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