STATEMENT: Fisheries Council Fails Alaska Salmon 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – This week, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council failed to take meaningful action to reduce chum salmon bycatch by the Bering Sea pollock fleet, despite requests from over 150 Tribes to adopt meaningful bycatch limits. The council adopted a bycatch limit, which is an important step. However, the limit is very high and is limited to a very small area, allowing unlimited bycatch to occur outside this area. Half of the chum salmon caught as bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery are from Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Becca Robbins Gisclair, Ocean Conservancy’s Senior Director, Arctic & Northern Waters, issued this statement in response:

“The Council’s action today is an important step forward in setting limits on the number of chum salmon that can be caught as bycatch by the multi-billion dollar pollock fleet. But this doesn’t go far enough – the Council stepped an inch forward when a mile was needed. It continues to protect the pollock fleet at the expense of chum salmon and the Alaskan communities who depend on them. In the last 35 years, trawlers have caught more than 6.3 million chum salmon while traditional Tribal harvests have been reduced to zero in some rivers. This action is a business as usual approach that ignores the science and Traditional Knowledge supporting meaningful bycatch reductions.”

Last month, Ocean Conservancy and the Alaska Marine Community Coalition published a study showing that the pollock industry’s recent research failed to account for the fishery’s negative impacts, while overstating the economic benefit of the fishery for everyday Alaskans. Notably, the industry’s own research shows that roughly two-thirds of the profit from pollock trawling leaves Alaska.

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