Salmonfest Draws 8,000 Lovers of Music and Salmon Habitat

Salmonfest 2018 at Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula Fairgrounds in Ninilchik, brought together more than 8,000 people for three days of music, food, fish and love. The event celebrates the connection of Alaskans to the fish and waters that provide their beloved resource.

Sixty-five bands performed on four stages in this annual late summer event that also promotes information on the importance of healthy salmon habitat and educates festival goers on projects that could potentially have adverse impact on critical habitat.

Salmon themes and signs protesting the Pebble mine were visible festival-wide. Headliner Brandi Carlile’s band and other musicians also sported stickers on their shirts in protest of the proposed Pebble mine in the Bristol Bay watershed area.

“This is the population that can make a difference,” said Sam Snyder, the Wild Salmon Center’s senior campaign manager, whose focus this year is the Stand for Salmon Campaign backing the salmon initiative on the state’s general election ballot in November.

“We’ve got to protect the habitat,” Snyder said. “How do we maintain habitat and balance with resource development? Our fisheries are complicated.” These fish, he said, “are part of our economy, part of our culture.”

The eclectic crowd, from parents with babies in arms to grandparents from the Woodstock generation, meandered in the warm sunshine between informational booths manned by a variety of conservation and environmental entities to vendors hawking food and beverages, crafts and even massages.

“We love salmon,” said Dawnell Smith of Trustees for Alaska, a nonprofit public interest environmental law firm with offices in Anchorage, Alaska. “We love clean waters. We want people to know what we do.”

The annual music festival is supported by and benefits two non-profits, the Kachemak Bay Conservation Society and Cook Inletkeeper, both of Homer, Alaska.

Alaska Commercial Salmon Harvest Climbs to Nearly 85M

Deliveries of commercial wild Alaska salmon to processors reached nearly 85 million fish by August 7, including some 48 million sockeyes, over 24 million humpies, 11.5 million chums, nearly 1.1 million cohos and 198,000 Chinooks.

For the same period a year ago, the harvest included 53.6 million sockeyes, 25 million chums, 5.2 million cohos, and 262,000 kings. The pink salmon catch compared with 39 million caught for the same period in 2016, which was a disaster year for humpies.

“Bristol Bay remains the bright spot in Alaska’s commercial salmon fisheries this summer,” notes Garrett Evridge, an economist with the McDowell Group in Juneau, Alaska, in a weekly summary report for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. “The Bristol Bay sockeye harvest was one of the best ever,” said Garrett, “but all other sockeye harvests in Alaska are well below the forecast.”

The focus of the industry has shifted to pink salmon, with the current week typically the peak harvest period for humpbacks. “Year-to-date pink harvest volume is comparable to 2016, but very slow by historical standards, particularly in Southeast Alaska,” he said.

With about one month of fishing remaining, year-to-date keta harvests statewide are 42 percent lower than a year ago and 20 percent behind the five-year average, although the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region continues to exceed its five-year average volume.

Evridge also notes that coho production year-to-date is 51 percent lower than 2017 and Chinook production is 15 percent behind as well.

The availability of wild Alaska sockeye salmon is slimming rapidly, not even mentioned online this week by the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, Wash. In Anchorage, they have disappeared from the seafood department at Costco stores and were marked up to $19.95 a pound at Fred Meyer stores, which was $10 over the sale price two weeks earlier. 10th & M Seafoods still had fresh wild sockeye salmon steaks for $7.95 a pound and fresh sockeye salmon fillets for $10.95 a pound, while the online Anchorage purveyor FishEx was offering sockeye fillet portions for $29.95 a pound.

UW Releases Revised Quinn Book on Pacific Salmon and Trout

A revised edition of University of Washington fisheries professor Thomas Quinn’s book “The Behavior and Ecology of Pacific Salmon and Trout” has been published, complete with over 100 new photos and information gained since the first edition in 2005.

“This is a book really about the fish, not about what we have done to them,” said Quinn, whose initial intent was to write “a book specifically about the fish, their behavior, their ecology, their movement, what they eat, what eats them.”

Over the past 13 years since the first edition was published, there has been substantial research on salmon and trout, and Quinn decided it was time for an updated version of the book.

The first edition was mostly about salmon. The revised and updated book covers all aspects of the life cycle of Pacific salmon, trout and char fish in the Pacific with chapters about: homing migration from the open ocean through coastal waters and up rivers to their breeding grounds; courtship and reproduction; the lives of juvenile salmon and trout in rivers and lakes; migration to the sea; the structure of fish populations; and the importance of fish carcasses to the ecosystem. The book also includes information on salmon and trout transplanted outside their ranges.

Almost all the photos in the original book were from slides. The new edition contains several digital images, tables, figures and updated references.

“It’s everything you ever wanted to know about salmon and trout, with beautiful photos, for students, anglers, conservation groups, citizens who want to get involved in stream restoration,” he said.

There is also information throughout the book on the impact of climate change on these fish, with the topic specifically addressed in the last chapter.

What’s important to me is that people realize it is an effort to be informative; to be accurate, but accessible and also visually attractive, so people can pick it up and read it,” he said.

“The last edition came out in 2005. There have been a fair number of things we have learned since then,” he said. That new research includes much on the impact of climate change on fish, which he has been monitoring. “We had an inkling, but things have happened faster than I would have guessed,” he said.

The book may be preordered from the University of Washington press, the nonprofit book and multimedia publishing arm of the university, at https://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/QUIBE2.html.

New Towing Vessel Regulations in Effect

As of July 20, 2018, all vessels engaged in towing – including fishing vessels towing other fishing vessels – are now required to comply with new towing vessel regulations, the Coast Guard announced. Certificates of inspection are to be issued to towing vessels in phases over the next four years. Coast Guard Sector Juneau and Sector Anchorage personnel worked with towing vessel operators throughout Alaska to prepare them to meet the deadline.

Lt. Cmdr. Mason Wilcox, chief of inspections for Coast Guard Sector Anchorage, noted that the operators they have communicated with have been receptive and working hard to ensure they are all in 100 percent compliance. “We appreciate them being proactive and their dedication to safety,” he said.

The regulations history dates back to passage of the Coast Guard and Marine Transportation Act of 2004. The new regulations, referred to as subchapter M within Title 46 of the Code of Federal Regulations, boost the existing requirements for firefighting and lifesaving equipment, establish standards for construction and arrangement of new construction vessels, and phase-in machinery and electrical standards over the coming decade.

For further information regarding towing vessel inspection regulations, contact:
• Coast Guard Sector Juneau inspections division – 1-907-463-2477 or email SectorJuneauInspections@USCG.mil;

• Coast Guard Sector Anchorage Inspections Division – 1-907-428-4200 or Anchorage.Inspections@USCG.mil;

• Coast Guard District Seventeen Towing Vessel Coordinator – 1-907-463-2823 or Samuel.E.Hatch2@USCG.mil

Commercial Salmon Harvest in Alaska Tops 73 Million Fish

More than 73 million salmon have been commercially harvested in Alaska so far this season, which is a third lower than the 2017 year-to-date harvest of 110 million fish.

The statewide sockeye harvest is seven percent lower than last year and nine percent above the five-year-average, according to Garrett Evridge, an economist with the McDowell Group in Juneau, Alaska. These numbers appear in his report for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

“While the Bristol Bay sockeye volume will be one of the highest on record, other sockeye fisheries continue to suffer this year,” Evridge wrote, “Chignik has recorded no landings and Southeast Alaska is 80 percent below the five-year average.”

The year-to-date pink salmon harvest is 15 percent behind 2016, due primarily to lagging harvest in Southeast Alaska, Prince William Sound and Kodiak. Harvesters have delivered some 5.8 million salmon to processors in Southeast Alaska, 15.5 million in Prince William Sound, and 1.5 million at Kodiak. The statewide keta harvest of 11 million fish is about 40 percent below 2017 and 14 percent behind the five-year average.

Meanwhile in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region, keta salmon fishing is 27 percent above the five-year average. Coho production is 52 percent below the 2017 pace but there are still two more months of steady fishing ahead. The king salmon volume is 16 percent behind a year ago.

In western Alaska, fishermen harvested nearly five million salmon overall in the Alaska Peninsula, with the South Peninsula delivering more than three million fish.

Retail prices for wild Alaska sockeyes this past week ranged from $17.99 a pound for fillets when available at Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, Wash., to $7.95 a pound for sockeye steaks and $10.95 a pound for sockeye fillets at 10th & M Seafoods in Anchorage.

Economist Advises to Brace for Continuing Change in Seafood Industry

Economic success for specific wild fisheries in the future will depend on management that enables sustainability, efficiency, innovation and market orientation throughout the supply chain, according to fisheries economist Gunnar Knapp.

“Think in terms of the entire supply chain, with everyone in the supply chain depending on everyone else,” he advised during a presentation, in late July, to the biennial meeting of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade in Seattle, Wash. “And think broadly,” said Knapp, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Alaska Anchorage, citing a World Bank report on the prospects for fisheries and aquaculture through 2030.

The report projects that aquaculture will produce about two-thirds of food fish, that China will consume nearly 40 percent of all seafood, and the production of tilapia and shrimp will more than double., In addition, it predicts that aquaculture will more than double in India, Latin America and Southeast Asia, while per capita consumption of fish in Sub-Sahara Africa will decline.

“The question is not just how much fish can we catch or grow, but how much fish do people want to buy,” he said. To that end he compared the differences between wild fisheries and aquaculture, noting for example that the potential for growth in aquaculture is high, while the potential for growth in wild fisheries is low. “There are also more communities historically dependent on wild fisheries who would be less receptive to innovation, compared to those historically less dependent, and more receptive to innovation,” he noted.

“Economic factors, particularly population and income growth, are likely to drive growth in aquaculture production and consumption and changes in the geographic distribution of production and consumption. Fish politics, meanwhile, will figure in total allowable catches, open access versus rights-based management, marine protected areas and quota allocations, while “regular” politics will impact trade, labor, immigration, environmental regulation and food safety” he added.

“My guess is that globally fish and aquaculture politics will gradually shift to enable fisheries and aquaculture to better respond to future opportunities and challenges” Knapp said.

He also added that changes in ocean conditions, including temperatures, currents and acidification, will also directly impact wild fisheries and aquaculture, as well as global food markets. And while resource uncertainty will remain a fundamental and possibly growing constraint to wild fisheries, aquaculture will be relatively less vulnerable to nature-driven changes.

Investigation Underway into Sinking of Fishing Tender in Bristol Bay

An investigation into the sinking of the 58-foot F/V Pacific Knight near Clark’s Point in Bristol Bay, Alaska – an incident in which one crew member was lost, while two others were rescued by good Samaritans from the F/V Amanda C – is underway.

According to the US Coast Guard an estimated 800 gallons of diesel and 300 gallons of hydraulic fluid were on board when the vessel sank on July 25. How much of that fuel spilled, creating a sheen on the water that prompted closure of the Nushagak district of Bristol Bay, is still undetermined.

The fishery was reopened on the afternoon of July 31, after two days of aerial surveys showed no visible sheen, according to Tim Sands, area management biologist at Dillingham for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

According to Todd Duke, general manager for Resolve Magone Marine Services (Alaska) Corp. in Anchorage, Alaska, it will take several weeks to remove the vessel. Meanwhile, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) plans to attempt to refloat the vessel in future dive operations. Poor visibility, severe currents and deck gear have restricted dive operations.

Lone Fisherman, Inc. was identified as the responsible party for the Pacific Knight.

DEC officials said the vessel owner was working with the Coast Guard and had hired Resolve Magone. Sockeyes are still plentiful in the Nushagak district, with nearly 24 million of the red salmon harvested so far this season, and fishing still underway for pink and silver salmon.

At this time of year Nushagak Bay supports all five species of Pacific salmon, several commercially important ground fish species, marine mammals, sea birds, shorebirds, waterfowl and eagles. The shorelines west of Nushagak Bay are part of Togiak National Wildlife Refuge.