News Summary June 30, 2017
Today's Main Story: Bristol Bay Update: Run Still Building at Port Moller with Over 5 Million Caught in the Bay
On the cusp of the July 4th holiday, speculation is rife in Bristol Bay about when and how large the 2017 sockeye run will be in the world's most productive wild salmon return. The preseason forecast of a 41.5 million sockeye run total means a 27.5 million estimated catch and a 14 million fish escapement. As of June 28, just over 5 million sockeye have been caught in the Bay, including a precedent-setting more-than-a-million fish in one day on the Nushagak River. That surge hit last Monday. Cumulative escapement in the Nushagak is now 996,000 sockeye with a high-end goal of 2.2 million.
Meanwhile, commercial salmon trollers in Southeast have their first king opening of the summer season starting on Saturday. For the summer season, the fleet has an allocation of 90,000 Chinook managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is seeking to target 70 percent of that, or 63,000. Grant Hagerman is the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s troll management biologist for Southeast. He said the department expects the opening to run six or seven days.
In other news, a Portland seafood company has been fined more than $550,000 for violating import laws. ISF Trading Co. was ordered to forfeit nearly $300,000 and was put on probation for a year by federal District Court Judge John A. Woodcock Jr. for violating the Lacey Act, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Portland said Thursday. The Lacey Act prohibits trading in wildlife that has been illegally caught, owned, transported or sold. According to federal prosecutors, ISF bought sea urchins from a supplier in Canada that wasn’t allowed, under Canadian law, to export seafood. ISF then brought the urchins into the U.S., using labels from another Canadian supplier that, at times, was allowed to export the urchins, prosecutors said.
The North Pacific Fishery Management Cou
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