Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Pollock industry, Senate race and culture collide in a fight over fish

October 7, 2026 — Evon Waska’s fish camp was too quiet this summer.

“Well, this is my smokehouse,” he said, opening the door to the plywood structure at the water’s edge in Bethel, where he says his parents settled when they gave up their nomadic ways.

It’s next to empty salmon-drying racks and fish-cutting tables that have seen too few fish for many years running.

A few smoked king fillets still hang. Waska caught about 40 at the start of summer. That was a relief. Some years subsistence fishermen on the Kuskokwim River weren’t allowed to harvest any, and it’s worse on the Yukon. But Waska said he got only half of what his household needs.

His fish racks should be filled with silver salmon now. But the silver return was too weak to fish. So instead of getting more salmon in late August, his family was already dipping into what they put up for winter.

Waska, like a lot of people along the Kuskokwim River, say the problem is in the Bering Sea, with the trawl fleet. The trawlers are after pollock, but they are allowed to waste thousands of king and chum salmon, some bound for Western Alaska rivers like the Kuskokwim.

“They don’t close the trawlers,” Waska said. “They close me and my people first.”

Waska is up against a giant. Trawlers in the federal waters of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska catch nearly 3 billion pounds of Alaska pollock, the nation’s largest fishery by volume. They can tow nets as wide at the mouth as a football field and a quarter-mile in length.

It’s not just subsistence fishermen who are upset about bycatch — the other species those nets scoop up. Sport, charter and commercial fishermen are also boiling mad and demanding change. In Alaska’s tight U.S. Senate race, bycatch has become a flashpoint, and the race may turn on which candidate — Sen. Dan Sullivan or challenger Mary Peltola — is perceived as the most willing and able to rein in the the trawlers.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Peltola, Sullivan take different approaches to reducing bycatch

September 29, 2026 — Bycatch has emerged as a defining fisheries issue in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, but the legislative records of former Rep. Mary Peltola and Sen. Dan Sullivan show different approaches to reducing incidental harvests and addressing trawling’s impacts.

Peltola, who is challenging Sullivan for his Senate seat, introduced the Bycatch Reduction and Mitigation Act in 0224 while serving in the U.S. House. Sullivan introduced his Bycatch Reduction Act this year, which advanced through the Senate Commerce Committee on Sept. 16.

According to the Alaska Beacon, the two proposals share some common ground, particularly federal support for technology to reduce bycatch. But there are notable differences in how that support would be distributed and how each proposal approaches fisheries management.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

US Senator Ed Markey blocks quick passage of Bycatch Reduction Act

September 25, 2026 — U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) blocked an attempt by U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) to quickly pass his Bycatch Reduction Act in the Senate.

During remarks given on the Senate floor 23 September, Sullivan called on his fellow senators to pass his legislation, which calls for new trawling and bottom floor contact regulations and the implementation of salmon excluder devices for commercial fishing operations off the coast of Alaska in the Bering Sea. The legislation was first introduced at the beginning of the year, but Sullivan introduced an updated version with stronger provisions regarding bycatch and seafloor contact regulations in June. After the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation advanced the legislation earlier in September, Sullivan pushed to quickly pass the bill by unanimous consent.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Pitched battle for Alaska’s Senate seat is enveloped in a fight over fish

September 21, 2026 — Fish are central to Alaska’s economy, Indigenous cultures and identity.

With critical salmon runs in Alaska rivers struggling, commercial operators squeezed by higher costs and stiffer market competition, fish are now at the center of the hard-fought campaign for Alaska’s U.S. Senate seat.

For Democratic challenger Mary Peltola, who is seeking to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, the fishing issues are deeply personal.

She is Yup’ik, grew up in rural Western Alaska on the Kuskokwim River and, as she has explained many times, has been fishing since she was 6 years old.

“I’m the only candidate on this stage who’s an Alaskan fisherman. Fish is in my blood, earned over generations on the water,” she said at the Sept. 12 fisheries-focused debate held by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce.

Sullivan is emphasizing his record after 12 years in the Senate, which he said resulted in 63 bills signed into law so far, many of which concern fisheries, and has secured generous appropriations for agencies that support the industry, like the U.S. Coast Guard.

“Our fishermen deserve relentless focus and action, not just talk,” he said at the Kodiak debate.

According to the information clearinghouse govtrack.us, Sullivan was the prime sponsor on 31 bills that have been signed into law during his tenure. Over his career in the Senate, he has been a cosponsor of more than 1,800 pieces of legislation, according to congress.gov, the  online database for the nation’s legislative branch.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon

Sullivan’s trawl bycatch bill clears a U.S. Senate committee

September 17, 2026 — A bill that aims to reduce the pollock fleet’s bycatch of salmon, halibut and other species passed the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday.

Sen. Dan Sullivan is the sponsor of the Bycatch Reduction Act. He said it would tell the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council to change how it treats the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska trawlers, to limit their impact on the marine environment.

“This sets out timelines. It sets out standards,” he said in a phone interview. “It sets out direct action to reduce bycatch, to limit — and, in many ways, do away with — trawl gear contact with the seafloor, and setting clearer standards.”

The bill also reconstitutes a group from a 2022 Sullivan bill, the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force Act. Sullivan said it will give Alaskans a direct say in what the federal government studies.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

US Senate committee advances Bycatch Reduction Act

September 17, 226 — The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has advanced U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan’s (R-Alaska) Bycatch Reduction Act, which is intended to limit contact between trawling gear and the seafloor.

“Today, my Bycatch Reduction Act passed out of committee and is headed to the full Senate for a vote. We’re one step closer to getting it across the finish line,” Sullivan said in a social media post. “I’ve been working with Alaskans to find ways to reduce bycatch, protect our fisheries, and strengthen our fishing communities. Together, we’re delivering results, and we’re one step closer to getting it done.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Peltola and Sullivan confront trawl bycatch, and each other, at Kodiak fisheries debate

September 15, 2026 — Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic challenger Mary Peltola vied to outdo each other as champions of Alaska fishermen at the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce fishery debate Saturday.

The debate sponsors included major players in the pollock industry, but that didn’t stop both candidates from vowing to crack down on the trawlers’ bycatch of salmon and other species.

Sullivan leaned into his record.

“My bill for establishment of the Seafood Policy Office is in the Farm Bill right now. That helps with regard to enabling fishermen to have access to all the programs that farmers have,” he said. “And finally, getting my bycatch bill over the goal line next week in the Commerce Committee.”

(Sullivan’s Bycatch Reduction Act, filed in June, is scheduled for a vote in the Commerce Committee on Wednesday. He is the sole sponsor.)

Sullivan repeatedly pointed to foreign fleets as an adversary he’s tackled, and said he secured a ban on Russian seafood imports.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Sullivan, Peltola spar over fishing in Senate debate

September 15, 2026 — U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and Mary Peltola sharply disagreed on policies related to Alaska fisheries over the weekend, in the first debate between the two candidates running for Alaska’s hotly contested Senate seat.

Alaska shipped more than $2.5 billion in domestic seafood exports abroad in 2025, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office. However, Sullivan and Peltola both said the industry has struggled in recent years for different reasons.

Sullivan said competition from Russia and China has stifled Alaska’s fishing industry and weakened competition. He touted his work to ban Russian seafood imports in the U.S. and efforts to block Chinese imports.

Read the full article The Center Square

ALASKA: Fish fights take center stage in Alaska Senate race

August 20, 2026 — The plight of the state’s fisheries, some of the most productive in the world, has become a flashpoint in Alaska’s Senate race and arisen as a potential weakness for two-term incumbent Dan Sullivan.

Sullivan faces a tough reelection bid against former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who has centered her campaign around “Fish, Family, Freedom.” She’s trying to harness anger at out-of-state commercial fishing to win her way back to Congress.

Alaska hosts some of the largest commercial pollock fisheries in the world as well as major salmon populations — buttressing a seafood industry that supports more than 15,000 Alaskan jobs with around $5 billion in value. Many Alaska Natives harvest fish from the state’s mighty rivers and rely on the catch during winter.

Read the full article at E&E News

ALASKA: Trawling and bycatch dominate political messaging in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race

August 17, 2026 — Trawling ships that over the years have incidentally scooped up and wasted millions of pounds of salmon and other fish have burst onto the forefront of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race.

Multiple Outside political advocacy groups with little public information about their donors are targeting candidates over their approach to limiting bycatch in the pollock industry, which critics blame for contributing to historic declines in Alaska salmon, halibut and crab fisheries.

Alaska fishermen have appeared in ads discussing the bycatch records of the major candidates, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and challenger Mary Peltola, a Democratic former U.S. representative.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News