Zeke Grader, a lifelong conservationist who loved wild fish, wild rivers and the good fight necessary to protect them, has died. He was 68.

Grader died Monday of pancreatic cancer at a San Francisco hospice, Tim Sloane, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, said in a statement.

From 1976 until this summer, Mr. Grader held the executive director position for the federation, the largest trade group of commercial fishermen on the West Coast. He represented commercial fishermen in their efforts to keep streams and rivers flowing, the San Francisco Bay healthy and wild salmon and other native fish plentiful and viable.

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