Southeast Alaska salmon seiners are mounting yet another effort to reduce their ranks.
Recently, seiners were invited to submit bids to sell and permanently retire their state fishing permits.
A total of 37 bids came in, and the Southeast Revitalization Association board on May 24 voted to accept 36 of them.
The 36 accepted bids total just over $10.1 million, which is right around the amount of federal loan money available for the permit buyback.
What's next?
Probably after this fishing season, Southeast salmon seine permit holders — currently 315 of them — will vote in a referendum on whether the fleet agrees to shoulder the loan to complete the buyback.
In 2012, Southeast seiners approved a $13.1 million loan to remove 64 permits.
But in 2017, a vote to retire 22 more permits from the fishery failed.
Dungeness crabber cited at Petersburg
1 week ago