Industry

It’s been a bang-up winter for cod boats.

The latest sector to wrap up their season is the 60-foot-and-under pot boats. They closed on Friday, a full three weeks earlier than last year. Twenty-one vessels participated this year, and they brought in over 14 million pounds of cod at a much faster rate than usual, despite having a larger quota.

Krista Mulani is a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, and she says that a lot of boats were able to shorten their trips from three days to just two.

“People were definitely pulling up a lot of fish per pot, more than they have in previous years. So the fishing overall was pretty good,” says Milani. “Another thing that happened is that the vessels that came out to participate this year were more efficient.”

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The North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted over the weekend to relax economic data reporting requirements for the Bering Sea-Aleutian Islands crab fisheries.  Mark Fina, the Council’s senior economic advisor, testified that many of the current requirements are duplicated elsewhere or are not reliable enough for use by analysts.

Fina presented a report outlining three alternatives for updating the program - one alternative being the status quo.  The Council opted for the least stringent reporting requirements, eliminating many areas of data collection.

Rapidly advancing sea ice has left crabbers scrambling to get their gear out of the water or stuck in port, waiting for better weather. 

As soon as Mark Casto got into port on Tuesday, he was already getting ready to head back out.  He’s captain of the crabber Pinnacle. With the ice coming down rapidly, he’s worried about the two hundred pots he still has in the water.

“It’s just finding them again, if you can find them.”

Casto says that the ice can drag pots for ten of miles and pop the buoys that keep them afloat.  He’s hoping he can make it to his pots before they’re overtaken by the ice edge.

The Bering Sea’s biggest fishery is open once again.

KUCB’s Alexandra Gutierrez has this story  on the pollock fleet’s expectations for A season.

Last year, Vladivostok Air announced that it would be flying passenger planes from Alaska to the Russian Far East during the summer season. Now, the airline has finalized its schedule and is preparing for a July 12 launch date.

Currently, you have to fly down to Seattle and through Beijing, Tokyo, or Moscow if you want to get to Kamchatka. It’s an expensive and time-consuming process, especially given the peninsula’s proximity to Alaska. Mark Dudley is the North American sales manager for Vladivostok, and he says that their weekly summer service should make it easier for travelers to get to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

January means plenty of boats out fishing in rough weather, and with that comes a higher risk for problems at sea.

The F/V Clipper Epic suffered a power failure near Unalaska this weekend. The 167-foot freezer longliner was successfully escorted to the Spit Dock on Sunday.

Earlier last week, the F/V Glacier Bay was brought in after experiencing an engine room fire. The 154-foot longliner was accompanied by the S/V Redeemer on January 18, and it is currently undergoing repairs at Magone Marine Service.

No injuries related to either incident have been reported.

Fish leaving Alaska bound for foreign countries don’t carry a “Made in Alaska” label, but if they did, Chinese consumers might have noticed more of them showing up recently. 

According to data released Tuesday by the Governor’s Office, China overtook Japan to become Alaska’s largest trading partner in 2011.  The country imported nearly $1.4 billion in Alaskan products or about 28 percent of the state’s exports.

More than half of that - $805 million - was seafood.  

State Director of International Trade Patricia Eckert says Alaskan seafood exports to Asia are increasing more rapidly in value than in volume.  That means Asian consumers are buying more and more expensive fish from Alaska.

Catching cod in a pot might seem a little tricky, but it’s a booming fishery in Unalaska. 

The Pacific pot cod season opened on New Year’s Day and catcher vessels are moving quickly through the 9,950 metric ton quota. 

As of Thursday, 27 boats had caught nearly 8 million pounds of cod or 36 percent of the quota.  National Marine Fisheries Service biologist Krista Milani says she’s heard the fishing has been good, although NMFS doesn’t keep track of catch rates.

Westward plant manager Dan Lee agrees.  He says the pricing this year is also better, with processors paying an average of $0.35 per pound, compared to $0.32 or $0.33 last year.  He added that there’s a premium on pot cod as opposed to trawl-caught cod because the fish is generally in better condition.

So far this year most parts of the Arctic have seen less sea ice than normal, but not in the Bering Sea.  Persistent cold weather has brought the ice edge to within 40 miles of the Pribilof Islands.  That’s a concern for fishermen heading north for the snow crab season.

KUCB’s Stephanie Joyce reports.