Image: Alaska Area, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service/Flickr
Bycatch– when one types of fish is captured by boats fishing for another types– is typically mentioned as a contributing element to salmon decreases, specifically in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The trawling fleets that fish for pollock in the Bering Sea are permitted a particular variety of fish annually as appropriate bycatch; for instance, if a lot of king salmon appear in bycatch, the pollock fishery can instantly be closed down.
Today, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which manages business fishing in the Bering Sea, will think about restricting trawlers’ bycatch of friend salmon in the Bering Sea pollock pelagic trawl fishery.
According to a news release from SalmonState, from 2014 to 2023, more than 300,000 friend salmon were captured and primarily disposed of each year, usually. At that exact same time, some Western Alaska neighborhoods have actually seen limitations put on their friend salmon fisheries.
” It’s inappropriate that massive Seattle-based trawlers have no limitations to their friend salmon bycatch while Alaska Native, little boat commercial and sport anglers are bearing the concerns with limitations, restrictions, and empty smokehouses, freezers, and closed organizations,” stated Jackie Arnaciar Boyer, SalmonState’s Ocean Justice Program Organizer. “We’ll be searching for the Council to take significant action. Developing a significant cap on friend salmon trawl bycatch when there is presently none and Alaskans are going without is far from unreasonable.”
Click here to learn more about bycatch and other issues facing Alaskan salmon
