Whatever the task force recommends, there are worries that any resulting actions on bycatch will be too slow. “The changes we’re experiencing in the ecosystem are occurring faster than our ability to respond,” said Lauren Mitchell, a Sitka fisher.
Spawning salmon swim on Sept. 7, 2005, in the Grand Central River on western Alaska’s Seward Peninsula. Salmon-dependent villagers in western Alaska believe trawlers harvesting pollock and other groundfish in the Bering Sea are intercepting too many salmon that would otherwise return to rivers and lakes to spawn. , the unintended at-sea harvest of non-target species, the stakes in Alaska are high.
Stakes are also high for the commercial industry and for communities that depend on trawling, representatives said. Trawling is a term for fishing with a large, wide net that a ship drags, often to harvest groundfish near the sea bottom. The Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force meets on Oct. 12 at the William A. Egan Civic and Convention Center. Jon Warrenchuk, senior scientist with Oceana, is at far left, testifying about research needs; Doug Vincent-Lang, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, is at far right. The task force is due to present its final report to Gov. Mike Dunleavy by the end of November.
Possibly most striking is a draft recommendation for a firm numerical cap on chum salmon taken as bycatch in the Bering Sea’s industrial-scale pollock trawl fishery, a measure that managers have beenIn 2021, the Bering Sea pollock fishery – one of the world’s largest seafood harvests – netted about 540,000 chum salmon as bycatch, along with halibut, crab and other species.
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