2022 Seafood Donations to Yukon River Villages Via SeaShare Reach 74,000 Pounds
For a second year in a row, the Seattle-based nonprofit SeaShare has coordinated delivery of thousands of pounds of salmon to communities along Alaska’s Yukon River whose residents were banned from commercial and subsistence fishing, due to weak runs of wild salmon.
SeaShare officials coordinate the donations of fish from harvesters and processors and logistics companies in Alaska to get the fish to communities in need.
This year’s donations from Bristol Bay and Kodiak seafood processors includes 74,000 pounds of frozen king and chum salmon, which is 20,000 more pounds than in 2021. Donors included Alaska General Seafoods, Leader Creek Fisheries, North Pacific Seafood, OBI Seafoods, Silver Bay Seafoods and Trident Seafoods.
For a second year in a row Kwik’Pak, a subsidiary of the Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association, received, repackaged and sent boxes of frozen salmon to villages along the Lower Yukon. Alaska Marine Lines, Northern Air Cargo and Everts Air cargo provided no-cost logistics and transportation from Naknek to Emmonak.
SeaShare also sent some 25,000 pounds of salmon from Kodiak to Fairbanks at the end of August, with help from the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak. Those fish were distributed to villages on the middle Yukon by the Tanana Chiefs Conference.
SeaShare coordinated shipments to Emmonak and Fairbanks and covered the costs not fully donated. The remote villages received a total of 296,000 seafood servings to help them survive the long winter.
SeaShare was founded in 1994 to help the seafood industry donate to hunger-relief efforts nationwide. It began with a small group of commercial fishermen in Alaska who took fish caught unintentionally and required by law to be thrown back into the ocean and gave those fish to food banks.
Today, 90% of the seafood distributed by SeaShare is first-run marketable fish donated by harvesters and processors. More about SeaShare is available at www.seashare.org.
