The notion that Alaskan pollock are a sustainably caught fish took a mighty blow final week when the Nationwide Marine Fisheries Service closed the Gulf of Alaska pollock trawl fishery after a pair of midwater trawlers reported the bycatch of two,000 more and more uncommon Chinook salmon in a single day.
And it’s not an remoted incident. In accordance with the advocacy group SalmonState, noticed salmon bycatch numbers within the Gulf of Alaska report that just about 35,000 chinook salmon, nearly 45,000 chum salmon and practically 4 million kilos of halibut have been snatched up by trawl nets to date this yr. Moreover, greater than 800,000 crabs and three million kilos of Alaskan herring have additionally been noticed as bycatch on pollock trawlers.
“This can be a get up name for all Alaskans,” mentioned SalmonState Govt Director Tim Bristol. “Fortunately the vessel that caught these salmon had digital monitoring on board, however what would have occurred if it was one of many majority of the boats fishing the Gulf of Alaska with out human or digital observer protection?”
Lately, solely about 32 % of boats trawling within the Gulf of Alaska have had observer protection. That leaves many opponents of continued pollock trawling within the Gulf of Alaska involved that reported bycatch numbers are however a sliver of the particular whole of untargeted fish caught and killed in trawl nets.
As of final week’s closure, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch listed Alaskan walleye pollock as a sustainable fishery. On its web site, SW’s “pollock shopping for information” recommends shoppers purchase Alaskan walleye pollock as long as it is clearly labeled as “caught in Alaska.” Hatch Journal contacted Seafood Watch via its web site and requested if a change within the group’s advice was forthcoming within the wake of the NMFS pollock fishery closure. As of publication, there was no response.
Alaskan pollock is a quite common fish on menus throughout the US. Chances are high, should you’ve had a fish sandwich from nearly any fast-food restaurant — like McDonald’s filet-o-fish sandwich, as an illustration — you’ve eaten Alaskan pollock. Amongst many different makes use of, pollock is often utilized in producing fish shares, fish meal, imitation crab meat, fish sticks, and is typically used as a substitute for cod or haddock to make fish and chips.
Information of the closure was welcomed by advocacy teams, leisure fishing lodges, sort out sellers and even seafood eating places that insist on serving sustainable merchandise to prospects.
“In a time when native Alaska fisheries try to outlive on repeatedly reducing allowable catch limits of salmon and halibut, it’s nicely overdue that the biggest destroyer of Alaska’s most interesting seafood species is held accountable,” mentioned Scott Van Valin, proprietor of El Capitan Lodge, a leisure fishing lodge on Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska. “There isn’t a getting round the truth that the substantial bycatch ranges of salmon, halibut and crab by the trawl fleet is unsustainable to the useful resource and comes on the expense of each different person group that participates in Alaska fisheries. It’s time for important change.”
The closure was introduced by the NMFS on Sept. 25 by a easy decree, and aimed toward boats that use trawl gear to catch pollock.
“The Nationwide Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is prohibiting directed fishing for pollock by vessels utilizing trawl gear within the Central Regulatory Space of the Gulf of Alaska” via the top of the yr, the service declared. The order, given by Jonathan M. Kurland, regional administrator of the NMFS’s Alaska area, is meant to maintain the industrial pollock fishery from exceeding the 2024 bycatch restrict for Chinook salmon.
The king salmon inhabitants throughout Alaska has declined steadily because the flip of the century. Lately, chinook runs within the Yukon-Kuskokwim river drainage have dramatically declined. In April of this yr, on the North Pacific Fishery Administration Council assembly in Anchorage, SalmonState delivered greater than 700 feedback from Alaskans expressing their alarm over the chinook bycatch reported by observers on pollock trawlers.
“The Bering Sea is an ecosystem, not a pollock manufacturing unit, and it’s previous time it’s managed that manner,” Bristol mentioned on the assembly. “Conventional, subsistence, small-boat and directed fishermen shouldn’t be bearing the burden of conservation for an issue they didn’t create whereas the pollock trawl fleet continues with enterprise as ordinary.”
And the salmon bycatch isn’t one thing that’s simply now rearing its head. In a 2021 bycatch administration information from the NMFS, it was reported that 141 million kilos of salmon, halibut, crab and herring are caught and discarded each single yr as bycatch. As salmon populations within the Yukon-Kuskokwim basin have plummeted — leaving subsistence fishermen with out fish — the pollock fishery has continued trawling. What’s extra, the “midwater” trawlers have been really discovered to be fishing nearer to the underside, and even on the underside of the ocean more often than not.
“Whereas it ought to by no means have needed to come to this stage of disaster,” mentioned Troy Arnold, proprietor of B&J Sporting Items in Anchorage, “it’s good that the Nationwide Marine Fisheries Service is lastly recognizing these boundaries and the worth of salmon to Alaskans, and asking the trawl fleet to face down as 1000’s of us Alaskans have needed to do within the identify of salmon conservation in recent times.”
