Fisheries

Alaska waters produce the most seafood in the country, and many of the state’s coastal communities depend on commercial fisheries to sustain their economy.

But Alaska’s fisheries are facing a massive economic slump right now, and policymakers are increasingly blaming flooded global markets. The private sector and federal policymakers are teaming up to try to stop the bleeding.

Last year was brutal for the seafood industry. Processing companies and fishermen alike suffered amid cratering prices, and they blamed Russia for flooding markets. Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, from Alaska, pointed his finger at the country at a news conference on May 23.

“Russians have essentially admitted they’re not just at war in Ukraine, they’re at war with the American fishing industry,” he said.

Alaska’s other federal delegates, Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Mary Peltola, shared similar sentiments at ComFish, a fisheries trade show in Kodiak.

The U.S. and Russia have been fighting over their seafood trade for years.

Recent highlights include a Russian ban on American goods in 2014.

The U.S. government didn’t put its own ban on Russian goods in place until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Despite that embargo, there was a loophole in the U.S. restrictions, at least for seafood. Russian-caught fish processed in third-party countries, namely China, could still be sold in American markets.

That lasted until late last year. Then, amid intense lobbying from the U.S. seafood industry, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that finally closed the loophole and any chances for Russian fish getting to America.

The move could boost demand for Alaska fish in the U.S., but America is just one of three major markets for Alaska seafood — it’s sold all over the world.

“It’s like a balloon – and so when you push in one area, you have a reaction in another area,” said John Sackton, the founder of the online trade publication SeafoodNews.

Japan and European countries are also major markets for Alaska fish, and Sackton said they’re still allowing Russian seafood imports.

Alaska pollock is the largest fishery in the U.S. by volume, and prices for that species took a major hit last year. Sackton said that’s in part because Russia began selling surimi, a paste made from pollock, into Japanese markets at low prices.

“So all of a sudden, the prices of surimi collapsed,” he said. “And now the surimi market in Japan, which used to be a mainstay of Alaska, is now primarily Russian pollock.”

He said a similar story played out in Europe and drove down the prices for pollock filets, as well.

That’s caused major problems for seafood processors in Alaska. Sackton said that unless Europe and Japan put their own bans in place, the continued sale of Russian fish into those markets will likely blunt the impact of the Biden administration’s recent action.

“This is a sign that there’s a lot of pain in the industry,” Sackton said. “And so the pollock ban – lobbying for the pollock ban – was a short-term benefit. People probably didn’t have any choice except to try to get whatever short-term benefits they could, but it’s not going to change the overall dynamic.”

Sen. Sullivan recently met with the U.S. commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, whose department regulates the American fishing industry. He’s lobbying the Biden administration to convince a group of foreign allies known as the G7 to establish their own bans.

“There is a G7 leaders meeting coming up in the next three weeks,” Sullivan said. “We covered language on what we think would be good for the leaders to agree to, and I’ll just end with this – the key really is follow through.”

The G7, or Group of Seven, is made up of the U.S. and six other countries with major economies around the world including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The European Union is what’s called a “non-enumerated member.”

The industry’s slowdown has had major consequences for seafood companies. Trident Seafoods, the biggest processing business in the United States, announced last year that it would sell about a third of its Alaska plants, partly because it said that competing with Russian-origin seafood has been tough.

But a Trident subsidiary in Europe is still buying the Russian fish that its executives say are undercutting Alaska seafood prices. That’s according to a recent report by Undercurrent News, a trade publication.

Trident Chief Executive Officer Joe Bundrant was also on Sullivan’s press call. He said that while he’d prefer to support the fishing fleet that sells to the company’s Alaska processing plants, Trident can’t lower margins enough to compete with Russian production.

“Our mission every day is to wake up and drive value for wild Alaska seafood, and it pains me greatly to make that decision,” Bundrant said. “But until there’s some support from G7 countries, it’s an economic necessity for survival.”

Bundrant said in some cases, Russian pollock is sold for up to $1,000 per ton less than Trident can produce itself.

The market pressure even caused at least one company, Peter Pan Seafoods, to close indefinitely.

Seafood companies and fishermen often target multiple species to reduce their risk, but the current price collapse is almost across the board.

Pink salmon sold at docks for just 24 cents per pound across regions on average in 2023. That’s about half what fishermen were paid in 2022, according to state data.

Bristol Bay sockeye sold at docks for as little as 50 cents per pound last year – the lowest price paid in decades, when adjusted for inflation. Intrafish reports Silver Bay Seafoods will pay at least 80 cents per pound for Bristol Bay sockeye this year, but did not respond to request for comment. The company is also expected to pay $1.10 per pound for chilled fish, with more bonuses for bleeding them before selling to the processor.

The announcement is months ahead of when processors usually announce prices for salmon in late summer.

Citing recent news reports, Sen. Sullivan claims that fish from Russia sell for so little in part because that country, and China, use forced labor in their processing facilities.

“That’s what we have to compete against,” he said. “We should be promoting high standards globally, not allowing for a race to the bottom.”

The senator’s staff have also confirmed that he has been in contact with officials in Japan and the European Union to push for banning Russian seafood. His staff did not have an estimate how long it would take to convince other nations to establish bans.

Sullivan said he hopes to include fisheries-related provisions in the upcoming renewal of the federal farm bill to provide more stability for the industry – a mutual goal among all of Alaska’s congressional delegation.

A Ketchikan fisherman has pleaded guilty in federal court to killing an endangered sperm whale in a first-of-its-kind case that highlights a long, little known conflict between the giant toothed whales and the fishermen whose sablefish catch they have learned to raid.

In a proposed plea agreement filed May 15, Dugan Daniels agreed to plead guilty to one charge of an illegal taking under the Endangered Species Act, a class A federal misdemeanor.

The charge stems from a March 2020 incident in which Daniels, 54, “knowingly took an endangered species of wildlife” by “having a crewman shoot the whale and trying to ram the whale with the F/V Pacific Bounty” in the Gulf of Alaska about 30 miles west of Yakobi Island, near the community of Pelican in Southeast Alaska, according to court filings in the case.

The case appears to be the first time someone has been criminally charged for taking a sperm whale in Alaska, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Alaska.

Sperm whales can be more than 50 feet long and weigh up to 90,000 pounds. They’ve been listed as an endangered species since 1970.

Decades ago, sperm whales learned to pluck commercial fishermen’s catch from their gear, gaining an easy meal but costing fishermen a day’s work and ruining gear and putting whales at risk of entanglement or injury. Scientists call the phenomenon depredation, and an innovative collaboration between the fishermen and scientists in Alaska has long looked for ways to avoid conflicts.

For the most part, that collaboration has been successful, and fishermen have changed gear types to deter the whales from raiding their catch.

“I am deeply dismayed,” wrote Linda Behnken of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association. “Longliners were proactive about seeking solutions to whale depredation and our organization worked hard to develop deterrents and avoid conflicts. Most eventually switched to pots as the most effective solution.”

“Whale depredation can be frustrating — I understand that— but I cannot comprehend what Mr. Daniels did,” she wrote.

Daniels also will plead guilty to a false labeling charge associated with black cod harvests he said took place legally in federal waters, but actually happened illegally in prohibited state waters. The plea agreement doesn’t discuss Daniels’ motive for illegally taking the whale.

Daniels’ federal public defender said she had no comment on the case.

It’s not clear how the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s law enforcement arm caught wind of the incident, which happened in the open ocean, or why the case was charged more than four years later.

But the plea agreement suggests Daniels wasn’t quiet about it.

In text messages, Daniels “recounted these events — specifically, his crew shooting the sperm whale, his efforts to ram the whale with the vessel and coming within five feet of doing so, and his desire to kill the sperm whale,” according to the plea agreement.

It doesn’t say anything about what Daniels was fishing for on that day in March, or what kind of gear he was using or how he knew — and prosecutors knew — the shot whale died.

Sperm whales are found in every ocean on the planet. They were hunted heavily in the 19th century for a waxy substance produced by their digestive systems.

The 19th century classic “Moby Dick” was about a fisherman driven to madness in pursuit of a sperm whale.

Like humans, sperm whales love sablefish, also known as black cod, a fish prized for its rich, buttery taste.

Alaska fishermen used to harvest black cod in frenzied derby-style openings using longline gear. Then, in the 1990s the derby style opening was changed to a quota system, where fishermen with permits could harvest sablefish over a longer, monthslong commercial fishing season.

That’s when sperm whales started to regard the distinctive sound of longline gear dropping lines as something like a dinner bell.

“They use acoustic cues, sounds like a boat hauling gear. And they’re really deep-diving, capable of going to the bottom of a set,” said Suzie Teerlink, a marine mammal specialist with NOAA.

The whales would pluck an entire set worth of sablefish off longlines. For black cod fishermen, sperm whale depredation became not just an annoyance but a major financial and gear loss.

In 2003, a collaborative research project called SEASWAP was born, looking to understand the relationship between the whales and longline fishermen and to come up with ways to deter conflicts, said Jan Straley, a retired Sitka whale biologist who was a co-founder of the effort.

“The fishermen really drove the study,” said Straley.

In recent years, fishermen started to use a different kind of gear, called a slinky pot, that’s harder for marine mammals to break into than traditional longlines, said Teerlink.

But not impossible: In the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, there have been documented occurrences of sperm whales taking catch even from slinky pots, she said.

Sperm whales are so intelligent, it’s hard to stay one step ahead, Teerlink said.

“They’re really smart and are capable of learning human patterns and taking advantage of ways to get food.”

Daniels is set to appear in federal court on June 6 in Juneau.

This story originally appeared in the Anchorage Daily News and is republished here with permission.

A petition to list many Alaska king salmon stocks as endangered has cleared its first hurdle.

As first reported by the Northern Journal, it’s mainly a bureaucratic step for the petition, from the Washington-based Wild Fish Conservancy, and kicks off a scientific review likely to take at least a year.

But the National Marine Fisheries Service said in an announcement Thursday that listing the chinook stocks under the Endangered Species Act might be necessary to save the species. And the restrictions that would come along with such a listing could affect everyone from fishermen to road builders.

Northern Journal reporter Nat Herz spoke with Alaska Public Media’s Casey Grove about the petition, the Fisheries Service announcement and the implications.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Nat Herz: This is the, one and the same, conservation group. The litigation that they filed a few years ago to try to protect Washington State resident orca whales almost led to the closure of this really economically important king salmon fishery across Southeast Alaska. They have now filed a sort of even broader petition an effort to get king salmon stocks across a huge stretch of 1,000 miles of the Gulf of Alaska coast designated as either threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Casey Grove: Apparently, the National Marine Fisheries Service said they might have a point — emphasis on the “might.” What did their announcement on Thursday say?

Nat Herz: Yeah, so the Wild Fish Conservancy filed their petition about four months ago in January. And there’s a very defined process that a federal agency goes through to basically decide whether a request by any party to have a species designated as endangered or threatened is merited. And really what they do is they mostly just look at the information that’s contained in this petition, which in this case, was an 87 -page petition from the Wild Fish Conservancy with a bunch of, like, scientific data and footnotes that says, you know, “Here’s why we think all of these different populations in these different rivers leading into the Gulf of Alaska, here’s why we think these populations of salmon are at really serious risk.”

And what the Fisheries Service said was this petition actually had, you know, a bunch of omissions, a bunch of errors, some other problems. But at the bottom line, (they said), “We do accept that the numbers of spawning king salmon have really declined pretty sharply in the past 20 years or so. We are seeing smaller king salmon returning to rivers and, you know, based on the facts as presented by this organization, a reasonable person would be concerned about the risk of extinction.” And so now, the next step is a much more rigorous and independent study of, “Is this listing merited. How serious is the threat?”

Casey Grove: Is the reasoning that the Wild Fish Conservancy gives for the decline in salmon stocks, does that line up with the, you know, understood science behind that? And what is that?

Nat Herz: Yeah, I mean, I think what’s interesting about this petition is like, I don’t think that across the scientific community and across the fishing industry, recreational fishermen, tribal governments that have a stake in these fisheries, like, I don’t think anyone from any of those communities would dispute that it’s really not a good time for king salmon. You know, I think one of the things we know about salmon and about fisheries in Alaska in general is that climate change has been really bad for some species and some stocks, but other species that actually, you know, maybe it’s having a positive effect.

The flip side of that is for king salmon. They’re seeing these declines kind of across the board, and you talk to even people who typically, like, hate the Endangered Species Act, they’re not denying that something needs to be done here. And they’re not necessarily disputing the the scientific conclusions, the data. One of the challenges is there isn’t one specific thing, and particularly not one specific thing that’s easily fixable, that seems like it’s causing this. It seems like there’s warming ocean waters. There’s maybe competition from hatchery raised fish out in the ocean, though that’s disputed. Then there’s questions about habitat degradation and bycatch. And it’s like, you know, some of those things are easier to address than others. But how do we come to a consensus about what to do? And I think absent the use of the Endangered Species Act, people kind of have ideas, and they want to do studies, but there isn’t sort of a clear alternative, which is, I think, why you’re seeing the Wild Fish Conservancy take the path that it has taken.

Casey Grove: So this announcement from the National Marine Fisheries Service, is it really just a bureaucratic, procedural thing? Or, like, how serious should people take this?

Nat Herz: It’s pretty clear that this initial 90-day finding is not any kind of indication that the species will ultimately be listed. It’s basically saying, “Yeah, you can assemble some data that makes it look like this is a problem, but now is when the real kind of rigorous review starts.” There’s also a 60-day public comment period where the National Marine Fishery Service agency, that’s doing the review, is asking, you know, for feedback from anyone in the public, any stakeholders, and really over this next nine to 12 months and probably longer, they’re going to do a much more rigorous scientific review. Then, only at that point would they make a decision to propose a listing, and then there would be another much more involved public process where people could, you know, put in comments and feedback. And, you know, likely, a lot of this Endangered Species Act stuff ends up in court, and most likely it will probably be a judge that makes the decision about whether it’s supported to list any of these Gulf of Alaska stocks. But we won’t see any more news on this likely for at least a year.

Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola introduced two bills Wednesday that aim to deliver on one of her campaign themes: Reducing the number of salmon that the Bering Sea fishing fleet catches by accident.

One of the bills would curtail the use of fishing nets that scrape sensitive parts of the sea floor. It would require regional fisheries management councils to designate bottom trawl zones and limit that kind of fishing to those areas.

It also attempts to crack down on fishing gear that hits the sea floor but goes by a different name. Peltola said areas that are closed to bottom trawling off Alaska’s coast are too often open to pelagic trawling, which in theory means the nets are in the mid-water.

“I think 40 to 80% of the time, that ‘pelagic’ gear is actually on the bottom,” she said. “So I think that defining these terms and having a more accurate definition of what bottom trawl is, and the percentage of time that those nets are on the bottom, is really important.”

A second bill would increase the money available for a grant program that funds research and equipment to help fishing fleets reduce bycatch. That program would get up to $10 million per year, $7 million more than its current cap.

Peltola acknowledges that her bills are unlikely to become law this year. But she said they elevate the national discourse on fish. And, she said, the pollock industry is starting to get the message and is taking voluntary measures to avoid salmon. She credits, among other things, her own election for a recent drop in bycatch.

“The fact that Alaskans elected a member of the congressional delegation who ran on a platform of fishing and bycatch — that fact alone has really caught the attention of many in the industry,” she said. “Fifty percent of bycatch has been reduced, especially when it comes to chum salmon.”

It shows, she said, that the industry can make improvements.

The Alaska Pollock Fishery Alliance says the bottom trawling bill would impose “unworkable and burdensome new federal mandates on regional decision-makers.”

Stephanie Madsen is executive director the At-Sea Processors Association, which is part of the pollock alliance. She said the bill goes against the science-based approach that the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council takes.

“The council has been looking at pelagic gear definitions, the enforceability, and they continue to look at that,” Madsen said. “And that’s where we think the work needs to be done.”

Organizations representing smaller-boat fishermen and subsistence users, on the other hand, have endorsed Peltola’s bills. Those organizations include the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, SalmonState and the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

Linda Behnken, executive director of the Longline Fishermen’s Association, said Alaska fishing communities and conservationists have been asking the North Pacific council for years to redefine pelagic trawling in a way that limits sea-floor contact, to no avail. Even if the bills don’t become law, Behnken says they help.

“I think they certainly send a strong message that Rep. Peltola is hearing concerns from Alaskans and is providing direction to councils to take action to address those concerns,” Behnken said.

Injured commercial fishermen and boat owners in Alaska will now be able to access higher insurance reimbursements, thanks to Senate Bill 93, which was signed into law last month.

The bill was sponsored by the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee, which Nikiski Republican Sen. Jesse Bjorkman chairs. It concerns the fishermen’s fund, which was established pre-statehood as a service to commercial fishermen who are injured while fishing. It’s funded by fees from commercial fishing licenses.

“The Alaska fishermen’s fund reimburses licensed fishermen and boat owners for their out-of-pocket medical costs if they have been injured or have a qualified illness while fishing off-shore, or doing fishing-related work on-shore,” Bjorkman explained in a hearing.

In 2023, the council that oversees the fund requested the maximum payout be raised from $5,000 to $10,000 to better match the insurance deductibles of many vessel owners. Fishermen requested raising that number to $15,000, which Senate Labor & Commerce adopted.

“Even with the $15,000 maximum, the projected disbursements from the fund leave the balance still very stable,” Bjorkman’s staffer Laura Achee explained at a March 2023 hearing. “And so it becomes a philosophical question in a situation in which a fund is created to serve a population, finding that balance between keeping the fund itself healthy, but not allowing disbursements from the fund to serve the balance of the fund more than they serve the population the fund was intended to serve.”

The bill was also designed to incentivise boat owners to get Protection and Indemnity, or P&I, insurance policies.

Representatives from the state’s division of workers compensation, which oversees the fishermen’s fund, testified that the rate of reimbursements over the past several years shows it would be sustainable to increase the maximum payout.

During public testimony, Tracy Welch with trade group United Fishermen of Alaska expressed support for the bill.

“As you’ve heard from staff, the fund is very healthy. It’s paid for by fishermen, for fishermen. And this is a great chance for us to be able to help those fishermen who are seeing a high increase in their deductibles,” Welch said. “Some of us loaners are seeing 10, 15 thousand for deductibles. So this is a way to help them, and provide a little bit of incentive for them to hold P&I insurance for them and their crew.”

In addition to raising the reimbursement ceiling, the bill also adds viral illnesses to the list of issues eligible for payouts.

The bill had another hearing in Labor and Commerce, and in the corresponding house committee. It passed the Senate unanimously in May 2023, then reached the House floor this session, where it passed 39-1. Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed the bill April 23, and it took effect immediately.

In a press release last month, Bjorkman said he was grateful the bill had been signed into law.

“As policies have risen in price, operating costs have appreciated, and labor shortages have impacted bottom lines, many owners have purchased policies with a higher deductible to control costs,” the release reads. “This bill provides support to vessel owners by establishing equity for crew across the industry, potential cost savings, and protection of loss that enables owners to provide for injury or illness without risking their entire operation.”

He reiterated it should have no financial impact on the state.

A special legislative panel is to make recommendations about state policies to rescue Alaska’s seafood industry, a major pillar of the economy that is mired in crisis, under a bill that won final passage over the weekend.

The measure, Senate Concurrent Resolution 10, would establish an eight-member seafood industry task force, with four state senators and four state House members and with the Senate president as chair.

The House passed it nearly unanimously on Saturday. The Senate, which originally passed it on April 19, on Sunday gave unanimous approval to changes made in the House.

The task force, to present recommendations to the Legislature by Jan. 21, 2025, is charged with finding some kind of response to the “unprecedented economic implosion of our industry,” Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, one of the sponsors, said in floor comments on April 19.

Stedman, as well as the text of the resolution, listed numerous challenges facing the industry in Alaska: higher operating costs within the state; much lower prices for fish, driven by reduced consumer demand and a world market glutted with supply, much of it from Russia; closures of fish processors; losses to communities dependent on fishery taxes; and crashes of salmon stocks in some rivers, notably the Yukon, and of crab stocks in the Bering Sea.

“We have not seen an impact of our fisheries like this, I don’t think, in my lifetime,” he said. Twenty years ago, there was a crisis in the Alaska salmon industry, which spurred the creation of a salmon task force that produced some solutions, he noted. “This time, we’re dealing with virtually all our fisheries,” with effects not just in smaller coastal towns but throughout the state, he said.

“No area goes untouched. Shellfish, whitefish, groundfish,” he said.

The resolution was introduced on March 1 by the Senate Finance Committee and championed by that committee’s powerful co-chairs: Stedman, Sen. Donny Olson, D-Golovin, and Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel. Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, also played a leading role in the measure.

As it moved through committees, different ideas about the task force makeup emerged. The original bill proposed a task force of seven, with two House members, two Senate members and two public members representing either United Fishermen of Alaska or the Pacific Seafood Processors Association. The seventh member, under the original bill, would be the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game or a commissioner’s designee.

In the House, the proposed size of the task force grew to 19, including eight members of the Legislature, three commissioners of state departments and representatives of tribes, commercial harvesters, processors and communities.

The final version of the bill settled on a task force of eight – four Senate members and four House members. The final version also authorizes a legislative staffer to support the task force’s work, and it omitted a provision about possible buybacks of harvest permits.

“These overall changes were done in the spirit of keeping the size and scope of the task force more narrow and for the work of the project to be completed in an efficient manner,” Stedman said on Sunday.

The measure is now headed to Gov. Mike Dunleavy for his consideration.