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Fighting for Alaska Fisheries

Mary Peltola in a skiff on the river, holding up two salmon.
“As someone who grew up salmon fishing on the Kuskokwim River with my father, I know firsthand that fish is more than food – it’s central to our Alaska way of life. But that way of life is under attack and the fish that fill our freezers are becoming harder and harder to find thanks to out-of-state factory trawlers. We don’t need more studies to tell us what’s happening in front of our eyes; Alaska needs bold action now to restore and protect our fish. I will fight for practical, Alaska-first solutions to restore our fisheries, strengthen our communities, and ensure that the next generation can experience the same abundance Alaskans have enjoyed for generations.”

Mary has spent her life fighting for Alaska fishermen, fisheries, and the communities they sustain. As a lifelong fisherman and a former permit holder, she’s seen firsthand the decline of salmon runs and the devastating impacts out-of-state trawlers are wreaking on our fisheries. She knows the stakes, and she’ll fight for bold action to save our fish and restore abundance for Alaskans.

Here’s how we fix it:

Banning Factory Trawling

  • For too long, out-of-state factory trawlers have exploited Alaska fisheries – creating excessive bycatch, and ravaging the ocean floor while Alaska fishermen and communities suffer the consequences. Mary will fight to ban factory trawling to protect our Alaska way of life.
  • Many trawler fleets are hiding behind mid-water or “pelagic” status, when the truth is many are just as bad as the bottom trawlers. These mid-water trawlers make bottom contact 80% of the time, damaging our fisheries and ecosystem along the way. Mary will fight to keep mid-water trawlers off bottom, ensuring that trawlers can’t hide behind outdated definitions and harm our fish stocks.

Restoring Our Fisheries

  • Mary has long fought to make sure that Alaska fishermen receive the aid they deserve to compensate for collapsing fish runs. She’ll continue to fight for robust fishery disaster funding – both immediate relief for fishermen and long-term funding for increasing resilience – to support Alaska fishermen, families, and coastal communities grappling with the devastating impacts of factory bottom trawling and rapidly changing fisheries.
  • Alaska fisheries cannot be managed on guesswork. Mary will stand up to anyone to fully fund fish stock assessments so that catch limits are based on accurate data, and Alaska fishermen aren’t being hit with outdated, unnecessarily strict restrictions.
  • It’s time to get serious about enforcing our National Standards on bycatch and fishery protection, because the collapse of Alaskans’ way of life cannot be accepted as collateral damage. Mary will demand the NOAA crack down on enforcing National Standards 8 and 9 and the entire Magnuson-Stevens Act to hold fishery councils accountable for prioritizing sustainable stocks, reducing bycatch, and protecting the communities most impacted by fishery declines.

Bringing Innovation Into Our Traditions

  • Alaskans should be leading the charge on innovation, especially when it can be leveraged to restore our fisheries and crack down on bad actors. Mary supports expanding the use of modern electronic monitoring and advanced technologies to detect wasteful bycatch in real time and hold industrial trawling fleets accountable for breaking our fishery protection regulations.

Strengthening Our Alaska Seafood Economy

  • Alaskans don’t believe in waste, but as a country we only use about 75% of each fish harvested – leaving money on the table in a livelihood with extremely tight margins. Mary will push for federal grants to help Alaska create a fish by-product economy, to turn what is currently discarded as waste into an industry that supports Alaska jobs, strengthens coastal economies, and reduces fishery waste.
  • Mary will always stand firmly with Alaska wild-caught fish and against the farmed fish economy. She will work to pass Don Young’s Keep Finfish Free Act, which would ban the federal government from pushing toward national finfish farm permitting.
  • Certain forms of mariculture represent a huge opportunity for Alaska. Mary will fight for federal funding to help Alaskans grow and market our mariculture industry to encourage farming non-fish ocean species like kelp and shellfish. This industry offers substantial, sustainable financial benefit to our state and offers Alaska another opportunity to lead the Blue economy as we always have.

Securing All Alaskans a Seat at the Table

  • The communities most impacted by declining fish runs should never be excluded or overpowered in decision-making about our fishery regulations. That’s why Mary supports locking in the current makeup of the federal subsistence board, to ensure that Alaskans are the ones making subsistence decisions.
  • Alaska Natives have kept our fisheries strong for generations, and they deserve a seat at the table. Mary will fight to create Tribal seats on the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council to ensure that Alaska – not Seattle or Oregon – is deciding how to tackle the issues our fisheries are facing.

More of Mary’s Plans

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Affordability

Affordability

As Lower 48 special interests keep getting richer and richer, life in Alaska keeps getting more expensive.

Fixing the Rigged System

Fixing the Rigged System

Mary knows that the only way to make DC work for Alaska is to get special interests out of our politics.

Anglers wade a fog-covered Alaska river at first light.

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