November 26, 2021 — An Alaska legislative committee heard from state and federal fisheries officials earlier in the month prior to a critical regional meeting on halibut bycatch.
The three-hour meeting centered on bycatch concerns with chinook and chum salmon, crab and halibut. Commissioner Douglas Vincent-Lang of the Department and Fish and Game spoke first about catastrophic chum salmon returns in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. Bycatch is the unintentional harvest of non-target species while commercial fishing.
According to state data, the Yukon alone was down this year by roughly 1.5-2 million chum salmon from pre-season projections. Chum salmon bycatch by trawlers, which has been rising in recent years, cannot alone explain those reduced numbers, Vincent-Lang said, and the state will now try to determine what caused the historic Western Alaska salmon failures.
But, it was halibut bycatch limits for trawlers that target pollock and cod in the Bering Sea that proved more controversial.
Read the full story at Alaska’s News Source