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PETERSBURG — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announces that the commercial golden king crab fishery in the Lower Chatham Strait Area will close at 12:00 noon, Tuesday, November 13. Based on an analysis of effort levels and harvest projections, the harvest as of the closure date is expected to reach the 16,000-pound GHL for the Lower Chatham Strait Area. This action will bring the 2017/2018 golden king crab fishery in Registration Area A to a close....
Roadless rule non-supporter To the Editor: Wow. Now that you have heard all the negative talk about the Roadless Act here is some positive. I am a supporter of logging in a mangeable manner. I also support road building, wildlife support and management. Southeast Alaska needs all of these things. The roadless rule/act has taken all this away. I lost my job to the Roadless Act. I cut timber in Southeast and no one gave me a subsidy check. Logging helps our wildlife thrive, they love the new sprouts. Deer, moose and bear feed in these clear...
This year’s moose season finished with a final count of 106 animals, down from last year’s unit record breaking 117, according to Petersburg Fish & Game. Moose season began on Sept. 15 and ended Oct. 15. The final number of moose brought in during this year’s moose season was 106. Although the season ended Monday Oct. 15, hunters had five days to report their kill to fish and game. If a hunter shot a moose on that Monday, then they would have until Saturday to report it to fish and game; as a result, that final number wasn’t available until t...
This year's moose season finished with a preliminary count of 105 animals, down from last year's unit record breaking 117. Moose season began on Sept. 15 and ended Oct. 15. As of Wednesday afternoon, the final number of moose brought in during this year's moose season was 105. Hunters have five days to report their kill to fish and game. If a hunter shot a moose on Monday, then they would have until Saturday to report it to fish and game; as a result, that final number could change, according to...
For the past few weeks a bear has been seen near Mountain View Manor, Serendipity Childcare Center and the surrounding neighborhood going through garbage cans. After attempts to secure garbage cans failed to keep the bear out of the trash, the bear was trapped on Friday and euthanized by wildlife troopers, according to Police Chief Jim Kerr. “It seems like every year we’ve had a few [bears] towards the end of the year,” said Kerr. “Hopefully, they should be going into hibernation.” The bear was small to medium sized, said Kerr. The trap was...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – Authorities say three bears fed on the body of a contract employee who was killed this week at a remote southeast Alaska mine site. Ken Marsh, a spokesman with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said Wednesday the circumstances surrounding Anthony David Montoya’s death remain unclear. Authorities say no one witnessed what happened to the 18-year-old from Hollis, Oklahoma. Megan Peters, an Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman, says an autopsy report from the medical examiner’s office was pending. She says Montoya had l...
Crab catches dominate Alaska’s fish news in early October as boats gear up for mid-month openers in the Bering Sea. As expected, crabbers will see increased catches for snow crab after the annual survey showed a 60 percent boost in market sized males and nearly the same for females (only male crabs can be retained for sale). Managers announced this week a catch of 27.5 million pounds of snow crab, up 47 percent from last season. Even better, biologists documented one of the largest numbers of small snow crab poised to enter the fishery t...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A female bear and her two cubs mauled and killed a young man working at a remote mine site on a southeast Alaska island with one of the highest bear densities in the state, authorities said Monday. Anthony David Montoya, 18, a contract worker from Hollis, Oklahoma, died at a remote drill site accessible only by helicopter, according to Hecla Greens Creek Mine and authorities. Mine officials said workers receive training on how to deal with bears because of the large number in the area. Alaska State Troopers said Montoya wa...
At 12 days into moose season, this year's moose count is falling short at 22 as of Monday afternoon when compare to this time last year. On Sept. 26, 2017, the moose count was 47. "Every year is different," said an official with the Petersburg Fish & Game office. "We have no idea what October will bring." Moose season began on Sept. 15 and will run through Oct. 15. Last year's moose season closed with a moose count of 117, which was a unit record, beating out the 2016 total of 111. So far, two...
Offshore fish farms could soon dot the sea scape along with those oil and gas platforms being proposed for U.S. waters by the Trump Administration. The fish farms, which would be installed from three to 200 miles out, are being touted as a way to boost seafood production, provide jobs and reduce the nation’s $16 billion trade deficit due to America’s importing nearly 90 percent of its seafood favorites. The U.S. Commerce Department is holding meetings around the country through November to talk about its strategic plan for getting aqu...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — State and federal wildlife officials have apologized to Alaska Natives for the enforcement of migratory bird regulations that failed to consider the effects on subsistence practices. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued the apology Thursday for the consequences of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which prohibited the spring and summer harvests of migratory birds and their eggs during its implementation in the 1960s and 1970s, KTVA-TV reported The prohibition caused Alaska N...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Interior Department land managers have been ordered to review hunting and fishing regulations on department lands to determine how they conflict with state regulations. In a memo Monday, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke ordered the review with an eye toward deferring to state management unless it conflicts with federal law. “The Department recognizes States as the first-line authorities for fish and wildlife management and hereby expresses its commitment to defer to the States in this regard except as otherwise req...
The purse seine fleet set a single day chum salmon catch record for the entire state with a haul of over 980,000 chum salmon taken at Crawfish Inlet south of Sitka on Thursday, Aug. 30 according to Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association (NSRAA) manager Steve Reifenstuhl. Seiners took 1.13 million fish in two openings. In a year where the pink salmon catch has been said to be the worst since 1976, Reifenstuhl said Tuesday many boats doubled their season income in one day. The...
The United States Department of Commerce has allocated $56 million for the 2016 pink salmon disaster, according to borough D.C. lobbyist Sebastian O’Kelly. Congress appropriated $200 million for 12 fishery disasters. $56 million of that money, the largest amount set aside for a fishery disaster, will go to those affected by the pink salmon disaster. The funds will be split up between fishermen, processors and municipalities affected by the disaster, as well as research to determine the pink salmon decline. $32 million will go to fishermen; h...
Cell phones are being used by fishermen to bounty hunt for lost fishing gear for pay. California fishermen created the retrieval project last year along with the Nature Conservancy to get ropes, buoys, pots and anchors out of the water after the Dungeness fishery so they don’t entangle whales, and Washington and Oregon quickly followed suit. Nearly 50 whales were taken on the west coast last year after the annual crab opener, one of the region’s largest and most lucrative fisheries. “They are using their cell phones and its GPS to take a pictu...
Three of the five commercially harvested salmon species are coming in below Department of Fish and Game forecasts, according to assistant area management biologist Kevin Clark. “Biologically, I think that we’re going to be alright in the long run because for the most part, we’ve been meeting goals or near meeting goals,” said Clark. “That is kind of our charge, the sustainability of the fishery. Not necessarily to make sure everybody makes money every year, but to make sure that there’s fish there for their children and grandchildr...
More seafood tariffs in Trump’s trade war with China are hitting Alaska coming and going. On July 6 the first 25 percent tax went into effect on more than 170 U.S. seafood products going to China. On August 23, more items were added to the list, including fish meal from Alaska. “As of right now, nearly every species and product from Alaska is on that list of tariffs,” said Garrett Evridge, a fisheries economist with the McDowell Group. Alaska produces more than 70,000 metric tons of fish meal per year (about 155 million pounds), mostly made fro...
The Petersburg Marine Mammal Center is hosting a summer science camp this week to expose middle school aged kids to the scientific jobs available in the community. "We're excited," said Sunny Rice, Petersburg Marine Mammal Center board member and marine advisory agent with the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences/Alaska Sea Grant. "It'll be fun. It's always lots fun. Lots of energy. It's good to expose them to things they might want to do later on in life." Although, the summer camp is...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered that portions of an initiative aimed at protecting salmon be stricken as unconstitutional but decided that the rest of the measure can advance to the fall ballot. In a written order, the court said the problematic parts would bar the state Fish and Game commissioner from granting a permit to a project that would cause “substantial damage” or have other impacts even if it is the judgment of the commissioner or Legislature that a project’s public benefit would outweigh its eff...
WRANGELL - The coho salmon derby kicks off this weekend, and runs every weekend until September . Anyone with a fishing rod is welcome to take part in the coho derby. According to Alicia Holder, with the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce, the city has done coho salmon fishing derbies in the past, but this is the first one in a long time. They were common in the 1970s, she said, but the last derby dedicated to coho salmon was sometime in the '80s. The common salmon to fish for in Wrangell in recent...
On July 25 at 9:20 P.M., the United States Coast Guard suspended their search for John Phillips, 59, who went missing when the vessel he was on capsized in Nushagak Bay, according to a release from the USCG. A Jayhawk crew searched more than 25 square nautical miles and 23 miles of coastline for approximately six hours, according to the release. "Ending a search is never easy, especially when working alongside so many people dedicated to finding the missing person,” said Lt. Stephen Nolan, District 17 Command duty officer, in a release. ...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A new project will examine ticks found in Alaska to see if they carry the pathogens that cause Lyme disease, tularemia or other illnesses. This is the first time researchers will go out looking for ticks in Alaska parks and examine whether those ticks carry diseases, the Anchorage Daily News reported . “As the climate changes and ticks are moving north, we need a baseline,” said Kimberlee Beckmen, a wildlife veterinarian with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks. “It’s important to have the baseline...
Alaska appears to be an exception in terms of gender parity at all levels of its seafood industry. Women comprise roughly half of the world’s seafood industry work force, yet a report released last week revealed that 61 percent of women around the globe feel they face unfair gender biases from slime lines to businesses to company boardrooms. The women’s overall responses cited biases in recruitment and hiring, in working conditions and inflexible scheduling. The findings were based on 700 responses gathered in an online survey from Sep...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska ballot initiative that aims to strengthen state law protecting salmon habitat could be costly and delay infrastructure projects, state officials said. The officials noted the possible negative effects during the Senate State Affairs Committee meeting last week in Anchorage. The initiative would increase the number of streams that officials must assume have salmon, likely resulting in more state checks on the streams, said Ben White, the environmental program manager for the state Department of T...
