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#08-19-2013 - ComFish News Roundup

CDQs bring millions in fishing profits -- and jobs -- to poor western Alaska villages
coastalvillages.org

Molly Dischner
August 18, 2013
Fishing is life in much of Alaska. Congress tried to honor that connection when it created the Community Development Quota, or CDQ, program, in 1992. Before CDQs, commercial fishing was dominated by outside interests, most notably from foreign countries and other states, said Clem Tillion, who helped create the program as then-Gov. Wally Hickel’s fisheries guru. The program gave six groups, meant to represent a total of 65 communities along a 50-mile stretch of the Bering Sea coast, an allocation in certain Bering Sea fisheries managed by the federal government. The groups are nonprofit corporations that represent a total 27,000 Alaska residents. Each has a set geographic range in Western Alaska, from Atka to Diomede. Essentially, they are fishing companies with local ties. The six CDQ groups are charged with using their fishing rights to benefit their coastal communities. Coastal Villages Region Fund, or CVRF..... http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130818/cdqs-bring-millions-fishing-profits-and-jobs-poor-western-alaska-villages

Barrow, Kotzebue to host subsistence meetings
Carey RestinoThe Arctic Sounder
August 18, 2013
The North Slope Subsistence Regional Advisory Council as well as the Federal Subsistence Board will be meeting in Kotzebue and Barrow this month, looking at a variety of Arctic subsistence-related issues..........
..............A draft of the 2014 Fisheries Resource Monitoring Plan is also to be presented for the Kotzebue region, which identifies two areas for monitoring the effects of climate change on subsistence fisheries resources and their uses. Since 2000, 38 fisheries resource monitoring program projects have been funded in the Northern region, including two sheefish assessments in the Kobuk and Selawik river drainages, one Dolly Varden assessment in the Noatak and other assessments...... http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130818/barrow-kotzebue-host-subsistence-meetings

Tlingit-Haida fish camp teaches old ways to young kids
By KATIE MORITZ  Juneau Empire
August 18, 2013 - 9:41 am EDT
JUNEAU, Alaska — In Juneau, fishing is a hobby for some and a lifestyle for others. For 17 Alaska Native youngsters, fishing provided a way to get in touch with their centuries' old roots — and get to know other middle-schoolers before classes start. Goldbelt Heritage Foundation, a locally based non-profit focused on preserving and teaching Tlingit and Haida culture, put on its first ever middle school fishing camp last week, teaching kids 11- to 14-years-old traditional methods like gillnetting, trolling and setting crab pots. John Smith, lead teacher for the week-long camp, said that besides being a great social opportunity, the goal of the camp is to teach...... http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/465fd94f8c504c74a7e5db31211b32ed/AK--Fish-Camp

Fuel removed from vessel grounded near Valdez
Posted: Sunday, August 18, 2013 8:53 pm
Associated Press
VALDEZ, Alaska — Work continues on plans to salvage an Oregon-based fishing vessel that ran aground near Valdez. The 65-foot fishing tender Fate Hunter, based... http://www.newsminer.com/news/alaska_news/fuel-removed-from-vessel-grounded-near-valdez/article_3c2c66d6-088b-11e3-a770-001a4bcf6878.html

New High Capacity Well In Kenai Means Less Restrictions
Posted: August 19, 2013 at 6:01 am
For months, Kenai residents have been conserving water as the city’s well strained to meet demand. With a growing population and unusually high temperatures this year, City Manager Rick Koch said it was difficult to keep up however, the new high-capacity well is now just days from completion..... http://radiokenai.net/kenai-water-reserves-heatlhy/

Sockeye salmon return drastic decline shoots up prices
CANADA
Monday, August 19, 2013, 02:50 (GMT + 9)
It seems sockeye salmon returns will continue to decrease in 2013 predictably making its prices shoot up. However, this means a bleak future for the salmon fishermen on the West Coast is in store. The Skeena River sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka) run has reached almost record lows, with only 453,000 specimens expected to return in 2013. This is in sharp.... http://fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?l=e&country=0&special=&monthyear=&day=&id=62945

Canada's Arctic Shipping Effort Flags, Russia Sails On
sptimes.ru

CP  |  By Bob Weber, The Canadian Press
Posted: 08/19/2013 4:00 am EDT  |  Updated: 08/19/2013 8:31 am EDT
Canada may be missing the boat on using Arctic shipping to encourage development at the same time Russia steams ahead on its own northern waters. "At this stage, we're not really in the game," said John Higginbotham, a Carleton University professor and former Transport Canada deputy minister. "The marathon started some time ago, but we haven't sent in our application yet." As Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes his annual visit to the North to observe military exercises, Arctic experts suggest he would be wise to also take a look at what's.... http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/19/canada-arctic-shipping_n_3778111.html

Russia resubmits Sea of Okhotsk shelf claim
August 19, 2013
Alexander Gasyuk, Rossiyskaya Gazeta
The Russian delegation to the UN formally submitted a claim to the continental shelf of the Sea of Okhotsk on 16 August. The shelf, measuring 56,000 sq.km., is of strategic importance to Moscow and may be officially recognized as part of Russian territory next spring..... http://rbth.asia/politics/2013/08/19/russia_resubmits_sea_of_okhotsk_shelf_claim_48535.html

From the Lab to the Dinner Table: Kelp
August 19, 2013By: Tom Breen
Charlie Yarish pulls a long strand of kelp out of the chilly waters of Long Island Sound and takes a bite.
“Oh, that’s good,” he says. “Crisp and sweet. You can’t beat it when it’s fresh.” It’s just another day at the office for Yarish – “Captain Seaweed” – a professor in UConn’s departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Marine Sciences, who is using the expertise that’s made him a globally renowned seaweed specialist to help birth an entirely new industry up and down the East Coast. Yarish, a tall, gregarious New York native with a brushy mustache and an infectious enthusiasm for his work, envisions a day when seaweed farms, using techniques developed at the University of Connecticut, stretch from one end of Long Island Sound to the other, producing a crop worth... http://today.uconn.edu/blog/2013/08/from-the-lab-to-the-dinner-table-kelp/







California squid light boat on Instagram.. Here today, gone to China.







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