March 21, 2022 — U.S. Rep. Don Young, the Alaska Republican who served as that state’s only congressman for nearly half a century, died unexpectedly Friday, 18 March, 2022. He was 88.
According to the Anchorage Daily News, Young fell unconscious while on a flight heading back to Alaska and could not be revived.
Read the full story at SeafoodSource
March 19, 2022 — Don Young, the Alaska congressman who secured pork-barrel billions for his state over nearly a half-century and became the longest-serving Republican in the House of Representatives and the oldest current member of both the House and Senate, died on Friday. He was 88.
Mr. Young died while traveling home to Alaska, his office said. His wife, Anne Young, was with him.
In a state whose small population allows for two senators but only one representative, Mr. Young, who cultivated the image of a rugged frontiersman with outsize clout in Washington, was sometimes called Alaska’s “third senator.” To this day, most Alaskans have had no congressman in their lifetimes but Mr. Young, who was first elected in 1973, during the Nixon administration.
Early in his 24th term in 2019, he became the longest-serving Republican in House history, surpassing the tenure of the former speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon of Illinois, who as a teenager had followed the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates and went on to serve 23 House terms in three discontinuous segments between 1873 and 1923. At his death Mr. Young was in his 25th term and 49th year in Congress. (John Dingell, a Democratic House member from Michigan for 59 years, was the longest-serving member of Congress in American history.)
When asked in 2020 how long he planned to serve, Mr. Young told The New York Times, “God will decide that, or the voters.”
March 18, 2022 — The Alaska Board of Fisheries has voted down a proposal that would have allowed for a limited harvest of red king crab in Southeast Alaska, where the fishery hasn’t been open for years.
The proposal was supported by both the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and fishermen.
Over the last decade, there’s been just one red king crab fishery in Southeast. That’s because the state’s estimations of crab stocks have repeatedly fallen short of the 200,000 pounds threshold. That number comes from surveys the state conducts in some areas.
The board was asked to consider a proposal that would create equal crab quota shares when the state’s harvest levels were too low for a regular competitive fishery, similar to equal share fisheries for sablefish in the region.
State managers and industry groups wrote the proposal together over several meetings.
March 17, 2022 — There has been much discussion and debate about bycatch in marine fisheries off Alaska’s coasts recently, including several recent opinion pieces. All are chastising a perceived inaction to address bycatch, especially in the face of recent declines in salmon and crab in western Alaska.
Bycatch, by definition, is fish which are harvested but are not sold or kept. Simply put, bycatch is unintentionally caught fish that are unwanted, can’t be sold, or can’t be kept — like halibut, crab or salmon caught while targeting cod or pollock. While some bycatch occurs in state waters, most occurs in federal waters managed under plans established by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. Bycatch is NOT the intercept of fish in mixed stock fisheries, such as occurs along the Alaska Peninsula when chum salmon of Yukon origin are harvested in directed sockeye salmon fisheries.
Let me begin by clearly stating that the state is concerned about bycatch. We should do our best to reduce the catch of unintended fish that are discarded and not used. That work is underway right now on multiple fronts.
March 16, 2022 — State and federal lawmakers from Alaska are applauding the Biden administration’s decision to ban Russian seafood imports. It’s part of a series of escalating sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young released statements Friday welcoming the move.
Legislators at the state and federal levels have been calling for a Russian seafood ban for years. Kodiak Republican state Sen. Gary Stevens says the White House is finally paying attention to the issue.
“I’m really pleased the President has made this announcement, and I think it’s extremely important for Alaska and the Alaska seafood industry, you know, it’s been a totally unfair relationship in the past,” Stevens said.
Russia slapped an embargo on American fish and seafood products in 2014 in response to U.S. sanctions imposed over its annexation of Crimea.
March 15, 2022 — A formal petition has been filed by conservationists to expand federal protection for North Pacific right whales. With only 30 individuals left, this makes the right whale the most endangered whale in existence.
Advocates say the petition, which calls to protect the whale’s migratory areas, will give them a fighting chance for survival.
Threats to the species continue to grow as shipping traffic skyrockets through Alaska, which is only expected to continue. In a press release issued by the Center for Biological Diversity, the group says that surging trans-Arctic shipping traffic is one of the many threats to right whale habitat, including climate change and melting sea ice that is expected to open shipping routes and increase the risk of vessel strikes.
March 15, 2022 — Although focus is increasingly placed on sustainability policies and blue economy models among Arctic nations, the systematization of structured transnational collaboration in the circumpolar north has been underdeveloped. Over the past three years, as one of its objectives, the AlaskaNor project has aimed to identify the economic and social effects of the fisheries and aquaculture sectors in Alaska and North Norway in a comparative context and make this knowledge available for relevant stakeholders and decision-makers.
Through a comprehensive quantitative assessment of the status quo, challenges and opportunities of the fisheries and aquaculture sectors in both Arctic regions, the project demonstrated that both Alaska and North Norway are strong frontiers in fisheries and aquaculture production, with outstanding economic performance on the global market. The project’s assessment aimed at helping both regions to develop platforms and networks for further interaction while achieving sustainable and diversified economies.
Knowledge exchange
With salmon production being an invaluable source of income and employment in both regions, there is potential for Alaska and North Norway to learn from each other’s practices, despite salmon industries being carried out in a fundamentally different manner. While finfish farming is forbidden by Alaska law, Alaska’s successful development of hatcheries and the management of salmon stocks could offer sustainability lessons to Norwegian businesses. In turn, North Norway’s highly profitable aquaculture could offer successful strategies for reaching and maintaining new markets. Groundfish fisheries management could also benefit from knowledge and best practice exchange, given that both regions are currently exposed to the impacts of climate change, including diminishing Arctic sea ice, ocean acidification and higher sea surface temperatures, all of which affect groundfish habitation, nutrition and migration patterns.
March 15, 2022 — Gotta give the Dunleavy administration credit for being the first to try to get to the bottom of one of Alaska’s most troubling fishing issues: bycatch.
The governor in November created the Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force (ABRT) “to help better understand unintended bycatch of high value fishery resources in state and federal waters.”
He defined bycatch as “fish which are harvested in a fishery but are not sold or kept.”
The 13-member group will issue a final report based on those better understandings in November 2022.
“Once the structure of the task force is framed, it will be a good road map of how we can incorporate everyday Alaskans’ voices into the decision-making process,” said Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang in announcing the ABRT, “because they are the owners of these resources.”
Read the full opinion piece at The Anchorage Daily News
March 14, 2022 — President Joe Biden on Friday ordered a national ban on some imports from Russia, including seafood. It’s a move intended to punish that country for its invasion of Ukraine, but the ban has ripple effects that could wash ashore in Alaska.
Russian seafood competes with Alaska products for shelf space and consumer attention, particularly pollock and crab. Officials here said Friday’s announcement could benefit the Alaska fishing industry.
But the effects may be limited to a few key sectors — the major Seattle-based trawlers that haul up millions of pounds of pollock, largely for export, and hard-hit Bering Sea crab fishermen. There will be some effect on salmon fishermen, experts say, but the embargo’s impact is less clear in that industry.
“It’s a big deal for crab,” said Jamie Goen, executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. The group represents about 350 members, including 60 boats in Alaska’s crab fleet.
March 11, 2022 — Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP), a trade group that has made a concerted push to expand the market reach of Alaska pollock in the United States and globally, will spend nearly USD 800,000 (EUR 730,000) on a new marketing campaign.
At its early March meeting, the GAPP Board of Directors approved a nearly USD 4 million (EUR 3.6 million) budget that includes the organization’s first national sustained marketing campaign.