Another wild fishery collapses in Alaska

[Barbender]

This is the same fishery that has close to a million pounds of Canadian chinooks as a by catch. Ooops.

A report last week from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) shows the annual survey of biomass of Alaska pollock found in the mid-water levels of the Bering Sea is half of what is was in 2007.
But the numbers sound much worse than their reality and don't indicate overfishing of the resource, says the National Marine Fisheries Service researcher who conducted the survey.
Still, in an Oct. 20 letter, Greenpeace sent out a fund-raising plea that read: "The National Marine Fisheries Service just revealed that populations of Alaska pollock, the largest food fishery in the world, have dropped 50 percent since last year. ... Please help us prevent the collapse of our fisheries by making a generous gift today. ... This is clear evidence that we need to act and we need to act now: please click here to donate."
In a blog entry Tuesday on their Web site, the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) took aim at Greenpeace -- which it has sparred with over the group's ranking of retailers' seafood purchasing policies -- saying it is disingenuous of the group to create a scare story about pollock to raise funds.
"Greenpeace is using an erroneous scare story that it concocted to goad supporters into forking over their hard earned money to help stem the tide of crisis that it invented," NFI said. "So, there you have it, once again in Greenpeace's playbook half-truths and fundraising goals trump ground truth science."
Because ocean temperatures were cold again for the third straight year, more pollock kept closer to the ocean floor than they normally would, skewing the survey results, Jim Ianelli, NMFS assessment scientist, told IntraFish last week.
Asked if there was overfishing of Alaska pollock, Ianelli said: “Not by any measure for this upcoming season.”
Greenpeace blamed the lower survey numbers on overfishing and possible mismanagement of the resource -- claims those in the pollock industry scoff at.
"Greenpeace’s statement was something the industry had come to expect when the biomass takes a dip," Jim Gimore of the At-sea Processors Association last week told IntraFish. “They come in and say ‘You need to do something drastic here.’ Then they recede into the woodwork, like they did four or five years ago when the stocks was at its all time high.”
Gilmore dismissed the statement from Jeremy Jackson, director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, cited by Greenpeace in which Jackson said economic pressures to keep on fishing at such high levels have “overwhelmed common sense.”
“Whoever Jeremy Jackson is, he can’t be that familiar with the fisheries management of Alaska,” said Gilmore. “I don’t know when the fishing industry has ever pressured the scientists.”

 

[The Fish Assassin]

Heavy fishing means less for the future. My words of wisdom for the day.

Take only what you need.

 

[agentaqua]

Researchers: 7 orcas missing from Puget Sound

BY PHUONG LE, Associated Press Writer Phuong Le, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 35 mins ago

In this Sept. 2, 2006 file photo, provided by the Center for Whale Research, a AP – In this Sept. 2, 2006 file photo, provided by the Center for Whale Research, a female orca, or killer …

SEATTLE – Seven Puget Sound killer whales are missing and presumed dead in what could be the biggest decline among the sound's orcas in nearly a decade, say scientists who carefully track the endangered animals.

"This is a disaster," Ken Balcomb, a senior scientist at the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island, said Friday. "The population drop is worse than the stock market."

While the official census won't be completed until December, the total number of live "southern resident" orcas now stands at 83.

Among those missing since last year's count are the nearly century-old leader of one of the three southern resident pods, and two young females who recently bore calves. The loss of the seven whales, Balcomb said, would be the biggest decline among the Puget Sound orcas since 1999, when the center also tracked a decline of seven whales.

Low numbers of chinook salmon, a prime food for these whales, may be a factor in the unusual number of deaths this year, Balcomb said.

"It was a bad salmon year and that's not good for the whales," he said. "Everybody considers these wonderful creatures, but we really have to pay attention to the food supply."

The three pods, or families, that frequent western Washington's inland marine waters — the J, K, and L pods — are genetically and behaviorally distinct from other killer whales. The sounds they make are considered a unique dialect, they mate only among themselves, eat salmon rather than marine mammals and show a unique attachment to the region.

The population reached 140 or more in the last century, but their numbers have fluctuated in recent decades. They were listed as endangered in 2005.

"We may be in the beginning of another decline in the population," said Howard Garrett, director of the Orca Network, a nonprofit education and advocacy group.

He said the whales seem to be having a harder time finding chinook salmon.

The whales recently have been traveling over greater distances than usual, suggesting they may be ranging farther for food, said Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Lack of food may be a concern, but it's too early to know the reason for the unusual number of presumed deaths, he said.

Pollution and a decline in prey are believed to be the whales' biggest threats, although stress from whale-watching tour boats and underwater sonar tests by the Navy also have been concerns. In the late 1960s and early '70s, the population fell as dozens were captured for marine parks.

The whales were making an apparentg comeback in recent years, reaching 90 in number in 2005, "but it's been a downhill trend now for three years," Balcomb said.

Among those missing are two female whales of reproductive age, both of which recently produced calves. One of those calves, L-111, is missing, while the other, J-39, is not.

It's not unusual to lose older or younger whales, but losing two females in reproductive prime is "a bit of a concern" since they typically have a high survival rate, Hanson said.

One female whale, known to scientists as L-67, had the potential for two or three more calves, Hanson said.

She was the mother of "Luna," a juvenile killer whale from Washington waters that made headlines in 2001 when he became separated from his pod and turned up in Nootka Sound, off the west coast of Canada's Vancouver Island. A killer whale believed to be Luna died in Nootka Sound in 2006 when it was hit by the propeller of a large tugboat.

L-67 showed clear signs of emaciation — a depression behind her blow hole — before she disappeared in September, Hanson said.

"It definitely shows that she was not eating," he said, but it's unclear why. Researchers are performing tests on samples they collected from her weeks before she disappeared.

Others missing, according to the center, include K-7, the 98-year-old matriarch of K-pod, and L-101, a 6-year-old male who is a brother of "Luna."

The count also includes a calf, J-43, that was born in November but is believed to have not survived the winter.

The whale census may increase if baby orcas are born this fall. And there's a slim chance the whales may reappear elsewhere, as "Luna" did, Hanson said.

But Balcomb said: "We've been monitoring. They're just gone."

 

[agentaqua]

Also, check-out these threads for additional info and discussion:

http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9340

http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8821

http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10485

http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9658