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WWII Ship Monument Restored
CRESCENT CITY – The S.S. Emidio memorial finally has a place to lay anchor when restoration of its hull is completed.
The memorial will return to its original port at Beachfront Park on Front Street, despite a proposal to move the memorial to a new location.
"It's an invaluable piece of history," President of the St. George Reef Lighthouse Historical Society Guy Towers said. "It was badly deteriorated, (and) it was important to the Maritime history of Crescent City."
The Emidio was an oil tanker that was torpedoed in 1941 by a Japanese submarine off the California coast 200 miles north of San Francisco. It floated up the coast and finally came to rest in the Crescent City Harbor.
"Not a lot of people are aware of the Japanese submarines along our coast," Towers said. "It is a forgotten part of our history."
To do a service for the community and salvage the history, Towers undertook the task of restoring the rusted Emidio. He was approached by a local philanthropist, Bill Stamps, Jr., who wanted to move and incorporate the refurbished Emidio memorial into his vision for a historical corridor on H Street.
City Attorney Thomas French said to legally move the Emidio, the California Office of Historical Preservation would need to approve any proposal because the memorial is a registered landmark.
In response to the possibility of losing the Emidio's landmark status, the city council decided not to back the proposal for moving the memorial.
The Emidio, which will be rededicated on Memorial Day, will return to Beachfront Park, with the rust sandblasted off of the hull and given it a fresh coat of paint.
- Crescent City Triplicate
War on Gillnetters in Alabama
BIRMINGHAM -- Under pressure from marine biologists and sportfishing groups, state officials have acknowledged that commercial gill netters are catching more than their fair share of Spanish mackerel in Alabama.State and federal figures show that gill netters caught about 83% of all mackerel pulled from state waters last year, resulting in a fishery "skewed too far toward the commercial fishermen."
For the first time, the Division of Marine Resources will impose a limit on how many pounds of mackerel the 105 gill net boats working in Alabama are allowed to catch each year, according to Barnett Lawley, head of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
Lawley has ordered the implementation of "emergency regulations" to counteract a nearly tenfold increase in the commercial catch over the last decade.
Lawley said that recreational anglers should bring in 43% of the annual harvest instead of the 17% that Alabama's sportfishermen caught in 2006.
State officials appear likely to set an annual gill net quota between 500,000 and 600,000 pounds, according to Lawley, which would be about four times higher than catch levels in the early 1990s.
Lawley said the state follows federal guidelines that suggest a roughly even division of harvests between commercial and recreational fishing interests.
– Birmingham News
Cold and Snowy in Southeast Alaska
PETERSBURG -- From the season’s first trace of snowfall in October 2006 to now, Petersburg has received a record 224.5 inches of snow.The previous record for the same amount of time goes all the way back to the 1971-72 winter when Petersburg got 221.6 inches of snow. According to Nathan Foster at the National Weather Service in Juneau, Petersburg is not the only town in Southeast to break previous records.
“Juneau has broken their record for sure,” said Foster. Hoonah has gotten 292.7 inches of snow, breaking their previous record of 100.2 inches. Foster added that the most snowfall seen in Southeast took place in Annex Creek, about 10 miles east of downtown Juneau in Taku Inlet. “It’s away from more marine areas but they’ve had 466.4 inches of snow this year,” Foster said.
For Southeast Alaska, Petersburg is definitely in the top five for most snow this year. Haines, Hoonah, Elfin Cove and Pelican have all gotten more snow than Petersburg. Foster says Alaska is nearing a La Nina period, which is the cooling of the waters of the Pacific off of South America and that has some implications of our weather. “It’s going to stay cold for the next couple of weeks but will be fairly dry,” Foster added.
According to Foster, the three-month outlook is for near to slightly above normal temperatures and about normal precipitation.
– Petersburg Pilot
Hawaii Groundfish Stocks Founder
HONOLULU -- The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council says Hawaii bottomfish stocks are in worse shape than previously thought and need more action than proposed before now.The council said Monday that it had been pushing for a 15% reduction in "fishery-related bottomfish mortality" but the council now feels a 24% reduction is necessary.
Last year the council proposed a four-month seasonal closure of state-controlled waters, from the coast to the three-mile territorial limit.
When Hawaii state officials declined to do that, the council asked the U.S. secretary of commerce to close bottomfish grounds in federal waters between Oahu and Molokai, and northwest of Kauai.
The council's Scientific and Statistical Committee was to convene last week to consider a fresh assessment of stocks by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The full council then meets March 13-16.
– Pacific Business News
Marine Wiring Clinic in Poulsbo
Washington Sea Grant and the Port of Poulsbo are co-sponsoring a Marine Electrical Wiring class for commercial fishermen and recreational boaters.Designed for boat owners who want to upgrade their vessels' electrical systems, the class will be held on Saturday, May 19, 2007, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., in the meeting room (across from the fuel dock) at the Port of Poulsbo, 18809 Front Street, Poulsbo.
Topics will cover American Boat and Yacht Council standards for safest wiring, selecting wire sizes, circuit breaker and fuse ratings, cable routing and labeling, shore power circuits, battery charging circuits, corrosion protection circuits, engine instrument systems and trouble shooting.
The fee for the seminar is $60. Space is limited, so pre-registration is advised.
To register or for more information, contact Sarah Fisken, Continuing Education Coordinator, Washington Sea Grant, 206-543-1225, or email.
Fisherman Pulls in Big, Old Alaska Rockfish
ANCHORAGE -- A commercial fishing boat has pulled up what could have been one of the oldest creatures in Alaska - a giant rockfish estimated to be about a century old.
The 44-inch, 60-pound female shortraker rockfish was caught last month by the catcher-processor Kodiak Enterprise, owned by Trident Seafoods, south of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea.
The 275-foot, Seattle-based vessel was trawling for pollock at 2,100 feet. On one drag, the ship's big net pulled up an estimated 75 tons of pollock plus 10 bright-orange rockfish.
Crewmen alerted Michael Myers, factory manager of the Kodiak Enterprise. He has fished in the Bering Sea since 1988 but never saw a rockfish that big.
Myers is a regular at show and tell time at his sons' school. He immediately thought that he'd save the fish for federal researchers - after the elementary school children got a look at it.
"I thought, 'They're going to love that,'" he said from his home in Marysville, Wash.
Myers ordered the big rockfish to be frozen whole.
Their enthusiastic reaction was subdued, Myers said, compared to the reaction by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.
"They were like 9-year-olds on Christmas morning," Myers said. "They were giddy."
Researchers estimate the rockfish was 90 to 115 years old.
- Associated Press
Gulf Agencies Argue Over Gillnet Ban
MOBILE, Ala. -- Arguing that scientific evidence proves that gillnets harm coastal ecosystems, the head of saltwater fisheries in Texas recently wrote a letter to Alabama officials saying he was "astounded that this debate continues."The letter comes to light as a Mobile legislator seeks to ban Alabama's gillnets, leading to contentious hearings last month in Montgomery.
The March 26 letter from Texas fisheries director Larry McKinney provided state data collected between 1975 and 2005 that shows overall fish populations and the number of species found have increased substantially since Texas banned all gillnets in 1988.
Alabama is the last Gulf state that allows widespread use of gillnets year round.
Netters catch unlimited amounts of mackerel, mullet, flounder, croaker, spot, ladyfish, blue runners, pompano and other species common in Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
After Rep. Jamie Ison, R-Mobile, sponsored a bill to ban Alabama's gillnets last month, her local delegation colleague, Rep. Spencer Collier, R-Irvington, vowed to filibuster any such bill.
About 105 net fishermen working Alabama waters this year caught 83% of all Spanish mackerel caught in Alabama in 2006.
The first ever quotas on the gillnetters will be imposed this year, designed to cut the harvest by a third or more, allowing recreational anglers more mackerel per year.
Alabama's commercial fishermen argue that banning nets doesn't mean sports anglers will catch more fish, even if there are more fish to be caught.
Figures from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission show that for some species, such as speckled trout, the commercial catch has declined by 94% since that state’s 1995 ban, but the recreational catch has only increased by 3%.
For other species, such as pompano, the Florida’s commercial catch has declined by 54%, while the recreational catch has increased by 378%.
Regardless of catch rates, the Texas data shows there are more fish swimming in state waters since gill nets were banned.
In an interview with the Press-Register, McKinney said the decision to ban nets was difficult and provoked a bitter fight from the fishermen losing their livelihoods. But, he said, the science was never in question.
"It was not easy to sit here and talk to those guys losing their way of life. It was not easy, but we came to the conclusion that it was necessary."
McKinney described the decision to ban the nets in Texas as largely economic, and entirely about how to make the best use of a public resource.
McKinney reacted with surprise when told that 120 Alabama gillnetters brought in 900,000 pounds of Spanish mackerel last year.
"That seems like a lot," McKinney said of the mackerel harvest. "Why don't they just buy the netters out? 120 licenses is nothing.
What we did was go to the recreational guys and say, 'Is this important enough to you to buy them out?' They decided it was and so we added a fee to every fishing license to pay for it."
Ison's bill includes a call for a buyout of the netters but offers no method or funding source to pay for the endeavor.
Studies conducted by North Carolina officials in that state's estuaries found that the nets caught 49 fish species, with about 61% of those fish being the few species that net fishermen were targeting, including flounder, mullet, trout, croaker and spot.
Lobbyist Beth Marietta Lyons, representing Alabama's commercial netters and seafood processors in their fight against a ban, argued that the reason fish stocks have come back so strongly in Texas was because they were poorly managed prior to the net ban there.
Alabama, by comparison, does a much better job of regulating its fisheries, Lyons said.
"The point is regulation and enforcement, so you have fish to catch in the future. I think our state agency has done a good job of protecting the resource," Lyons said.
Others, including University of South Alabama marine biologists John Dindo and Bob Shipp, have argued that Alabama's fish stocks are not being managed properly, and blame the most liberal gillnet laws on the Gulf Coast for a "localized depletion" of fish in Mobile Bay and along Alabama's Gulf beaches.
– Alabama Press-Register
Times Tough on Mid-Coast Trollers
PRINCETON-BY-THE-SEA, CA — Every few months, a fishing boat formerly owned by a commercial fisherman is towed to a beach at Pillar Point Harbor. It sits with broken hull, peeling paint and rusty nails until it is hauled away to the landfill.Pillar Point fisherman Don Pemberton has watched dozens of boats belonging to his fellow fishermen abandoned for the landfill because their owners couldn't pay their berth rent.
Many boats, he believes, are casualties of annual restrictions placed on catching salmon, once the top crop at the harbor.
This year's season promises to be less restrictive than last year's, when nearly all salmon fishing was prohibited along 700 miles of the Oregon and California coast because of three straight years in which the numbers of spawning salmon returning to the Klamath River were low.
Klamath River salmon now appear to be rebounding strongly, and many restrictions probably will be eased this spring by the Pacific Fishery Management Council.
The recent announcement that the commercial salmon season will open May 1 is reason enough for cheer.
The recreational salmon season opened Saturday.
"We think there's many more fish in the ocean this year than last year. That was one of the most restricted seasons we've had," said Eric Chavez, a natural resource management specialist with the NOAA Marine Fisheries Service.
Times are tough for the entire West Coast salmon fleet.
The total West Coast catch in 2006 was 1,761 tons, or just 12% of a typical year, according to the Pacific Fishery Management Council. The U.S. Commerce Department put the losses to fishermen at $16 million.
"Pretty much everyone has been forced to diversify — you can't just fish salmon or crab. I can't tell you if I'm going to make $500 or $500,000 in salmon (a year)," said Pemberton.
The demographics at the harbor have shifted over time to reflect these changes. Only 113 of the 300 slips are filled with commercial fishing boats, which used to be in the majority. Of those, only 30 boats belong to full-time fishermen, Harbormaster Dan Temko said.
These days, he said, "I can count on one hand how many young guys I know who bought boats in the past three years — the industry is really a skeleton of what it once was."
Fishermen have little hope of recovering their losses from last year.
A long-awaited $60.4 million congressional aid package for California fishermen looks likely to fail this session: It is tied to an Iraq war funding measure that President Bush has said he will veto because it includes a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.
- San Mateo County Times
Latest Charter Halibut Rules Proposed
JUNEAU -- NOAA Fisheries (National Marine Fisheries Service) has proposed new regulations in the Federal Register for guided sport halibut fishing in Southeast Alaska.A public comment period on the proposed new regulations ends April 23, 2007.
The proposed regulations would restrict the harvest of halibut by anglers fishing on a guided sport charter vessel in International Pacific Halibut Commission Regulatory Area 2C in Southeast Alaska.
The proposed regulations would change the current sport fishing bag limit of two halibut per day to require that at least one of the two fish taken in a day be no more than 32 inches (81.3 cm) long.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game estimates that the 32-inch maximum size restriction for one of two potential halibut taken by charter vessel clients would reduce the overall harvest in Area 2C by the charter vessel sector by about 425,000 pounds (192.8 metric tons).
The Draft Environmental Assessment/Regulatory Impact Review/Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis and other, related information can be accessed here.
University Working on Deep-sea Fish Farms
PORTSMOUTH, N.H.- As a growing segment of the world population consumes fish on a regular basis, the United Nations predicts a 40 million ton global seafood shortage by 2030 unless something is done.The projections have prompted a recent proposal by President Bush that would allow fish farming in federal waters for the first time.
Fish farms already operate on inland and coastal waters within 3 miles of shore and are governed by state laws.
However, offshore aquaculture is still three to five years away from being a cost-effective fish farming method in New England, according to Rich Langan, director of the University of New Hampshire's Atlantic Marine Aquaculture Center.
Langan and other researchers at UNH are working to develop the submerged system technology needed for successful offshore aquaculture.
Of the $70 billion worldwide aquaculture industry, China accounts for 70% of the production and the rest of Asia covers another 20 percent. The United States accounts for only 1.5% of the market and spends roughly $8 billion a year importing fish from other countries.
The proposal aims to close that gap.
Researchers at the Atlantic Marine Aquaculture Center have been working for nearly a decade to develop fish cages and feeder systems at a site in state waters near the Isle of Shoals. Langan said the site provides them with ideal conditions to test offshore technology without having to travel long distances off the coast.
If passed, the president's proposal would allow the Commerce Department to issue 20-year permits to companies raising fish offshore. The proposal also allows for states to ban fish farming up to 12 miles off their coast.
"Our research over eight years indicates that aquaculture in exposed ocean conditions can be a clean, sustainable practice," Langan said.
"Further research and development will help build and regulate an offshore fish farming industry that relieves pressure on wild fisheries, satisfies consumer demand, and has minimal environmental impact.”
- Portsmouth Herald
Judges Tell Feds to Rework Salmon Plan
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Bush administration must revisit its approval of dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers because of the threat they post to imperiled salmon, a federal appeals court ruled recently.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to rewrite its biological opinion of a dozen dams on rivers in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.
The lower court was 'entirely appropriate' in remanding the plan, Judge Sidney Thomas wrote in his opinion. Thomas said the biological opinion from NMFS was an empty document that tried to support that the dams would not jeopardize fish.
'At its core, the 2004 [biological opinion] amounted to little more than an analytical slight of hand, manipulating the variables to achieve a 'no jeopardy' finding,' Thomas wrote.
NMFS, which did not return calls seeking comment, has been rewriting its biological opinion while appealing the district court ruling that demanded it.
The new assessment will be the agency's fourth try at a biological opinion for the dams, which provide power for the Northwest but also impede the movement of endangered salmon and steelhead. Three previous biological opinions have all been thrown out in court.
The appeals court said the agency must take into account not only the survival of the fish but also their recovery. Dan Rolfe, the attorney who argued against the plan for the National Wildlife Federation, said the ruling bolsters environmentalists' arguments for removing the four lower Snake River dams.
Under the Endangered Species Act, NMFS must issue a biological opinion to ensure federal actions will not jeopardize imperiled species. A coalition of environmental groups -- including American Rivers, Idaho Rivers United and the National Wildlife Federation -- sued the agency for not properly considering recovery plans for the fish.
- Environment and Energy Publishing
Fisherman Drowns Easter Morning
NORTH SYDNEY, Nova Scotia -- A man missing from a trawler and presumed dead was on his first fishing trip aboard the MV Osprey, a North Sydney vessel.Mitchell Brian Adams, 25, of Pleasant Bay disappeared off the MV Osprey, a factory freezer shrimp trawler, early Easter Sunday morning.
Six boats and two aircraft from 14 Wing Greenwood searched the waters 160 kilometers south of Newfoundland and Labrador for seven hours Sunday but only found the man's boots and a glove. The search was called off near sunset Sunday.
His body has not been recovered.
Brian Shebib, managing director of MV Osprey Ltd., a company that operates two factory freezer trawlers fishing shrimp in the North Atlantic, said Adams was working in the factory area of the boat and was not wearing any survival gear.
'He wasn't observed to fall overboard and there was no accident (in the factory),' Mr. Shebib said. 'He was just missing from his watch. He was working in the factory and observed to no longer be there.'
Mr. Adams had been an inshore lobster fisherman in Pleasant Bay, fishing with his father, said Mr. Shebib, who interviewed the young man a few months ago for a position on the trawler.
This is the first time in the company's 21-year operation that someone has died while working on one of the vessels, he said.
– Sydney Chronicle Herald
Farm Fish Processor Center on Port Hardy
PORT HARDY, B.C. -- Norwegian seafood group Marine Harvest ASA said on Tuesday (10 April) that it has decided to concentrate its Canadian processing operations at its facility in Port Hardy.The reorganization means that current operations in Engelwood will gradually be transferred to the more modern slaughtering and filleting plant in Port Hardy, reducing costs, Marine Harvest said.
The streamlining of operations is part of a previously announced plan to achieve synergy savings of NOK900m.
Marine Harvest, headquartered in Oslo, Norway, is the world's largest seafood group with 9,000 employees and activities in 20 countries. The company produces a third of the world's farmed salmon and trout. Marine Harvest is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and traded under the ticker MHG.
Longliners get OK to Target Pacific Swordfish
PORTLAND -- The Pacific Fisheries Management Council endorsed a proposal late last week to allow experimental longline fishing for swordfish along section of the West Coast where it was previously banned.The proposal would permit experimental longline fishing by a single vessel whose data would be used by fisheries managers to decide whether to allow more longline boats. Longline vessels float a single strand hung with hundreds or thousands of baited hooks over miles of ocean.
The council wants to examine whether longlines could provide an alternative to drift gillnet fishing. Drift gillnets pose environmental problems of their own, including snaring turtles in the nets' large holes Karen Steele of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project said the measure passed with an amendment to place the fishery no higher than 45 degrees north latitude, which means the target area overlaps with the existing leatherback sea turtle conservation area. Leatherbacks are known to get tangled in longline fishing gear, she said.
Unlike drift gillnet regulations, which prohibit fishing for three months a year, the longline regulations would permit fishing year-round. Washington state negotiators pushed for the 45-degree amendment, which would keep fishing activities out of their state's waters.
California and Washington have longstanding bans on longline fishing.
The council's recommendation will be sent to NMFS for final approval.
- Environment and Energy Publishing
Mass Gov Declares Fishery Disaster
BOSTON — Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday requested federal assistance for the state's fishing communities, saying new regulations that strictly curtailed days at sea had created a "true economic disaster" for fishermen.Federal restrictions on groundfishing put in place last year have cost Massachusetts $22 million, the state said in a request for an economic disaster declaration. The application was filed with U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez.
"Everyone agrees that the stocks of groundfish in the waters off the coast of Massachusetts need to be replenished," Gov. Patrick said in a written statement. "Everyone also agrees that the fishing industry needs to remain part of the life of the commonwealth. The revenue declines experienced by fishing communities represent a true economic disaster."
Paul Diodati, the director of the state Division of Marine Fisheries, said it would be premature to say how much aid the state might get, what type, and what it might mean to individual fishermen.
Last year, Congress reauthorized the Magnuson-Stevens Act that governs commercial fishing, specifically allowing relief to be sought based on the economic impact of regulations.
"The state has made a compelling case to support a fishery disaster declaration, and I urge the Department of Commerce to provide the declaration as quickly as possible, so that immediate steps can be taken to remedy the economic losses," Diodati said.
So far, Gutierrez has not said how he might act on the declaration. First, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would have to declare that there was a fisheries resource disaster beyond the ability of fisheries managers to mitigate.
A disaster declaration would allow Congress to appropriate money for relief. The federal government provided $60 million in disaster assistance to groundfishermen after the collapse of fishing stocks in 1994 and 1995. It included direct aid, retraining and vessel and permit buyouts.
Priscilla Brooks, the director of the Conservation Law Foundation's ocean conservation program, said the short-term relief to fishermen would not solve the bigger problem — a lack of fish.
The National Marine Fisheries Service in November passed regulations to prevent overfishing and keep rebuilding programs on track for cod, yellowtail flounder and other declining groundfish stocks. The state of Massachusetts is challenging the new federal regulations in U.S. District Court.
- South Coast (Massachusetts) Today
News Brief: China’s Exports Up
BEIJING – China’s exports have increased by a third in the past year, much of it to the U.S. and much of it actually originating in North America before being shipped to China for processing.
China exported 87,967 tons of frozen fish valued at 246.712 million dollars in February 2007.
The export in January-February reached 202,470 tons valued at 533.649 million dollars, up 13.9% and 36.5% respectively year on year.
– Xinhua News Agency
News Brief: Alaska Longliners Buy Out Boats
ANCHORAGE -- Operators of freezer longline boats, which fish mainly for Pacific cod in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, have voted in favor of buying out three boats in the fleet as a way to boost revenue for the 36 boats that would remain.Vessel owners remaining in the fishery will pay a 1.6% tax on the dockside value of their catches to repay a 30-year, $35 million federal loan financing the buyout.
Fewer boats will give those remaining in the fishery a bigger piece of the pie.
The cod fishery is worth up to $159 million, and active vessels will net an average of nearly $303,000 annually with the buyout, federal officials estimate.
Other Alaska fishing fleets have downsized in recent years, most notably the Bering and Aleutians crab fleet, which in 2004 executed a $97.4 million buyout of 25 boats.
– Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy, for the Anchorage Daily News
News: More Salmon for Klamath, Less for Columbia
After nearly shutting down salmon fishing off the Oregon and California coasts last year, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council has decided to allow as much fishing as possible in those improved fisheries.This year's restrictions fall to the north -- off the coast of Washington and in Puget Sound, said Chuck Tracy, salmon staff officer for the council.
"This year, the Klamath Falls Chinook has made a turnaround. They have basically as much fishing time as possible," Tracy said.
He said the length of the Oregon and California season and the quotas set for commercial and recreational fishermen will be close to those of a traditional season.
The quota for the Klamath River recreational fishery was set at 10,400. The Klamath Tribe was given a quota of 40,800 chinook.
Commercial fishermen were given per vessel quotas of 100 chinook per week in April, and 75 per week per vessel in September and October.
North of Cape Falcon to the Canadian border, the season is limited to dates in May through September, and the quotas have been cut for commercial fishing.
"Commercial fisheries catch primarily Chinook, so they're going to face a much tougher time this year," said Tracy.
– Daily Triplicate, Crescent City
News Brief: Charleston Ice Plant Open
CHARLESTON, OR - Ice is once again available to the commercial fishing fleet in Charleston. The Oregon International Port of Coos Bay announced that the ice plant is repaired and fully operational for the shrimp and salmon seasons.Earlier this year, the port took over ownership of the building and equipment, in exchange for releasing Charleston Ice Dock operator Pat Houck from a long-term lease on the dock.
Otherwise, the business likely would have closed. Last year, a financially struggling Houck was forced to turn off his ice machines after years of groundfish quota cutbacks, poor tuna and commercial salmon seasons 2005, and no salmon season at all south of Florence in 2006.
The port stepped in in a last-minute effort to keep the plant operating. The agency waived Houck's monthly lease payments and fees through last year's shrimping season.
In the past couple of months, the port has completed repairs on the facility and replaced a condenser.
The total cost of repairs came in at $22,000. Houck now will manage the business under a proposed three-year agreement the port commission will be asked to approve at its meeting on Wednesday.
– The World, Coos Bay
Environment: Nutrient Rich Eddies Move Away from Coast
VICTORIA -- Huge whirlpools of nutrient-rich coastal water are spinning away from the West Coast into deep Pacific water, taking with them a wealth of marine life ranging from tiny plankton to huge whales.Research scientists like Bill Crawford at the Institute of Ocean Sciences want to know if salmon, too, are living in what he calls "these floating oases of life."
The existence of salmon in these eddies would be a huge story because it would help us predict how many salmon are returning to spawn in B.C. rivers, Crawford said in an interview.
Biologists will be heading out this summer to look for whales in these oceanic feeding stations, Crawford said.
"We believe whales are in eddies only because they find more food there."
The eddies have been tracked by scientists for nine years, ever since new technology in satellite monitoring picked them up.
The satellite imagery led scientists to believe the nutrient-rich coastal water had moved into the deep sea and transported coastal fish and mammals along with them, he said.
"Now being able to send ships right into them, we've been able to tell they have more zooplankton, whales, sea birds and we don't know about fish."
– Times Colonist, Victoria, B.C.
News: Alaska Bay Too Cold for Sea Otters
ANCHORAGE -- Alaska`s sea otters are in peril after a cold winter on the Alaskan Peninsula has frozen them out of their bay habitat.
The Anchorage Daily News reported that as the otters are pushed out of their usual habitat and onto the tundra, they have become easy prey for wolves and humans.
The Daily News reported that villagers have also hunted otters, skinning them to make hats, gloves and blankets from their thick pelts.
A source from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service said the otters have come onto land looking for food after an extra-cold winter froze them out of their bay habitat where they scour the sea bottoms looking for urchins and clams.
Moving awkwardly across land, many otters have died simply from exhaustion.
Western Alaskan sea otters are listed as threatened under the United States` Endangered Species Act. The Daily News reported a 20% drop in sea otter populations over the past 20 years.
– United Press International
Brief: Aquatic Sexual Identity
SPOKANE, Wash. -- When scientists announced seven years ago that Chinook salmon in the Columbia River appeared to be switching genders, it attracted a lot of attention.For one thing, there was the simple strangeness of it.
Researchers said more than 80% of female fall-run Chinook that spawned at the Hanford Reach in 1999 had started their lives as males. The news had potentially dire implications for the fish run, suggesting that generations could become ever more heavily male and smaller.
Now the scientists are saying something new: Never mind.
It turns out that genetic “markers” the researchers were using in those studies don’t mark what scientists thought they did. And subsequent studies of Sacramento River fish that exhibited that marker produced offspring at the expected ratio: half male, half female.
“My conclusion right now, at least based on the information my lab and other labs have generated, is I don’t think there’s evidence for sex reversal,” said James Nagler, a University of Idaho scientist who led the research.
The story of the sex-changing Chinook drew a lot of media coverage and concern from scientists and environmentalists.
– Spokane Spokesman-Review
Analysis: Fighting the Battle for Hatcheries
BOISE, Idaho -- Fishery biologists in the Pacific Northwest are in the midst of a high-stakes course change on how hatcheries operate, a move intended to boost flagging runs of wild salmon and steelhead.But some are concerned expanding attempts to raise wild fish in hatcheries could push the runs nearer extinction by genetically weakening them, or diluting the runs to such an extent with hatchery influence that they are no longer wild.
"There's kind of a wave of change that's slowly permeating through the fishery community, and it goes by the phrase hatchery reform," said Don Campton, a senior scientist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
He dates the push toward hatchery reform to the early 1990s, an era he describes as "hatchery bashing," and the beginning of a wave of Endangered Species Act listings of salmon and steelhead runs.
Up to then more than 100 hatcheries in the Columbia River Basin had been built mainly to offset the declines in salmon runs caused by loss of habitat to dams, irrigation, logging and urban development.
Now, the mission of many of those hatcheries has been at least partially changed with the goal of preserving wild runs.
"Run wrong and a hatchery can do a lot of damage to natural stocks," said Bob Lohn, regional administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service. "Run right and they can do a lot to sustain them."
Besides changing existing hatcheries, new hatcheries are being built specifically to bolster native runs.
These supplementation programs sometimes use all wild fish, and sometimes a mixture of wild and hatchery fish. Sometimes only hatchery fish are used to reintroduce fish to streams where they are extinct but habitat has been restored.
But it gets tricky. A hatchery program might reduce the fitness of the wild run while increasing the productivity of the stream.
Researchers have found that too much emphasis on hatchery fish can have diminishing returns.
But Campton said a hatchery can produce ten times as many salmon and steelhead as a spawning stream.
So federal, state and tribal hatcheries are running supplementation programs designed to combine greater hatchery numbers with the street-smart genetics of wild fish, in hopes of restoring runs while still providing enough fish for sport, commercial and tribal fishermen.
Studies to determine the success of those programs are under way.
The Idaho Supplementation Study includes the Clearwater and Salmon river basins in an experiment with Chinook salmon.
Thirty streams - divided between those with supplementation and those where only natural production is allowed - are in the study that began in the early 1990s and won't be complete until 2012.
"One of the things that has been very apparent is you have to look at it on a case-by-case basis," said Sharon Kiefer, anadromous fish manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. "There doesn't appear to be one method that works in all cases that is consistent across all experiments."
Idaho also has one of the most extreme supplementation programs - the bid to prevent Redfish Lake sockeye salmon in mountainous central Idaho from becoming extinct.
Although the lake's name stems from the vast numbers of fish that once made the 900-mile swim from the ocean, just three fish returned last year.
"Some of these salmon and steelhead stocks are in such dire straights that we need to do something extra to give them a little bit of a jump start," said Jack Williams, a senior scientist with the conservation group Trout Unlimited.
But Bill Bakke of the Native Fish Society said the hatchery approach to boosting salmon and steelhead runs fails to consider the main problem.
"The solution is to first of all protect the wild runs themselves, and protect the habitat that is supporting those wild runs," he said. "There's no shortcut."
The Bonneville Power Administration is refusing to spend $16.4 million to build a supplementation hatchery in northeastern Oregon until the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service signs off.
The administration is required by law to mitigate the effects dams have on salmon and steelhead runs.
"We remain committed to building the hatchery," said Carrie Reese, spokeswoman for the BPA.
- Seattle P-I
News: Climate Changing Japan Catches
OSAKA -- Like the blooming of cherry trees, the arrival of ikanago, or tiny sand eels, marks the start of spring in Japan.But this year, fishermen are reporting ikanago catches as small as one-tenth the volume of last year. The eels are larger than usual, posing a challenge for chefs who've had to adapt their menus to suit the bigger fish.
The changes are just some of the irregularities being reported by people in the seafood industry who say the unseasonably warm winter has produced some decidedly queer fish.
In Osaka Bay, fishermen are catching oversized aji horse mackerel. Specialists say full-grown mackerel that have wintered in the bay are very rare.
"Maybe the mackerel got the seasons mixed up due to the warm winter and never left the bay," a fisherman in Kobe said.
According to the Akashiura Fishermen's Cooperative Association in Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture, local amagarei flounder were a lot bigger than normal this winter, and nori seaweed cultivated in local waters was thriving.
According to the Osaka Prefectural Fisheries Experimental Station, now the Research Institute of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries, the water temperature in the bay was consistently high since mid-January, with the temperature exceeding the average by over 3 degrees on some days.
Besides changes in fish size and haul volume, some fisheries are noticing a change in seasons, too.
The kanburi haul was disappointing up to December, but soon after January, the catch began to increase, and the season continued until the end of February.
Kochi Prefecture is famed for its delicious katsuo bonito.
This year, fresh hatsu-gatsuo, the first bonito of the season, has arrived late, and there are fewer fish than normal.
– Asahi