Tuesday, September 6, 2011
KING CRAB SHORTAGE?
Results from this summer's eastern Bering Sea trawl survey is fueling fears of a painful cut in the catch limit for the state's most valuable crab.
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in his blog: Deckboss (scroll
down)
More:deckboss.blogspot.com (scroll down)
Kenai battle over halibut
A dispute over a federal plan to protect the halibut population has pitted commercial fishing interests against businesses that make money off sport anglers.
– Fairbanks News Miner
More:newsminer.com
Kake Seafoods headache
While Sealaska Corp. is trying to get the long-troubled Kake Seafoods plant up and running, the plant's troubled past continues to spring up.
– Juneau Empire
More:juneauempire.com
Death awaits coho
Over the past decade, surveys of coho salmon have documented the unexplained deaths of 25-90 percent of all adults per migration run in urban and urbanizing streams in the Puget Sound region near Seattle.
– Science 2.0
More:www.science20.com
Chum on the Yukon
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is reporting a big fall run of chum salmon on the Yukon River this year.
– Fairbanks News Miner
More:newsminer.com
B.C. orcas target sharks
It was the kind of feeding frenzy John Ford had never seen before.
– CBC
More:www.cbc.ca
Fancy albacore in pouches
Tuna in a can? That's so last-century.
– Coos Bay World
More:theworldlink.com
Pebble Mine: 'hogwash!'
The ongoing battle over the Pebble mine – for the record, there is no mine, no mine application, no real idea of what a mine might look like, no concept of what it may or may not entail – is being financed in large part by rich lodge owner Bob Gillam and peddled as a valiant effort to save Bristol Bay fish. Hogwash.
– Anchorage Daily News
More:www.adn.com
Cook Inlet drilling
Something happened Friday that bears watching. Texas-based Escopeta Oil Co. started drilling an offshore well in Upper Cook Inlet, north of Nikiski.
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in his blog: Deckboss
More:deckboss.blogspot.com (scroll down)
Eat salmon, protect bay
Eat at these favorite Northwest restaurants featuring wild Bristol Bay salmon on their menus. A portion of salmon sales will be donated to protect Bristol Bay, Alaska, home of someof the most productive salmon runs and habitat left on earth.
– Trout Unlimited
More:www.savebristolbay.org
Letter to the editor
Wow! Let's not make the residents of Dutch Harbor look like chickens for seeking high ground. Public Safety people have enough trouble getting people to respond as it is.
– R. Alan Davis
Editors note: We didn't mean to indicate residents of Unalaska were chickens. They're exactly the opposite. Sorry. Don
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
THE MARCH OF KING CRABS
The sea floor around the West Antarctica peninsula could become invaded by a voracious king crab, which is on the march thanks to global warming, biologists reported.
– AFP
More:www.google.com
Halibut arithmetic hurts Canadians
The sport allocation goes to over 100,000 recreational anglers, mostly Canadian, and the remaining 88 per cent goes to 436 commercial halibut quota holders, of which only 156 go out and actually fish.
– BCLocalNews
More:www.bclocalnews.com
Grant to pay for gear cleanup
The grant will provide funding for the removal, from Alaska's coast, of more than 400,000 pounds of commercial fishing gear and other marine debris that has accumulated over time.
– Maritime Executive
More:www.maritime-executive.com
Helping salmon fight upstream
Kwinageese River salmon are once more making their way to their spawning grounds after B.C. biologists and engineers crafted a plan to help them clear a waterfall that had been blocking their passage.
– BCLocalNews
More:www.bclocalnews.com
Larsen Bay cannery celebrates 100th
This summer marked 100 years of operation for the Larsen Bay cannery.
– KMXT, Kodiak
More:www.kmxt.org
Fish farms: Vile disease record
The worst possible thing that could happen to Pacific salmon has happened: Norwegian, Atlantic Ocean ISA virus that has wiped out every fish farm country in the world has been brought to the Pacific Ocean where there was no ISA – until it was brought to Chile and now B.C.
– Victoria Times Colonist
Read more:www.timescolonist.com
Remembering herring
Where once kilometers of herring milt whitened shorelines from Alaska's Norton Bay to San Francisco Bay in northern California, the silvery wave of fish is now spotty.
– Rupert Daily Online, Prince Rupert
More:www.rupertdaily.ca
Fish friendly hydropower
The Obama Administration is spending almost $17 million on grants for research and development projects that could make hydropower more efficient, less expensive and more sustainable.
– Pacific Fishing contributor Cassandra Marie Profita writing in her blog: Ecotrope
More:ecotrope.opb.org
Columbia steelhead set record
The 2011 summer steelhead season has set a series of new records and milestones.
– The Oregonian
More:www.oregonlive.com
Trawlers criticized as dangerous
Industrial fishing in the deep sea should be banned because it has depleted fish stocks that take longer to recover than other species, according to a paper by an international team of marine scientists.
– Seattle Times
More:seattletimes.nwsource.com
Fish head spill near Seattle
A Washington State Patrol trooper dispatched to check out a report of a lost load slowing traffic on northbound Interstate 5 in north Seattle found a pile of bloody fish heads spilled across several lanes of traffic.
– Seattle Times
More:seattletimes.nwsource.com
Thursday, September 8, 2011
WITNESSES BASH FISHERIES AND OCEANS
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans took a broadside for muzzling its scientists and the aquaculture industry was chastised for resisting change when key protagonists faced off in a panel before the Cohen Commission.
– Globe and Mail, Toronto
More:www.theglobeandmail.com
U.S., Europe agree on fish pirates
Illegal fishing undermines efforts to stop overfishing and shrinks the profits of legal commercial fishermen, the oceans chiefs of the United States and the European Union declared, as they pledged to cooperate to nab fish pirates.
– Miami Herald
More:www.miamiherald.com
Sea lice role in sockeye deaths
A panel of scientists that was often at odds has told the Cohen Commission that sea lice can't be fingered as the cause of the decline of sockeye salmon stocks, but the parasite may be a contributing factor.
– Globe and Mail, Toronto
More:www.theglobeandmail.com
Top fishing ports
U.S. commercial fishermen landed 8.2 billion pounds of seafood in 2010, valued at $4.5 billion, an increase of 200 million pounds and more than $600 million in value over 2009, according to a new report released by NOAA.
– Miami Herald
More:www.miamiherald.com
Big hurdles in Willamette system
Adult fish returning from the ocean can't get past it, except in tanker trucks. On the way down, young salmon face churning turbines -- or a heck of a long drop through spillway gates.
– The Oregonian
More:www.oregonlive.com
Climate change may kill salmon
Warming streams could spell the end of spring-run Chinook salmon in California by the end of the century, according to a study by scientists at UC Davis, the Stockholm Environment Institute, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
– TheFishSite
More:www.thefishsite.com
Salmon egg sport bait less deadly
Fewer young salmon and steelhead will die after eating cured roe now that Oregon fish managers and Northwest industries have worked out an agreement to reduce toxic sodium sulfite in cures used to prepare roe for bait.
– Medford Mail Tribune
More:www.mailtribune.com
ASMI board members
Gov. Sean Parnell has reappointed Joe Bundrant and Bruce Wallace to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board of directors. The institute promotes Alaska seafood and develops market-oriented quality specifications.
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in his blog: Deckboss
More:deckboss.blogspot.com (scroll down)
Fish cops on land
When a waiter at your favorite restaurant hands you the "fresh sheet" and you order dinner, do you know if you're getting what you're ordering?
– Spokane Spokesman Review
More:www.spokesman.com
Bellingham still fishing home
Bellingham, once a major fishing port, is still home to a sizeable fleet, and so is Blaine.
– Pacific Fishing contributor John Stark, writing in Whatcom Magazine, Bellingham
More:www.bellinghamherald.com
Friday, September 9, 2011
ANCIENT HERRING BOUNTIFUL
New archeological evidence from ancient first nations habitations along the coasts of B.C. and Alaska show thousands of years of uninterrupted herring abundance, a trend that ended with the devastating mismanagement of the fishery in the mid-20th century, researchers say.
– Vancouver Sun
More:www.vancouversun.com
Cook Inlet halibut
Comments being made about the halibut catch sharing plan currently under consideration by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for Area 3A, the central Gulf of Alaska including Cook Inlet and Homer, frequently identify the need for an economic impact analysis.
– Homer News
More:homernews.com
Fraser pinks
There was no change to the pink salmon pre-season forecast run size of 17,000,000 fish. Monitoring of the migration of Fraser River pink salmon continues.
– Pacific Salmon Commission
More:www.psc.org
Climate change and fish
More than half of a group of fish crucial for the marine food web might die if, as predicted, global warming reduces the amount of oxygen dissolved in some critical areas of the ocean – including some of our richest fisheries.
– New Scientist
More:www.newscientist.com
NMFS gets new science advisor
A scientist who once worked as a fishery observer for the Alaska Fisheries Science Center has been named chief science adviser for the National Marine Fisheries Service.
– Anchorage Daily News
More:www.adn.com
Alaska Fisheries Report
Coming up this week: The Bering Sea Red King Crab quota may be down this season, the feds extend the comment period for the halibut catch-sharing plan, and doesn’t “Fish Heads on the Highway” sound like a good name for a rock band? All that and more coming up on the Alaska Fisheries Report.
– KMXT, Kodiak
More:www.kmxt.org
Oops! U.S. Navy fires on fishing boat
The commanding officer of the USS The Sullivans has been relieved of command after his ship mistakenly targeted and fired at a commercial fishing vessel during a gunnery exercise.
– Daily Press
More: weblogs.dailypress.com
An offer you can’t refuse?
We have a pre-press copy of a guide for rookies who want to become Alaska fishermen. The book is designed to “help a rookie find his way a little quicker.” It’s written by a fisherman will long experience. We’d like someone to volunteer to review it and write no more than 800 words for the magazine. You’ll have our thanks and great public adulation. If you’re interested, send a short e-mail to: donmcmanman@gmail.com