An Alaska crab fishing group is calling for President Obama to ban imports of seafood from Russia.
The Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers issued a statement claiming there’s been a spike in illegal, unreported and unregulated crab fishing in Russia’s waters in the past two decades. This comes in response to a recent Russian ban on US seafood, which was in response to US and international sanctions.
Executive Director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Mark Gleason says Russian illegal crab fishing is not a new phenomenon.
“I mean this is an issue that’s been going on since the fall of the Soviet Union. There’s been illegal crab fishing in and adjacent to the Russian EEZ for decades and that crab has flooded the US market and the world market as well.”
Gleason says the ABSC is able to tell that Russia is harvesting large amount of crab illegally by looking at reports from the McDowell Group in Juneau. He says the report showed 99 million pounds of exports more than what is officially recorded and regulated from Russia.
US Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski and Congressman Don Young wrote a letter to Obama earlier this week urging him to respond to the Russian import ban. Gleason says he’s pleased that the Alaskan delegation seems to understand the importance and is trying to do something.
“I mean for my perspective, given the situation in the Ukraine and given the situation with Russia as a whole, I mean, Russia has clearly shown that they’re willing to use their energy, issues and food and any other economic tools that they have at their disposal to achieve their foreign policy objectives. From our perspective, until they are able to ensure the law and ensure that the crab that they export has been legally harvested we feel why should the United States provide a market for that illegal product?”
Alaska fisheries sell about $60 million worth of seafood to Russia each year and another $68 million to Ukraine.