The Copper River salmon season began early Thursday amid windy, dreary weather. But the gray skies didn't stop Alaska's commercial fishermen from crowding the waters to participate in one of the state's most renowned wild salmon runs, a highly prized stock of kings and reds famous in Alaska and the Lower 48.
The Alaska Airlines plane arrived early this morning with Copper River king and sockeye salmon from three seafood processors: Ocean Beauty Seafoods, Trident Seafoods and Copper River Seafoods. At least four more Alaska Airlines flights today will transport salmon from Cordova, Alaska, to Anchorage, Alaska, Seattle and across the United States.
A hot herring season has instead cooled, leading to slow fishing across the Kodiak archipelago. As of Monday afternoon, only about 4,000 tons of herring had been harvested from a quota of 5,410 tons. While 40 boats were registered for the fishery before its April 15 opening, only about 10 remain. The rest have gone west to the Togiak herring fishery, Alaska's largest.
The salmon fry that resided in Margaret Lake this winter have matured and are already being placed in their new locations. The Kodiak Regional Aquiculture Association began raising the salmon in one of Kodiak’s local lakes in August of 2012.
It might still feel like winter but Alaska's 2013 salmon season will officially get underway on May 16, when the first runs of reds and kings are scheduled to arrive at Copper River.
It’s a brisk, sunny early spring day in Seward. Scudding clouds barely break the relentless blue of the sky beyond the chilly, cobalt waters of Resurrection Bay. Inside the city administration building on Adams Street, assistant city manager Ron Long looks at a detail of a map of Seward’s harbors.
A picture from the Gulf of Alaska that has been making the rounds on the Internet for the last few years -- though particularly in recent weeks -- shows a strange natural phenomenon that occurs when heavy, sediment-laden water from glacial valleys and rivers pours into the open ocean. There in the gulf, the two types of water run into each other, a light, almost electric blue merging with a darker slate-blue.
It’s a brisk, sunny early spring day in Seward. Scudding clouds barely break the relentless blue of the sky beyond the chilly, cobalt waters of Resurrection Bay. Inside the city administration building on Adams Street, assistant city manager Ron Long looks at a detail of a map of Seward’s harbors.
A series of aluminum canisters have been washing up on the shores of Southeast Alaska, and more recently in the Kodiak Archipelago. Two were discovered on Afognak Island earlier this month and last week another was found on Queer Island, near Kalsin Bay.
In June, stakeholders and federal managers will begin crafting a bycatch reduction plan for trawl groundfish fisheries in the Gulf. It will be some kind of catch share plan, and as the main delivery port for those fish, Kodiak residents are getting involved from the get go. Duncan Fields of Kodiak is a member of the North Pacific Council charged with creating the new plan.
A power struggle over who confirms sustainability of Alaska's wild salmon appears to be giving the state an edge, with the bulk of the 2013 harvest to be certified under a third party certification program provided by Ireland-based Global Trust.
The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute announced April 16 that about 80 percent of the state's wild salmon would be available under this United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization-based Responsible Fisheries Management program.
Incidental harvest of thousands of Chinook salmon in Gulf of Alaska trawl fisheries is an issue that just won't go away, simmering before federal fisheries managers as debate continues over whether a catch share program would solve the problem.
A universal truth in all major oil spills is that once the oil is spilled, the damage is done. In Alaska, damage from the 1989 Exxon Valdez persists today, 24 years later.
Friday morning a robot combs the swimming pool bottom at Homer High School, moving left or right, up or down, by a series of simple levers operated by a 15-year-old teen. The robot’s eye is a digital camera connected to a television screen. It fits in a lap-top sized case. The screen shows the Rover on a mission to collect a ring from the bottom of the pool.
A new plan is being crafted by federal managers for Gulf of Alaska groundfish fisheries that will reduce bycatch by trawlers, and it will very likely result in a catch share plan. Now is the time for fishing residents to make sure the new program protects their access to local resources and sustains, instead of drains, their coastal communities.
Currently, the plan includes trawlers in the Central Gulf and both trawl and pot cod gear in the Western Gulf.
The Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery got underway last week with two openings March 27 and 28 that scooped up nearly half of the 11,549-ton quota.
The two openings combined produced a catch of 5,700 tons of very ripe, “excellent quality” herring, with roe counts averaging between 12.3 and 15.9 percent.
The fleet of 48 seine boats took some time off to allow processors to catch up, but then were given another opportunity March 30.
A new plan is being crafted by federal managers for Gulf of Alaska groundfish fisheries that will reduce bycatch by trawlers, and it will very likely result in a catch share plan. Now is the time for fishing residents to make sure the new program protects their access to local resources and sustains, instead of drains, their coastal communities.
Currently, the plan includes trawlers in the Central Gulf and both trawl and pot cod gear in the Western Gulf.
The NPFMC is taking up a proposal to create a more flexible catch shares environment for the Amendment 80 fleet. This video and computer animation explains the challenges faced by the fleet, along with proposed solutions.
“Catch shares will always come up, observers still a big concern, and I think some of Alaskans are bringing to the forefront...the new technology and the lack of use of technology by NOAA. We’ll talk about warming of the waters, acidification, and then of course ocean policy you know, the whole idea that the White House wants to zone the ocean.”
