ALFA is Partnering with Real Time Data to Advance Deckhand’s Logbook Platform

Deckhand, 2024

The investment will support the development of Deckhand, an electronic platform that aims to revolutionize sustainable commercial fisheries management worldwide.

[Bellingham, WA] – Real Time Data, a global provider of advanced data collection solutions for the commercial seafood industry, announced today that the company has secured a strategic investment from Builders Vision, a Chicago-based impact platform dedicated to building a more humane and healthy planet. The partnership is the latest investment for the company, which has raised USD $750,000 in this round, including from existing investors who have a strong belief in its success, and aims to enhance the capabilities of Deckhand, Real Time Data's flagship electronic logbook technology that captures catch, environmental, and fishing business data on the ocean. The technology was designed to better measure and promote sustainability in the fishing and seafood industry.

Read it here

Scientists are freaking out about ocean temperatures

New York Times

by David Gelles

February 27th, 2024

From his office at the University of Miami, Brian McNoldy, an expert in hurricane formation, is tracking the latest temperature data from the North Atlantic with a mixture of concern and bewilderment.

For the past year, oceans around the world have been substantially warmer than usual. Last month was the hottest January on record in the world’s oceans, and temperatures have continued to rise since then. The heat wave has been especially pronounced in the North Atlantic.

Read more here

Tell NOAA No to Bottom Trawling

UPDATE: NMFS has suspended this experiment in response to public concern. Thanks for speaking up!

From SalmonState:

In an effort to “research” the effects of commercial bottom-trawling activity on the seafloor and animals that live there, the Alaska Fisheries Science Center proposes to drag trawl gear, or as they put it “conduct a commercial bottom-trawl research project” in the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area. Under this project named, Northern Bering Sea Effects of Trawling Study, or 'NETS' they will use research trawl gear to test whether bottom-dwelling species recover and, if they do, what changes there are one or more years after intentionally damaging their habitat.

Tell NOAA to abandon NETS

My Turn: We need to make food security a priority in Alaska’s 2024 legislative session

Juneau Empire

By Colin Peacock

Sunday, February 4, 2024 4:15pm

After years of investment through Gov. Dunleavy’s Food Security Task Force (2023), the Legislature’s Food Strategy Task Force (2023-present), and the Alaska Food Network’s Statewide Food Security Action Plan (2022) we are incredibly well-informed and ready to move forward on meaningful actions to improve food security across the state. This 2024 legislative session presents a huge opportunity for our leaders to enact some of these changes, and prioritize building a thriving food system, strengthening a vital economic sector and safeguarding the well-being of every Alaskan.

Read it here

Fishing Far into the Future

AKBiz Magazine

By Dimitria Lavrakas

February 2024

Crew training aims to hook a new generation

Thirty years ago, all a young person needed to fish commercially was a boat, some gear, and a sense of adventure. According to the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA), young fishermen today face staggering entry costs, high operating costs, and a level of risk that is equivalent to buying a starter hotel.

ALFA is committed to helping interested persons enter the industry. Through a variety of programs, it’s helping the next generation of commercial fishermen launch and sustain viable businesses.

Read full article here.

Help Alaska’s fisheries – reduce methane emissions

Alaska Beacon

By LINDA BEHNKEN and KATE TROLL

JANUARY 9, 2024 4:02 PM

NOAA now confirms that another critical Alaska fishery is in decline due to successive marine heat waves. First there was the loss of 10 billion snow crabs and the close of the once-lucrative Bering Sea crab fisheries; now we know that climate change (warming seas) is the culprit behind the crash of chum salmon on the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. Both these fisheries are the lifeblood to many Alaska communities and villages. From the Yukon to Kodiak, from the Arctic to Ketchikan, Alaska’s coastal fisheries must now confront the dual threat of heat waves and ocean acidification.  

See article online here

Reducing Carbon Emissions in the Fishing Fleet

Read online at National Fishermen

December 22, 2023

Guest Author:

Linda Behnken & Kay Kreiss

The Sitka fishing fleet is pioneering energy-efficient commercial fishing. In 2021, the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA) was selected by the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to partner in exploring ways fishing vessels can be powered by low- or zero-emissions propulsion systems. Two years later, the Vehicle Technology Office (VTO) funded ALFA to oversee three projects that will pilot different low-emission technologies.

The first is a hybrid battery-diesel system that allows a fishing boat to use diesel when traveling quickly to fishing grounds and then switch to a battery-electric motor when fishing. This system can reduce fuel consumption by up to 80% without requiring significant changes in fishing practices on one-to-two-day trips. It will be funded with grant support from AgWest Farm Credit and Acme Seafoods, with coordination and data support from Kempy Energetics. The hybrid system is designed to optimize the use of the engine and motor and will be equipped with data loggers to measure the fuel efficiency achieved at sea.

The second pilot project will test a different type of propulsion system that will be determined based on interest from the fleet. One candidate is a series hybrid system that allows fishing boats to reduce fuel use when running short or long distances. At all speeds, an electric motor powers the propeller, and a battery powers the motor. The battery can be charged at a Sitka dock with our green hydropower, or if a skipper needs to travel hundreds of miles, a diesel generator on-board can recharge the boat’s batteries. ALFA is inviting boat owners to apply for this retrofit.  You can find the pre-application at https://www.alfafish.org/vto-project.

Trawlers sue over halibut bycatch limit

From ALFA Staff

December 27th, 2023

On December 19th, 2023,, the Amendment 80 (A80) trawl fleet sued to prevent implementation of the Bering Sea halibut bycatch action that ties bycatch caps to halibut abundance. While not unexpected the refusal by the A80 fleet to share in the conservation responsibility for halibut is at best disturbing.  

The Final Environmental Impact Statement for this action documents that the A80 companies were responsible for 23.8 million pounds of halibut mortality from 2010-2019.  Bycatch levels not only exceed limits set for the directed fishery but in some years bycatch has threatened to preclude the small boat directed fishery completely.

Bycatch is deducted from the total allowable catch before catch limits are set for the directed halibut fishery. Bycatch caps, set when halibut were far more abundant, have never been triggered. Meanwhile catch limits for the directed halibut fisheries have been steadily reduced as halibut abundance has declined to protect the stocks from overharvest.    

After six years of analysis, testimony, and debate, the Council voted to connect halibut caps to halibut abundance, lowering bycatch when stocks are low to prevent overfishing. Sound reasonable?  Not if you are one of the five A80 companies.  Council action reduced bycatch caps below current bycatch levels by 2.4% --but even that sharing of conservation is too much for the A80 fleet.  

ALFA will join long-term allies to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of the federal government.  We are fundraising to support our engagement.  Please contribute through the ALFA website (alfafish.org) with the memo “halibut lawsuit” and we will dedicate your contribution to defending halibut stocks from trawl bycatch. 

Contribute like the future of the halibut stock – and of your fishery—depend on it.

Why Are Alaska’s Rivers Turning Orange?

Streams in Alaska are turning orange with iron and sulfuric acid. Scientists are trying to figure out why

Scientific American

BY ALEC LUHN

January 1st, 2024

“It was a cloudy July afternoon in Alaska's Kobuk Valley National Park, part of the biggest stretch of protected wilderness in the U.S. We were 95 kilometers (60 miles) from the nearest village and 400 kilometers from the road system. Nature doesn't get any more unspoiled. But the stream flowing past our feet looked polluted. The streambed was orange, as if the rocks had been stained with carrot juice. The surface glistened with a gasoline like rainbow sheen. “This is bad stuff,” said Patrick Sullivan, an ecologist at the University of Alaska Anchorage.”

“….Less than a dozen meters away the stream flowed into the Salmon River, a ribbon of swift channels and shimmering rapids that winds south from the snow-dimpled dun peaks of the Brooks Range. This is the last frontier in the state known as “the last frontier,” a 1,000-kilometer line of pyramidlike slopes that wall off the northern portion of Alaska from the gray, wind-raked Arctic Coast.

“Now, however, the Salmon is quite literally rusting.”

Read Full Article Here

US/Climate Change: Alaska empty nets, ageing fleets

International Collective in Support of Fishworkers

Samudura Reports

By: Linda Behnken

December 2023

Stocks of fish and crab have collapsed in Alaska, devastating both commercial and subsistence fishers

Climate change used to be something fishers in Alaska talked of as a concern for the future. No longer. That future is now. Alaska has witnessed, almost overnight, collapses in both fish and crab stocks. The cod of the Gulf of Alaska; the Bering Sea king crab and snow crab; and the Yukon River salmon. These collapses have devastated fishers—both commercial and subsistence.

Read full article here.