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