December 22, 2022 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council met in Anchorage during the second week in December. Among items on its agenda the panel was to deliberate on action steps to mitigate the incidental take of chum and chinook salmon, red king crab, opilio crab and other species that come up in the tows of pollock trawlers.
Many from Kuskokwim and Yukon River villages, the crabbing industry and those representing other interests had hoped the council would take immediate action to close down trawling in vast areas of the Bering Sea.
That didn’t happen.
“The council has decided to protect the status quo and allow the trawl fleets to continue catching and discarding prohibited species such as chum salmon, chinook salmon and crab while entire western Alaska runs and crab stocks are in collapse,” says Lindsey Bloom, a campaign strategist, with SalmonState, in Juneau. “This is a total failure in fisheries management.”