The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation unanimously passed a seafood bill on April 30 to fight illegal fishing. The legislation would rely on efforts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which Sen. Dan Sullivan said is already struggling to complete key fisheries surveys.Sullivan co-sponsored the Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvest, or FISH, Act with seven other senators, including Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Sullivan said he hopes it will help fight unfair trade practices and give a boost to Alaska’s fishing industry.

Facing potential endangered species status for Gulf of Alaska king salmon, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is rolling out fishing restrictions across western Alaska.

For decades, the Bering Sea herring fishery has provided bait fish for crabbers.

The Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which studies and helps oversee Alaska’s marine resources, may have lost more than 5% of its staff at once.

Dunleavy responded to fears over the bill in a video, doubling down on his assertion that it would not open opportunities for salmon farming.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which manages federal fisheries off Alaska’s coast, wrapped up its February meeting Tuesday, with one issue dominating discussions: salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea. The 15-member council unanimously approved a motion that inches forward a decision that will finally put to bed the issue of pollock trawlers’ chum salmon bycatch, which has become the biggest fisheries issue in over a decade.

The issue pits a multibillion-dollar industry against Western Alaska subsistence communities struggling with record-low salmon returns — with climate change in the background.

Earlier this month, commercial snow crabs started hitting Unalaska’s docks again, for the first time in nearly three years. The Bering Sea snow crab fishery reopened in mid-October, after billions of the crab disappeared and the fishery was shut down in October 2022. This season’s first catch was delivered on Jan. 15. Opilio, or snow crab, is generally fished in the new year and into the early spring. The season runs through the end of May.

This season, the Bering Sea snow crab fishery opened for the first time in two years, and the first boats began delivering to processors on Jan. 15. But the Trident Seafoods facility in St. Paul — which the company calls the “largest crab processing plant in the world” — isn’t taking any crab.