The Unalaska City Council took up the issue of salmon bycatch at its two January meetings, ultimately agreeing to support industry-run bycatch avoidance programs.
Salmon bycatch has been a flashpoint for years. And the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which oversees federal fisheries in Alaska, including in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, will now weigh in on whether to impose stricter limits on chum salmon bycatch at its upcoming February meeting.
That’s got Unalaska leaders worried the decision could threaten the pollock industry that underpins the island’s economy.
“This is one of the most important items in the last few years," said Frank Kelty, the city’s fisheries consultant at the city council’s Jan. 13 meeting.
Kelty warned council members that proposed limits could have major consequences for the community, whose economy revolves around the fishery.
Kelty told council members that the pollock B season — which accounts for about 60% of the annual pollock harvest — is particularly at risk.
He pointed to one proposal that would cap incidental catch of chum salmon at 100,000. Kelty said under that scenario, the pollock B season would have shut down early in eleven of the past twelve years.
That, he said, would ripple through Unalaska’s economy — affecting processors, harvesters, city revenues and support businesses, like refrigeration companies.
Western Alaska wants action
Trawl boats use large nets to scoop up a specific species of fish, but they often catch other types of fish too. This incidental catch, called “bycatch,” has been a hot button issue for decades.
The issue has taken on new urgency as salmon returns to western Alaska rivers have collapsed in recent years. Runs on the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers have reached crisis levels, forcing repeated closures of subsistence fisheries that Native communities depend on for food.
At the same time, the Bering Sea pollock fleet continues to catch and discard chum salmon as bycatch. In some years, the fleet has caught more chum salmon than subsistence users along the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers are allowed to harvest, fueling anger and frustration.
But scientists and federal managers say research shows the majority of chum bycatch isn’t actually from the Y-K region.
Genetic testing indicates that only a portion of chum salmon caught as bycatch originates from Western Alaska rivers, while most comes from hatchery fish from Asia, or from stocks from outside the region, including the Gulf of Alaska and Pacific Northwest.
Still, communities in Western Alaska have argued that trawlers scoop up the region’s dwindling chum runs. And controlling bycatch is the simplest fix for a complex problem.
Industry says ‘no' to hard caps
But many in the trawl sector fear that new limits would devastate their industry.
Caitlin Yeager is the executive director of the At-Sea Processors Association, an industry group that represents the catcher-processor fleet in the Bering Sea. She told Unalaska City council members that the fleet is already making strides to reduce bycatch in areas where Western Alaska chum bycatch is likely.
She said hard caps on trawlers, which many groups in the Yukon and Kuskokwim region support, would be disastrous for seafood-processing communities like Unalaska.
“That means that vessels are tied up at the dock. Our processing lines are empty. You have fewer deliveries. And this is an echoing shockwave throughout the community,” Yeager said.
Yeager said the At-Sea Processors Association favors targeted tools — like time-and-area closures and real-time genetic testing — over hard caps. That’s another suite of proposals under consideration by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.
“We need to maintain a degree of flexibility to adapt and continue these improvements without shutting down the fishery and shutting down coastal economies with it,” she said.
The city council ultimately passed a resolution that supports bycatch rules that don’t shut down the fishery. The city will file its public testimony with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council ahead of the February meeting.
