Regulators and Alaska salmon fishermen clash on Bering Sea bycatch reduction

Alaskan commercial salmon fishing groups and advocates are lashing out at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) for failing to take any action to reduce Alaska chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery.

“Today’s North Pacific Fishery Management Council process does not work for the majority of Alaskans,” SalmonState Executive Director Tim Bristol said. “The council’s inaction in the face of the passionate, informed testimony is disappointing but no longer surprising. When common sense adjustments and desperately needed changes to trawling are deemed ‘impracticable’ due to their potential negative impact on trawler profits, you have a clear case of regulatory capture.”

The NPFMC wrapped up a week of discussions and testimony around reducing the bycatch of salmon originating in Alaska by announcing its intention to further evaluate several reduction measures, with a final action not expected to take place until the end of 2024.

Salmon fishermen blame the industrial pollock fleet, which is allowed to take a significant number of salmon as bycatch, for damaging Alaska’s chum salmon stocks. The pollock industry argues that most of the salmon it catches doesn’t originate in Alaska waters, and NPFMC said the major cause of the decline in chum salmon is warming waters. Still, salmon fishing groups said it’s unfair that the pollock fleet is allowed to continue catching so much chum salmon as bycatch even as Alaskan salmon fisheries are closed.

At its October meeting, the NPFMC accepted recommendations from its Scientific and Statistical Committee, Advisory Panel, and public input from more than 50 people on the bycatch issue. However, the council declined to take any definitive action, instead opting to conduct an impact analysis on four management changes, including:

• A cap on salmon chum bycatch in the pollock fishery ranging from 200,000 to 550,000 total chum, or 35,400 to 97,350 coastal western Alaska chum salmon;
• Caps that are triggered by annual run strength indications from the Yukon River, Kuskokwim River, and Norton Sound region;
• An annual cap on bycatch ranging from 40,000 to 53,000 Western Alaska chum salmon;
• Closing areas to pollock trawling when chum is present.

The review of the impact analysis won’t take place until mid-2024, with a final action taken by December 2024. Salmon fishing advocates were livid that the council declined to take immediate action, arguing that the suggested solutions still favored pollock trawling over Alaskan salmon fishing.

“After hearing from many Alaskans who have not fished for at least three years in Western Alaska and across the entire Yukon because of record chum crashes, the Council offered up a range of bycatch limits that rewards industry based on the second highest bycatch peak this century,” Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association Executive Director Amy Sparck said. “Without a hard cap, any of the alternatives the Council is considering to allow the pollock fleet to prosecute does nothing to measurably allow more Western Alaska chum back up their rivers.”

The Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission “takes a Tribal-led, gravel-to-gravel approach to salmon management, and we've been pushing the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Council to uphold this on their side of the salmon ecosystem through meaningful, ecosystem-based bycatch management,” KRITFC Executive Director Kevin Whitworth said. “We are disappointed that this approach isn't reflected in the council's October action, which signals the council and agency's intent to continue to prioritize pollock harvests and industry-led management of chum salmon bycatch.”

Alaska salmon fishing advocates are hopeful that changes to the national standards that guide regional fishery management council decisions will tilt regulations in their favor. NOAA Fisheries is considering changes to multiple national standards under the Magnuson-Stevens Act involving environmental justice, climate change, equity in the representation of local fishing communities, and trawl bycatch. Alaskan salmon groups are hopeful changes to those standards would give them a bigger voice in NPFMC decision-making and an edge in their bycatch battle with the pollock trawling fleet.

“The council’s decisions on chum salmon management at this meeting are a painful reminder of why changes are needed to the guidelines that govern Council actions,” Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association Director Linda Behnken said.

Photo courtesy of NOAA Fisheries