Pacific Fishery Management Council to Hold Webinar

The Pacific Fishery Management Council will convene a work session via webinar on Feb. 9 for its Scientific and Statistical Committee’s economics subcommittee. The meeting is open to the public and was noticed in the Federal Register on Jan. 24.

On tap is a discussion on a methodology for examining socioeconomic impacts of the council’s policies for modification of essential fish habitat designations and rockfish conservation areas under Amendment 28 to the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan.

Action is to be restricted to issues specifically listed in the meeting notice and any issues arising after publication of the notice that require emergency action under Section 305(c ) of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, provided that the public is notified of the intent of the SSC subcommittee to take final action to address the emergency.

To attend the webinar, visit https://www.gotomeeting.com/online/webinar/join-webinar and enter the Webinar ID, 480-960-155, your name and email address.

After logging into the webinar, dial the toll number 1-562-247-8321, enter the attendee phone audio access code: 943-128-623, and your audio phone pin, which will be shown after joining the webinar.

All participants must use a telephone or cell phone to participate. For technical assistance email Kris Kleinschmidt at kris.kleinschmidt@noaa.gov or call him at 1-503-820-2280. A public listening station will be available at the Pacific Council offices in Portland, Oregon.

Fishing Industry Lobbies for NMFS Head

A broad based coalition of fishing industry, fisheries communities, environmental and Native entities are lobbying the Trump administration to make Chris Oliver the next head of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

In their letter of Jan. 23 to Vice President Mike Pence, the group noted that Oliver has spent 26 years working with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, including 16 years as its executive director. Under his leadership, the NPFMC has become the most sustainably managed and productive fishery in the world, accounting for more than half of all the seafood landed in the United States, and approximately two-thirds of America’s seafood exports, they said.

The letter also said that Oliver supports easing regulatory burdens, decentralized fisheries management, and would balance commercial and recreational fishing interests. Oliver, who is originally from Texas, is also knowledgeable about commercial and recreational fishing issues in the Gulf of Mexico, they said.

The more than four dozen signers of the letter ranged from officials of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association, Washington Trollers Association, Pacific Seafood Processors Association, Trident Seafoods, Oregon Trawl Commission and United Fishermen’s Marketing Association to Icicle Seafoods, the Midwater Trawlers Cooperative, Fishing Vessel Owners Association, Freezer Longline Coalition, at Sea Processors Association, Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., Alaska Marine Conservation Council, and Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers . Other fisheries entities from Florida, New Jersey, New York, and the National Fisheries Institute also were among the signers.

Fisheries Board Asks for Updated Habitat Protections

The Alaska Board of Fisheries has finalized a letter to the state legislature recommending that lawmakers clarify and strengthen the state’s Fish Habitat Permitting law in Title 16 of state statutes.

Title 16 sets the guidelines for permitting projects that could potentially damage or destroy salmon habitat, guidelines that have not been updated since statehood.

Commercial, sport, subsistence and personal use fishermen urged the board to take action, in the face of currently proposed development of non-renewable resources.

There is no current requirement for public input in permitting decisions that impact salmon habitat, and lacking that requirement of public notice, residents have no way of knowing what projects have applied for permits that could adversely impact salmon habitat.

Harvesters who fish commercially, for sport and for subsistence made their request to the Board of Fisheries in the fall of 2016 for the board to recommend that the Legislature update Title 16 to strengthen salmon protections. In mid-January, the board did so.

“In tough economic times, it’s more important now than ever to protect Alaska’s wild salmon,” said Lindsey Bloom, a veteran commercial fish harvester in Southeast Alaska who was one of the authors of the proposal. “The Board of Fisheries deserves praise for listening to the voices of Alaskans and doing everything in its power to protect one of our state’s most valuable resources,” said Bloom, who grew up fishing Bristol Bay and also gillnets in Southeast Alaska.

“Alaska needs our legislators to safeguard our salmon culture and economy, or risk losing one of Alaska’s most iconic and valuable resources,” she said.

“Alaskans never could have imagined megaprojects like Pebble Mine when they drafted salmon protections into Title 16 more than six decades ago,” said Willow King a commercial harvester of salmon in Cook Inlet. “We need to update this law to protect the salmon runs that are so culturally and economically important to our state.”

Disasters Declared for Nine West Coast Fisheries

Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker has declared commercial fishery failures for nine salmon and crab fisheries in Alaska, California and Washington State. Commerce officials noted that in recent years each of these fisheries experienced sudden and unexpected large decreases in fish stock biomass due to unusual ocean and climate conditions.

Pritzker’s decision will enable fishing communities to seek disaster relief assistance from Congress, they said.

The list includes the Gulf of Alaska pink salmon fisheries, plus the California Dungeness and rock crab fishery and Yurok Tribe Klamath River Chinook salmon fishery. The six Washington fisheries include Fraser River Makah Tribe and Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe sockeye salmon fisheries; Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay non-treaty coho salmon fishery, ocean salmon troll fishery, the Quileute-Tribe Dungeness crab fishery, Quinault Indian Nation Grays Harbor and Queets River coho salmon fishery and four other South Puget Sound tribal salmon fisheries.

Pritzker has authority under the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to determine a commercial fishery failure due to a fishery resource disaster.

Congress then has authority to appropriate funds to provide economic assistance to affected fishing communities. Grant recipients then must work in partnership with NOAA Fisheries to develop a spending plan and grant application based on high priority needs in the community, and submit that plan to NOAA Fisheries.

According to the Commerce Department, there is no legislative deadline and no standing fund, or established funding limit, for such disasters.

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker had appealed to the Commerce Department in late September to declare the Gulf of Alaska fishery a disaster, after urging by State House member Louise Stutes of Kodiak, who noted that not just harvesters, but whole communities were affected by the dismal harvest.

AFSC Study on Alaska Corals

Researchers at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center say a five-year study pinpoints the slow growth of some Alaska corals, and the important implications this slow growth has for commercial fish species.

The study began with AFSC researchers diving into the North Pacific Ocean and tagging 93 coral colonies to learn more about the growth rate of some Alaska corals that provide important commercial fish habitats. Then every year for five years they went back to the bottom of the ocean to measure the size of the corals.

Their conclusions were published in January in the peer-reviewed, open-access online publication PLOS ONE. The web link is http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169470 Gorgonian octocorals are the most abundant corals in Alaska, and provide important structural habitat for managed species of demersal fish and invertebrates.

While 59 gorgonian species have been reported from Alaska waters, little is known about their life history characteristics to help determine their ability to recover from seafloor disturbance.

Based on data collected, the researchers concluded that it would take about 60 years for some of the gorgonian octocorals to grow to maximum size, and depending on the location and size of the parental standing stock, at least one, and possibly 10 additional years for recruitment to occur.

Researchers further concluded that colonies of these corals that are injured, perhaps chronically in areas of frequent disturbance, grow at slower rates. If the current trend of ocean warming continues, they said, these corals can be expected to grow more slowly, and the habitats they form will require more time to recover from disturbance.

New Study Confirms Presence of Tapeworm in Wild Salmon

Larvae of the Japanese broad tapeworm, which is associated with tapeworm infections in humans, has been detected in wild salmon in Southcentral Alaska, but a state fisheries pathologist says this is no reason for alarm.

“It’s a common thing,” said Jayde Ferguson, a pathologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, who assisted fisheries scientists from the Czech Republic in their study, which was published in the February edition of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Emerging Infectious Diseases report.

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute responded quickly to the report about the presence of tapeworm infections in wild Alaska salmon, saying that Alaska salmon is among the highest quality seafood and safe for consumer consumption.

“All commercially harvested Alaska seafood, which accounts for more than 60 percent of all the seafood harvested in the United States, is processed in accordance with strict Food and Drug Administration regulations, including parasite controls,” ASMI said.

FDA guidelines dictate that seafood be frozen to minus-4 degrees Fahrenheit or below for seven days if it is to be consumed raw for food safety reasons. Salmon that has not been properly frozen should be cooked thoroughly to an internal temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit before consumption. For any raw or semi-raw preparations, ASMI always recommends using properly frozen seafood.

The tapeworm has been here for thousands of years, but identifying these worms is very challenging,” Ferguson said in an interview Jan. 12.

While people can get diphyllobothriosis (tapeworm infections) from infected fish, they can easily be avoided, he said.

An online booklet produced by ADF&G (https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/species/disease/pdfs/fish_disease_book.pdf) notes that cooking fish to at least 140 degrees Fahrenheit at least five minutes, or freezing it for at least 60 hours at minus-4 degrees will kill parasitic worms. Details on tapeworm are on pages 60-61. The same guidance should be followed before feeding these salmon to dogs and cats, he said.

Since ADF&G doesn’t have baseline data on this subject, the prevalence of this parasite in Alaska’s salmon is unknown, Ferguson said.

America may represent a source of human infection,” the Czech report said. “Because Pacific salmon are frequently exported unfrozen, on ice, plerocercoids (the last larval stage of this flatworm) may survive transport and cause human infections in areas where they are not endemic, such as China, Europe, New Zealand and middle and eastern United States.

“For more effective control of this human foodborne parasite detection of the sources of human infection (i.e. host associations) and critical revision of the current knowledge of the distribution and transmission patterns of individual human-infecting tapeworms are needed.”

Alaska Marine Science Symposium

Climate change will be in the spotlight when the 2017 Alaska Marine Science Symposium opens Jan. 23 at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage.

Keynote speaker Takashi Kikuchi of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology will discuss changes of oceanographic conditions in the Pacific sector of the Arctic Ocean and the impact to marine ecosystems. Fran Ulmer, chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission will speak about the commission’s goals and objectives for Arctic research through 2018.

University of Washington research scientist Nick Bond will speak on the recent marine heat wave in Alaska. Bond, the state climatologist for Washington, conducts research with a focus on the climate of the Pacific Northwest, and linkages between the climate and marine ecosystems of Alaska. January 24, January 25 and January 26th of the symposium will be devoted to the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, and the Arctic respectively.

The annual symposium brings together scientists from various countries and government entities who have done studies in these areas, to showcase their marine research findings and answer questions from several hundred participants.

Complete details on the agenda are online at amss.nprb.org

The symposium is coordinated by the North Pacific Research Board, which was created by Congress in 1997 to recommend marine research activities to the US Secretary of Commerce. For nearly two decades, the NPRB has focused on research to better understand the waters surrounding Alaska as they relate to pressing fishery management issues and important ecosystem information needs.

Since 2002, the NPRB has supported three major ecosystem research programs, over 380 multi-annual projects, 56 graduate students and three-long-term monitoring projects.

To date NPRB has funded more than 120 different national and international institutions, resulting in several hundred peer-reviewed journal publications covering marine research themes.