Study Estimates Vulnerability of Eastern Bering Sea Fisheries

A climate vulnerability assessment released on Sept. 19 by NOAA scientists and partners has determined that six stocks in the Eastern Bering Sea, including Tanner crab, are the most vulnerable to climate change.

Also included among the most vulnerable were Pacific ocean perch, rougheye rockfish, shortraker rockfish, shortspine thoryhead and flathead sole.

Snow crab and Bristol Bay red king crab were among species determined to be less vulnerable. The study looked at potential impacts of changing climate, ocean temperatures and other environmental conditions on 36 groundfish, crab and salmon stocks in the Eastern Bering Sea.

Several other fish stocks were determined to be potentially more resilient because they may be able to move to areas with more favorable environmental conditions, such as more food and optimum water temperatures or growth and survival.

“Alaska fisheries are really important,” said Bob Foy, director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “They contributed 58 percent of US landings and 29 percent of US ex-vessel value in 2016, with the majority of Alaska landings and value obtained from the Eastern Bering Sea shelf. In the past few years water temperatures have been much warmer than average, making the need for studies like this all the more imperative.

“Our science both in the field and in the lab is critical to monitor ecosystem changes and provide short-term and long-term forecasts to help commercial, recreational and subsistence communities anticipate and respond to changes that impact their way of life.”

The 34 scientists who assisted in this stock analysis considered the likelihood of exposure to climate change for all stocks studied, and the sensitivity and adaptability if exposed. They used existing information on climate and ocean conditions, species distributions and species growth and development, then estimated each stock’s overall vulnerability to climate related changes in that region.

“Our models projected more variability in salinity and water temperatures in the offshore ocean habitats where all of these species tend to be found, making them more vulnerable than other species which inhabit different areas,” said Paul Spencer, a fisheries biologist and lead author of the study.

Participating scientists classified nine flatfish stocks, crab, forage fish, rockfish, sablefish, Giant Pacific octopus, sculpin, Pacific cod and walleye Alaska pollock as having lower vulnerability due to their mobility. Still additional research conducted by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center suggests that the story for Alaska pollock, Pacific cod and possibly other species is more nuanced, the report said.

Field and laboratory studies of Pacific cod have shown that warmer water and lower pH levels can affect prey availability, as well as Pacific cod egg, larvae and juvenile development, which ultimately affects Pacific cod survival. Fewer young fish mean fewer adult fish, so there could be delayed impacts of changing climate and ocean conditions on this species, the report said.

Murkowski: No Permit for Mine That Damages Fishery

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska says a mine that can’t stand on its own without negative impact to fisheries resources should not be permitted.

Murkowski’s concerns, addressed during a Washington DC celebration of Bristol Bay’s wild salmon, came in the wake of her reading the draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Pebble mine produced by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, plus comments critical of the report from several federal and state agencies.

“I am a policy maker and as a policy maker I need to be able to say that we are sure we have processes that people can trust,” Murkowski told a gathering in Washington D.C. on Sept. 18 hosted by sponsors of Bristol Bay Salmon Week.

Murkowski said she read reports from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department and other federal and state agencies and concluded that if science issues raised by these agencies can’t demonstrate that a successful mining project is possible “in an area that is as sensitive as the Bristol Bay watershed than a permit should not issue.”

The senator said she wants to make sure that the Corps and the EPA look very carefully at information gaps regarding various aspects, and work to address them. If they are unable to address them, “than the permit should not issue,” she said.

She vowed to continue to use her seat on the Senate Appropriations Committee “to make sure that the EPA and the Corps hear clearly that they must address these,” she said. “If the applicant continues to pursue this project that is their right,” she said. “I can’t stop them, but what we need is to be able to believe whether the science that drives the process can be trusted, whether it is this project or any other project out there.”

The Pebble Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining firm Hunter-Dickenson, which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, has filed for many permits.

Events during Bristol Bay Salmon Week in the nation’s capital included 26 restaurants and Wegmans grocery stores in Virginia and Maryland featuring wild Bristol Bay sockeye salmon. Each of the restaurants took a unique approach in their preparation of the sockeye. One of them, Mitsitam Café within the National Museum of the American Indian, used traditional Alaska Native recipes for two of its dishes. All events were sponsored by the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association.

This year’s celebration of Bristol Bay salmon came in the wake of a season that saw a preliminary ex-vessel value of $306.5 million dollars of all salmon species that ranks first in the history of the fishery. The catch was 248 percent of the 20-year average of $124 million, noted Tim Sands, with the Alaska Department of Fish and Games’ commercial fisheries area management staff in Dillingham, Alaska. The 44.5 million harvest of all salmon species in Bristol Bay was the second largest in the history of the fishery behind 45.4 million fish in 1995. The sockeye salmon harvest of 43 million fish ranks second behind 44.2 million fish harvested in 1995.

The overall harvest included 42,967,737 sockeye valued at $303,897,039; 30,579 kings, $173,725; 1,379,169 chum, $2,250,721; 5,680 pink, $1,079; and 75,517 coho, $250.737.

USDA Purchases $25M+ in Canned Pink Salmon

US Department of Agriculture officials have purchased canned Alaska pink salmon valued at nearly $26 million for nationwide child nutrition and other domestic food assistance programs, with deliveries to be made from Nov. 1 through March 31, 2020.

The purchases came in the wake of offers received as of the Aug. 17 deadline.

The purchases include 199,120,000 cases of canned pinks valued at $11,658,570 from Ocean Beauty Seafoods; 115,520,000 cases at $6,782,893 from Peter Pan Seafoods; 72,960,000 cases at $4,681,235 from Icicle seafoods and 54,720,000 cases at $2,741,684 from Trident Seafoods.

A total of 182,000 cases of pink salmon were not awarded due to a lack of bids received or vendor constraints, USDA officials said in their Sept. 20 announcement.

The canned pinks for various programs are to be delivered to Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

Back in June, USDA bought about $6.5 million in canned pinks, said Bruce Schactler, director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s global food aid program.

“They usually buy canned salmon two to three times a year,” he said. “it goes into various nutrition programs, including elder take home boxes. School lunches don’t use canned salmon. What they just bought is all going to food banks.”

Schactler said he expected an announcement in the last days of September from USDA officials announcing the purchase of about $40 million in Alaska Pollock fish sticks and four-ounce un-breaded fillet portions cut from blocks. “All of that is also going specifically for food banks,” he said, with deliveries set for from January through September of 2020.

ASMI’s efforts to promote the federal purchase of wild Alaska seafood to feed the hungry have met with increasing success. In 2017 USDA bought $20 million in Alaska Pollock products, about mostly fillet portions. In 2018, USDA bought $30 million worth of Alaska Pollock products, of which about 45 percent was fish sticks and this year the purchase is anticipated to include about 55 percent fish sticks, he said.

Appropriations Bill Provision Aimed at GE Salmon Labels

Legislation now before the US Senate would slow introduction of genetically engineered salmon to US markets.

The provision specially states that no food containing genetically engineered salmon shall be permitted into interstate commerce until a consumer study of the efficacy of the Commerce Department’s National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard for informing consumers of the genetically engineered content of salmon products is delivered to Congress.

The provision dictates that the study be performed by a joint commission of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration under the Federal advisory Committee Act, with the study to begin no later than 180 days after enactment of the Agriculture Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2020.

The provision was secured by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who said she acted after USDA published inadequate labeling guidelines for genetically engineered foods, including GE salmon.

These guidelines didn’t require mandatory labeling of GE salmon, Murkowski said. Instead they allow producers to use QR codes or 1-800 numbers for more information. These guidelines had led the FDA to deactivate an import ban that prevented GE salmon from entering U.S. markets.

Murkowski and others opposed to the introduction of GE salmon into the domestic marketplace often refer to the product as “Frankenfish.”

The Alaska Republican said she opposes introduction of GE salmon into U.S. markets until clear labeling rules are established to inform consumers that they are purchasing a genetically engineered salmon product. “FDA made a serious misstep by lifting the import ban on GE salmon in response to the untested, inadequate labeling guidelines approved by USDA earlier this year,” she said.

In December of 2015 Murkowski inserted a provision in the federal omnibus appropriations bill that blocked the FDA from introducing GE salmon into the market until it publishes labeling guidelines so consumers knew the content of what they were buying. A month later, the FDA announced an import ban on GE salmon until labeling guidelines had been published.

On March 8, 2019 the FDA lifted an import restriction, allowing the biotech company AquaBounty, with facilities in Canada and Panama, to start raising genetically engineered salmon eggs in America, effectively clearing the way for the first commercially raised genetically engineered seafood to come to market.

AquaBounty’s AquAdvantage salmon has been in development since the 1990s, and is already available in Canada, noted The New Food Economy, an independent nonprofit newsroom that investigates the forces shaping how and what people eat. The company’s proprietary breed of fish is modified to contain genes from Chinook salmon and an eel-like creature called an ocean pout, allowing it to grow twice as fast, on less food, than normal Atlantic salmon.

Bristol Bay Harvesters Call for Halt to Pebble Permitting Process

Word that the US Army Corps of Engineers will not require public input or scrutiny into major changes in a massive mine permit application has prompted a call, by Bristol Bay fishermen and others, to halt the permitting process for the Pebble mine.

“Allowing for changes to be made over and over, basically behind closed doors further erodes my trust in the Army Corps of Engineers to make a responsible and science-based decision in the process that has been demonstrated over and over to fail the public’s trust,” said Lindsey Bloom, a veteran harvester speaking for Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay.

“The vast majority of Bristol Bay residents and Alaskans do not want this project to move forward, period,” said Bloom. “Nothing that I see here makes this a better, safer or more responsible project.”

The subject of concern is a memo from the Pebble Limited Partnership delivered to the Corps on Aug. 12 listing proposed changes to its Clean Water Act Section 404 permit application. During a teleconferenced news briefing on Tuesday, September 17, Corps officials affirmed there would be no additional public process to get comment on the changes involving a new transportation route, new locations for major water treatment infrastructure at the mine site and a new location for water used in mine operations to be discharged.

According to the Pebble Partnership’s Mike Heatwole, these changes are “all environmental enhancements undertaken in response to agency and public input, and will have the effect of reducing the project's overall footprint, its impact on wetlands and waters of the US, and otherwise improve its environmental performance… “We have outlined ten physical improvements and two design and execution improvements that reduce overall project impacts and further avoid, or minimize, impacts to WOTUS,” Heatwole said.

The Bristol Bay Economic Development Association and United Tribes of Bristol Bay joined commercial fishermen in calling for suspension of the permitting process.

“Absolute baloney,” said Norm Van Vactor, CEO of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp. “These project changes only reinforce that the Pebble Partnership was not prepared to go into permitting and the Corps should not have accepted their incomplete application in the first place. From day one, the Corps has made exceptions for the Pebble Partnership, lowering the bar for them at the expense of Bristol Bay’s residents, fishermen, tries and other stakeholders.”

The permitting process is being corrupted, Van Vactor said. “They owe it to the people of Alaska to step in and make it right, to follow the science in front of them.”

Former Alaska Senate President Rick Halford and Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, criticized the Corps’ handling of the permitting process. Halford said the Environmental Protection Agency’s watershed assessment showed that the project cannot be done without harming the Bristol Bay fishery because of three unchangeable facts: location, type and size. “For the political process to push the professionals in the Corps to even accept this application as complete is shameful,” he said.

Hurley also voiced concerns for the safety of Bristol Bay fisheries, contending that the project is being pushed forth at record speed, with no regard for the science and facts promised to be used to assess the project during permitting.

The Corps documents site on the project, https://pebbleprojecteis.com/documents/library, is updated continuously. The public comment period on the draft EIS ran from March 1 through July 1, and those comment too are included on the site.

BBNC Will Acquire Blue North and Clipper Seafoods

Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC) has announced the pending acquisition of two major operators in the freezer longline cod sector of the Bering Sea fishery.

The Alaska regional native corporation, with offices in Anchorage and Dillingham, plans to acquire Blue North Fisheries and Clipper Seafoods on September 30. This would put the company in a position to bring more Bering Sea earnings home to Alaska, for the benefit of its 10,000 shareholders and the local economy.

Blue North and Clipper Seafoods would be reorganized under Bristol Bay Alaska Seafoods, a newly formed subsidiary of BBNC. Former Clipper Seafoods President David Little would continue to manage operations, and both Michael and Patrick Burns of Blue North Fisheries would stay involved in operations. In addition, BBNC has created Bristol Bay Seafood Investments LLC to serve as a holding company for Bristol Bay Alaska Seafoods LLC and future seafood investments.

Jason Metrokin, president and CEO of BBNC, noted that the successful financial and environmental track records of both firms made this an attractive investment for BBNC.

The freezer longline cod sector of the Bering Sea, which harvests thousands of tons of Alaska cod annually, is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council as a well-managed, sustainable fishery.

Both Blue North and Clipper seafoods have been industry leaders for decades, pioneering many fishing practices and technologies aimed at making the fishery one of the world’s most environmentally sustainable commercial fisheries.

Blue North’s current fleet of five vessels includes the F/V Blue North, which produces boneless cod fillets, cod loins and vacuum-packed consumer-ready cod products on board for global markets. Clipper Seafoods, also a leader in the freezer longline sector has six vessels.

Alaska’s Commercial Wild Salmon Harvest Tops 200M Fish

Alaska’s commercial wild harvest for 2019 reached 200,342,000 fish through Tuesday, September 17. Historically an average of 800,000 additional salmon are harvested between now and the end of the season, in about three weeks, says the McDowell Group’s Garrett Evridge, who compiles weekly reports on the Alaska wild salmon harvest in season on behalf of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

Year-to-date sockeye harvests have reached 55,284,000 fish, with minimal additional production expected. Just under 50,000 sockeyes were added to the tally last week, mostly in Kodiak.

Year-to-date pink salmon harvest stands at 124,370,000 fish, approximately 10 million, or 7 percent lower than in 2017. That’s 45 percent lower than 2013 level and 34 percent behind 2015, Evridge noted. Some 400,000 pinks were harvested last week, nearly all in Kodiak.

Keta volume so far stands at 17,134,000 fish, approximately 2.5 million or 13 percent lower than in 2018. While the current harvest represents only 58 percent of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) forecast, the 2019 season remains comparable to the five-year average. Southeast Alaska produced most of the 280,000 keta harvested last week.

The addition of 130,000 coho brought the year-to-date total to approximately 3.3 million fish, 8 percent behind the 2018 pace. Coho account for at least half of total production in the final weeks of most Alaska salmon seasons, and Evridge noted that historical data suggest most of the remaining coho harvest will come from Southeast Alaska.

Preliminary data indicates that Alaska’s 2019 Chinook harvest of 255,000 fish met or slightly exceeded last year’s volume.

The state’s westward region overall through this week caught more than 65 million salmon, including 55,390,000 humpies, 6,664,000 sockeyes, 2,027,000 chum, 1,123,000 coho and 38,000 kings. Of that total 35,842,000 fish came from the Kodiak area, 126,174,000 from the Alaska Peninsula and 3,226,000 from Chignik.

An ADF&G season summary report on the Bristol Bay fishery released on September 17 noted that the 2019 inshore Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run of 56.5 million fish is the fourth largest and was 45 percent above the 39 million fish average run for the last 20 years. It was also the fifth consecutive year that inshore sockeye runs exceeded 50 million fish. 2019 was the second highest harvest of all species of salmon combined and reached the highest ex-vessel value of all time.