the Fisheries Economics Research unit at UBC, saying fisheries are already providing fewer fish and making less money than they could if overfishing was curbed. Sumaila also predicts that climate change likely will cause more losses unless such practices are curbed.

The study offers a broad view of the impact of climate changes on fisheries and their profitability. It was published on Nov. 20 online in the journal Nature Climate Change, (www.nature.com/nclimate), based in London.

Over the last century, oceans have become warmer and more acidic. Other factors, such as pollution and overfishing, have also had adverse impacts on marine species. With ocean warming, many species will move further toward the poles and into deeper water, the study said.

While fisheries in a few regions, such as the far north, may benefit from climate change, many other regions, particularly those in the tropics, can expect losses in revenue, UBC scientists said.

UBC fisheries biologist William Cheung said changes in temperature and ocean chemistry directly affect the physiology, growth, reproduction and distribution of these organisms.

“Fish in warmer waters will probably have a smaller body size, be smaller at first maturity, with higher mortality rates and be caught in different areas,” he said.

The study also found that biologically, maintaining more abundant populations can help increase the capacity of fish to adapt to environmental change. Curbing overfishing is crucial to making marine systems more robust and ready for changes that are already underway, the study found. Fish stocks will also be more robust to climate change if the combined stresses from overfishing, habitat degradation, pollution runoff, land-use transformation, competing aquatic resource uses and other anthropogenic factors are minimized, researchers said.

Fatigue: Three Groundings in a Four-Month Period

2011-11-23T13:44:00.000-08:00

By USCG Lt. Jon Lane

Commercial fishermen are not strangers to fatigue. Fatigue is a pervasive issue on all fishing boats, both big and small. In an industry where working hours are controlled by when the fishing is good, and not regulated by the Coast Guard, vessel owners and operators sometimes overlook the potential dangers associated with fatigued crew members for the sake of maximizing their catch. As a result, 16 to 18 hour workdays are common on most boats.

You don’t have to do much research to know that fatigue is prevalent in the fishing industry, and it was recently recognized by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as one of the top safety concerns for the entire transportation industry. The NTSB characterizes fatigue on their web site as a subtle condition that creeps up on airline pilots, motor coach drivers and vessel captains because they “do not realize until it is too late that they cannot safely complete their duties because of fatigue.” (Source: http://www.ntsb.gov/safety/mwl-1.html)

In the four month period between June and September of 2011, three commercial fishing vessels ran aground in the waters around Washington State. The Coast Guard’s investigation of each of these groundings revealed a common causal factor – fatigue. Each one of these cases involved a tired fisherman that fell asleep at the helm. All of them were doing their very best to get the boat back home after a hard working trip.

The sinister thing about fatigue is that we all do our very best to try and “push through” it because we want to get the job done, but exhaustion doesn’t let up. Weariness, weakness and tiredness shadow us until it is too late. If mistakes and errors are like fire, fatigue is the catalyst that turns them into infernos.

Fortunately, not one of the aforementioned groundings resulted in injury; however, there were a few bruised egos and lost revenue. For the two “minor” groundings, the vessels incurred several thousand dollars worth of damage and precious lost time. The most serious of these groundings resulted in a total loss of the boat. It tipped over on the rock it was grounded on when the tide went out. It sank and subsequently discharged an undetermined amount of oil into the water.

Vessels and equipment are replaceable – lives are not. Fortunately for all involved, this recent spate of groundings did not hurt or kill anyone or cause significant damage to the environment. If this trend isn’t reversed or stopped, it’s just a matter of time before a fatigue-related incident will result in the loss of life and/or major environmental damage.

So, as the owner, operator, master or manager of a commercial fishing vessel, what can you do to combat fatigue on your boat? Educate yourself on the anti-fatigue strategies and tools that are available and take action.

The US Coast Guard’s Research and Development Center recognized the need to provide vessel owners, operators, managers and masters with a solution to the fatigue problem, so they developed the Crew Endurance Management (CEM) Practices Guide. The Guide provides proven practices for managing endurance risk factors (sleep loss, stress, heat, cold, etc.) that affect operational safety and crew member efficiency.

The CEM Guide and a whole lot of other useful CEM information is available free on the Coast Guard’s CEM website at http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/cg5211/cems.asp.

Our partner organizations, the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association (AMSEA) and the North Pacific Fishing Vessel Owners’ Association (NPFVOA) are another great resource you can access for information about fatigue fighting strategies.

If the thought of being responsible for damaging your boat, or someone else’s boat, or even worse, injuring or killing a fellow fisherman does not give you reason enough to consider implementing a crew endurance management program, then consider this: If you operate your vessel without a proper look-out and an accident happens, you might incur the following criminal and/or civil penalties:

• Misconduct, negligence or inattention to duties by a vessel captain that results in the loss of life is a Class C Felony punishable by up to 10 years in jail and/or a $250,000 fine as per 18 U.S. C. § 1115.

• Operating a vessel in a grossly negligent manner that endangers life, limb or property of a person is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and/or a $100,000 fine as per 46 U. S. C. § 2302(b).

• Operating a non-recreational vessel in a negligent manner so as to endanger life limb or property of a person may result in a $25, 000 civil penalty as per 46 U.S.C. § 2303(a).

Your local Coast Guard Sector or Marine Safety Unit can assist you in getting the information you need to implement a CEM program. Once you have a program in place, Coast Guard personnel can use the CEM Navigation and Vessel Inspection Circular (NVIC) No. 02-08 to help you assess the effectiveness of your CEM program. For more information, contact your local Coast Guard Commercial Fishing Vessel Safety or Marine Casualty Investigations Office.

Lieutenant Jon Lane is currently the Assistant Chief of the Investigations Division at U. S. Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound. Jon has been a marine casualty investigator for the last seven years and a Coastie for 24 years.

Lowering Of King Crab Lease Fees Under Discussion

2011-11-23T13:21:00.001-08:00

A spokesperson for the Bering Sea Crabbers, Ed Poulsen, says the majority of quota share holders in the Bristol Bay crab fishery have voluntarily agreed to hold the cap on fees for leasing out their quota shares to 65 percent in the next season.

Poulsen said details on discussions involving lease rate fees and other topics that came up at the Nov. 21 meeting of the crab industry work group in Ballard, Washington, would be presented at the December meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in Anchorage.

The industry standard for the lease rates has been about 70 percent, according to Poulsen, but in some cases they have been even higher, while lease rates for opilio crab quota shares have stayed at 50 percent.

Lease rates are one of several contentious issues that have been under discussion since the federal crab rationalization legislation was approved several years ago.

The NPFMC has scheduled eight hours of its December meeting to hear Bering Sea and Aleutian Island crab stakeholder reports, all five-year review issues.

Some industry harvesters, like Mark Israelson, skipper of the Island Mist out of Kodiak, have said they feel the Bristol Bay red king crab quota share should be 50 percent, just like that for the opies. Another option, said Israelson, would be a 65 percent lease fee, with all expenses for the crab trips paid by leaseholders.

Others, including the Crewman’s Association, based in Kodiak, are seeking more changes in the crab rationalization program to benefit the crew, including provisions to pay crew after normal expenses, including then taking the lease fees off for the crab quota after buyback and individual fishing quota taxes have been subtracted.

The association is also seeking redistribution of 35 percent of the crab quotas to a crew pool held by the state of Alaska and released to the industry after a fair and equitable compensation package for all crewmen that fish the region. The crab skipper quota would be subtracted so that it is 32 percent to allow the skippers access to fair contract for their labors.

Fuglvog Sentencing Now Scheduled for February

2011-11-23T13:20:00.000-08:00

US District Court Judge H. Russel Holland has rescheduled the sentencing for former Senate fisheries aide Arne Fuglvog, of Petersburg, Alaska, to Feb. 7.

Fuglvog, who served on the staff of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, pleaded guilty in August in Anchorage to a single count of violating the Lacey Act by falsifying records of where he harvested sablefish intended for interstate commerce.

Fuglvog’s attorney, Jeffrey Feldman of Anchorage, confirmed that the sentencing, originally set for Nov. 18 and then for Dec. 7, had been postponed again, but declined comment on reason for another rescheduling.

Fuglvog is a veteran commercial fisherman from Petersburg who served on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. He was also for a while considered as one of three top candidates to head the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The initial plea agreement reached by Fuglvog with the court was to include ten months in prison, a $50,000 fine and a payment of $100,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which is engaged in wildlife preservation and restoration.
Fuglvog is currently free on his own recognizance.

Begich, Young Introduce Legislation to Sink Pirate Fishing Vessels

2011-11-23T13:16:00.000-08:00

Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, is pursuing through Congress his idea of sinking at sea unregistered fishing vessels operating in waters of the United States.

The Alaska Democrat first proposed the idea after the unregistered, rat-infected Bangun Perkasa was seized by the US Coast Guard, some 2,600 miles southwest of Kodiak.

Instead of just bringing it to shore and cleaning it up, Begich wanted the rats on board exterminated and the vessel sunk at sea. Since at the time of that vessel capture the Coast Guard lacked the resources to decontaminate the vessel, making it safe to sink, the vessel was salvaged.

Then on Nov. 18, Begich in the Senate, and Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, in the House, introduced the Pirate Fishing Vessel Disposal Act of 2011.

The legislation would give the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Coast Guard authority to dispose of pirate fishing vessels engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

Options include being sunk by the Coast Guard in live-fire training exercises; being transferred to developing nations for use in fisheries patrol and enforcement activities; being transferred to other government or non-profit institutions for training, education, or research, or scrapping and recycling the vessels.

For vessels to be sunk by live fire, the bill requires that the vessels have all fuel removed and that they be decontaminated of harmful substances; that all fishing gear and other potential marine debris be removed, and that they be sunk in US waters more than 50 miles offshore, in water more than a mile deep.

Begich worked with NOAA, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Coast Guard and the US Maritime Administration to craft the bill.

Sponsors of the legislation can’t speculate on what it would cost at this time, as a pirate fishing vessel has never been dealt with like this before, a Begich aide said. The identified source of funds is the Oil Spill Liability Fund.

Alaska Pollock Fishery Assessment Enters Peer Review Stage

2011-11-23T13:15:00.000-08:00

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute announced this week that the Alaska Pollock fishery assessment to the FAO-based responsible fisheries management certification has reached the peer review stage.

Based on the technical expertise required to carry out the assessment, Global Trust Certification Limited has confirmed an external peer review team of Herman Savikko and Dankert Skagen.

Savikko, who has a degree in biological sciences, was employed for 30 years with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, including the divisions of sport fish, fisheries rehabilitation, enhancement and development, and commercial fisheries. He helped to develop, draft and implement salmon bycatch limits for the Bering Sea Pollock fleet, as well as the foundation for bycatch measures in the Gulf of Alaska trawl fisheries. Skagen is the owner of Kankert Skagen Fisheries Science Consultants in the Bergen area of Norway, and a former senior scientist at the Institute of Marine Research.

The peer review is a technical review of the evidence documented by the assessment team that demonstrates the level of conformity of the fishery to the FAO code and guides. The peer reviewers provide a critical evaluation of the consistency in the recommendation made by the assessment team as together the fishery is recommended for certification.

Alaska crab fisheries are also currently involved in the same certification process.
Alaska salmon earned responsible fisheries management certification under the same program on March 11. Alaska halibut was certified on April 29 and Alaska black cod (sablefish) was certificated on Oct. 11. This independent, third-party certification of the management of major Alaska commercial fisheries is directly based on the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization code of conduct for responsible fisheries and the FAO guidelines for eco-labeling of fish and fishery products from marine capture fisheries.

Voluntary Lowering of Lease Fees Offered By Some Crab Quota Share Holders

2011-11-16T11:27:00.001-08:00

By Margaret Bauman

A report of the crew work group meeting at Dutch Harbor during the October meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council notes that some current crab quota shareholders have agreed to voluntarily lower lease rates.

The report, prepared by Edward Poulsen, distributed on Oct. 4 to members of the working group who participated in the Sept. 29 meeting, notes several issues covered by those in attendance and via teleconference, including a Kodiak connection.

It does not mention electronic data reporting, a subject on which the council will take final action at its December 5-13 meeting in Anchorage. Poulsen, former executive director and now an advisor to the Bering Sea Crabbers, said he was preparing an updated report on the meeting to deliver at the December meeting.

A number of people who crew on crab boats have expressed concern since the crab rationalization legislation went into effect several years ago about loss of jobs and income, mainly because of fleet consolidation and leasing of quota shares. Some crew members also feel they should have been allocated crew quota shares because of their long-term participation in this dangerous fishery, an opinion challenged by some vessel owners who said they have invested substantial capital in the fishery, as opposed to physical effort alone.

Several people representing crewmembers also want data reports made available that show specifically how much income crew members earned annually before the federal crab rationalization program was approved.

“What we would like to see on public record is the pay from pre-rationalization,” said Steve Branson, a veteran Kodiak fisherman. “It would be nice to be able to compare what was going on before and after privatization.”

Branson said after seven years of traveling from Kodiak to attend various meetings of the federal council he is not overly optimistic about change any more, even though ”the council now is more fair-minded. I don’t think it (crab rationalization) would have passed if it had been scrutinized more closely.”

Vessel owners held the Dutch Harbor meeting to discuss progress in development of measures to address crew issues, as a precursor to the industry’s report to the council in December.

First up on their agenda was a proposal of vessel owners to provide a right of first offer to active participants on 10 percent of the quota share being transferred in any transaction. The right is intended to increase the portion of the quota share pool held by persons actively fishing. The remaining 90 percent could be subject to a similar right of first offer for either people active in the fleet or owning a fishing vessel.

Proponents of the measure are still developing the specific agreement and suggested that a written description could be provided at the next meeting.

Vessel owners also reported that a substantial portion of current quota holders have agreed to voluntarily limit their lease rates to 65 percent in the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery and 50 percent in the Bering Sea opilio fishery, Poulsen said. The lower limit is intended to reduce the pressure on vessel owners that could arise under arrangements that only guarantee crew minimum shares of a vessel’s gross revenues, Poulsen said. In the absence of limits on lease rates, a reduction on the lease rates that may be charged to crew may disadvantage vessel owners that lease a substantial share of the quota that they harvest, he said.

Supporters of the limit on lease rates suggested that in the future cooperative agreements could be modified to include a limit on the lease rate percentage that may be charged to crew, Poulsen noted in his meeting report. However, it was also noted that affiliated coops would also need to implement similar changes that could be more difficult as they are not FCMA cooperatives, he said. In addition, provisions could be included in that agreement to prevent vessel owners from modifying crew contracts to pass on additional costs to crew that might offset the reduced charges on lease costs.

Before crab rationalization went into effect, crew made more money for their efforts because only a percentage of the vessel’s fuel, bait, food and pot loss were deducted before their percentage of the profit was calculated. Once crab rationalization went into effect, some vessels began fishing a great deal of leased quota shares, for which they were paying a lease fee of sometimes up to 80 percent of the harvest, and that lease fee was added to the list of vessel expenses deducted from crew pay.

Branson, who was not among those attending the Dutch Harbor meeting, said he would have made substantially more money the last time he crewed on a crab boat, had lease fees not been deducted.

Some crewmembers at the meeting expressed support for efforts of vessel owners to improve crew compensation through reduced lease fees. These representatives suggested that they would support allowing vessel owners to continue with the effort to use reduced lease rates to address the crew compensation issue.

Poulsen said meeting participants also discussed the means of evaluating the effects of the reduced lease rates on crew compensation.

Vessel owners offered to advance a list of quota holders and/or vessel owners who agreed to the arrangement, but opposed any effort to collect additional information on crew compensation.

These vessel owners expressed their opinion that the adequate information would be provided by the list of quota holders. Vessel owners said that, when available, electronic data reporting data would demonstrate specific effects on compensation.

Some crew representatives voiced concern that electronic data reporting data may not be available until more than a year after some seasons, which would limit the ability to address compensation, if the lease rate reduction measure fails to achieve its intended result. For this reason, they believe that some other means of demonstrating the effectiveness of the measure should be pursued, Poulsen said.

Vessel owners also offered to bring a written description of the agreement to limit lease rates to the next meeting for review by all participants. That description could help participants evaluate the measure, including the potential for reports to establish its effectiveness, Poulsen said.

It was suggested by staff that the group meet prior to the December meeting of the federal council, perhaps on Nov. 21, to ensure that all participants have the same understanding of the progress of discussions.

Poulsen said in an interview later that a loan program up and running since this summer allows crew to get low interest loans to purchase crab quota shares through the National Marine Fisheries service, with amortizations over a 20 year period. “The issue is the NMFS loan program is so low that there is not a lot of incentive for more programs, he said.

The federal crab rationalization program was the first and only program that gave 3 percent of the individual fishing quota shares to skippers. The quota share holders would not be supportive of reallocating quota shares, because it would be disruptive to their businesses now ongoing, he said.

Another Kodiak commercial fisheries veteran, Kodiak city council member Terry Haines, noted that efforts to get banks to offer reasonable interest rates to crew members seeking to buy into quota share did not work out well. “And you can’t blame them,” Haines said. ‘The whole concept makes the banks nervous, that crew might have rights to quota shares they have already given out loans on.”

Haines noted that the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act identifies quota shares in the crab fishery as a privilege that can be taken back at any time, if there is enough reason. “It makes the banks very nervous,” he said.

Caps on leased quota share, Haines said, are on the other hand something that is quite doable.

Another issue the council has not discussed is caps on the amount of quota share that may be harvested on the same vessel, he said. When huge amounts of leased quota are harvested on the same vessel, it takes away from a crew’s ability to leverage pay. The bottom line is, what is their percentage of net profits now? Before rationalization is was 6-8 percent for the crew and the skipper got 15 percent (after expenses). Now with 80 percent lease fees off the top that leaves you 20 percent,” he said.

Haines and others are also eager to get the crab electronic data reporting up and running to provide data that provides more information.

Public comment submitted at the Dutch Harbor meeting by Stephen Taufen for the Groundswell Fisheries Movement urged that data collection should include reconciled fish settlement accountings, and inclusion of each crab vessel’s by-species/fisheries lay share contracts.

The reconciled fish settlement accountings should detail whose quota is consolidated on which vessel, the rents or leases charged to the vessel and portion passed along to crews by lease, as well as shared trip settlement expenses by categories, such as fuel, bait, and gear, the percentage for each crewmember by name, showing individual trip settlement costs as well as total personal deductions, Taufen said.

The electronic data collection should also include lay share contracts for all captain and crewmembers, as part of the collection of data that confirms both quantitative analysis and qualitative assessment of whether or not the Bering Sea –Aleutian Islands crab rationalization program meets the requirement that in order to hold quota rights, all applicable federal laws must be obeyed by each IFQ holder, Taufen said.

Haines said that from a community perspective, he looks at the reduced revenue going out of communities as a result of consolidation of the fleet after rationalization and lease fees. From a community perspective, vessel caps and a limit on lease fees would address capital flight form communities, he said.

Haines is a member of the Crewmen’s Association, which has been advocating for crew rights for several years, but said he is more focused at this time on Fish Heads, an advocacy group for the preservation of the vitality of Alaska’s fishing communities.

A number of people who work as crew members have been reluctant to speak out about their support of the Crewmen’s Association, led by Shawn Dochtermann, and other advocates for crew rights because if they were to put their names on a list of those groups they could lose their jobs, he said.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margieb42@mtaonline.net.

Today's Catch: Once Bitten, Twice Shy

2011-11-16T11:17:00.001-08:00

In this space in August of 2008 it was suggested that the Sun is most likely the cause of any global warming the earth might be experiencing. This theory was in stark contrast to the widely publicized (and generously funded) theory that the conversion of petroleum into carbon dioxide was to blame. As of this summer, the former scenario has become the more credible of the two, with the revelation by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland of an inverse correlation between periodic changes in sunspot activity levels and quantities of cosmic rays entering Earth’s atmosphere that trigger surface-cooling cloud formations.

In 1996, two Danish scientists, Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen, theorized that it is changes in the Sun’s magnetic field, and not the emission of greenhouse gases, that has led to recent rises in global temperatures. In 1998 their theory began to be put to the test at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, deep inside a mountain on the Swiss border. Over the past 12 years, the CERN team, led by particle physicist Jasper Kirkby, has been experimenting with a custom-built chamber filled with air and chemicals, including water vapor, sulphur dioxide, ozone and ammonia, and bombarding the chamber with protons. The preliminary results, released in late August, seem to show that the cosmic rays have a much larger effect on climate than has been alleged by adherents of the manmade global warming theory.

Professor Svensmark notes that there is much more work to be done, but the fact that an actual controlled physics experiment calls into question a computer-generated theory that has been considered by many to be “settled” might be a powerful tool in the fight to remove science from politics, or vice versa.

Speaking of politics and science, as the global warming science becomes more unsettled, a new crisis is gaining ground among the environmental lobby: ocean acidification. As manmade global warming was “proven” by data showing that the earth had warmed, so manmade ocean acidification promises to suck more grant money into the vortex of science-for-hire.

The fact that the oceans are becoming more acidic seems to be a generally accepted premise, and therefore warrants concern and study. But, rather than encouraging public support for further scientific research, the use of a soon-to-be discredited theory (that man is to blame for changes in climate) to explain the oceanic rise in acid will likely be met with skepticism.

An upcoming event in Seattle on ocean acidification, sponsored by the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Washington Sea Grant and the Sustainable Path Foundation, will promote the manmade acidification theory with speakers from NOAA and the federal government. One of the speakers claims, “The same CO2 that’s heating the planet is causing ocean acidification... This is not abstract theory; this is the consequence of fundamental principles of chemistry and physics. “

The proponents of manmade acidification already see it as “settled” science. We “deniers” will be ridiculed and vilified for our calls to consider other causes, and eventually someone will conduct a groundbreaking study, like that of Professors Kirkby et al, suggesting that maybe man isn’t to blame after all. If the ocean is indeed becoming more acid, we shouldn’t readily accept the first explanation and spend 12 years heading down the wrong path, but rather keep an open mind and use science to find the cause, and maybe a solution.

Chris Philips
editor@fishermensnews.com

Decision Expected Soon in Latest Exxon Valdez Litigation

2011-11-16T11:14:00.000-08:00

A federal judge presiding over the latest litigation in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill has taken under advisement oral arguments on whether Exxon should to pay millions of dollars more for unforeseen damages from the Prince William Sound disaster.
The spill proved devastating to commercial fish harvesters, wildlife and others dependent on fish in that region.

Judge H. Russel Holland heard oral arguments in Anchorage on Nov. 15 from legal counsel for Exxon, the federal government and the state of Alaska.

Exxon has entered a motion asking the court to enforce a 1991 consent decree, relieving the oil giant from paying an additional $92 million to deal with environmental damages from the spill. Exxon argues that the original agreement made clear that parties to the lawsuit limited the reopener phase to restoration projects, which are different from cleanup projects.

Attorneys for the state and federal government argued that the words “cleanup” and “restoration” could be used interchangeably.

Exxon has already paid some $900 million in damages for cleanup costs, but the 1991 reopener decision allowed the government to reopen the case if it could show that problems remained.

State and federal government officials submitted a restoration plan in May of 2006 for more cleanup of residual oil on beaches in Prince William Sound, following with a demand for payment in August of 2006. Since then the governments have not pursued the matter and Exxon has not paid out any additional funds.

Marine biologist Rick Steiner, who had spent 14 years working on Prince William Sound, had filed an amicus brief asking that Exxon be ordered to pay the $92 million, plus about $25 million in interest.

Steiner also asked the court to grant the governments discretion in how best to use these monies in the best interest of full ecological recovery, and that the court issue guidance to other court regarding construction of future reopeners for unknown injury provisions in environmental consent decrees, to avoid problems that have plagued the Exxon Valdez reopener provision.

While the court denied his amicus brief, the judge can still order the requested relief, said Steiner.

32 Million Sockeye Forecast for Bristol Bay

2011-11-16T11:12:00.000-08:00

State biologists are forecasting a run of 32.3 million wild Alaska sockeye salmon returning to Bristol Bay in 2012, and a harvest estimate of 21.76 million fish. Biologists say a run of 32.2 million sockeyes can potentially produce a total harvest of 22.83 million fish. The projected harvest includes 21.76 million fish in Bristol Bay and 1.07 million fish for the South Alaska Peninsula fisheries.

In 2011, Bristol Bay produced a harvest of 21.9 million reds, with a preliminary value to harvesters of $135.7 million.

For the Naknek-Kvichak District, the run forecast is 14.96 million fish, including 6.48 million to the Kvichak River, 1.90 million to the Alagnak River, and 6.22 million to the Naknek River.

Biologists predict a run of 3.09 million reds to the Egegik district, 3.09 million to the Ugashik district, 0.78 to the Togiak district, and 6.76 million to the Nushagak district, including 4.64 million to Wood River, 1.40 million to the Nushgak River and 0.72 million to the Igushik River.

Bob Waldrop, executive director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association, noted that sometimes the forecasts are right on, while at other times expectations are different than the reality. “It’s important that (forecasts) be done, but also important that we understand that we really don’t have the funding to completely understand what’s going on in the salmon systems.

“Expectations are just that,” he said. “They are as informed as we can make them.”
Forecasters anticipate the 2012 run will be dominated by age 1.3 sockeyes, at 41 percent, followed by age 2.2, at 26 percent, age 1.2 at 19 percent, and age 2.3 at 13 percent.

Historically, total runs of red salmon to Bristol Bay have been highly variable, the researchers said. The 2012 forecast of 32.30 million fish is above the long-term historical average of 30.63 million fish from 1956 to 2011, but below the more recent historical average of 40.50 million fish from 2004 to 2011.

State Documents Importance of Fish Harvesting to Alaska Economy

2011-11-16T11:11:00.001-08:00

A report in the November issue of Alaska Economic Trends says fish harvesting is a critical component of Alaska’s economy, employing thousands of people, and with an economic impact that goes way beyond the harvesting effort itself.

The report, produced by the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development, notes that Bristol Bay’s earnings and harvesting employment have grown the most over the last six years. In 2010, that region’s gross earnings topped $169 million, a 72 percent increase over 2005. Harvesting employment for the same period rose by 381 workers to 7,225.

Though its harvesting workforce is the fourth largest in the state, the Aleutians and Pribilof Islands region was the leader in gross earnings at almost $500 million in 2010- nearly double that of the second highest earning region, Southcentral Alaska. Despite the high gross earnings for the area, the number of fish harvesters has declined over the last six years, the report said. From 2005, there was an estimated loss of 158 permit holders and 110 crewmembers.

Southeast Alaska had the largest workforce of fish harvesters in 2010, but its gross earnings ranked third behind Southcentral. Harvesting employment grew by 146 workers, to reach a total of 9,182, and Southeast Alaska had a record year for gross earnings of $208 million, $49 million more than in 2005.

In the Yukon Delta region, the number of active permit holders has slowly decreased since 2005, while the number of crew has grown, resulting in higher overall employment. From 2005 to 2010, gross earnings for that region rose 37 percent to $4.9 million.

More details on the economic contributions of Alaska’s commercial fisheries are at http://labor.alaska.gov/trends/

Homer Fisherman Named to Alaska Seafood Industry Hall of Fame

2011-11-16T11:10:00.000-08:00

Retired Homer commercial fisherman Bob Moss has been named to the United Fishermen of Alaska’s Alaska Seafood Industry Hall of Fame.

Mark Vinsel, executive director of UFA, said Moss was recognized for his efforts as a pioneer in Alaska fisheries for 60 years. Moss served on the Alaska Board of Fisheries, and was heavily involved in the Alaska statehood movement and efforts to organize fishermen to represent themselves in the fisheries management process.
Buck Lukaitis, president of the Homer-based North Pacific Fisheries Association, nominated Moss during the UFA’s fall meeting in Homer in early November.

Moss addressed the UFA board, recounting his earliest fishing times and the importance of work outside the fishing seasons. He said he wanted to thank fishermen who attend all the meetings of the Board of Fisheries, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and meetings in their communities. “Fishing is also about what happens before and after the fishing season,” he said.

UFA established the Alaska Seafood Hall of Fame in 2009 to honor the 50th anniversary of Alaska Statehood.

Those named to the hall of fame to date include Bob Alverson, US Sen. Bob Bartlett, Bob Blake, the Brindle Family, Chuck Bundrant, Al Burch, Phil Daniel, Oscar Dyson, Senator Dick Eliason, Gov. Ernest Gruening, Gov. Jay Hammond, Gordon Jensen, Knute Johnson, Armin F. Koernig, Jerry McCune, Alaska State Rep. Drew Scalzi, Alaska State Sen. Clem Tillion, Tommy Thompson, and Bob Thorstenson Sr.

“These individuals each made lasting contributions that helped Alaska fishermen and women continue our sustainable fisheries into the future,” Vinsel said. “We look forward to recognizing the many others that are helping ensure our sustainable fisheries for future generations.”

Markets Look Strong for Southeast Alaska Geoduck Fishery

2011-11-09T11:56:00.000-08:00

By Margaret Bauman

Geoduck harvesters in Southeast Alaska are anticipating strong markets this year, based on reports that Washington State fisheries are paying $14 to $16 a pound for these large burrowing clams.

“We’re hoping to start the season at $8 to $10 a pound, said Phil Doherty, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Regional Dive Fisheries Association in Ketchikan.

“If we could average $10 a pound for the season, everyone would be happy.”

Last year’s fishery, which employed more than 200 people in jobs ranging from diving to processing, was worth an estimated $6 million, Doherty said.

Doherty noted in an interview on the eve of the fishery’s starting date of Oct. 6 that Alaska prices to harvesters for geoducks are tempered by the comparatively higher costs of doing business in Alaska, from getting tenders to the grounds to shipping the live geoducks to Hong Kong.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has set the guideline harvest level for this year’s Southeast Alaska commercial geoduck clam fishery at 557,500 pounds. Fishing areas were to open based on paralytic shellfish poison test results. Weekly PSP results are expected on Monday afternoons, state fisheries officials noted. If sampling is delayed the fishing period may also be delayed up to one day.

In the Ketchikan management area, the sea cucumber fisheries are conducted on Mondays and Tuesday and the geoduck fishery is restricted to Thursdays, assuming those areas have been cleared by PSP testing, Doherty said.

Trident Seafoods and E.C. Phillips in Ketchikan and Absolute Fresh in Sitka purchase the bulk of the harvest, he said.

For the 2010-2011 season, the combined harvest of geoducks, sea cucumbers and red sea urchins in Southeast Alaska garnered harvesters $8,233,773, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game calculations showed.

The harvest of 845,702 geoducks averaged $5.85 a pound for a total ex-vessel value of $4,943,539. The sea cucumber harvest of 1,274,541 pounds, at $2.52 a pound, had an ex-vessel value of $3,211,422, and the red sea urchin harvest of 276,745 pounds, at 28 cents a pound average, was worth $77,489.

Geoducks, the world’s largest burrowing clam, are neither gooey or ducks. They take their name from the Nisqually Indian term meaning “dig deep,” notes Amy Carroll, a publications specialist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Juneau.

Geoducks reach sexual maturity at three years. After five to 10 years, when their weight is between two and four pounds, they are considered harvestable. They continue to grow until they are about 15 years old and can reach weights of 14 pounds.

Wild geoducks reproduce by a method called broadcast spawning. They release eggs and sperm into the water and rely on movement of the water to unite them. Within 40 to 50 days, the immature geoducks slowly burrow into the muddy ocean floor at a rate of about one foot per year. Once they are at about three feet deep, they settle in for life, siphoning plankton into their bodies and siphoning out the remaining water.

This year’s guideline harvest level is less than last year’s because the management plan for geoduck harvests in Southeast Alaska is on a two-year rotation. “We fish half of the beds in one year, half of the beds in the next year, Doherty explained. “It happens that this year’s rotation is less than last year’s rotation.

The average weight of the commercially harvested geoduck is 2.5 to 3 pounds.

Quality is related to the substrate they are in, he said. The whiter the meat, the higher the price it garners in Hong Kong, he said.

To date, climate change does not appear to be affecting the fishery, but increasing numbers of hungry sea otters are, according to Doherty.

“The decline in this year’s GHL is not necessarily due to sea otters, but in the future it seems as if our GHL may be going down because of sea otter predation,” he said.

“They are going to put us out of business. They are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. There is no management plan for sea otters. They are eating everything and they have no natural predators,” he said. “They are like the wolves of Southcentral Alaska, but with the wolves there is at least a management plan.”

Recolonization of Sea Otters Affects Geoduck Harvests
While sea otters in Southeast Alaska, unlike those in the Aleutians, are not threatened by orca whales, they once were at the mercy of the fur trade. That was the subject of a presentation by Zachary Hoyt of the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the 27th annual Wakefield Fisheries Symposium in Anchorage on Sept. 13.

Hoyt noted in his presentation that sea otters were extirpated by the fur trade from Southeast Alaska by the late 1800s.

In the absence of sea otters, macroinvertebrate populations increased and lucrative fisheries developed. In an effort to re-establish sea otters, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game translocated sea otters to Southeast Alaska between 1965 and 1969.

This effort was successful and the sea otter population is currently growing at an exponential rate and expanding in distribution, Hoyt said.

“We examined ADFG biomass survey data collected from the California sea cucumber, red sea urchin and geoduck clam fisheries in southern Southeast Alaska since 1990 and Dungeness crab catch and effort data collected since sea otter reintroduction,” Hoyt said in his abstract for the symposium.

“Evaluation of both fishery survey and catch data demonstrate that in the last 20 years sea otters have impacted commercial fisheries. Since 1993, ADFG has closed 18 dive fishery sub-districts within the red sea urchin, geoduck clam and California sea cucumber fisheries, due in part to presumed sea otter predation. In addition, the Dungeness crab fishery has compressed away from areas with sea otters.”

Hoyt also noted that using sea otter abundance data collected in 1988, 2003 and 2010 that scientists concluded that sea otters are impacting invertebrate fisheries in southern Southeast Alaska and that this reduction in fishing opportunity has impacted several small communities in southern Southeast Alaska.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margieb42@mtaonline.net.

Value of Alaska Salmon Harvest Estimated at $603 Million

2011-11-09T11:35:00.000-08:00

Final price information won’t be in from processors, buyers and direct marketers until next spring, but Alaska fisheries officials are already out with a preliminary ex-vessel estimate of $603 million for the 2011 commercial salmon season.

That makes the 2011 harvest the third most valuable one since 1975, behind the 1988 harvest that paid fishermen $724.6 million and 2010 harvest worth $605 million. Analysts are already expecting the 2011 harvest value to surpass that of a year ago.

Geron Bruce of the state’s Division of Commercial Fisheries notes that while the 176 million salmon harvested in 2011 – ninth largest since 1960 – came in short of the 203 million fish forecast, that high prices for all species pushed the value of the harvest to an extraordinary level.

The pink salmon harvest set an all time record with a value of over $170 million. Chum salmon fetched $93 million, the third highest value ever recorded. Sockeye salmon were worth almost $296 million, gaining a respectable sixth place among historic sockeye harvests. The Chinook and coho harvests, at $20 million and $23 million respectively, fell more toward the middle of their historic ranges.

Southeast Alaska took first place regionally in value, with its salmon harvest worth over $203 million, including $92 million from pink salmon and $65 million from chum salmon. Bristol Bay, which is usually the most valuable salmon fishery in Alaska, placed second with a harvest valued at $137 million. Prince William Sound placed third with a harvest worth $101 million, mostly from pink and sockeye salmon netted.

Strong returns of red salmon also made Cook Inlet and Chignik valuable fisheries, at $55.6 million and $23.8 million respectively in preliminary ex-vessel value.

Pebble Initiative Lawsuits Shuffled to January Calendar

2011-11-09T11:34:00.002-08:00

Alaska Superior Court Judge John Suddock will hold a scheduling hearing on Jan. 10 in a case challenging the legality of an initiative approved by Southwest Alaska voters that could halt development of the Pebble copper, gold and molybdenum mine.

Scheduling had been set for Nov. 7, but parties to the lawsuit agreed to the delay so that some of the litigation could be consolidated into one lawsuit.

By a vote of 280-246, voters in the Lake and Peninsula Borough approved in October a ban on large-scale resource extraction that would have an adverse affect on salmon habitat. The Pebble Limited Partnership, which wants to develop the mine, had tried unsuccessfully to keep the initiative off of the ballot on Oct. 4, alleging that the initiative was unenforceable as a matter of law. Then on Oct. 28, the state of Alaska sued to invalidate the results of the initiative. The state claims that the initiative is illegal because of the state’s authority to government management and development of mineral resources.

Attorney General John Burns said in a statement that this case is not about state support for or against the mine project, but rather “about upholding the state’s constitutional authority and responsibility to evaluate whether, on balance, development of Alaska’s resources is beneficial to all Alaskans.”

Proponents of the mine say that the Pebble Limited Partnership should be allowed to go through the permitting process before a decision is made on whether to allow for development of the mine.

Opponents, including many in the commercial fishing industry, sport angler groups and subsistence fishermen and hunters, are concerned that pollution from the mine could destroy the Bristol Bay salmon fisheries.

Meanwhile a new poll released by the Bristol Bay Native Corp., which represents more than 9,000 Alaska Native shareholders, says 54 percent of all Alaskans oppose the Pebble mine, compared to 32 percent who support it.

Southeast Halibut Charter Industry Finally Within Harvest Limit

2011-11-09T11:34:00.001-08:00

New figures released by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game show that the halibut charter industry in Southeast Alaska has stayed within its harvest allocation limit for the first time since the halibut charter guideline harvest level was implemented.

In a letter to the International Pacific Halibut Commission, the state agency reported a preliminary estimate for the Southeast Alaska 2011 charter boat catch of 390,000 pounds or about half of the 790,000-pound allocation.

Linda Behnken of Sitka, president of the Halibut Coalition, said in an interview with The Fishermen’s News that “it’s encouraging that management measures put in place have finally been effective after six years of quota overages.” Still the preliminary cumulative overage for the charter fleet in that area adds up to 3.12 million pounds since 2004.

This year the IPHC set a 37-inch maximum size rule for charter-caught halibut in Southeast Alaska, in a decisive more to control the chronic over harvest in the charter sector. Despite the fewer pounds, the number of fish caught in the charter sector in 2011 was 1 percent higher than the number caught in 2010, according to the state Department of Fish and Game’s preliminary estimates. Angler interest in charter fishing experiences in Southeast Alaska has remained steady despite changes in management measures and the overall economy.

The Halibut Coalition noted that the biomass of halibut in the Southeast Alaska area has dropped in half over the past six years. To conserve stocks, the commercial catch limit has been reduced 76 percent, although the commercial sector has never exceeded its allocation. The commercial halibut fishermen in Southeast Alaska and Southcentral Alaska provide 35 million halibut meals annually to some 9 million to 10 million domestic consumers, compared to 230,000 meals via charter clients, the coalition said.

Canadians Refute Reports of ISA Virus In Wild Salmon

2011-11-09T11:31:00.000-08:00

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Fisheries and Oceans Canada are saying their tests have found no confirmed cases of the infectious salmon anemia virus, after investigating earlier reports that the virus was found in wild Pacific salmon.

A spokesperson for the CFIA said during a news conference on Nov. 8 that that agency, is continuing to investigate reports of the ISA virus in British Columbia, collaborating with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the province of British Columbia and the Atlantic Veterinary College.

The Canadian spokesperson said all 48 samples received as part of the original investigation were tested and found to be negative for the virus, and that these findings were consistent with those of an independent laboratory in Norway, which also tested samples associated with this investigation.

The virus was initially detected in two of 48 juvenile sockeye salmon which were part of a long-term study of sockeye salmon let by Rick Routledge, a researcher at Simon Fraser University. Fred Kibenge of the Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Island then confirmed the presence of the ISA virus in two fish.

Their reports prompted concern in both Canada and the United States that the virus, which is lethal to Atlantic salmon, could spread to wild Pacific salmon stocks.

U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington State, as well as Senators Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Mark Begich, D-Alaska, are calling on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to conduct its own tests on the fish.

Previous outbreaks of the ISA virus in Chile and Norway have done significant damage to their fishing industries.

Salmon Virus

2011-11-02T10:38:00.001-07:00

Alaska fisheries officials are keeping a close watch on Canadian efforts to track samples from sockeye salmon that showed exposure to infectious salmon anemia virus, or ISA. The concern stems from Canadian reports that two of 38 Pacific salmon smolt caught in the waters of British Columbia tested positive for the virus, which is lethal to farmed Atlantic salmon, but whose effect on wild Pacific salmon is unknown. The virus is not known to be harmful to humans.

Jeff Regnart, director of commercial fisheries for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said Nov. 1 that fisheries scientist Ted Meyers, a pathologist, is in daily contact with his Canadian counterparts on the matter, as they await the results of further testing. “Once this second round of tests is completed, we will take appropriate action” Regnart said. State Fish and Game Commissioner Cora Campbell said earlier that the agency will take all necessary measures to protect Alaska stocks.

Meyers cautioned that while state fisheries officials are concerned, they do not want to overreact before receiving more definitive information from Canadian authorities.

The cautionary approach was not winning support, however, from industry folks like Dale Kelley, executive director of the Alaska Trollers Association in Juneau.

Kelley said in an editorial published in the Vancouver Sun newspaper that she has no desire to strike fear into the hearts of the public or the fishermen that she represents.

“However, we need transparency and assurance that appropriate steps are underway,” she wrote. “If the Canadian government has information to quell our concerns, we have not yet heard it. If they have an effective plan of action, we have not yet seen it. How do fisheries professionals in Canada and along the West Coast intend to safeguard wild fish and fishing communities from the introduction of foreign disease strains now, and into the future? We’re listening.”

Bristol Bay Red King Crab Update

2011-11-02T10:37:00.001-07:00

With quotas down by 47 percent and prices skyrocketing to $20 a pound delivered in Japan, this year’s Bristol Bay red king crab fishery is attracting a lot of attention.

The fishery began on Oct. 15, and by Nov. 1, 82 percent of the total allowable harvest of 7.8 million pounds had been landed. That’s 7,050,600 pounds to the individual fishing quota permit holders, plus another 783,400 pounds for community development quota entities.

State fisheries officials said 62 vessels were participating, down three from a year ago.

Prominent crab buyer Rob George of the Law Vegas-based Crab Broker, said this year’s fishery reminds him a bit of the old pre-crab rationalization legislation derby days.

George, who makes an annual foray to Dutch Harbor to watch the crab come in, said most of the boats were on the crab, and several reached their quota quickly.

George noted that there is no cheap crab on the market right now and that most consumers will have to look hard to find any true Alaska king crab in their stores.

Some harvesters, like Kodiak’s Mark Israelson of the fishing vessel Island Mist questioned survey results that led to the harvest quota being slashed by 47 percent this season. George said a lot of skippers and crews told him that they were finding an abundance of crab, plus a lot of undersized crab, which were promptly returned to the ocean. That should bode well for the 2012-2013 season, he said.

But Regnart said his agency was doing the best job they can with the money they have to do it with.

Southeast Alaska Forecast for Pink Salmon

2011-11-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

A new forecast for pink salmon in Southeast Alaska in 2012 has the harvest coming in at some 17 million pinks, well below the recent 10-year average of 40 million pinks, but equal to the average harvest over the past three even years.

In the season just past there was a record run of pink salmon in northern Southeast Alaska, with nothing much going on in the southern part of Southeast.

State biologists say there are two primarily reasons to expect that the coming year’s harvest will be smaller than average. First, although biological escapement goals were met in the parent year, 2010, escapement indices were below average on inside waters north of Sumner Strait, state biologists said. Management targets for pink salmon were not met in four districts, and at a finer scale, for 7 of 24 pink salmon stock groups in that area.

The federal fisheries laboratory operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at Auke Bay continues to conduct research that has greatly improved the state’s ability to forecast pink salmon harvest in Southeast Alaska, and state forecasts using NOAA’s juvenile pink salmon data were much proved over previous forecasts, state officials said.

The department will manage the commercial purse seine fisheries in-season based on the strength of the salmon runs. Aerial escapement surveys and fishery performance data will continue to be essential in making in-season management decisions, biologists said.

Pebble Update

2011-11-02T10:35:00.000-07:00

State of Alaska officials have filed a constitutional challenge in Anchorage Superior Court against a Lake and Peninsula Borough ordinance recently enacted by a ballot initiative that stands to prevent development of the Pebble mine.

The initiative amended borough code to preclude granting permits for mining operations of greater than 640 acres that would give rise to a significant adverse impact on any salmon streams. The Pebble Limited Partnership, which hopes to build the mine, went to court to try and stop the initiative from getting on the ballot, but the Alaska Supreme Court denied an emergency petition for review by a lower court hearing, choosing to defer a decision on the legality of the ballot measure until after the Oct. 4 election.

The mine is a joint venture of Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., in Vancouver, British Columbia, and London-based Anglo American PLC.

Mining advocates say the massive copper, gold and molybdenum project can be developed in harmony with the commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries resources of Southwest Alaska. A number of fisheries and conservation groups argue that such a mine could prove disastrous to the fisheries.

The state’s lawsuit alleges that the borough ordinance is invalid because it tilts the constitutional balance between state and local interests. The state argues that the Alaska Constitution gives the state Legislature authority to determine how to develop resources for maximum use consistent with the public interest. State attorneys say it is the state’s duty to evaluate projects to determine whether they can be conducted in a way that serves the public interest, and if so, what safeguards to require. Under the Lake and Peninsula Borough ordinance, the state may never have that opportunity, the lawsuit says.

Voluntary Lowering of Lease Fees Offered By Some Crab Quota Share Holders

2011-10-26T11:38:00.001-07:00

By Margaret Bauman

November 2011

A report of the crew work group meeting at Dutch Harbor during the October meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council notes that some current crab quota shareholders have agreed to voluntarily lower lease rates.

The report, prepared by Edward Poulsen, distributed on Oct. 4 to members of the working group who participated in the Sept. 29 meeting, notes several issues covered by those in attendance and via teleconference, including a Kodiak connection.

It does not mention electronic data reporting, a subject on which the council will take final action at its December 5-13 meeting in Anchorage. Poulsen, former executive director and now an advisor to the Bering Sea Crabbers, said he was preparing an updated report on the meeting to deliver at the December meeting.

A number of people who crew on crab boats have expressed concern since the crab rationalization legislation went into effect several years ago about loss of jobs and income, mainly because of fleet consolidation and leasing of quota shares. Some crew members also feel they should have been allocated crew quota shares because of their long-term participation in this dangerous fishery, an opinion challenged by some vessel owners who said they have invested substantial capital in the fishery, as opposed to physical effort alone.

Several people representing crewmembers also want data reports made available that show specifically how much income crew members earned annually before the federal crab rationalization program was approved.

“What we would like to see on public record is the pay from pre-rationalization,” said Steve Branson, a veteran Kodiak fisherman. “It would be nice to be able to compare what was going on before and after privatization.”

Branson said after seven years of traveling from Kodiak to attend various meetings of the federal council he is not overly optimistic about change any more, even though ”the council now is more fair-minded. I don’t think it (crab rationalization) would have passed if it had been scrutinized more closely.”

Vessel owners held the Dutch Harbor meeting to discuss progress in development of measures to address crew issues, as a precursor to the industry’s report to the council in December.

First up on their agenda was a proposal of vessel owners to provide a right of first offer to active participants on 10 percent of the quota share being transferred in any transaction. The right is intended to increase the portion of the quota share pool held by persons actively fishing. The remaining 90 percent could be subject to a similar right of first offer for either people active in the fleet or owning a fishing vessel.

Proponents of the measure are still developing the specific agreement and suggested that a written description could be provided at the next meeting.

Vessel owners also reported that a substantial portion of current quota holders have agreed to voluntarily limit their lease rates to 65 percent in the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery and 50 percent in the Bering Sea opilio fishery, Poulsen said. The lower limit is intended to reduce the pressure on vessel owners that could arise under arrangements that only guarantee crew minimum shares of a vessel’s gross revenues, Poulsen said. In the absence of limits on lease rates, a reduction on the lease rates that may be charged to crew may disadvantage vessel owners that lease a substantial share of the quota that they harvest, he said.

Supporters of the limit on lease rates suggested that in the future cooperative agreements could be modified to include a limit on the lease rate percentage that may be charged to crew, Poulsen noted in his meeting report. However, it was also noted that affiliated coops would also need to implement similar changes that could be more difficult as they are not FCMA cooperatives, he said. In addition, provisions could be included in that agreement to prevent vessel owners from modifying crew contracts to pass on additional costs to crew that might offset the reduced charges on lease costs.

Before crab rationalization went into effect, crew made more money for their efforts because only a percentage of the vessel’s fuel, bait, food and pot loss were deducted before their percentage of the profit was calculated. Once crab rationalization went into effect, some vessels began fishing a great deal of leased quota shares, for which they were paying a lease fee of sometimes up to 80 percent of the harvest, and that lease fee was added to the list of vessel expenses deducted from crew pay.

Branson, who was not among those attending the Dutch Harbor meeting, said he would have made substantially more money the last time he crewed on a crab boat, had lease fees not been deducted.

Some crewmembers at the meeting expressed support for efforts of vessel owners to improve crew compensation through reduced lease fees. These representatives suggested that they would support allowing vessel owners to continue with the effort to use reduced lease rates to address the crew compensation issue.

Poulsen said meeting participants also discussed the means of evaluating the effects of the reduced lease rates on crew compensation.

Vessel owners offered to advance a list of quota holders and/or vessel owners who agreed to the arrangement, but opposed any effort to collect additional information on crew compensation.

These vessel owners expressed their opinion that the adequate information would be provided by the list of quota holders. Vessel owners said that, when available, electronic data reporting data would demonstrate specific effects on compensation.

Some crew representatives voiced concern that electronic data reporting data may not be available until more than a year after some seasons, which would limit the ability to address compensation, if the lease rate reduction measure fails to achieve its intended result. For this reason, they believe that some other means of demonstrating the effectiveness of the measure should be pursued, Poulsen said.

Vessel owners also offered to bring a written description of the agreement to limit lease rates to the next meeting for review by all participants. That description could help participants evaluate the measure, including the potential for reports to establish its effectiveness, Poulsen said.

It was suggested by staff that the group meet prior to the December meeting of the federal council, perhaps on Nov. 21, to ensure that all participants have the same understanding of the progress of discussions.

Poulsen said in an interview later that a loan program up and running since this summer allows crew to get low interest loans to purchase crab quota shares through the National Marine Fisheries service, with amortizations over a 20 year period. “The issue is the NMFS loan program is so low that there is not a lot of incentive for more programs, he said.

The federal crab rationalization program was the first and only program that gave 3 percent of the individual fishing quota shares to skippers. The quota share holders would not be supportive of reallocating quota shares, because it would be disruptive to their businesses now ongoing, he said.

Another Kodiak commercial fisheries veteran, Kodiak city council member Terry Haines, noted that efforts to get banks to offer reasonable interest rates to crew members seeking to buy into quota share did not work out well. “And you can’t blame them,” Haines said. ‘The whole concept makes the banks nervous, that crew might have rights to quota shares they have already given out loans on.”

Haines noted that the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act identifies quota shares in the crab fishery as a privilege that can be taken back at any time, if there is enough reason. “It makes the banks very nervous,” he said.

Caps on leased quota share, Haines said, are on the other hand something that is quite doable.

Another issue the council has not discussed is caps on the amount of quota share that may be harvested on the same vessel, he said. When huge amounts of leased quota are harvested on the same vessel, it takes away from a crew’s ability to leverage pay. The bottom line is, what is their percentage of net profits now? Before rationalization is was 6-8 percent for the crew and the skipper got 15 percent (after expenses). Now with 80 percent lease fees off the top that leaves you 20 percent,” he said.

Haines and others are also eager to get the crab electronic data reporting up and running to provide data that provides more information.

Public comment submitted at the Dutch Harbor meeting by Stephen Taufen for the Groundswell Fisheries Movement urged that data collection should include reconciled fish settlement accountings, and inclusion of each crab vessel’s by-species/fisheries lay share contracts.

The reconciled fish settlement accountings should detail whose quota is consolidated on which vessel, the rents or leases charged to the vessel and portion passed along to crews by lease, as well as shared trip settlement expenses by categories, such as fuel, bait, and gear, the percentage for each crewmember by name, showing individual trip settlement costs as well as total personal deductions, Taufen said.

The electronic data collection should also include lay share contracts for all captain and crewmembers, as part of the collection of data that confirms both quantitative analysis and qualitative assessment of whether or not the Bering Sea –Aleutian Islands crab rationalization program meets the requirement that in order to hold quota rights, all applicable federal laws must be obeyed by each IFQ holder, Taufen said.

Haines said that from a community perspective, he looks at the reduced revenue going out of communities as a result of consolidation of the fleet after rationalization and lease fees. From a community perspective, vessel caps and a limit on lease fees would address capital flight form communities, he said.

Haines is a member of the Crewmen’s Association, which has been advocating for crew rights for several years, but said he is more focused at this time on Fish Heads, an advocacy group for the preservation of the vitality of Alaska’s fishing communities.

A number of people who work as crew members have been reluctant to speak out about their support of the Crewmen’s Association, led by Shawn Dochtermann, and other advocates for crew rights because if they were to put their names on a list of those groups they could lose their jobs, he said.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margieb42@mtaonline.net.

Salmon Virus Update

2011-10-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

The chief pathologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game says there is concern over reports that exposure to infectious salmon anemia virus was detected in sockeye salmon in British Columbia, but that people should not overreact.

There’s a good chance of false positives in those test results reported by researchers from Simon Fraser University from two of 48 sockeye salmon smolts in central British Columbia, said ADF&G’s Ted Meyers. Now those initial results are being analyzed through additional testing in a second laboratory to rule out any false positives and Alaska fishery scientists are awaiting results of those tests, he said.

“At this point we are concerned, but do not want to overreact as we await more definitive information from Canada,” he said.

There is some concern that the source of the salmon anemia virus, if indeed the additional tests confirm its presence, same from Atlantic salmon farms in British Columbia, which have imported millions of salmon eggs since the mid-1980s.

Meyers noted that regulations in place in Alaska do not allow importation of any fish for aquaculture purposes. The only root of infection could be from strays from British Columbia fish farms and the British Columbia farms have been examined for the past eight years for ISA virus and have been found to be negative, he said.

Still, if the virus is confirmed present in British Columbia migratory Pacific salmon or the Atlantic salmon stocks prevalent in British Columbia fish farms, there is concern over potential impacts to Alaska salmon stocks.

Senators Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Mark Begich, D-Alaska, Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., have introduced legislation directing government scientists to determine the scope and cause of the outbreak of infectious salmon anemia that has devastated salmon farms in Chile and elsewhere, and to recommend steps to protect the health of salmon stocks along the West Coast, Canada and Alaska. The scientists would have six months to complete their report.

Tim Bristol, director of Trout Unlimited’s Alaska Program, said it was fortunate that fish farms are outlawed in Alaska, but urged Alaska officials to take steps to protect Alaska’s wild salmon stocks and the critical habitat necessary for their sustained production.

Open Doors Were Culprit In Sinking F/V Katmai

2011-10-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board say watertight doors left open during a storm likely caused the 93-foot fishing vessel Katmai to sink off the coast of the Aleutian Islands in late October 2008. Only four of the crew survived. Five men died and two others were never found.

The official report notes the watertight doors from the main deck to the processing space and the lazarette (the aft most compartment in the ship’s hull) were left open by the crew at a time when the vessel was overloaded and navigating in severe weather, which allowed water to enter the vessel, causing progressive flooding and sinking. Investigators said a contributing factor to the accident was the master’s decision to continue fishing operations during the approach of severe weather rather than seeking shelter and to load twice the amount of cargo addressed in the ship’s stability report. Another contributing factor was the owner’s failure to insure that stability information provided to the master was current and that the master understood it and operated the vessel accordingly, the report said.

Investigators also noted issues with the life rafts on board. Requirements for post-1997-manufactured life rafts are more stringent for ballast and stability than previously manufactured life rafts and are manufactured with ballast pockets to resist overturning due to wind and waves. Pre-1997 life rafts remain acceptable if maintained in serviceable condition, including periodic inflation testing. The 15-person life raft, manufactured in 1980, and the 10-person life raft, manufactured in 1994, were last serviced and inspected in 2007.

The detailed narrative of the last hours of the F/V Katmai notes that at the time of the accident winds were from the east at 60-70 knots, air temperatures about 38F, water temperature 43F, and wave height at 20-30 feet, with prevailing rain with no icing.

The Katmai, constructed of welded steel, was built as a shrimp trawler in 1987 in Pensacola, Florida. Originally named the Queen of the Universe, it was sold in 1992 and renamed the Amy S, then sold in 1993 to Katmai Fisheries Inc, which renamed it the Katmai. The NTSB said that the company is no longer in business.

The complete NTSB report on the accident is online at http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/fulltext/MAB1103.html