Democrat Mary Peltola, the former representative challenging Senator Dan Sullivan (R – Alaska), recently took a trip to several Western Alaska villages. She posted videos from each stop. 

In a video she posted from Tooksok Bay, Peltola referenced serious conversations she had with elders. She said, “The number one thing is stopping factory trawling, getting abundance back in our oceans and rivers.”

But days later, Peltola met with Coastal Village Region Fund (CVRF) – one of six Community Development Quota (CDQ) groups in Western Alaska. CVRF is the only CDG group that operates their own factory trawlers. The other CDQ groups have heavily invested in the federal groundfish fisheries, but don’t operates factory trawlers. All the CDQs except CVRF lease out their quotas. 

CDQ groups provide tens of millions of dollars per year to Western Alaska communities. The CDQ program began in 1992 as part of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

According to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council website, the purpose of the CDQ program is to:

• (i) to provide eligible western Alaska villages with the opportunity to participate and invest in fisheries in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area;
• (ii) to support economic development in western Alaska;
• (iii) to alleviate poverty and provide economic and social benefits for residents of western Alaska; and
• (iv) to achieve sustainable and diversified local economies in western Alaska.

The interesting thing is that Tooksok Bay, the village where Peltola said the number one thing is to stop factory trawling, has heavily benefitted from the CDG program. 

CVRF, not wanting to waste a good PR opportunity, recently made a Facebook post saying that Tooksok Bay has received $9.6 million from the CDQ program in the last seven years. 

CVRF’s post about Peltola was later posted in the unhinged Facebook group “STOP Alaskan Trawler Bycatch,” run by David Bayes. The comments section is filled with gems like, “Hard to be pro-CDQ and anti-trawl at the same time…..” and “She’ll probably get a lifetime supply of Pollock.” 

The anti-trawler rhetoric, started by Peltola in 2022 with her “Fish, family, and freedom” slogan, has spilled over into the open governor’s race. Several gubernational candidates have adopted the populist anti-trawler position, encouraged by Bayes and his ilk. But so far, none have been willing to debate anyone from the trawl industry.