Washington watch

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, has introduced an updated version of bycatch legislation he offered last year.

"I've heard from countless Alaskans ... who are rightfully demanding direct action to reduce bycatch and gear contact with the seafloor," Sullivan says in a press release.

Surprise appointments to the North Pacific Council

The secretary of commerce today appointed Forrest Bowers to an Alaska seat and Chad See to a Washington seat on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Both are surprises as neither was the top choice of their respective governors.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy had nominated Märit Carlson-Van Dort as his lead pick, with Bowers and Israel Payton as his second and third choices. Carlson-Van Dort chairs the Alaska Board of Fisheries. Bowers is a longtime state employee in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, currently working as acting commercial fisheries director.

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson nominated crab fleet representative Jamie Goen for a second term on the council, but the commerce secretary instead appointed Chad See, Ferguson's second choice. See is executive director of the Freezer Longline Coalition.

Mary Peltola blasts off on fish

Here's her opinion piece on the Anchorage Daily News website.

Salmon notes

Here are a few observations from the young salmon season thus far.

• The statewide commercial catch as of this moment stands at 3.7 million salmon. More than 2 million of these are sockeye.

• The Copper River salmon fishery is struggling and currently stuck in a long closure amid lagging escapement. "The cumulative commercial harvest to date is 4,172 Chinook and 228,277 sockeye salmon," the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said yesterday in this advisory announcement.

• The first opener of the Southeast Alaska summer troll season will begin July 1 targeting about 81,300 treaty Chinook salmon, Fish and Game announced yesterday. Last year's first period quota was 36,500 treaty Chinook.

USDA buys $6.4M in pollock products from Trident

Here's the purchase announcement.

Bringing back crab

National Fisherman has published an article about a pioneering hatchery project to bolster struggling king crab stocks in the Bering Sea.

USDA buys $11M in canned pinks from Silver Bay

Here's the announcement.

$124M in disaster relief set for Alaska, elsewhere

Here's the press release from NOAA.

As best we can tell, these are the affected Alaska fisheries and the sums we can expect someday:

• 2023-24 Bering Sea snow crab fishery, $75.2 million

• 2022 Chignik salmon fishery, $18.5 million

• 2023 Upper Cook Inlet eastside setnet salmon fishery, $5.8 million.

The first million

As of this posting, Alaska's commercial salmon catch stands at 1.1 million fish.

The season is just getting started, and the state is forecasting a total harvest of 125.5 million salmon once the fishing year is done.

You can track the catch on the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Blue Sheet.

Commissioner clarifies status of fishing regulations

Here's the press release.

The situation with Cook Inlet beach seines seems particularly noteworthy.

Salmon outlook

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute has posted its annual salmon market bulletin.

The advent of the charter halibut stamp

Read about it here.

F/V Arctic Sea remains aground at St. George Island

Here's a situation report from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Station Papa out?

The Alaska Marine Community Coalition is sounding the alarm about the Trump administration moving to dismantle "one of the world's most advanced ocean monitoring systems."

This includes Station Papa, a key site in the Gulf of Alaska.

"Station Papa has been collecting ocean data since the Cold War era, making it one of the longest continuous ocean records in the North Pacific," AMCC writes in this blog post.

With ocean changes evolving rapidly and events such as salmon and crab crashes and marine heatwaves becoming more common, the group argues "we need more information about our oceans, not less."