August 15, 2022 — Healthy and sustainable Alaska fisheries are important for everyone in our state. Last November, Gov. Mike Dunleavy took action to build on Alaska’s record as a fisheries conservation leader by creating the Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force, or ABRT. As chairman of the ABRT, I want to provide an update on our work and share how members of the public can engage.
Bycatch is an important issue, and Gov. Dunleavy created this task force to ensure that a broad cross-section of Alaskans are involved in reviewing its impacts and making recommendations. The task force is composed of 13 public members — including Western Alaska in-river users, fishermen, community representatives and two legislative non-voting members. All task force members are committed to doing the work the governor set out in Administrative Order (AO) 326.
While the full task force has continued to meet monthly, four distinct subcommittees have also been established. The objective of these subcommittees is to ensure that we examine bycatch from a range of angles, covering different areas and species of interest. Three separate subcommittees are working to review bycatch issues affecting Western Alaska salmon, Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands crab, and Gulf of Alaska salmon and halibut. The fourth subcommittee is focused specifically on science, technology and innovation. These subcommittees have been meeting multiple times a month, working hard to gather information that can help build alignment around paths forward.