Tag Archives: Department of Fish and Game
Pair of bills makes electronic monitoring of state-regulated fisheries a possibility
Nels Evens is a longliner and gillnetter, and the executive director of the Petersburg Vessel Owners Association. He says he’s not sure what the bills’ aim is. “Because it is so broad, and we don’t understand what it’s really trying to get at, we’re not supportive of it,” he said. The pair of bills – Senate Bill 209 and House Bill 294 – stem from a discussion at last year’s Board of Fisheries meeting. The Board was trying to figure out how to enforce regulations that require Area M fishermen to keep chum salmon, instead of tossing them back in favor of much more valuable King salmon. Area M is along the Alaska Peninsula and Eastern Aleutians. It intercepts some chum salmon bound for western Alaska. more, >>click to read<< 08:53
MA Awarded $4.6 Million to Support North Atlantic Right Whale Recovery and Lobster Industry
The Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game’s Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) will receive more than $4.6 million from a congressional appropriation through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to enhance the division’s nation-leading
Fishing season is on in Southeast Alaska
The 9th U.S. Court of Appeals on Jun. 21 halted the implementation of a U.S. District Court decision that would have shut down the Chinook fishery in Southeast Alaska for the summer. Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, Attorney General Treg Taylor, and Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang reacted to the Court’s decision. Governor Mike Dunleavy said, “The 9th Circuit got it right when it found that Alaska’s fishing interests outweighed the “speculative environmental threats.” There’s a gauntlet of obstacles before the Chinook reach our fishery. The ruling comes just in time so that our commercial troll fishers in Southeast have a season. And we are grateful for it.” >click to read< 17:20
Kodiak fishermen gearing up for biggest tanner crab season in decades
Kodiak’s tanner crab fishery opens on Sunday, Jan. 15 and it’s a whopper – this year’s harvest levels are the biggest they’ve been in nearly 40 years, and fishermen are gearing up for a big season in more ways than one. Darren Platt owns the fishing vessel Agnes Sabine. It’s a 48-foot seiner – normally, he goes out for salmon – sometimes herring – and this is his fourth season fishing for tanner crabs. He said this year, there’s been a buzz in both of Kodiak’s boat harbors. “It looks almost like pre-salmon season,” he said. “There’s a lot of boats that haven’t fished tanner crabs in a while, or maybe have never fished it and so they’re just getting geared up now. And so the docks have been pretty darn busy for December and January.” >click to read< 12:15
Set-netters’ case shot down, again, in court
And after the closure in 2019, set-netters represented by the Cook Inlet Fishermen’s Fund sued the state in hopes the court would order managers to rework that management plan and others. It alleged restrictions the state had placed on the commercial fishermen were unscientific and arbitrary and flew in the face of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The Kenai court said because there was no federal management plan for Cook Inlet fisheries at that time, the state was not bound by those standards. And it said the state’s Board of Fisheries and Department of Fish and Game had the discretion to write and enforce their own rules. The Supreme Court doubled down on that opinion last week. >click to read< 12:04
Fishermen gear up for Southeast Dungeness crab season opening
19 year-old Jordan Lapeyri is busy pushing wheelbarrows piled high with little plastic bait jars up and down the South Harbor dock ramp. Lapeyri’s been fishing since the tender age of six. He’s done plenty of seining and gillnetting – but crabbing is something new. And he is in high spirits. “I’m feeling great! It’s gonna be fun. Good experience. I’ve never been crabbing before,” said Lapeyri. The captain of the Nolan Michael, a family friend, needed a deckhand. And Lapeyri needed a job. It was an easy match. “I wanted just to go seining but then he said he wanted to go try Dungy crabbing first before, for about 10 days, a couple weeks or so, and see how many crabs show up. If none show up, we’ll just leave. Get ready to go seining, put the seine net on,” Lapeyri said. click here to read the story 10:05
Looming state gov’t shutdown threatens AK’s $500M salmon industry
Alaska’s half-billion-dollar salmon season is in jeopardy if lawmakers don’t pass a state budget by the end of June. Without one, state government shuts down July 1. That’s also a big deadline for the fishermen statewide — that’s when they’ve got to be out on the water if they want to catch quality salmon. They need the Department of Fish and Game to do it. For Zack Worrell, fish and crab are his bread and butter. Worrell is looking forward to what could be a profitable season with well-priced salmon, but, if lawmakers don’t get a budget passed, his livelihood could swim away. Indeed, July 1 is the worst time to shut down the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. That’s when hundreds of millions of dollars worth of salmon swim back to Alaska shores. Video, click here to read the story 14:21
Alaska’s Bering Sea snow crab quota down 50 percent
In mixed news for Alaska’s crabbers, the state’s Department of Fish and Game announced the opening of the Bering Sea snow crab season will take place on 15 October, but with an allotted catch that is half that of last season’s. A report released Thursday, 6 October by Fish and Game put the total allowable catch (TAC) for the 2016/17 season at 21.57 million pounds, which would be the fishery’s lowest in 45 years. Around 19.4 million pounds of the TAC will go to the individual fishing quota, with the rest going to the community development quota. “We’ve seen a declining trend since the 2006/7 season,” said Robert J. Foy, the head of NOAA’s “Crab Lab” in Kodiak. Read the rest here 11:44
Baby Salmon being devoured by predators – We’re spending millions to feed the fish!
It’s a quiet, damp Friday at the Feather River Fish Hatchery and not much is happening above the surface. The buildings where they spawn the adult salmon in the fall are all empty. Outside, two workers amble down the long concrete ponds in waders, fixing things here and there. There are no visitors except one, a journalist there to pay his last respects. Below the surface are millions of baby salmon. They fill the raceways, getting fat on free chow so that they can be released in the river any day now — and be devoured by predators. The predators are striped bass, a non-native species that lives very comfortably in the river downstream. If you read Friday’s fish report with religious fervor like I do, you’ll notice that fishing for stripers in the Feather River has been amazing recently because the hatchery is slowly releasing salmon smolt into the river. It’s like ringing a dinner bell for the stripers. Read the story here 07:50
Board of Fish considers commercial Yukon pink salmon fishery
A proposal laying the groundwork for a pink salmon commercial fishery near the mouth of the Yukon is on the agenda of this week’s Board of Fisheries meeting in Fairbanks. The proposal would formalize a fishery that has been taking shape by accident over the past few years, but there are concerns about how it would affect the struggling Yukon king salmon population. The proposal was submitted by Kwik’pak Fisheries – the major fish buyer on the lower Yukon. It would allow the Department of Fish and Game to open commercial fishing with 4-inch mesh nets to target pink salmon at a time fishermen are using other gear types to harvest the tail end of the summer chum run. Read the article here 10:34
Fish and Game wants to operate counting projects, test fisheries regardless of shut down
Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game is planning to continue running major commercial fisheries, like Bristol Bay, regardless of a potential government shutdown. Commercial Fisheries Director Jeff Regnart said the plan right now, pending approval by the Department of Administration, is to keep managers and tools in place to run Bristol Bay salmon fisheries this summer. Read the rest here 08:58
Spare fleet readies for Togiak herring season
At the quiet Dillingham Boat Harbor Monday, the four-man crew of the F/V Skagerrack was on deck, patching holes in their net and mending a leaky winch. “It’s been 10 years since I seined for herring,” said skipper Paul Friis-Mikkelsen, a longtime veteran of Bristol Bay’s fisheries. He was able to get a market with Silver Bay Seafoods, and will fish as a co-op with just a few other seiners. The dwindling Togiak herring fleet is gloomy about an estimated price of just $50 per ton,,, Read the rest here 15:50
Alaska House Bill targets Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission for elimination
A report by the Department of Fish and Game flagged the Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission’s three highly paid heads, and their slow pace for adjudicating permit cases. Other issues highlighted in the Fish and Game report include the hiring of five retired state employees, some who work from home and are rarely seen in the office, and a lack of leadership and accountability in the agency. Read the rest here 10:06
Fish and Game commissioner candidate list whittled to one – Samuel Cotten
Alaska’s Fisheries Board and Board of Game narrowed a list of four candidates to one this morning, choosing Samuel Cotten as their pick for Alaska’s next commissioner. Meeting in Juneau and by teleconference, the two boards voted unanimously to endorse Cotten for the job after interviewing him for about an hour. They chose not to interview the other three candidates. Read the rest here 19:54
Fish and Game hopes research initiative will help to better manage king salmon
KENAI – The state of Alaska is spending millions of dollars to try and solve the mystery of what’s happening to the king salmon population. For the past decade, the fish have been returning to Alaskan rivers and streams in ever dwindling numbers. Video, Read the rest here 15:13
Dutch Harbor Pacific Cod Fishery to Open as Federal Season Closes
The Department of Fish and Game is closing the federal Pacific cod season in the Bering Sea-Aleutian Islands area for catcher vessels under 60 feet fishing with hook-and-line or pot gear. That means the parallel state-waters fishery for boats 58 feet and under fishing with pot gear is also closing. Both fisheries end at noon on Tuesday. Read more@kucb 16:36
Tug-of-war over salmon on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula may reach fever pitch
Each summer in Alaska, salmon by the millions flood into the great mixing bowl of Cook Inlet between the popular and populated Kenai Peninsula to the south and the towering, wild Aleutian Range to the north. The fish are money — Alaska wild silver prime for the taking — and for that reason they have come to fuel one of state’s longest-running and most contentious political battles. Read more@alaskadispatch 23:09
Tanner Crab Fishery Closed for 2014 Season
State officials announced this week that the tanner crab fishery would not open for the 2014 seasons in the eastern Aleutian Islands. But Unalaska’s small boat fishermen think they’ve found a way to expand the fishery — in an area that’s been closed for two decades. more@alaskapublic 16:25
July 4th seine fishery at Amalga targets DIPAC chum
The Department of Fish and Game is holding a purse seine opening in the Amalga Harbor special harvest area on July 4th for returning DIPAC chum salmon. Fishing will occur between 9 am and 3 pm tomorrow.
NorCal crab season delayed Daily News
