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The South Harbor dredging is continuing to make progress as crews dig their way to the shore, having removed approximately 13,000 cubic yards of material as of Monday according to Harbormaster Glo Wollen. Western Marine is undertaking the project, which is being overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and plans to dredge a total of 83,000 cubic yards of material from the harbor. Crews are working 12-14 hours a day scooping out blue clay using a grab dredger on the dry cargo deck barge...
SITKA – After hearing comments Tuesday night on the “existential threat” facing the Southeast troll fishing industry, the Sitka Assembly gave unanimous approval to a resolution and a financial contribution to help the Alaska Trollers Association fight a lawsuit by a conservation group against a federal fisheries agency. “I hope we have a unanimous decision because if the resolution is going to have any effect, we have to have real solidarity,” Assembly member Thor Christianson said prior to the vote. ATA Request and Resolution The resolutio...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is currently seeking public comment on the draft of its 2023 Statewide Sport Fish Stocking Plan, which includes two programs affecting the Petersburg area-the Southern Southeast Chinook Salmon Enhancement and the Blind Slough Coho Salmon Enhancement. According to the stocking plan, Fish and Game is looking to release approximately seven million fish in hundreds of locations across the state annually over the next five years. Matt Catterson, a fishery biolog...
The Alaska Marine Safety Education Association (AMSEA) will offer a Fishing Vessel Drill Conductor class in Petersburg, Alaska on February 4, 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., in the Petersburg Parks and Rec Activities Room, 500 N. 3rd Street. This class is $125 for commercial fishermen and $225 for all others. Participants may receive up to $95 off the purchase of their next personal floatation device. Interested mariners may register online at www.amsea.org or call (907) 747-3287. The class will cover...
The halibut charter boat fleet in Southeast and the Gulf of Alaska will be able to collectively buy quota shares from commercial fishermen under a provision in the federal omnibus budget bill passed at the end of December. The program would be funded by a fee charged for every angler aboard a halibut charter. Seward’s Andy Mezirow is on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and has been a champion of the program for a while. He said it’s a long time coming. The program was vetoed by President Donald Trump in his final weeks in office and...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game—Division of Sport Fish, is accepting public comment from now through January 31, 2023 on its 2023 Statewide Stocking Plan for Sport Fisheries. The Division, with assistance from private nonprofit hatchery operators, plans to release approximately seven million fish annually into the waters of Alaska over the next five years to benefit anglers. The plan outlines the locations, numbers, and size or life stage for each species of fish that are planned for stocking. “Public input is important to the Div...
Billions of snow crab disappeared from the Bering Sea in the past few years — a crash that’s devastated Alaska’s crab fishing fleet and a harvest that just two years ago was worth $130 million. Bycatch didn’t kill them. But the issue still dominated discussions this month at an Anchorage meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the commission that regulates the huge, lucrative harvests of seafood in the federal waters off Alaska’s shores. The council and its advisory panel, over the course of 10 days, spent hours listening to fi... Full story
Aid to Alaska fishermen, companies and communities was included in the year-end omnibus appropriations package that won final passage last Friday. The $300 million in aid funding follows official disaster declarations issued last week by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo for Alaska salmon and crab fishery failures dating back to 2020, as well as some salmon failures in Washington state dating back to 2019. “This will be relief for commercial, recreational, subsistence harvesters, all those who were directly impacted by the fishery stock cra... Full story
Everything you could possibly want to know about fish, from their biological characteristics to the commercial fisheries that harvest and sell them to the governmental entities that regulate them, is available through the University of Alaska Southeast applied fisheries program. Catering to high schoolers, recent graduates and seasoned professionals alike, the school's online and in-person programs prepare students for jobs in the industry. Applied fisheries is a workforce development program...
The South Harbor dredging project has made some progress this month as crews from contractor Western Marine spent the last couple of weeks assessing the area and beginning to dredge the outside of the harbor. Though site work on the project is still in the early stages, crews have taken over half a dozen loads of material, with approximately 500 cubic yards of material in each load, to the disposal side in Frederick Sound according to Harbormaster Glo Wollen. They began their work at the end of...
Less than five years ago, prospects appeared bright for Bering Sea crab fishers. Stocks were abundant and healthy, federal biologists said, and prices were near all-time highs. Now two dominant crab harvests have been canceled for lack of fish. For the first time, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in October canceled the 2022-2023 harvest of Bering Sea snow crab, and it also announced the second consecutive year of closure for another important harvest, that of Bristol Bay red king crab. What has happened between then and now? A sustained... Full story
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Friday approved disaster declarations for several distressed fisheries, including the recently canceled Bering Sea snow crab and Bristol Bay red crab harvests. The declarations are for poor or closed Alaska harvests going back to 2020. They cover failures in the crab fisheries for this season and last season, the closure of king crab fishing in Norton Sound in 2020 and 2021, the collapse of chum and coho harvests in the Kuskokwim River area, the poor... Full story
A joint House-Senate committee of the Alaska Legislature voted against accepting $20 million in federal aid to seafood processors, with lawmakers saying that a new state law prevents them from accepting that much money outside the normal state budget process. The 3-4 vote came Wednesday during a meeting of the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, which makes financial decisions on behalf of the Legislature when lawmakers are not in session. The failed vote means seafood processing companies in Alaska will wait several more months to receive... Full story
SEATTLE (AP) — Cooke Aquaculture has filed an appeal against Washington state’s decision to end its leases for fish-farming using net pens in state waters. In court documents filed Dec. 14, the New Brunswick, Canada-based seafood giant said that the decision was arbitrary, politically motivated and contrary to science, radio station KNKX reported. In a statement, Cooke said it has a state Supreme Court ruling and legislative mandate on its side that supports the farming of native species. It also said that the 30-day deadline to harvest fis...
State and federal fishery managers are forecasting a commercial harvest of about 19 million pink salmon in 2023 in Southeast Alaska, which would be a “significant drop” from the parent-year harvest of 48.5 million pinks in 2021, according to this month’s announcement from the federal NOAA Fisheries and Alaska Department of Fish and Game. A 19-million fish harvest would be at the high end of the “weak” range (11 million to 19 million fish), according to the announcement, which added that a harvest of that size would be only about 39% of the av...
The 2022 Southeast Alaska salmon harvest is estimated to number 29.6 million fish, mostly comprised of 17.6 million wild stock pink salmon, according to Troy Thynes, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's regional management coordinator for commercial fisheries. Though the pink salmon harvest was only 53% of the recent 10-year average, it was above the preseason estimate of 16 million fish. "The pink salmon in Southeast have been on a strong odd year, even cycle for probably almost the past...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has requested a federal disaster declaration and U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola has requested $250 million in relief funding after the failure of this year’s Bering Sea snow crab and Bristol Bay red king crab fisheries. Peltola asked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the chair of the House Appropriations Committee to include relief funding for crab fishermen and the crabbing industry in Congress’ year-end appropriation bill. Disaster relief funding could be available if Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo declares a fis... Full story
The wolf hunting and trapping season for Prince of Wales Island will be the same as last year — Nov. 15 to Dec. 15 — though a number of individuals who trap wolves in the area criticized the Alaska Department of Fish and Game last week for its wolf management decisions. The department announced the limited season last Friday, just two days after a teleconference to review with the public wolf population estimates and harvest levels. Several people described seeing more wolves than deer in the area, arguing that a longer season and higher harves...
The City Creek king salmon release site will close after a decision was made by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association (SSRAA). The decision to close the release site comes as a result of a combination of factors according to sources from the two organizations. The City Creek release site was a collaboration between Fish and Game and the SSRAA which utilized funding from the Pacific Salmon Treaty mitigation funds and saw its first... Full story
NOAA Fisheries is taking public comment on a request to take emergency action to close the Red King Crab Savings Area and the Red King Crab Savings Subarea to all fishing gear that comes into contact with the ocean bottom. The request is from the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers and is dated September 29, 2022. If implemented, the requested emergency closures would include pelagic trawl, pot gear, and longline gear, and would be in effect for 180 days after the emergency rule is published. The petitioners requested that the closure occur for 6 months...
PETERSBURG, AK-At East Ohmer Creek, 22 miles south of Petersburg, Alaska, is a tree believed to be the largest left on Mitkof Island. Forest Service Fish Biologist Eric Castro said foresters estimate the tree, which grew on a once-rich floodplain, is around 600 years old. "Those giant pumpkins are what used to grow in this type of environment," Castro said. That tree stands in contrast to those that have grown around it over the last 60 years, which have reached four to eight inches in diameter...
The Sound Science Research Collective returned to Five Finger Lighthouse again in the summer of 2022. And earlier this month they shared some results from their 2019 field season in an online presentation for the Five Finger Lighthouse Society by Dr. Leanna Matthews, detailing their playback study with humpback whales. "Usually when people think about whale song, they think about humpback song, but song is not the only thing they do. Song is produced on the breeding grounds, on those lower...
SEATTLE (AP) — Alaska officials have canceled the fall Bristol Bay red king crab harvest, and for the first time, have also scrapped the winter harvest of smaller snow crab. The move is a double whammy to a fleet from Alaska, Washington and Oregon chasing Bering Sea crab in harvests that in 2016 grossed $280 million, The Seattle Times reported. The closures reflect conservation concerns about both crab species following bleak summer populations surveys. The decisions to shut down the snow crab and fall king crab harvests came after days of d...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) is soliciting bids to conduct a test fishery harvesting food and bait herring with purse seine gear in Sitka Sound during fall and winter of 2022/23. The Request for Quotation (RFQ) format for this test fishery will be done in tons of herring. The department is seeking to generate $30,000 from a herring food and bait test fishery in Sitka Sound. The quote must be based on tons of herring to reach that dollar amount. The party that quotes the lowest amount of herring in tons will be awarded the...
The RM038 moose hunt is staying on a steady pace with 77 moose harvested as of Oct. 5 according to Hilary Wood of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Of the 77 harvested, 70 were legal while 7 were determined to be illegal moose. The total number of moose taken is just behind the 81 harvested at this time last year. Hunters have seen by far the most success on Kupreanof Island which has recorded 34 legal moose. The Stikine River and Kuiu Island are currently tied for second in the legal moos...
