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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...
Trump’s trade war now includes tariffs on seafood going to and from China. China is Alaska’s biggest seafood buyer purchasing 54 percent of Alaska seafood exports last year valued at $1.3 billion. On July 6 a 25 percent tariff went into effect on U.S. imports to China, including all Alaska salmon, pollock, cod, herring, flatfish, Dungeness crab, sablefish, geoduck clams and more. Then on July 11 Trump added a 10 percent tariff on all seafood sent from China to the US. According to market expert John Sackton of Seafoodnews.com, it includes pro...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Authorities are investigating after hundreds of fish were left rotting on a hillside near Wasilla. The fish that appear to be salmon were discarded off a hiking trail near Knik Goose Bay Road, KTUU-TV reported Sunday. The overpowering smell suggests the fish were left there for some time. “Discarding fish waste on public or private property or along roads, pull-offs, and trails can attract bears into residential areas and result in fines ranging from $300 to $1,000,” said Ken Marsh, a public information officer with...
Sockeye salmon catches often add up to half of the value of Alaska’s total salmon fishery, and the so-called reds dominate the season’s early fisheries starting in mid-May. But sockeye catches so far range from record-setting highs at Bristol Bay to record lows nearly everywhere else. For example, the Copper River sockeye harvest of just 26,000 is the lowest in 50 years. At Kodiak just 212,000 sockeyes were taken through July 6 making it the weakest harvest in 38 years. Sockeye fishing at Yakutat has been closed due to the lowest returns in...
KENAI, Alaska (AP) — A respiratory pathogen that scientists previously believed to be restricted to sheep and goats has been detected in moose and caribou in Alaska. Scientists have also recently identified Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, also known as Movi, in other animal species for the first time, including a bison in Montana, mule deer in New Mexico and white-tailed deer in the upper Midwest, the Peninsula Clarion reported last week. The pneumonia-like disease may have contributed to the death of an emaciated caribou from the Fortymile herd n...
June 21, 1918 Assistant District Attorney Regan visited in town while the City of Seattle was in port. He stated that he noted with pleasure the clean and orderly appearance of the town and complimented officials and citizens generally upon the fact that Petersburg furnishes the court very few cases of law violation. June 18, 1943 It was a crowd of tired, happy girls which Skipper Harry Colp brought to Petersburg on the Charles T. They were returning from a two-week camping trip at the Allens cabin in Beecher’s Pass. Weather was perfect for the...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A Juneau man could face criminal charges after one of his wolf traps mortally wounded a black bear cub, Alaska State Troopers said. A group of hikers found the cub severely injured near the Ready Bouillon Creek in late May after it stepped into the trap which was illegally left out on Douglas Island, the Juneau Empire reported . The snare caught the cub around both hind legs and cut the bear almost all the way to the bone, said Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game determined that the c...
Plastics in recycled fishing nets are being used to make an amazing array of products around the globe and Alaska plans to get in on the action. An Alaska Net Hack Challenge is being planned for September 8 and 9 that aims to identify potential opportunities for using the tons of old nets piled up in landfills and storage lots across the state and develop new items from the materials. Fishing nets can weigh from 5,000 to 20,000 pounds each. “The purpose of the program is to change how people look at fishing nets and ropes. Instead of looking a...
Districts 5, 6, 10 and most of 7 will soon reopen to sport fishermen for king salmon, according to emergency regulations put in place earlier this spring. Chinook harvest opportunity has already opened in hatchery areas at Anita Bay, Blind Slough and Petersburg’s City Creek, opening up last Friday. On June 15 the next wave of openings will take effect, following a wide scale closure to the fishery at the start of April. Most of the marine waters in the Petersburg-Wrangell area will reopen later next week, with districts 8 and a portion of 7 i...
Hagfish is the real name for what is commonly called slime eels and it could become a viable fishery with ready markets standing by. Little is known about hagfish in Alaska, although they are commonly caught elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad. In Oregon, for example, a fleet of 15 to 20 boats catches up to two million pounds each year in customized five gallon buckets or large barrels and pay fishermen up to $1.25 a pound. Now, two Alaska biologists are testing the waters for a fishery with longliner in Southeast who were given a special permit...
Forces are aligned for a nice pay day for Alaska’s salmon fishermen. There is no backlog from last season in cold storages, a lower harvest forecast is boosting demand, prices for competing farmed salmon have remained high all year, and a devalued U.S. dollar makes Alaska salmon more appealing to foreign customers. “Over the past year the dollar has weakened 11 percent against the euro, 9 percent against the British pound, 5 percent against the Japanese yen, and 7 percent against the Chinese yuan. That makes Alaska salmon and other seafood mor...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Friday it would begin to allow subsistence and personal use salmon permit participants to access their permits online. Online availability was established as a result of user feedback, with the intention of streamlining and simplifying the permitting process. A single, regionwide permit has been created that will allow bearers the opportunity to harvest salmon through the waters of Southeast Alaska and Yakutat. Permits are still free, available online at www.adfg.alaska.gov/store/. Permit...
"Don't touch!" That's a phrase worth remembering from now through early July as newborn moose calves, young bear cubs and other wildlife babies start appearing in Alaska's backyards, urban greenbelts, and along popular trails. Tug - at - your - heartstrings cute, they may appear helpless and abandoned, but a protective mother is likely nearby. According to Fairbanks Area Management Biologist, Tony Hollis, cow moose can be particularly dangerous during calving season . "Give them plenty of...
The way that fisheries are managed determines the daily tempo for fishing families’ lives. Managers set the dates and times…the when’s and where’s and who’s … and the amounts that fishermen can catch. What happens to fishing families when any of the rules change? A new federal study aims to find out. “Those things are important for fishery managers to consider and try and integrate into their decision making, because there really are universal themes as far as how management changes have affected families,” said Marysia Szymkowiak, a social sci...
Alaska’s 2018 salmon season officially gets underway this week with the first 12-hour opener on May 17 for sockeyes and kings returning to the Copper River. The catch there this year calls for 19,000 kings and 942,000 sockeye salmon targeted by a fleet of more than 500 drift gillnetters. Here’s a primer of how fishery managers project the rest of Alaska’s salmon season may play out: Statewide, the 2018 salmon harvest is projected at 149 million fish, down 34 percent from the 2017 take of 226 million salmon. The shortfall this season stems...
Wrangell — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game on Wednesday released the following information concerning personal use salmon fishing in the Anita Bay Terminal Harvest Area (THA) for 2018. Anita Bay THA consists of those waters of Anita Bay south and west of a line from the tip of Anita Point at 5 6°13.68 ′ N. latitude, 1 3 2°22. 48 ′ W. longitude to a point on the northern shore at 56°14.26′ N. latitude, 132°23.93 ′ W. longitude. The Anita Bay THA will open to the personal use harvest of salmon at 12:01 a.m., Tuesday, May 15, 2018. Beginni...
The Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game has mapped 32 nautical miles of herring spawn through April 27, including 1.0 nmi of active spawn in Salisbury Sound. Spawn deposition surveys were conducted on April 7-11 and on April 24-25. Final results from this year's stock assessment will not be available until November 2018. However, some general information can be derived from the data collected to date. Nearly all spawning this year occurred along shorelines of Kruzof Island, Hayward Strait, and the...
The Federal Subsistence Board announced on Monday it will be closing its Chinook salmon subsistence fishery in the Stikine River this year due to low expected returns. Under the authority delegated him by the board, Ranger Bob Dalrymple of Wrangell's Forest Service district made the decision to close down the fishery. Preseason forecasts made by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game informed the decision, with 6,900 king salmon greater than 28 inches in length expected to return. Management...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced this week that the lingcod sport fishing seasons, bag and possession limits, annual limits, and size limits have been established for the Northern Southeast Area (see attached map). In this area the following regulations apply: Northern Southeast Area Season: May 16 – November 30. Limits: o Residents – 1 daily, 2 in possession, no size limit. o Nonresidents – 1 daily, 1 in possession, size limit: 30 inches or greater in length and less than 35 in...
A shuffle in some funding leaves Alaska’s commercial fisheries division in good shape to manage the resources and target important projects across the state. At first glance, the $69 million operating budget for FY19 appears to be down slightly from last year’s $72.3 million but that’s not the case. “Most of that difference is a sort of ‘cleanup’ in authority we no longer had funding for, such as the Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund, test fishing and some interagency items. The rest is due to $1.1 million shortfall in Commercial Fisheries E...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A ballot initiative that aims to strengthen a state law that protects salmon habitat has made its way before the Alaska Supreme Court. The court heard arguments Thursday on whether the initiative dubbed Yes for Salmon can appear on the November ballot, the Alaska Journal of Commerce reported. State attorney Joanne Grace argued that the ballot initiative would ban large development projects like mines, which cannot avoid disturbing salmon habitat. By the initiative enacting such a ban, the state claimed the L...
Two commercial fisheries open each spring at Upper Cook Inlet that attract little notice and few participants, but each pays big bucks to fishermen. The first is a food and bait herring fishery that runs from April 20 through the end of May. The 150 ton catch quota is small compared to most of Alaska’s other herring fisheries, but the payout is far higher than all others. “They get $1.00 to $1.50 a pound, or $2,000 to $3,000 for a short ton, and the herring goes primarily into the halibut commercial bait fishery or the sport bait fis...
SITKA, Alaska (AP) — This season’s salmon harvest in Bristol Bay is looking to be a sizable one. Alaska officials project the sockeye salmon run to be 51.3 million fish, not far off from last season’s return of 56.5 million. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game expects 37.6 million fish to be potentially available for commercial harvest when the bay’s salmon season begins on June 1, the Daily Sitka Sentinel reported Thursday. The bay’s harvest of sockeye salmon last season was 37.7 million. In 2016, the catch was lower with 37.3 million and r...
The state Department of Fish and Game has announced its 2018 preseason estimates for Chinook salmon, and its all-gear harvest limit for Southeast Alaska under provisions of the Pacific Salmon Treaty. In its release last week, the department set the year’s limit at 130,000 “treaty fish,” nearly 80,000 fish lower than the preseason limit available in 2017. This also includes a 10-percent reduction in response to conservation needs for the king salmon stocks in Southeast, northern British Columbia, and their transboundary rivers. The annual all-g...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A man was injured north of Anchorage after a moose that he had just kicked stomped his foot in return, state officials said. KTVA-TV reported the man escaped major injuries in the encounter Thursday with the moose and her calf. “It sounds like the moose were on a trail and in this case, it sounds like the guy was trying to go through them,” State Department of Fish and Game spokesman Ken Marsh said. “That’s never a good idea.” The two moose left the area after the man had his foot stomped, said Alaska Troopers sp...
