Monday, April 11, 2011
SITKA HERRING ALL DONE
The Sitka sac roe herring fishery is done for the season as seiners reached the full quota Saturday after a fifth and final opener.
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in his blog: Deckboss
More:deckboss.blogspot.com
New Puget Sound killer whale regs
Whale watchers and other boaters will have to stay twice as far from Puget Sound's orca whales to avoid disturbing the endangered species, under new rules issued Friday by the federal government.
– Seattle Times
More:seattletimes.nwsource.com
Canadians want new killer whale regs
Washington state is toughening up its vessel regulations to protect endangered killer whales, and a Vancouver-based environmental group says Canada has a "moral obligation" to follow suit.
– Vancouver Sun
More:www.vancouversun.com
Petersburg man confirmed to Fish Board
Petersburg fisherman John Jensen was confirmed to a fourth term on the Alaska Board of Fisheries Friday morning during a joint session of the legislature.
– KSTK, Wrangell
Hear Jensen talk about the board's work:kstk.org/modules
Judge to hear Alaska halibut charters plea
The judge who oversaw the trial, conviction and eventual reversal of corruption charges against former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is set to review whether the U.S. government over-reached in putting an estimated one third of Alaska's charter halibut skippers out of business this year.
– Alaska Dispatch
More:www.alaskadispatch.com
Beluga whale habitat in Cook Inlet
Over 3,000 square miles of Alaska marine area will be protected as critical habitat for a population of endangered beluga whales, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service announced on Friday.
– Reuters
More:www.reuters.com
Oregon board application time extended
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has extended the deadline for applications to the commercial Fishery Permit Review Board. Persons interested should contact ODFW by April 15.
– Daily Astorian
More:www.dailyastorian.com
Fish Commish gets nod
The Alaska Legislature unanimously confirmed, without debate, Cora Campbell as Gov. Sean Parnell's fish and game commissioner, the Associated Press reports.
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in his blog: Deckboss
More:deckboss.blogspot.com
Official: Icicle in Adak
Aleut Fisheries LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Aleut Enterprise LLC, and Western Star Seafoods Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Icicle Seafoods Inc., one of the largest and most diversified seafood companies in Alaska, are pleased to announce they have finalized a long-term lease of the seafood processing facility in Adak, Alaska.
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in his blog: Deckboss
More:deckboss.blogspot.com
Last Crescent City boat raised
The final boat that sank in Crescent City Harbor during the March 11 tsunami was raised from its watery grave in the inner boat basin Saturday morning.
– Crescent City Triplicate
More:www.triplicate.com
Aquaculture deadline tonight
You have until midnight tonight to comment on the federal plan to promote open pen aquaculture. Here's some information sent by Anne Mosness of the Go Wild Campaign:
NOAA and the Department of Commerce continue to promote fish farming in our Exclusive Economic Zone, 3 to 200 miles offshore. Thousands of open cages could be as close as three miles to our coastlines and wild salmon bearing rivers if the industry grows to $5 billion annual production, as NOAA projects. They are calling industrial aquaculture "sustainable" even though research shows loss of protein, amplification, and spread of parasites and diseases, harmful economic impacts on wild fish dependent businesses and communities. Other agencies are on the verge of approving genetically engineered fish and certifying farmed fish as "organic." The quality and marketing advantage wild fish have could easily be lost when year-around fresh, cheaper, "organic" fish flood the marketplace.... likely even promoted with our tax dollars.
More:aquaculture.noaa.gov
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
WHAT'S THE PRICE OF HERRING?
Reliable information on herring prices at Sitka has been scarce. The reason could be that prices simply don't exist yet pending some sense of what the market is willing to pay.
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in his blog: Deckboss
More:deckboss.blogspot.com
'Fish' oil from soybeans
The biotechnology firm Monsanto stands just one FDA approval away from growing soybeans that have been genetically modified to produce those omega-3 fatty acids that doctors are always recommending.
– Forbes
More:blogs.forbes.com
Columbia chum hatchery
The fish and wildlife departments of Oregon and Washington are cooperating in an effort to re-establish chum salmon on the Oregon side of the lower Columbia River, where the species began to decline more than 50 years ago.
– Seattle Times
More:seattletimes.nwsource.com
No hemlock herring for Natives
The Southeast Herring Conservation Alliance, which runs the roe-on-hemlock program, says the Julia Kae is not distributing this year after the Sitka Tribe of Alaska wrote to state officials urging them to enforce state law, which says subsistence harvesters must be residents of Alaska.
– KCAW, Sitka
More:kcaw.org
Gulf of Alaska Chinook bycatch
Federal regulators have proposed slapping a cap on the number of king salmon that pollock trawlers can accidently kill in the Gulf of Alaska in an effort to help a limping Southcentral sport and subsistence fishery.
– Anchorage Daily News
More:www.adn.com
Klamath Chinook listing
NOAA's Fisheries Service announced that it will decide whether or not to list Chinook salmon in the Upper Klamath and Trinity rivers basin as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act after the agency found that a petition to list the fish contained substantial scientific information that warrants federal review.
– NOAA
More:www.noaanews.noaa.gov
Biologists study acidic Pacific
Biologists at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center are doing some of the most sophisticated work anywhere to see how the marine world responds to a major side effect of fossil-fuel emissions: increasingly corrosive seas.
– Seattle Times
More:seattletimes.nwsource.com
Alaska legislature eyes CDQ study
The Senate Finance Committee rolled out a $2.8 billion capital budget. Deckboss took a look and found lots of interesting items including $400,000 for a "CDQ Fishing Fleet Relocation Study."
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in his blog: Deckboss
More:deckboss.blogspot.com
Radioactivity and fish
The Western Fishboat Owners Association – the albacore guys – has sent out a special edition of its consumer newsletter discussing radioactivity and seafood caught off North America. Here are a few points:
1) The FDA has unequivocally stated seafood from the U.S. waters of the North Pacific is safe to eat.
2) Less than one tenth of 1 percent of the seafood Americans eat comes from Japan.
3) The seafood community has been a full participant in stakeholder briefings with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.)
4) The seafood community is not only happy with the level of regulatory oversight committed to this effort, we are comfortable with assurances that those regulators are prepared to launch a multi-agency testing and inspection effort, in the unlikely scenario that airborne pollutants could affect U.S. fishermen or fish landed in the U.S.
More:www.wfoa-tuna.org
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT FISH
A new book from Mark Kurlansky, author of "Cod" and "Salt," casts a broader net on the subject of seafood.
– The New York Times
More:www.nytimes.com
Japanese disaster donations grow
A North Pacific seafood industry nonprofit has rallied more than $140,000 to benefit fishing communities devastated in the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy's Deckboss blog
More:deckboss.blogspot.com
Body of Calif. man killed by tsunami
found in Oregon
"The wave just came so fast and hard," said his mother.
– Associated Press
More:seattletimes.nwsource.com
'Mayday for Wild Salmon' today in
Campbell River
Activist Alexandra Morton is once again taking her battle to the streets, aiming to make fish farming an election issue.
– Courier-Islander
More:www.canada.com
Investor groups ask EPA to investigate
Pebble project
Environmentally conscious investor organizations urged the Environmental Protection Agency in a letter Tuesday to take a closer look at plans for a huge copper and gold mine in Alaska near some of the world's best-producing wild salmon streams.
– Associated Press
More:www.adn.com
An inside look at the Kodiak Killers
A presentation on Monday afternoon at the Kodiak Area Marine Science Symposium gave an in-depth look at the Kodiak Killers, a pod of transient killer whales that have been observed in the Kodiak harbor repeatedly since the early 1990s.
– Kodiak Daily Mirror
More:www.kodiakdailymirror.com
'Deadliest Catch' Season 7 premiere is slow
in developing
The show was 75 minutes old before the first crab pot was hoisted aboard, and the best story happened 800 miles from the fishing grounds when the Coast Guard had to rescue an injured crewman from a massive container ship.
– The Express-Times of Easton, Pa.
More:www.lehighvalleylive.com
Coos Bay oystermen also getting some
TV time
Coos Bay oysters and the men who cultivate them are featured in a new Oregon Public Broadcasting episode of "Oregon Experience."
– The World of Coos Bay, Ore.
More:theworldlink.com
Ketchikan herring roe fishery opens with
few fishermen
The West Behm Canal commercial herring sac roe fishery near Ketchikan opened Monday morning for the first time since 1976 but nobody went fishing.
– Associated Press
More:www.adn.com
British Columbia debates halibut allocation
Halibut is fast becoming a hot election topic as candidates aim to tip the scales in Vancouver Island North.
– Comox Valley Echo
More:www.canada.com
Oregon hatchery advisory committee seeks new member
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Oregon State University are seeking one new member for the Oregon Hatchery Research Center Advisory Committee. The position, representing commercial fisheries, opens in June 2011.
– Siuslaw News of Florence, Ore.
More:www.thesiuslawnews.com
Thursday, April 14, 2011
PACIFIC COAST SALMON FISHING SEASON OPENS MAY 1
Three years after government regulators proclaimed the Pacific salmon fishery a federal disaster, commercial fishermen on Wednesday got word to start untangling their nets and greasing their reels. The prized king salmon fishery is back.
– San Francisco Chronicle
More:www.sfgate.com
Coast Guard's most modern cutter to visit Kodiak
The California-based National Security cutter Bertholf is calling on Kodiak as part of a two-month fisheries enforcement and search-and-rescue mission in Alaska waters.
– KMXT radio
More:www.kmxt.org
Sitka sportfish guide sentenced for repeat offenses
The guide for Dove Island Lodge nets a 50-day jail sentence and a $7,000 fine for violations noted in a 2009 sting operation.
– Alaska State Troopers press release
More:www.dps.state.ak.us
Salmon farmers draft letter to candidates
Federal candidates across British Columbia are being urged to protect wild salmon and the environment as well as salmon farming in a letter circulated by the BC Salmon Farmers Association.
– Courier-Islander
More:www.canada.com
'Spillionaires' the new rich after Gulf crisis
Flush with cash, many fishermen bought new boats and trucks. Sales at the nearest Chevrolet dealer rose 41 percent.
– ProPublica
More:seattletimes.nwsource.com
Reality TV meets Sitka herring sac roe fishery
Try for a second to make a short list of the reality TV shows set in Alaska. You're going to come up with shows about gold, state troopers, crabbing, ice road trucking, bush pilots, logging. It's a long list that's about to include Sitka's feisty herring fishery.
– KCAW radio
More:kcaw.org
Lake fertilization could rebuild salmon stocks
The Kodiak Regional Aquaculture Association has an ambitious project to rejuvenate faltering salmon runs on the west side of Kodiak Island.
– KMXT radio
More:www.kmxt.org
So you wanna buy crab quota?
Crab boat crewmen are invited to a May 3 workshop in Seattle to learn how to buy and finance Bering Sea crab quota share.
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy's Deckboss blog
More:deckboss.blogspot.com
Crescent City harbor cleanup
reaches milestone
The final boat deemed a pollution threat hat sank in the Crescent City Harbor during the March 11 tsunami has been raised from its watery grave in the inner boat basin.
– The Daily Triplicate
More:www.triplicate.com
A look back on sockeye fishery's sailing days
A new exhibit at the Anchorage Museum features the early years of commercial fishing for salmon in Bristol Bay.
– Associated Press
More:www.adn.com
Friday, April 15, 2011
BIG BILL FOR CRESCENT CITY HARBOR CLEANUP
After more than a month of bustling activity in the Crescent City harbor following the March 11 tsunami, there is a new sense of quiet. The oil response operation has wrapped up and the Coast Guard put the cleanup cost at $3.1 million. Twelve sunken vessels were extracted, and no looting was reported.
– The Daily Triplicate
More:www.triplicate.com
Begich to Obama:
Protect Alaska's seafood industry
In a letter to President Obama, U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, requests federal assistance in light of Japan's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis.
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy's Deckboss blog
More:deckboss.blogspot.com
Pacific salmon may be dying
from leukemia-type virus
In Canada's Fraser River, a mysterious illness has killed millions of Pacific salmon, and scientists have a new hypothesis about why: The wild salmon are suffering from viral infections similar to those linked to some forms of leukemia and lymphoma.
– McClatchy Newspapers
More:www.mcclatchydc.com
The Alaska Fisheries Report with Jay Barrett
Topics this week include the slow herring fishery at Ketchikan, concerns over the Bristol Bay king salmon season, and legislative action on the governor's nominees to the state Board of Fisheries.
– KMXT radio
More:www.kmxt.org
The Charles Hays on patrol at Prince Rupert
The Prince Rupert Port Authority officially launched its new patrol boat on Thursday afternoon in front of a small crowd gathered at the Prince Rupert Marina.
– The Northern View
More:www.bclocalnews.com
Opinion:
Election good time for rational debate
on halibut
British Columbia's commercial halibut fishermen are ready to work within the process announced in February. Recreational fishermen should do the same.
– Comox Valley Record
More:www.bclocalnews.coml
Opinion:
Let us eat fish
This Lent, many ecologically conscious Americans might feel a twinge of guilt as they dig into the fish on their Friday dinner plates. They shouldn't, writes Ray Hilborn in The New York Times.
– The New York Times
More:www.nytimes.com
