Zeke Grader, Lifetime Advocate for Fish and Fishermen, Passes Away  Zeke Grader, a lifelong representative of fishermen and staunch advocate for sustainable seafood, passed away this week in San Francisco. He was 68. Grader was the longtime executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. More recently he was the executive director of the Institute for Fisheries Resources until he retired this past summer. Zeke was an early advocate of seafood sustainability, and was particularly passionate about protecting wild salmon. “There are a lot of guys who would say that there wouldn't’t have been any small boat commercial salmon fishermen for 20 years at least if not for Zeke Grader,” said Tim Sloane, who took over Grader’s post as head of the Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. In addition to his wife Lois Prentice, , he is survived by his mother, Geraldine Grader of Fort Bragg, sisters Allison Grader of Reston, Virginia, and Lindsay Grader of Sacramento, and a brother, Samuel Grader of Fort Bragg. A memorial is being planned. Live lobster demand in China has grown exponentially in recent years and so has the North American industry’s capacity to effectively send more new shell products to the market. Improvements to packaging and a more robust, direct distribution chain between North American and Asia have helped ease the difficulties in shipping more delicate new shell lobsters overseas according to industry participants. In other news Jeff Regnart the soon to be former director of the ADF&G’s commercial fisheries division said he will step down from his post with Alaska’s fish stocks in great shape. "The resources look healthy across the board. There always will be natural ups and downs but for the most part things look as good as they’ve looked for quite a few years, doesn’t matter if it’s groundfish or p cod or pollock, salmon,” he said. Regnart announced his semi-retirement, effective in October, earlier this week. Finally, Russian Aquaculture has been accused of dumping tons of rotten salmon in a village south of Murmansk. Representatives of the regional Ministry of Natural Resources together with veterinary authorities and other public bodies confirmed that the owner of a nearby agriculture farm and the Russian Aquaculture had signed a deal on dumping of the fish. An investigation into the matter is now underway. Have a great weekend.