April 2, 2020 — The escalating COVID-19 crisis places the 2020 Alaska salmon fishery in question, as the industry works on solutions to getting thousands of workers to the remote state without spreading the highly infectious coronavirus.
As many as 15,000 workers can descend on Alaska from the other US states and overseas for the season, but numbers are expected to be lower than this in 2020, if indeed the industry can find a workable solution, sources told Undercurrent News.
“If you asked me a month ago that a situation like this would be possible, that I was contemplating that the successful prosecution of our 2020 salmon fishery couldn’t take place, I would not have believed you,” said Norm Van Vactor, executive director of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation (BBEDC), a community development quota group, which owns half of processor Ocean Beauty Seafoods.
“If you know what we know today — and we don’t know a lot — then the prosecution of the fishery is in question,” Van Vactor told Undercurrent. “I’m optimistic that if we all pull together — understanding that communities are going to put health and public safety first, and that’s the foundation of how we move forward — we can make it happen, to some extent.”