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Mine Ruling May Set National Precedent
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – The federal Clean Water Act cannot be used to destroy an Alaskan lake, a federal appeals court ruled last week, in a decision that may set national precedent.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was wrong in letting gold mining company Coeur d'Alene Mines dump toxic mine tailings into a lake near Juneau, Alaska.
"In issuing its permit to Coeur Alaska for the use of Lower Slate Lake as a disposal site, the Corps violated the Clean Water Act," the court said in the first part of a two part ruling on Kensington Mine dumping operations.
The ruling disallowed a diversion ditch which the court said was environmentally destructive and which violated a previous injunction against the mine.
The decision could prevent mines across the United States from dumping into lakes, streams and rivers, said Tom Waldo, attorney for Earthjustice, the non-profit law firm that filed the appeal on behalf of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Lynn Canal Conservation, and the Sierra Club.
The proposed Pebble Mine, like Kensington, is designed to dump vast quantities of toxic mine tailings into lakes. A coalition of business, environmental, fishing and native groups is opposing the Pebble Mine because of its damaging potential.
- Environmental News Service
Longtime B.C. Fisherman Dies
CAMPBELL RIVER – In the last few years of his life, Buford Haines spent hundreds of hours working on his labor of love, the historic BCP 45, at the Maritime Heritage Centre.On Saturday, family and friends gathered at the centre to celebrate the life of Haines, who died on Monday of cancer. He was 83.
Haines spent most of his life on the water as a fisherman and then as a master boat builder. He was born in Spallumcheen, lived in Bella Coola and Naramata, and then settled down in Heriot Bay with his wife Louise and two children, Larry and Lynda.
Last year the couple celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.
More than three years ago, Haines and a handful of volunteers began rebuilding Canada’s most famous fishing vessel inside the Maritime Heritage Centre. Haines saw the project through to completion and led the craftsman who meticulously rebuilt the old table seiner.
“I built 20 wooden boats over 20 years in Campbell River, and during the summers I would go fishing. As a fisherman, it helped me understand what needed to be done,” said Haines in an interview a few years ago.
At the age of 13, he built his first boat and by age 80, he was working on his final piece de resistance, the BCP 45.
The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the BC Cancer Agency or the Maritime Heritage Centre.
- Campbell River Mirror
Salmon Farms Help Economic Development
PORT HARDY – Sustainable aquaculture and an end to the moratorium on finfish leases received a near-unanimous endorsement from regional directors.“Aquaculture is something we’re ideally located for,” Port Hardy Director Hank Bood told the region’s economic development committee Mar 20. “This is an industry waiting to happen, and the only problem is the jam up in the Legislature.
Port McNeill Mayor Gerry Furney strongly endorsed the motion.
“God help Port Hardy and Port McNeill if we didn’t have aquaculture,” he said. “I don’t think the wild fish has been hurt; I don’t think it can be proven scientifically.”
Regional Manager of Economic Development Marilyn MacArthur spoke for the motion. “Some people criticize me for being in support of aquaculture, but I’m actually in favor of jobs,” she said. “Given the census results, if we don’t do something there will be nothing.”
The only director not voting for the motion was regional chair Brenda Swanson, who said she only votes on motions when a tie-breaker is needed, but then added that most of her constituents do oppose lifting the finfish moratorium.
The directors supported forming a Regional Aquaculture Advisory Committee.
– North Island Gazette, Port Hardy
Survey: Fishermen Frustrated with Feds
NEWPORT, OR – Commercial fishers identified federal fishery policy and management as the prime impediment to their success in a recently completed survey.Consultant Heather Munro Man, who led the study of Lincoln County's fisheries, said the survey was potentially "precedent-setting."
"Local leaders understand the important economic contribution that commercial fishing and related businesses bring to coastal communities," Mann noted in the executive summary. "Seeking out appropriate ways to successfully assist the industry in its endeavors will ultimately strengthen the coastal communities located within Lincoln County."
The survey focused on what active commercial fishing vessel owners in Lincoln County consider as the major problems and issues they face, and their suggestions for resolving those matters.
"An overwhelming number of respondents identified federal management and federal fisheries polices as the major barrier to their success in the commercial fishing industry. Lack of a 'voice' in the federal management process is a common theme," Mann reported, noting that they drew the responses from among industry veterans.
Conducted between Dec. 7, 2006 and Jan. 8, 2007, the survey features an analysis of responses gleaned from 115 of the 192 Lincoln County commercial fishing vessel owners designated as eligible to participate.
CCA Arrives in Northwest
VANCOUVER, WA – A new player is coming to the Northwest to get involved in salmon management and politics.The Coastal Conservation Association is based in Houston, with 90,000 members scattered in state chapters along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. The organization is now recruiting members in the Northwest.
Gary Loomis, founder of First Fish, a Woodland-based conservation group, is the key figure in bringing CCA to the West Coast.
Loomis started Fish First in 1995 to bring back fish stocks in the Lewis River watershed. Fish First used net pens and egg boxes to raise fish. It completed habitat projects on private lands where the property owners wanted nothing to do with state agencies.
Loomis said there were 32 coho in Cedar Creek when Fish First started and the run was built to 16,000 native fish.
'Two years ago, commercial gillnetters targeted that run of salmon,' Loomis said. 'Only 6,100 made it back. They targeted them again this year. That was when we decided we needed to try and bring CCA to the Northwest to help us stop the overharvest of our native and wild fish runs.'
Dutch Harbor crewmen charged in crowbar fight
UNALASKA -- Two crew members are being charged with assault in Unalaska after a fight with a crowbar onboard the fishing vessel Deep Pacific last week.
Nineteen-year-old Sione Pakalani was charged with first-degree assault and 35-year-old Floyd Decker was charged with third degree assault following the March 20 incident.
According to the criminal complaint filed in Unalaska's District Court, Decker got into an argument with Pakalani's cousin, who also worked on the Deep Pacific, in the ship's freezer hold. Decker was threatening the man with a crowbar when Pakalani jumped into the hold, took the crowbar from Decker and attacked him with it, according to the complaint.
Other crew members broke up the fight, in which Decker received several facial fractures and a shattered orbital bone, leaving him with a drooping right eye. Decker was med-evaced to Anchorage following the fight, and Pakalani was transported to the Anchorage Jail March 23.
Pakalani and his cousin were also cited for minor consumption of alcohol after they were found drinking in the UniSea Sports Bar following the fight, according to the complaint.
– KIAL
Crab Crew Give Up, Says Letter
Excerpts from Letter: It looks like Bering Sea crab crews made their choice. They aren’t making much of a move to claim their $150 million (40 percent) of IFQs coming to them. One of the leaders of the crewmen’s group said he couldn’t, in good conscience, go for crewmen’s compensation because that would be agreeing with crab ratz. He wanted the law out.I do too, but look at the realities. Keep in mind ’07 is the year for crab ratz change. How can it happen? The governor is already moving toward fixing the law, not getting rid of it. Can you look for help from the North Pacific Council? No member would ever move to kill crab ratz.
If crewmen fail to destroy crab ratz, we end up with nothing. By the governor’s plan we get a consolation prize of processing rights (50 percent of the crab processor quota instead of 10 percent) but all the fish go to vessel owners, who inevitably combine to become just a few very large players, our own home-grown cartels.
Imagine a world where we own 40 percent, then one where we own nothing. There’s no comparison. Think about it. Forty percent of Bering Sea crab will set us up for 40 percent of Gulf rockfish. Forty percent of the increased harvests they’ll have on Pacific Ocean perch could be sold or leased to non-trawl vessels and the development of a hook fleet would soon follow, doubling or tripling the value of product delivered.
If the crewmen lose their gamble and fail to defeat crab ratz, it’s more than their retirement money that goes down the drain. The very idea of a decent wage and treatment for crew and hired skippers goes with it. And our fishing community will be cut off from the harvests of the Gulf.
– John Finley writing to Juneau Empire
Alaska governor makes fisheries board appointments
JUNEAU – Gov. Sarah Palin announced the appointment of Howard Delo of Big Lake and Vince Webster of King Salmon to the Alaska Board of Fisheries.Delo retired from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in 1999, after a 21-year career as a biologist and fish culturist. He is a certified and active hunter education instructor and boating safety instructor.
Delo currently serves on the Alaska Boating Safety Advisory Council and is chair of the Mat-Su Valley Fish and Game Advisory Committee. He has an M.S. in Wildlife Management from the University of Maine. Delo fills the seat of Art Nelson from South Central, whose term expires June 30, 2007.
Webster is currently the Lake and Peninsula School District facilities and maintenance director. He also serves as co-chair of the Naknek/Kvichak Fish and Game Advisory Committee, a position he has held for 15 years. Webster is also a hunter and recreational fisherman. He fills the seat of Robert Heyano of Bristol Bay, whose term expires June 30, 2007.
The seven members of the Alaska Board of Fisheries are appointed by the governor to conserve and develop the fishery resources of the state.
This involves setting seasons, bag limits, methods and means for the state's subsistence, commercial, sport, guided sport, and personal use fisheries, and it involves setting policy and direction for the management of the state's fishery resources.
– Office of the Governor
Reward for Science Equipment Lost off Charlottes
QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS -- Scientific equipment used to measure ambient noise in south Hecate Strait is still missing, despite a reward for its return.Melanie Austin, a master’s student at the University of Victoria, said the equipment was anchored to the sea floor in December. Three months later when her team came back to collect the canisters and cylinders attached to a stainless metal frame, the equipment was not found.
Her goal was to measure background noise levels from boats, marine mammals and whatever else makes noise under the sea, but now she’d just be happy to get the equipment back.
She is now hoping researchers in the area this summer doing seafloor mapping may be able to scan for the equipment too.
Two 2-foot high black aluminium pressure canisters, seven 1-foot diameter, white deep trawl floats, one 33-inch long yellow PVC cylinder, all attached to a stainless steel frame were anchored at 52°24’43.8”N, 130°47’54.06”W.
A $2,000 reward is offered. Austin can be contacted at 250-483-3300.
– Queen Charlotte Islands Observer
Longtime Alaska fisheries biologist dies
JUNEAU -- Longtime Alaska fisheries biologist Rupe Andrews has died in Juneau. He was 77.Andrews, who died at his home Wednesday, was one of the first biologists in the sport fish division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The reported cause of death was complications from colon cancer.
"He was just an old-time Alaskan that loved Alaska and the spirit that was in this state," said his son, Brian Andrews.
Rupe Andrews stepped down from the state Board of Fisheries on March 1.
Before retiring from the fish and game department in 1982, he spent 13 years as director of the agency's sport fish division.
Andrews had a balanced perspective when it came to resource management, said Bob Thorstenson, former president of the United Fishermen of Alaska.
"He was one of the stalwarts of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for decades," Thorstenson said. "He was a part of the team that brought 20th century and 21st century fish and wildlife management to the pinnacle of success in Alaska."
Beside the fisheries board, Andrews also served on the Alaska Board of Forestry and the Alaska Trails and Recreation Commission. He spent eight years on the public advisory group to the Exxon Valdez Board of Trustees and nearly a decade as a field representative for the National Rifle Association for Alaska.
"Alaska was just such a huge part of who he was," daughter-in-law Joyce Andrews said. "He was part of Alaska, but Alaska was part of him."
- Juneau Empire
Halibut Charter Moratorium in Place
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council this weekend took final action that could put a halibut charter moratorium in place. The move still has to be approved and signed into law by the U.S. secretary of Commerce.
If signed, the expected implementation date will be the 2009 fishing season.
To quality for a moratorium permit, charterboat owners would have to have taken at least five trips in 2004 and 2005. Fifteen halibut trips qualifies the boat owner for a transferable permit.
“We were supportive of a moratorium. It is a step that needed to be taken to get to a final solution on this issue,” Southeast Alaska Fishermen’s Alliance executive director Kathy Hansen said.
Kodiak charterboat owner and operator Chris Fiala said fishermen may oppose the moratorium.
“The main point of contention in Washington will be the fact that there are some pretty powerful sportfish lobbyists that might not like it and they can oppose it there. That would be where it would stall — in Washington,” Fiala said.
The council has worked on this issue since the early 1990s.
– Kodiak Daily Mirror
Cook Inlet Fishermen May Have Better Shot this Year
SOLDOTNA -- Alaska this month will consider letting the Cook Inlet fishing fleet keep its nets in the water longer if salmon runs look strong this summer to curtail the number of sockeyes that get into the Kenai and Kasilof rivers.The millions of fish that flood into the two rivers during commercial fishing closures are a boon to sport anglers but a total loss to the gillnetters who watch them pass during mandated closures meant to fill the rivers on July weekends.
The Alaska Board of Fisheries on April 16 will consider a petition from commercial fishermen to allow more flexible management of fishing if the salmon run is strong.
Already the board by a split vote has determined the situation is an emergency. That lets it consider the fishermen's request before Cook Inlet management plans are amended next year.
Can too many fish really be a bad thing?
More spawning adults can mean more young fish, but at a certain point, dependent on environmental conditions, the spawning grounds are saturated and the offspring per spawning salmon start to decline.
The state tries to let commercial and sport fishermen catch enough of the excess so the breeders are at maximum efficiency.
To some sportsmen the real emergency is that their expectations of decent river fishing on a July weekend could fade.
Weekend commercial closures in particular are what make the Kasilof, Kenai and Russian rivers what they are to rod-and-reel anglers.
– Anchorage Daily News
Alaska Eyes Merger of Japanese Fish Companies
ANCHORAGE -- Could a pending merger between Japanese seafood giants Maruha and Nichiro be a bad thing for Alaska?State officials are concerned, and they plan to ask the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to look into it. The council is meeting in Anchorage through Tuesday.
State Fish and Game Commissioner Denby Lloyd will ask the council how the merger might impact certain federal fishery regulations that prevent any one company from becoming too dominant in Bering Sea crab or pollock processing.
A worry is that Maruha, once it assimilates the smaller Nichiro, might consolidate processing plants or ships in Alaska. That would be a big concern for fishermen and port towns dependent on those assets.
Maruha and Nichiro executives have said the companies will merge by October.
Maruha, Japan’s top seafood supplier, owns stakes in the huge Westward and Alyeska groundfish and crab processing plants at Dutch Harbor as well as Supreme Alaska Seafoods.
Nichiro, Japan’s third-largest seafood company, owns Peter Pan Seafoods, which is a major crab and salmon processor with plants at King Cove, Dillingham, Valdez and elsewhere. Nichiro also has a stake in Golden Alaska Seafoods, which operates the pollock mothership Golden Alaska.
Federal officials are expected to review the deal for any negative antitrust implications.
- Wesley Loy of the Anchorage Daily News and columnist for Pacific Fishing
Editorial: Don’t Dig at Pebble Mine
In Alaska, the world's most valuable wild salmon run is threatened by a plan to dig North America's largest open-pit gold and copper mine.Northern Dynasty Minerals' Pebble project has supporters in Alaska, while opponents have introduced bills in the state Legislature to block the plan and protect the headwaters of Bristol Bay.
More than any local action, however, conscientious enforcement of the US Clean Water Act by federal officials should deal the Pebble project the crippling blow it deserves.
Under President Bush, enforcement of the nation's environmental laws cannot be taken for granted. It took the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to conclude recently in a preliminary ruling that the Army Corps of Engineers had been wrong to grant permission for a much smaller Alaska gold mine to dump its tailings waste into a lake.
A spokesman for Northern Dynasty said the company was not certain how the court action would affect its plan for a dam-enclosed holding area that fishermen say would destroy fish spawning waters.
One of the earthen dams that could be used to hold back the tailings would be 4.3 miles long and more than 700 feet high, just slightly shorter than Boston's Hancock Tower. The dam would be larger than the Three Gorges Dam in China.
Fishermen fear the effect the project would have on the region's carefully managed salmon and trout fisheries. Copper released into the environment, the fishermen know, interferes with the ability of the salmon to return to the stream in which it was born.
Bristol Bay produces 30% of all Alaskan wild salmon, with a value of $216 million in 2006. Pebble's reserves of gold, copper, and molybdenum, a metal used in strengthening steel, have an estimated value of $300 billion.
Federal officials should take their cue from the Court of Appeals and make the Clean Water Act a bulwark against the Pebble project.
– Boston Globe
Seabirds Dying in the Pacific
SAN FRANCISCO -- West Coast seabirds are dying, apparently from a lack of food -- and some researchers think the phenomenon may be linked to global climate change.This is the third year that scientists have found unusually large numbers of marine birds -- mainly common murres, but also rhinoceros auklets and tufted puffins -- washed up on beaches in California, Oregon and Washington.
Hannah Nevins, the coordinator for Moss Landing Marine Laboratories beach survey program, said 253 dead murres were recovered on 11 Monterey Bay beaches during the first week of March.
During the past nine years, an average of nine dead birds were collected on the same beaches during the same week, she said.
"If this continues for multiple years, then we could have real problems," Nevins said.
"Either they were not finding food, or they were unable to capture the food they did find."
Bill Sydeman, the director of marine ecology at PRBO Conservation Science, a Bay Area group that specializes in avian research, said the deaths are not isolated events.
In the two past years, the winter deaths were followed by less successful breeding at the Farallon Islands, one of the West Coast's most productive seabird rookeries, he said.
Sydeman said the trend appears to be linked to changes in the California Current -- a vast oceanic stream that delivers cold, nutrient-rich water from the Gulf of Alaska to the continental West Coast. Plankton in this water is the basis of a food web that sustains everything from small fish to whales.
Fluctuations in the current in recent years appear to have resulted in regions of warmer water that support less plankton, Sydeman said.
But Julia Parrish, an associate professor in the school of aquatic and fisheries science at the University of Washington, said the North Pacific Ocean appears to be in major flux. During the past two years, she said, offshore upwelling did not begin off the continental Pacific Coast until summer, two months later than usual.
Sydeman said the anomalies could be linked to global climate change.
– San Francisco Chronicle
Halibut Charter Allocation
Federal fishery regulators plan to publish in the next week a proposed rule to allow charter boat anglers in Southeast Alaska (Area 2C) to continue to catch and keep two halibut per person per day.
Here’s the catch: one of the keepers could be no longer than 32 inches, lip to tail.
The feds want to trim the booming charter catch in Southeast by an estimated 425,000 pounds this summer.
That will cheer commercial halibut longliners, who fret the charter fleet is taking a bigger and bigger bite out of fish stocks that otherwise would be available for commercial harvest.
Charter boat operators live on the tourist trade in Southeast, including anglers off cruise ships.
International halibut regulators originally proposed slashing the per-day bag limit from two fish a day to one, which charter captains decried as a business killer. The feds rejected that idea in favor of the big fish, small fish rule.
There will always be a limited supply of halibut available for harvest, either by commercial, charter or resident sportfishermen. The only management tool that seems plausible is IFQs for the charter and lodge fleet.
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, writing in the Anchorage Daily News.
Mighty Pricy Seafood
BEIJING – A Chinese restaurant has paid $75,000 for a giant golden-colored tiger fish, a symbol of wealth and good fortune, state media said. The fish was caught on Sunday off the coast of Zhanjiang, the China News Service said.“The restaurant agreed to display the fish... It is about 1.75m long and its scales shine like gold,” it said.
The restaurant paid 580,000 yuan ($75,050), bargaining down the market price of $103,500, still three times the amount paid for a tiger fish the same weight three years ago. The fish, named “golden cash tiger fish” in Chinese, would be sold to diners at about 2,000 yuan per kg—a huge loss, considering it cost 12,000 yuan per kg.
– Reuters
Insects as Aquaculture Feed
Aquaculture and technology group Neptune Industries has come one step closer to completing its insect-based dietary protein for fish, which the firm claims will be key to addressing the imminent shortage of world fish stocks.The company has a research agreement with Mississippi State University to complete the development of its product, as well as conduct taste and quality tests for fish fed with the insect protein.
The firm's president Ernest Papadoyianis said Neptune’s patent-pending Ento-Protein will be a sustainable source of protein to replace fish meal, currently made from rapidly declining ocean species such as anchovies, sardines and menhaden.
Neptune said its product, expected on the market within the next year, will initially target organic and natural fish production before moving into the mainstream seafood market.
Once all tests have been completed successfully, the firm will move ahead with the construction of full-scale manufacturing facilities to develop the product, and expects it to be available within 12 months.
"Ento-Protein is a superior dietary protein source derived from select insect species produced in a sustainable fashion under controlled conditions. Our goal is to provide our industry with a high quality, sustainable protein source for aquaculture diets that complies with U.S. Organic Standards."
Papadoyianis told FoodNavigator-USA.com that the insect protein could ultimately also be used in human nutrition.
- Food USA
Spring in Alaska: Tidbits
» Did your vessel over-winter in the north?The Homer Tribune warns folks that the past winter has been one of the coldest on record and to prepare for “a perilous thaw.”
Pipes buried as deep as eight feet have been found to be frozen. Anything with a foundation may be affected, as are piling.
» The Deadliest Catch is back, and one of the featured fishermen is Kodiak’s Shea Long, 24, of Kodiak, who tells the Daily Mirror: “It was a wild season — for both king crab and opilios. The show is definitely going to be a good show for anybody that wants to watch it. Even for those who want to watch it and scold us, it’s going to be good.”
» The Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Soldotna has received a few calls relating to bruin activity, meaning some bears have woken up from their long winter nap.
It varies year-to-year, but generally late March to early April is when bears emerge from their winter dens. Once awake, the first thing bears do is attempt to start putting on fat for next year's hibernation, says the Anchorage Daily News.
"They're basically looking for any food they can get their mouths on when they first pop out, which is why it is really important to minimize any attractants around the house and yard," Selinger said.
Sports Group Battles Sea Lions
GOLD BEACH – State and federal governments are providing some funds to help the Curry Sportfishing Association attempt to keep sea lions away from the mouth of the Rogue River this year.Officials said that in 2005, between 50 and 75 percent of salmon that were hooked by anglers in the area were taken from their lines by sea lions. The 2006 hazing program reduced that number to about 5 percent.
Curry Sportfishing Association will put up 350 feet of barrier on local mooring docks to discourage the sea lions.
Last year, association members constructed a 60-foot barrier on a breakwater and 150 feet of barriers on boat docks. This year's project will add to the existing barriers to make it much more difficult for the sea lions to haul out and rest.
The sportfishing association is contributing $38,212 of the funds for the project. Another $50,399 is a grant from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The National Marine Fisheries Service is providing $4,500.
The barriers, which consist of pipe barricades and motion-activated sprinklers, are part of a three-part effort that was implemented last year. It also includes putting up barriers on docks and breakwaters to make it more difficult for sea lions to loiter in the boat basin, to remove fish carcasses from fish cleaning stations, and hazing sea lions from the estuary.
The Fish Restoration and Enhancement Program was created by the Oregon Legislature in 1989.
- Curry Coastal Pilot
Sperm Whale Pilfers Fish from Longline
ANCHORAGE --One of the deep sea's giants - a sperm whale – was caught snacking on oil-rich sablefish, or black cod, from a commercial fishing line in the eastern Gulf of Alaska.
Fishermen and scientists have known for twenty years that the whales were snatching small numbers of fish from miles of longline in the world's largest black cod fishery. Last spring was the first time they caught one in the act.
The 45-second recording begins as a sperm whale swims into view and clamps down gently on a longline. Seconds later, a two-foot-long black cod pops off a nearby hook like a charm from a bracelet.
The whale moved with surprising grace and deliberateness, said Jan Straley, an assistant professor at the University of Alaska Southeast.
"The video showed they are very intelligent," said Aaron Thode, an associate researcher at the University of California, San Diego.
Straley and Thode's research is focused on coming up with benign techniques for fishermen to deter the whales.
The footage, taken in clear waters up to 350 feet deep, may be the first to document a feeding sperm whale. Usually the animals dine on giant squid and other fish in the pitch-black depths thousands of feet below the surface.
Fishermen fear the problem could intensify as the endangered marine mammals increase in number and teach each other the techniques of sablefish rustling.
– Juneau Empire
Public Weighs in on Trawls in Bering Sea
ANCHORAGE -- With ocean waters warming because of climate change, the public is being asked to weigh in on options for bottom trawling in the northern Bering Sea.The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which advises the federal government on fisheries in federal waters off Alaska, is asking the public to review several alternatives, said Cathy Coon, a fishery analyst for the council.
The alternatives, which will be available for public review in early May, range from doing nothing to freezing the existing boundaries for bottom trawling, Coon said.
The council will take final action at a meeting in Sitka on June 7.
Bottom trawling involves dragging large, weighted nets across the ocean floor to catch groundfish species.
Conservationist favor freezing the footprint, allowing bottom trawlers to continue to fish where they do now, essentially putting the northern Bering Sea off-limits.
"The local communities, species and habitats in the northern Bering Sea are all under stress from global warming," said Jim Ayers, vice president of the group Oceana in Juneau. "The last thing they need is a huge armada of high-tech bottom trawl vessels charging in to increase the pressure by tearing up sensitive sea floor habitat."
John Gauvin, former executive director of The Groundfish Forum, said freezing the footprint is not good fish management, especially since the situation in the northern Bering Sea is dynamic.
The industry favors a temporary restriction in the northern Bering Sea to run an experiment designed by the National Marine Fisheries Service to assess what areas need to be protected from bottom trawling, such as areas with marine mammals or juvenile crabs, Gauvin said.
The plan would be reviewed by the council within 18 months and implemented within three years of final action being taken.
– Associated Press
B.C. Packing Plant to Close
PORT McNEILL – The Englewood Packing will close its doors June 30.The fish processing plant employs about 130 people who live primarily in Port McNeill.
“While all of the employees will be offered positions at Alpha Processing in Port Hardy, there is no question that the closure will have an impact on Port McNeill,” says plant owner and President Don Millerd.
Millerd says the closure of the Englewood Plant didn’t have to happen.
“The pending closure of the Englewood Plant in Port McNeill could have been avoided,” said Millerd. “To those who say they want the jobs that salmon farming provides, but not new farms, this is what happens.”
When the moratorium on new salmon farms was lifted in 2002, the aquaculture industry began investing in upgrading plant facilities and hatcheries, and training new workers, says a press release from the B.C. Salmon Farmers’ Association.
However, of the 16 applications for new farms submitted since 2002, only a few have been approved.
“The delay in processing these applications resulted in the closure of some hatcheries and we are now seeing the impact on processing facilities as well,” states the association’s Executive Director Mary Ellen Walling.
“We have turned away over $48 million dollars in capital investment in the last three years because of the lengthy delays.
The lost sales from these farms are estimated at over $490 million, much of which would have been invested back into the coastal communities in feed purchases, processing contracts, service and equipment purchases and payroll.”
- North Island Gazette, Port Hardy
Babysitting Chum a Difficult Task
CHINOOK, WA - Sea Resources historic hatchery hatched about 75,000 chum this year after a yearlong hiatus from brooding.Since the fall of 2005, the non-profit hatchery and education center has struggled to find the right people to look after the grounds and raise fish, a tradition at the site since 1893.
The group has made great strides in the past four months. They missed the runs of fall chinook and coho salmon on the nearby Chinook River, but they did harvest enough chum eggs to put the hatchery back in action.
"We're a hands-on board, not just an advisory board," said Nansen Malin, who took on the role of business manager after joining the board nine months ago. "We want to retain local control."
Over time, the board may supplant the Sea Resources title with a longer one: Chinook Historical Hatchery and Lewis and Clark Botanical Trail. The organization has applied for a listing in the historic register as the oldest hatchery in the state of Washington.
The organization is allowed to take 140,000 fall chinook salmon eggs, 75,000 coho and 100,000 chum; it is authorized to release a proportionate number of smolts.
The 75,000 chum at the hatchery now will only stay in incubation for about a month, he said. By May, they will be on their way to the ocean.
– Daily Astorian
Congress Sets Sights on Sea Lion
Washington, D.C. - As sea lions return to the Bonneville Dam this year, U.S. Reps. Brian Baird (D) and Doc Hastings (R) are renewing congressional efforts to reduce the predation of endangered Columbia River salmon.The two Washington state congressmen last week introduced the "Endangered Salmon Predation Prevention Act," which allows for lethal removal of the most aggressive sea lions in order to help protect endangered salmon as they return to spawn.
"After trying every trick in the book, this is the only option left to stop the sea lions," Hastings said. "The citizens of the Northwest simply cannot afford to pay hundreds of millions every year to protect salmon and then just sit by while sea lions gorge themselves on thousands of endangered fish."
The Baird-Hastings plan creates a temporary expedited process for the states of Washington and Oregon and the four Columbia River treaty tribes to obtain permits for the lethal removal of a limited number of California sea lions preying on salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River.
Despite dramatic population increases in recent decades, California sea lions, like all marine mammals, enjoy strong federal protection making it virtually impossible to remove them.
Under current law it can take 3 to 5 years for wildlife managers to get permission from the federal government to remove aggressive sea lions. The existing process has never been successfully used.
Safeguards are included in the bill to ensure that the overall California sea lion population is not impacted.
– Chinook Observer