Anchorage Daily News

Alaska's seafood industry provides more jobs than oil and gas, mining, agriculture and forestry combined. However, a lack of harvesting labor data means there is no way to realistically estimate the number of crew members who work in any given community or census area.

That hampers efforts by fisheries-dependent communities to influence public policymaking, build infrastructure and grow local economies, concludes a new report by Anchorage-based Northern Economics Inc.

Titled "Improving Seafood Harvesting Labor Data," the report outlines ways in which collection and reporting of Alaska's seafood harvesting labor data could be improved.

"State and federal policymakers are often in the position of having to make decisions that will impact crew members and communities without having any historical information about the seafood harvesters. In fact, in most cases policymakers generally know more about the average fish than they do about the average fisherman," said Wanetta Ayers, former director of the Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference, which commissioned the report.

Fishing crews are considered contract workers, not employees, so no wage and salary reporting is required by the state Department of Labor, explained report author Marcus Hartley. "The number of crew licenses is collected each year by communities, but those are general to all commercial fisheries," he said.

A 2005 report by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game summarizes the dilemma by stating: "Using existing data, it is not possible to know if the crew member fished at all, where they fished, how much they fished, how many crew fished from a vessel, or how much they earned."

Federal and state agencies are working hard to find ways to improve the system, but right now there is no regulatory mandate.

"This is an issue for all fisheries-dependent communities. It's up to all stakeholders to advocate for changes and generate the support needed to make those changes a reality," Ayers said.

Hartley will present the report at the ComFish trade show March 15-17 in Kodiak. Find the full report at www.swamc.org.

• Cash for gear ideas. The international Smart Gear competition is again calling for entries that reduce bycatch, the accidental take of marine mammals, sea birds or small fish by fishing gear. The contest was created three years ago by the World Wildlife Fund, which this year is offering $30,000 in cash to the winner and two $10,000 runner-up awards.

The entries are judged on innovation, practicality and cost-effectiveness, said WWF spokesman Mike Osmond.

"The entry must also maintain the target catch. You don't want to have something that reduces bycatch but at the same affects the target species. Otherwise, there is very little chance of getting it adopted," Osmond said.

Last year's winner was a New Jersey inventor who designed gear that uses a shark's ability to detect magnetic fields through its snout. He placed strong magnets just above baited hooks on longlines and found that it repelled sharks while not reducing catches of tuna and swordfish.

The 2006 contest attracted 83 entries from 26 countries, including four from Alaska. Find entry forms at www.smartgear.org. Deadline to enter is July 31.

• Git 'er Down. He was not a Smart Gear contest winner, but that didn't stop Alaskan Ace Callaway from refining and patenting a gear to protect fragile rockfish. Callaway lives in Fairbanks and operates a sport charter boat each summer out of Valdez.

"When you break rockfish out of deep water they don't have the ability to equalize the pressure, and their bladder expands and pushes their eyes out the sockets and the stomach out of their mouths. It's a horrible sight. They basically suffer the same thing a diver does that comes up too fast -- what we normally call the bends," Callaway said.

There are more than 30 kinds of rockfish and they're some of the most fascinating fish in the world. Rockfish can live more than 200 years, they have live babies, and they range less than a quarter mile from where they are born.

Callaway's simple gear uses a pair of mechanical jaws that hooks onto the fish's lip, quickly resubmerges it to the proper depth and releases it unharmed. It is modeled after studies by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife that showed rockfish returned to the deep have almost 100 percent survival rates.

Callaway, who owns and runs a disabled veterans machine shop in Fairbanks, said he has a patent pending for his rockfish gear -- and a catchy name describes exactly what it does.

"It's called Git 'er Down," he said. That, of course, is a take on "get 'er done," the line made famous by comic Larry the Cable Guy.

Callaway said big companies have offered to produce the rockfish gear elsewhere, but he plans to make it here in Alaska.

Laine Welch is a Kodiak-based fisheries journalist. Her Fish Radio programs can be heard on stations around the state. Her information column appears every other Saturday. This material is protected by copyright. For information on reprinting or placing on your Web site or newsletter, e-mail msfish@alaska.com.

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