Harvest of Alaska’s Wild Salmon Surpasses 125 Million Fish

As Bristol Bay wrapped up its 2014 salmon season, with a harvest just shy of 29 million sockeyes, other fisheries in Alaska were picking up speed.

As of Aug. 12, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s preliminary salmon harvest added up to a total of 125,271,000 fish, including 72,541,000 humpies, 41,718,000 reds, 8,471,000 chum, 2,128,000 silver, and 413,000 Chinooks.

The final statewide harvest of 272,629,000 fish for the 2013 season included 219,160,000 pink, 29,257,000 sockeye, 18,578,000 chum, 5,353,000 coho and 281,000 Chinooks, according to ADF&G.

Prince William Sound harvesters through Aug. 12 had delivered to processors an estimated 45,986,000 salmon, including 41,501,000 humpies; 3,306,000 reds, 1,135,000 chum, 34,000 silvers and 10,000 kings.

In Cook Inlet, the estimated harvest total was 3,577,000 million fish, including 2.509,000 million sockeye, 778,000 pink, 171,000 chum, 114,000 silver and 5,000 kings.

On the Lower Yukon River, small boat fishermen garnered a harvest now totaling 537,000 fish, including 480,000 keta, 55,000 pink, and 2,000 cohos. Norton Sound fishermen’s harvest has reached 328,000 fish, including 179,000 pink, 99,000 chum, and 49,000 silver salmon, and harvesters in the Kotzebue area have to date delivered 486,000 chum to processors.

For Southeast Alaska, the harvest stands at more than 28.297,000 fish, including 21,069,000 pink, some 4,562,000 chum, 1,348,000 coho, 957,000 red and 362,000 kings.

On the Alaska Peninsula processors have received more than 4.6 million fish, including 3,078,000 reds, 673,000 pink, 586,000 chum, 283,000 silver and 8,000 Chinook salmon.

And Kodiak’s harvest to date is 10,697,000 fish, with more than 7,842,000 pink,

2,411,000 red, 314,000 chum, 123,000 silver and 7,000 king salmon.

Wrong Camouflage

By Chris Philips, Managing Editor

In April, the US Navy christened the first of its newest class of destroyers. Costing more than $3 billion, the 610-foot-long USS Zumwalt, named after the late Admiral Elmo “Bud” Zumwalt boasts advanced technology including a composite deckhouse with hidden radar and sensors, and the Navy says the vessel’s odd angular shape will present the radar profile of a small fishing boat.

If the US Navy is hoping the fishing boat camouflage will protect the new high-tech destroyer from aggressors on the open seas, they might want to rethink he design. A month after the Zumwalt was christened, a Vietnamese fishing boat was rammed and sunk by a Chinese vessel.

According to the Vietnamese government, forty Chinese fishing vessels had encircled a group of Vietnamese boats fishing in the area, which it claims is within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone. The 10 fishermen onboard the boat were rescued by other Vietnamese boats after the incident, which occurred not far from a Chinese oil rig located near the contested Paracel Islands, which are claimed by both China and Vietnam.

Last year, Vietnam’s government lodged a protest after it said a Chinese ship fired on one of its fishing vessels near the Paracel Islands and caused a cabin fire on that boat.

Thankfully the dangers to fishermen in US waters don’t yet include aggression from Chinese vessels.

Tailings Dam Failure Hits Fraser River Watershed

Canadian mining officials in British Columbia are investigating a tailings dam rupture that released an estimated 10 million cubic meters of water and 4.5 million cubic meters of fine sand into the Fraser River watershed.

British Columbia’s minister of Energy and Mines, Bill Bennett, issued a statement Aug. 5 calling the Aug. 4 breach of the tailing pond dam at the Mt. Polley copper and gold mine site “a serious incident that should not have happened. We are devoting every appropriate resource working with local officials to clean up the site, mitigate any impacts to communities and the environment, and investigate the cause of the breach,” Bennett said.

Imperial Metals Corp., in Vancouver, BC, meanwhile issued a statement saying that the breach had been stabilized, although the cause of the breach is unknown at this time. Monitoring instruments and onsite personnel had no indication of an impending breach, the company said. Imperial is an exploration, mine development and operating company based in Vancouver.

The tailings dam rupture on Aug. 4 followed by two days the opening of the first gillnet commercial fisheries targeting Fraser River sockeye salmon. The forecast issued by Fisheries and Oceans Canada calls for returns within a wide range between 7.3 million and 72.5 million fish. The median return is 23 million fish.

It was not immediately known what effect the tailing dam rupture would have on the fishery.

Michelle Imbeau, a spokeswoman for Fisheries and Oceans Canada said “the possible impacts on the Fraser River sockeye salmon as a result of tailings deposit into Quesnel Lake are not known at this time. Sockeye are currently migrating toward the Quesnel Lake system.  Fisheries and Oceans Canada will be closely monitoring the salmon run as it approaches the Quesnel system over the coming days to assess the potential effects of these pollutants and other factors including water temperature on salmon returns,” she said.

Bennett said that BC’s Cariboo Regional District has issued a precautionary water ban advisory not to drink or bathe in the water, not to allow pets or livestock to drink the water. The ban includes Quesnel and Polley lakes, Hazeltine and Cariboo creeks, as well as the Quesnel and Cariboo river systems up to the Fraser River.

Carol Ann Woody, an Anchorage-based fisheries scientist who has done extensive research in the Bristol Bay watershed, said a tailings dam disaster like this “is Bristol Bay’s worst nightmare.”

The Fraser River, said Woody, “is Canada’s number one salmon producing system, and to see this happen here is a travesty.”

The incident comes on the eve of public hearings in Anchorage and Southwest Alaska on a proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Water Act to restrict mining activity in the salmon-rich Bristol Bay watershed, where a subsidiary of a Canadian global mining group wants to build the massive copper, gold and molybdenum Pebble Mine.

“Our research shows that these tailings dam failures are far more common than the industry wants to admit,” said Bonnie Gestring of Earthworks, a nonprofit organization dedicating to protecting communities and the environment from adverse impacts of mineral and energy development. “In the US more than a quarter of the currently operating copper porphyry mines have experienced partial or total tailings pond failures.

“That’s why the EPA’s plan to restrict mine waste in the Bristol Bay watershed is so critical to the future of our nation’s most valuable wild salmon fishery.”

Salmonstock Draws Record Crowds

The fourth annual celebration of wild salmon and the people who depend on them drew upwards of 7,000 visitors to Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula Fairgrounds Aug. 1-3, for three days of music, art, food and information.

The big crowd pleaser at this year’s Salmonstock was music provided by some 60 bands, including Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, plus Alaska favorites like the Ratfish Wranglers, a group including popular fisheries artist Ray Troll, that describes itself as a wild bunch of artist-musicians who hail from Ketchikan.

In addition to celebrating wild salmon, Salmonstock is a fundraiser for the Renewable Resources Coalition and Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to protect Alaska’s hunting and fishing resources. Proceeds from Salmonstock will be used to protect wild Alaska salmon from the proposed Pebble mine and similar threats, organizers said.

Along with non-stop music, the event offers a broad range of food booths, serving up everything from fish tacos to bagels with a smoke salmon schmear, cheeseburgers, quesadillas and funnel cakes.

There were also 10 information booths, offering information on everything from opportunities to volunteer to clean up river systems to a ballot measure that will be on the general election ballot in November to protect wild salmon. The so-called Bristol Bay Forever initiative would require the Alaska Legislature to approve future large-scale metallic sulfide mines in the Bristol Bay Fisheries Reserve by passing a law that would have to find that the proposed mine would not endanger the fishery within the reserve.

Learn more about the ballot measure at http://www.elections.alaska.gov/doc/bml/BM4-12BBay-ballot-language.pdf

Event sponsors this year included Trout Unlimited, the Wild Salmon Center, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, National Parks Conservation Association and more than a dozen other entities.

Harvest of Alaska’s Wild Salmon Reaches Estimated 104 Million Fish

As Bristol Bay wrapped up its 2014 salmon season, with a harvest just shy of 29 million sockeyes, other fisheries in Alaska were picking up speed.

As of Aug. 6, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s preliminary salmon harvest added up to 104,772,000 salmon, including 54,005,000 humpies, 40,751,000 reds, 8,025,000 chum, 1,590,000 silver, and 401,000 Chinooks.

State fisheries officials said that compared with the harvest of 141,721,314 salmon harvested statewide through Aug. 2, 2013, including 93,605,809 humpies, 28,300,079 sockeye, 17,590,441 chum, 1,922,216 silver and 302,769 king.

The final statewide harvest for 2013 included 272,630,000 fish includes 219,160,000 pink, 29,257,000 sockeye, 18,578,000 chum, 5,353,000 coho and 281,000 Chinooks.

Prince William Sound harvesters through Aug. 6 had delivered to processors an estimated 39,900,000 salmon, including 35,415,000 humpies, 3,297,000 reds, 1,156,000 chum, 23,000 silvers and 10,000 kings.

In Cook Inlet, the estimated harvest total was 3.4 million fish, including 2.5 million sockeye, 709,000 pink, 160,000 chum, 96,000 silver and 5,000 kings.

On the Lower Yukon River, small boat fishermen garnered a harvest now totaling 537,000 fish, including 480,000 keta, 55,000 pink, and 2,000 cohos. Norton Sound fishermen’s harvest has reached 303,000 fish, including 180,000 pink, 96,000 chum, and 27,000 silver salmon, and harvesters in the Kotzebue area have to date delivered 355,000 chum to processors.

For Southeast Alaska, the harvest stands at more than 18 million fish, including nearly 12 million pink, some 4.3 million chum, more than a million coho, 727,000 red and 357,000 kings.

On the Alaska Peninsula processors have received nearly 4.6 million fish, including more than 3 million reds, 672,000 pink, 567,000 chum, 281,000 silver and 8,000 Chinook salmon.

And Kodiak’s harvest to date is 7.7 million fish, with more than 5 million pink, 2.3 million red, 279,000 chum, 89,000 silver and 6,000 king salmon.

Mining Publicist is Alaska Governor’s New Fisheries Advisor

A former publicist for the Pebble Limited Partnership, which hopes to build a massive copper, gold and molybdenum mine in Southwest Alaska, has been appointed as fisheries advisor to Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell.

The appointment of Ben Mohr, who also served on the board of directors of the Alaska Miners Association from 2012 to 2013, was effective in early July.

The governor’s office provided a copy of Mohr’s resume, which notes his work history includes being a public affairs specialist for the Pebble Limited Partnership from 2007 to 2013 and serving as campaign manager for Republican Senate hopeful Dan Sullivan, who was appointed by former Gov. Sarah Palin as Alaska’s attorney general in 2009, and later became commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

Mohr, a graduate of Alaska Pacific University, with a bachelor’s degree in outdoor studies, also lists among his accomplishments being vice chair of the Alaska Humanities Forum and a fellow of the National Conservation Leadership Institute.

His resume makes no mention of any accomplishment or affiliations in any area of commercial or sport fishing.

The governor’s office said he was not available for an interview.

Both the Pebble Limited Partnership and state of Alaska are suing the EPA, alleging that the federal agency has exceeded its authority in proposing restrictions that would halt development of the mine at the headwaters of the Bristol Bay watershed, home and spawning grounds for the world’s largest wild sockeye salmon fishery.