More marketing money

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute says it has secured $8.5 million in new federal funding to increase international marketing.

"While these funds will help ASMI grow our international efforts, they will also allow ASMI to direct additional state funds toward the U.S. market, where consumer demand for seafood has fallen dramatically," ASMI Executive Director Jeremy Woodrow says in this press release.

Bart Eaton crosses the bar

Bart Eaton, who died Dec. 14, was "an icon in the Alaska fishing industry," says this remembrance from Trident Seafoods.

Juneau watch

Gov. Mike Dunleavy is proposing $10 million for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute to spend over a three-year period.

The funding would allow ASMI to implement "a comprehensive marketing plan in the U.S. domestic market to recover lost sales and historically low ex-vessel values across all commercially harvested Alaska seafood species," a budget description says.

One goal of the marketing plan is to "counter the Marine Stewardship Council ecolabel that continues to certify Russian seafood in the global marketplace," the description says.

Washington watch

A huge year-end funding bill includes $300 million in a section titled "fisheries disaster assistance."

The bill is meant to avert a government shutdown, but some GOP lawmakers and President-elect Trump don't like it.

A done deal in Kodiak

Pacific Seafood has completed its acquisition of Trident's Kodiak processing operations. Here's a press release.

John Bruce crosses the bar

A celebration of life for John Bruce is set for Jan. 18 in Poulsbo, Washington.

We best remember Bruce as a former chairman of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council's Advisory Panel.

State posts Southeast Chinook run forecasts

Details in this advisory announcement.