Every year, Alaska fishermen descend upon Seattle for the Pacific Marine Expo, more commonly known as Fish Expo. But some years have a better turn out than others, and that often has to do with how good the fishing was in the state.

KUCB’s Alexandra Gutierrez has more.

What should you do with a pirate ship?  Scuttle it!

At least according to legislation introduced yesterday by Senator Mark Begich and Representative Don Young.  The proposed bill gives the federal government authority to get rid of illegal fishing vessels in several ways, including sinking.

The bill follows the seizure earlier this year of the stateless high-seas drift-netter Bangun Perkasa 2600 miles southwest of Kodiak.  During that incident, Begich called on the Coast Guard to use the vessel for target practice, but they declined, citing jurisdiction and environmental concerns.

Next year’s pollock numbers might not change much after all. 

Management biologists met yesterday in Seattle to come up with a recommendation for next year’s harvest levels. A draft assessment had suggested that allowable biological catch -- the upper threshold for the harvest level -- should be put at 1.08 million metric tons, a 14 percent drop over this year’s quota. The assessment noted that the results of the pollock survey were lower than expected, catch rates by fishermen were low this fall, and there’s still uncertainty about the amount of young pollock in the Bering Sea.

Despite being the number one fishing port in the United States by volume and number two by value, Unalaska has the smallest number of resident commercial permit holders of any major fishing community in the state.

The industry group United Fishermen of Alaska recently compiled commercial fisheries and seafood processing data for 18 port communities.

Their survey shows that in 2010 Unalaska and the Aleutians West Borough had only 38 locally-owned commercial fishing permits.  That’s compared to communities like Homer, Kodiak and Petersburg, which each had more than a thousand resident permits.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has opened up the 30-day public comment period for Shell’s Chukchi Sea Exploration Plan.  

The document details a proposal to drill up to six wells in the Chukchi, starting in July of 2012.

The opening of the public comment period comes just days after Alaska Senator Mark Begich sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asking the BOEM to release a review schedule for the Plan.

The Horizon Lines cargo dock in Unalaska shutdown yesterday (Nov 13) over worker concerns about potentially explosive refrigerated containers.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union notified members up and down the West Coast last week that some refrigerated containers or “reefers” passing through the port could be explosive.

ILWU spokesperson Craig Merrilees says the coolant in some reefers was contaminated earlier this year during maintenance work in Vietnam.

So far this year, only one group of boats has been prohibited from fishing in the Bering Sea because of bycatch problems. It’s not because this group took too much salmon, or halibut, or seabirds, or anything else that typically gets people riled up. Instead, boats catching Pacific cod using pots were ordered to stop all activity in late October because they brought up too many octopuses -- about a million pounds of them this year to date. KUCB’s Alexandra Gutierrez was at the groundfish plan team meeting in Seattle this week, where scientists discussed ways to keep this from happening again.

The Aleutian Islands are fertile grounds for archeologists, especially those looking to buck conventional wisdom.

KUCB’s Alexandra Gutierrez has this story on the Central Aleutians Upland Archeological Project.

Ten years ago a Bristol Bay red king crab fisherman could head out for three or four days and come home with a year’s salary in his pocket. 

After the fishery was rationalized, it seemed unlikely that was ever going to happen again.  Until this year.

When the season started, things weren’t looking good for Bristol Bay.  The quota was cut by 47 percent this year and the pre-season abundance survey showed a continued decline in crab stocks.  Some crabbers were predicting this would be the last opener for at least a few years. But as the season progressed, things started looking better.