Abe is out

State legislators yesterday confirmed all of the governor's appointments to the Alaska Board of Fisheries with the exception of Abe Williams, who was rejected by a vote of 18 yeas to 41 nays.

Click here to see how the lawmakers voted.

Protecting oceans, or creating bureaucracy?

Alaska Congressman Don Young says he's introduced legislation to "direct NOAA to establish the American Fisheries Advisory Committee." Here's the press release.

Seining way up north

This 2021 Norton Sound salmon season outlook says "there will be an experimental purse seine fishery targeting pink salmon."

Pay the man

The Alaska Supreme Court has ruled against factory trawl operator Fishermen's Finest, which had challenged the state landing tax as unconstitutional. Here's the court's 31-page opinion.

OBI's image

Deckboss notes that OBI Seafoods, the company created in 2020 through a merger of Ocean Beauty and Icicle, has a new logo. Like it?

It's nearly salmon time!

The Copper River District is set to open for the season at 7 a.m. May 17. Here's the announcement.

More on those orcas

The National Marine Fisheries Service has provided more information regarding the two orcas taken as bycatch last year.

The orcas died as a result of the bycatch. Or as NMFS put it: "Unfortunately, this was a marine mammal bycatch mortality incident."

NMFS declined to name the vessel involved, saying that information is confidential. However, the agency would say this much: "The killer whales were incidentally taken in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands flatfish trawl fishery."

NMFS provided an observer's photos from the incident. "All identifying information and metadata have been removed or blurred out in these photos in accordance with Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act confidentiality provisions," the agency said.

Readers are advised the images are fairly grisly, and you might find they take a bit of time to download. See the photos here.

What else?

"Observers were able to collect tissue samples from the whales, which have been sent to a lab for genetic analysis and possible identification for stock of origin," NMFS said. "This analysis has not yet been conducted, as regular lab activities have been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic."

Bycatch of orcas in Alaska fisheries is not unprecedented. NMFS cited its most recent technical memo on human-caused mortality and injury of Alaska marine mammals. Search "killer whale" for a number of regrettable orca encounters with fishing vessels and gear — not only trawl but also longline and pot.