fish health, etc. alaskan ranching

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» » 60 61 FISH HEALTH, ETC. Hugh Mitchell, MSc, DVM I am sitting in the Pioneer Bar in Sitka, Alaska, chatting up a commercial salmon fisherman. He responds after I answer his question on where I am from and what I am doing up there. Alaskan Sea Ranching: Yes, they do “do aquaculture” in Alaska Fig. 1. Port Armstrong, AK of Armstrong-Keta, Inc. Fig. 2. Ben Contag, manager at Port Armstrong, AK of Armstrong-Keta. Fig. 3. Humpback whale sounding in Silver Bay, site of Medvije Creek and Sawmill Creek Hatcheries of the Northern Southeast Aquaculture Association. Wow, you are up here helping the hatcheries? Good stuff. Never met a fish veterinarian before. Thanks for your work. Those hatcheries are important. I can go out and troll eight 13-pound Chinook in a day and sell them in Juneau for $13 a pound! Them’s lawyer’s wages!” In the waters off of Alaska in 2016, 109 million salmon were har- vested with a whole fish value of $406 million. Today, just slightly less than 30 salmon hatcheries up and down the Alaskan coast annu- ally put out about 1.5 billion Pink, Sockeye, Chum, Coho, and Chi - nook salmon fingerlings. Estimates are that these represent about 22% of the harvested salmon in Alaskan waters each year. They are initially put into net pens to olfactory im- print them on the bay, to minimize straying up other rivers and for fish- ermen to catch them on their return. There are a couple each of Federal and State hatcheries that contrib- ute, but most of this production is via non-profit regional aquaculture associations (see below), plus some scattered independents. The catch ends up being about 2 to 3% of what is released from hatcheries. I try and probe for his sentiments on why Alaskans don’t also raise salmon right through their life cycle in cages (“egg to fork” – a practice which is actually illegal in Alaska) and point out that they could be world leaders in both sea ranching and salmon farming, suggesting that the risk of net pen culture to wild salmon is sorely overplayed. The response to my suggestion of growing some up right to harvest is met with extreme indignation: “Nope. Those aren’t salmon. To be a real salmon, they have to spend at least a certain amount of time as wild fish. That just is how it should be.” I refrain from arguing. I actu- ally can’t say that I blame this sen- timent. The Alaskan Seafood sec- tor (1 in 10 people of the Alaskan workforce is employed by some as- pect of salmon fishing) has been hit hard in the past with the explosive growth of farmed Atlantic salmon from mainly Norway and Chile. In the early 2000’s it was responsible for a reduction of the value of the industry from about $400 million to $130 million and caused consid- erable hardships up and down the Coast. This was mainly due to Chile taking over a Japanese market that had formerly been 90% from Alas- ka. Since then, a smart marketing campaign led by the Alaskan Sea- food Marketing Board has clawed back and positioned wild salmon as a premium product. The result has been a revitalization of the salmon fishing industry and a rejuvenation of the coastal economy. Now, these effective tactics have sometimes been a bit questionable in accuracy (such as portraying Atlantic salmon farming as being less healthy, less premium and bad for the environ- ment), but they are successful and a long way from when the first hatch- ery was built in 1869 on Kodiak Is- land. The amazing success story of the Alaskan fishery’s current sus- tainability is one steeped in the in- trigue of: politics, in-fighting, and State versus Federal power strug- The Alaskan Seafood sector (1 in 10 people of the Alaskan workforce is employed by some aspect of salmon fishing) has been hit hard in the past with the explosive growth of farmed Atlantic salmon from mainly Norway and Chile. gles. In the early days, there was little management of the stocks and over-fishing severely impacted re- turns. Legislation in 1889 attempted to curtail this, but lack of enforce- ment doomed its usefulness. In the 1900’s the act was amended to stip- ulate that canneries build hatcheries to produce 4 times the salmon that they catch and process, but they protested that that was something they couldn’t afford to do. For the first quarter of the century, debate ensued as to whether the fishery could be sustained through natural propagation without enhancement. Congress funded federal hatcheries in 1903 and the Federal government tried to impose stricter regulations, but runs severely diminished by the 1910’s. This caused the canneries to finally come around, although they struggled with the mandate of 50% escapement (to allow broods to go upstream). This did, however work, and runs increased resulting in many of the hatcheries closing down. In 1933, 126.4 million salmon were caught – a historical record. However, through the 1930’s and 1940’s, fish traps were responsi - ble for another depletion. Hatcher- ies came back into the picture both by the Alaska Territory Fishery Service and the US Department of Fisheries, but this did not help the two-decade decline. In 1959 only 25 million salmon were harvested by fishermen that were then four times the number that they were in the early 1900’s. Alaska received statehood in 1959 and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game was formed. Lack of enforcement and illegal fishing continued to be a problem, with runs being up and down through 1971. In 1974, State legislation allowed private non- profits to build and operate hatch- eries, while the State itself worked on improving habitat. Currently there are 6 regional aquaculture as- sociations (AA’s) (down from 8 in 1976), each with several hatcheries:

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Page 1: FISH HEALTH, ETC. Alaskan Ranching

» »60 61

FISH HEALTH, ETC.

Hugh Mitchell, MSc, DVM

I am sitting in the Pioneer Bar in Sitka, Alaska, chatting up a

commercial salmon fisherman. He responds after I answer his question

on where I am from and what I am doing up there.

Alaskan Sea Ranching: Yes, they do “do aquaculture” in Alaska

Fig. 1. Port Armstrong, AK of Armstrong-Keta, Inc.

Fig. 2. Ben Contag, manager at Port Armstrong, AK of Armstrong-Keta.

Fig. 3. Humpback whale sounding in Silver Bay, site of Medvije Creek and Sawmill Creek Hatcheries of the Northern Southeast Aquaculture Association.

“Wow, you are up here helping the hatcheries? Good stuff. Never met a fish veterinarian before. Thanks for your work. Those

hatcheries are important. I can go out and troll eight 13-pound Chinook in a day and sell them in Juneau for $13 a pound! Them’s lawyer’s wages!”

In the waters off of Alaska in 2016, 109 million salmon were har-vested with a whole fish value of $406 million. Today, just slightly less than 30 salmon hatcheries up and down the Alaskan coast annu-ally put out about 1.5 billion Pink, Sockeye, Chum, Coho, and Chi-

nook salmon fingerlings. Estimates are that these represent about 22% of the harvested salmon in Alaskan waters each year. They are initially put into net pens to olfactory im-print them on the bay, to minimize straying up other rivers and for fish-ermen to catch them on their return. There are a couple each of Federal and State hatcheries that contrib-ute, but most of this production is via non-profit regional aquaculture associations (see below), plus some scattered independents. The catch ends up being about 2 to 3% of what is released from hatcheries.

I try and probe for his sentiments on why Alaskans don’t also raise salmon right through their life cycle in cages (“egg to fork” – a practice which is actually illegal in Alaska) and point out that they could be world leaders in both sea ranching and salmon farming, suggesting that the risk of net pen culture to wild salmon is sorely overplayed. The response to my suggestion of growing some up right to harvest is met with extreme indignation:

“Nope. Those aren’t salmon. To be a real salmon, they have to spend at least a certain amount of time as wild fish. That just is how it should be.”

I refrain from arguing. I actu-ally can’t say that I blame this sen-timent. The Alaskan Seafood sec-tor (1 in 10 people of the Alaskan workforce is employed by some as-pect of salmon fishing) has been hit hard in the past with the explosive growth of farmed Atlantic salmon from mainly Norway and Chile. In the early 2000’s it was responsible for a reduction of the value of the industry from about $400 million to $130 million and caused consid-erable hardships up and down the Coast. This was mainly due to Chile taking over a Japanese market that had formerly been 90% from Alas-ka. Since then, a smart marketing campaign led by the Alaskan Sea-food Marketing Board has clawed

back and positioned wild salmon as a premium product. The result has been a revitalization of the salmon fishing industry and a rejuvenation of the coastal economy. Now, these effective tactics have sometimes been a bit questionable in accuracy (such as portraying Atlantic salmon farming as being less healthy, less premium and bad for the environ-ment), but they are successful and a long way from when the first hatch-ery was built in 1869 on Kodiak Is-land.

The amazing success story of the Alaskan fishery’s current sus-tainability is one steeped in the in-trigue of: politics, in-fighting, and State versus Federal power strug-

The Alaskan Seafood sector (1 in 10

people of the Alaskan workforce

is employed by some aspect of

salmon fishing) has been hit hard

in the past with the explosive

growth of farmed Atlantic salmon

from mainly Norway and Chile.

gles. In the early days, there was little management of the stocks and over-fishing severely impacted re-turns. Legislation in 1889 attempted to curtail this, but lack of enforce-ment doomed its usefulness. In the 1900’s the act was amended to stip-ulate that canneries build hatcheries to produce 4 times the salmon that they catch and process, but they protested that that was something they couldn’t afford to do. For the first quarter of the century, debate ensued as to whether the fishery could be sustained through natural propagation without enhancement. Congress funded federal hatcheries in 1903 and the Federal government tried to impose stricter regulations,

but runs severely diminished by the 1910’s. This caused the canneries to finally come around, although they struggled with the mandate of 50% escapement (to allow broods to go upstream). This did, however work, and runs increased resulting in many of the hatcheries closing down. In 1933, 126.4 million salmon were caught – a historical record.

However, through the 1930’s and 1940’s, fish traps were responsi-ble for another depletion. Hatcher-ies came back into the picture both by the Alaska Territory Fishery Service and the US Department of Fisheries, but this did not help the two-decade decline. In 1959 only 25 million salmon were harvested by fishermen that were then four times the number that they were in the early 1900’s. Alaska received statehood in 1959 and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game was formed. Lack of enforcement and illegal fishing continued to be a problem, with runs being up and down through 1971. In 1974, State legislation allowed private non-profits to build and operate hatch-eries, while the State itself worked on improving habitat. Currently there are 6 regional aquaculture as-sociations (AA’s) (down from 8 in 1976), each with several hatcheries:

Page 2: FISH HEALTH, ETC. Alaskan Ranching

» »62 63

FISH HEALTH, ETC.

Fig. 4. Adam Olson, manager of Medvije Creek Hatchery, NSRAA near Sitka, proudly shows off the soon-to-be released salmon.

Fig. 5. Trail Lakes Hatchery of the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association near Moose Pass, AK. Main salmon stocked is Sockeye (about 14 million a year). Manager is: Kristin Bates.

The amazing success story of

the Alaskan fishery’s current

sustainability is one steeped in

the intrigue of: politics,

in-fighting, and State versus

Federal power struggles.

The Alaskan salmon fishery is important

both economically and as part of the social

fabric of Alaska. The Alaskan sea-ranching

assisted industry is a testament to the

benefits of aquaculture. Farming, however,

is not familiar to this State, and foreign fish

farming has left most Alaskans with an

extremely bad taste regarding full “egg-to-

fork” aquaculture.

Prince William Sound AA; South-ern Southeast Regional AA; North-ern Southeast Regional AA; Cooke Inlet RAA; Valdez Fisheries De-velopment A and Kodiak Region-al AA. The 1.5 billion salmon are hatched and then imprinted on the bays via a stint in net pens (technol-ogy honed by the Atlantic salmon farming industry of Norway). They are funded by a 2 to 3% tax on all fish caught within a region. The fishermen are able to camp out at the mouths of the bays and catch the returns.

The AA’s are allowed to also catch a certain small percentage for “cost recovery.” Alaska Depart-

ment of Fish and Game also has some facilities, but these are mainly for research. The total harvest is be-tween 123 and 221 million salmon a year, but Alaska’s 40-50% share of the global market in the early 1980’s declined to less than 20% in 2000, mainly due to the farm produced Atlantic salmon from Norway, Chile and Scotland.

Getting to know some of the dedicated individuals at the vari-ous facilities throughout the Alas-kan hatchery system proved to be a glimpse into why salmon enhance-ment is an enormous success story. Armstrong-Keta, Inc. a Juneau-based private company is one of the independent “non-profits” with fish facilities situated on the south end of Baranoff Island (island of Sitka) in a cove/ residential enclave called: Port Alexander. Although they are close to NSRAA they are not part of the Regional AA system and are funded solely from their cost-recovery take of a percent-age of returning fish. Their annual production targets are currently around: 105 million Pink salmon; 60 million chum; and 5 million Coho.

In my travels around Alaskan salmon hatcheries, I have been im-pressed with the enthusiasm and openness of the personnel. Ben Contag is the manager of the Port Armstrong fish facility. He is one of

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FISH HEALTH, ETC.

Hugh Mitchell, MSc, DVM is an aquaculture veterinarian with more than 25 years of experience, who provides

services and fish health tools to fish farmers across the US and Canada. His practice is AquaTactics Fish Health,

out of Kirkland, Washington, specializing in bringing a comprehensive professional service/product package to

aquaculture, including: vaccine solutions, immune stimu-lants, sedatives, antimicrobials and parasiticides.

website: www.aquatactics.com; contact: [email protected]

One can’t deny that fish

farming, as it is done in

Alaska, works extremely well.

Fig. 6. Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery on Port Valdez. Managed by Rob Unger. Fig. 7. Tasting the fruits of all the hard work of rearing and catching. Sitka, Alaska.

Fisheries and politics seem to be

integral to one another in

most regions of the world. I learn that

there currently are concerns

about the impact of hatchery fish

affecting the truly wild salmon

through genetics and

consumption of resources.

those individuals who is extremely passionate about his occupation. These are my favorite clients. Fish culture is a not a job to them but a way of life. After all these years, I find that there is always something that I can learn from their craft. The skills required in animal husbandry (“stockman-ship”), including fish, are always undervalued. After I step off of the float plane, he is non-stop with information and ques-tions. We go over several fish health issues sprinkled in with his history and the history of Port Armstrong. A native of Ecuador, he came up to the US in 1984, went to college in Sitka, worked initially for NSRAA, and started working for Armstrong-Keta in 2005. He lives there with his family and fellow hatchery workers in a boardwalk connected village

that was constructed solely to house the hatchery crew. They have gar-dens and a few livestock pens with goats and chickens. Eleven workers in total, his two daughters left for a while, only to return. One is mar-ried to one of his workers and the other is engaged to another. Suffice it to say, they all love the isolated lifestyle and cannot see leaving any time soon.

Back near Sitka, I visit one of the non-profit NSRAA hatcher-ies that is on the “road system” (as they term it in Alaska, vs. those fa-cilities only accessible by boat or float plane) called Medvejie Creek. The Manager is Adam Olson, again a young, enthusiastic, keen, and very competent hatchery “stock-man”. His wife, Rebecca manages the Sawmill Creek Hatchery that I passed on the way in. Adam received his Bachelor of Science in biology from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island and came to Alaska in 2005. He has always been with NSRAA, starting as a technician at another facility. “Medvejie” is at the end of Silver Bay and from the road I can see a pod of Humpback Whales “bubble net” feeding out in the Bay. The hatchery workers are fairly nonchalant about this, as they “do that all the time.” The whales have been known to camp out and chow down on the released salmon

– an emerging predator problem. The goal of Medvije Creek is to put out 60 million chum fry a year, to-gether with lesser numbers of Chi-nook and Coho. We go over some fish health concerns and then I am called by the float plane pilot that there is an opening in the weather to try and get into “Hidden Falls” on the other side of the island. I abbreviate my stay and head back to Sitka for the rare opportunity to visit another NSRAA facility before I have to head home to Seattle.

Early in the new year, I am back up to attend the Alaskan Fish Cul-ture Conference. It is held in a dif-ferent region every other year. This year it is in Valdez and I take the opportunity to visit Trail Lakes Hatchery (on the road system from Anchorage and part of the Cooke Inlet Aquaculture Association). I also have a chance to tour the impressive Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery of the Valdez Fish Devel-opment Association across the inlet from the city. Rob Unger, manager and conference program organizer this year, gives us all a spirited and detailed tour of the facility which puts out 270 million pink salmon a year. Interestingly, the water run-ning through the raceways is silty from the glacier run-off, appar-ently of no consequence to the fish health. Once again, he exhibits the Alaskan dedication and passion that seems to be the standard across the hatchery system. My talk at the con-ference was a requested review on Bacterial Kidney Disease, a chronic and long battled disease in wild and hatchery-reared salmonids that is associated with the bacterium: Re-nibacterium salmoninarum. Related to the human tuberculosis bacteria (but unable to infect humans) some fish bacteriologists have theorized that it is actually a normal resident of salmonids and only causes dis-ease when given the opportunity to build up in a fish and/or popula-tion. It has been found in wild sal-

monids in the Arctic, thousands of miles away from any hatchery. Lots of good discussion and sharing of information back and forth happen after my talk.

Fisheries and politics seem to be integral to one another in most re-gions of the world. I learn that there currently are concerns about the impact of hatchery fish affecting the truly wild salmon through ge-netics and consumption of resourc-es. However, like many ecological issues, passion not science can be a key driver in sentiments and re-sultant policies. The lucrative char-ter fishing companies, for example, are accusing the released chum and pink of impacting the more prized sports fish: Chinook and Coho, by

eating up all their resources. The validity of these claims is hotly de-bated at the conference.

The Alaskan salmon fishery is important both economically and as part of the social fabric of Alaska. The Alaskan sea-ranching assisted industry is a testament to the ben-efits of aquaculture. Farming, how-ever, is not familiar to this State, and foreign fish farming has left most Alaskans with an extremely bad taste regarding full “egg-to-fork” aquaculture. A large part of this resentment is due to the com-petition impacting the value of the fishery. Alaska’s coastline is vast (34 thousand miles – not including the islands!). To many aquaculturists “from away,” it seems unfortunate that Alaskans don’t realize that they could be a world leader in both sea-ranching and net-pen aquaculture. This would greatly help to alleviate even more of the massive US sea-food deficit ($16 billion). But, alas, traditions die hard and one can’t help but wonder if the same sort of struggle went on 10,000 years ago as man moved from hunting and gath-ering to an agrarian lifestyle. Sea ranching is part-way there, but the ocean is vast and full egg-to-fork aquaculture takes up so little space but can produce so much. However, with that said, one can’t deny that fish farming, as it is done in Alaska, works extremely well.