After 10-Year Crab Review, Council Seeks Social 
Impact Information
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council conducted a 10-year review of Alaska's crab rationalization program last week. According to the review, the program has helped rebuild some of Alaska's crab stocks and has reduced the fishery's crab fleet by more than 60 percent. Both crew and vessel revenues are now much higher since before the program was implemented. Meanwhile, the council voted to create a working group dedicated to social impact studies from the program. The next review of the rationalization program is scheduled for 2020.
Russia's Federal Security Service said it prevented an attempt by the region's crab mafia to gain control of crab resources in the Far East. The agency recently arrested Yury Khokhlov, an adviser and close representative of Ilya Shestakov, head of the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries (Rosrybolovstvo). The arrest was prompted for suspicion that Khokhlov took a $3 million bribe in order to appoint a specific, unnamed person to lead the Kamchatka Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (TINRO), one of Russia’s leading research institutions in the field of fishing. TINRO controls a large crab quota, which is used to fund its research.
In other news, seven Cambodian factory workers filed a lawsuit in California federal court against several Thai seafood companies and their California subsidiaries claiming they were victims of human trafficking. The complaint states that the defendants were part of a joint venture that knowingly profited from trafficked labor in direct violation of both U.S. and international law. The companies named in the lawsuit all sell shrimp and seafood to the US market.
Meanwhile, the Gulf Reef Shareholder's Alliance issued a statement opposing a House subcommittee decision to advance legislation that would transfer Gulf red snapper management away from federal regulators in favor of a state-run scheme. This week the House Committee on Natural Resources voted in favor of House Resolution 3094, also known as the Gulf State Red Snapper Management Act. The bill shifts red snapper fishery management responsibilities away from federal officials with NMFS in order to establish a Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority panel. “If Congress passes H.R. 3094, it’s setting a dangerous precedent for fishermen in every region of the United States,” said Eric Brazer, Deputy Director of the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance.
Finally, the seafood industry is coming back to Boston's historic Fish Pier. It is now nearly fully occupied with 15 tenants — part of a booming secondary trade of more than 60 seafood processing businesses in and near the South Boston waterfront. “Just like a Ford has parts from different parts of the world, I think Boston is becoming this seaport hub, and that allows us to be very successful,” said Stavis Seafoods CEO Richard Stavis.
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