Brian Hagenbuch

Contributing Editor reporting from Seattle, USA

Brian Hagenbuch spent a decade in South America, where he was a journalist for Reuters and Time Out in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. He now lives in Seattle and works as a freelance writer and translator, as well as a commercial fisherman in Bristol Bay. 


Author Archive

Published on
November 16, 2020

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) predicts over 51 million sockeye salmon will return to Bristol Bay in 2021, another massive run for Alaska’s most robust salmon fishery.

If the forecast holds, it will continue an unprecedented string of large runs in Bristol Bay, which have the fishery averaging over 48 million sockeye salmon annually for the past 10 years. The long-term contemporary average, calculated from 1963 to 2020, is

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Published on
November 12, 2020

A new report by the Juneau, Alaska-based McKinley Research Group – formerly the McDowell Group – outlined the difficulties encountered this season by Alaska’s seafood industry, with lower stocks complicated by a massive COVID-19 bill ... 

Photo courtesy of

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Published on
November 9, 2020

A rough B season for Alaska pollock in the Bering Sea drew to a close with at least part of the total allowable catch (TAC) left in the water. Final numbers were not in yet, but industry insiders estimate fleets left around 5 to 6 percent of the 757,651 metric tons allotted for the B season, which runs from 10 June to 31 October.

Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based Global Seas, which runs four trawlers that fish for Bering Sea pollock, found

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Published on
November 6, 2020

Two workers who spent the summer working at a North Pacific Seafoods, Inc. salmon processing plant in Alaska have sued the company with a litany of complaints

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Published on
November 2, 2020

The Alaska Supreme Court is currently reviewing the constitutionality of a lucrative landings tax on fish caught in federal waters and brought through Alaska ports to be exported to international markets.

Every season, millions of tons of fish are scooped up by factory trawlers in the Bering Sea’s federal waters, which start three miles off the coast of Alaska. Most of those fish are processed at sea, then taken to ports like Dutch Harbor

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Published on
October 27, 2020

The Alaska Bering Sea crab season kicked off last week amid a mixed outlook ... 

Photo courtesy of Alaska Department of Fish and

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Published on
October 23, 2020

The U.S. Coast Guard has vowed to ramp up notifications of Russian military exercises in the northern Bering Sea after U.S.-flagged fishing fleets were driven off fishing grounds there the end of August.

At-Sea Processors Association (APA) Executive Director Stephanie Madsen said U.S. boats were fishing for pollock in the Bering Sea’s U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) when they were startled by the nearby activities of Russian

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Published on
October 19, 2020

Wild Alaskan Company, a direct-to-consumer sustainable seafood membership business, recently announced the additions of Daniel Creeden and Stephanie Hoppe to its leadership team.

Creeden will be Wild Alaskan’s director of operations, and Hoppe will function as the new vice president of marketing.

“We are thrilled to announce the addition of Steph and Daniel to our fast-growing national team. Not only do they bring years of experience

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Published on
October 13, 2020

Juneau, Alaska-based Certified Quality Foods has been honing its Certified Quality Reader (CQR) with Trident Seafoods and other partners in their ongoing effort to provide the seafood industry with organized access to more objective quality data. 

The CQR is a small, handheld device that functions as an “electric nose.” Certified Quality Foods’ Co-Founder Keith Cox developed his version of the device through years of

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Published on
September 25, 2020

As Alaska’s salmon fishing season starts to wrap up, numbers are indicating a relatively poor showing overall.

While landings and fish tickets continued to trickle in, preliminary numbers from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game showed Alaskan salmon fishermen harvested around 113 million fish on the 2020 season, falling well short of the pre-season projection of nearly 133 million fish. It makes the season the fifth-worst even-year

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