Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Chinook bycatch shuts down pollock fishery in Central Gulf of Alaska

October 8, 2024 — Commercial fishing for pollock in the Central Gulf of Alaska came to a halt on Sept. 25, leaving 50,000 tons of the whitefish in the water, when shut down by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to prevent exceeding the limit on Chinook salmon prohibited species catch (PSC). The action taken by Jon M. Kurland, regional administrator for the Alaska Region of NMFS, came after the captain of one of 19 trawlers fishing for pollock in the Central Gulf pulled up a net with an estimated 2,000 Chinook salmon.

The Chinook prohibited species catch in this pollock trawl fisheries is 18,316 Chinook salmon. As of Sept. 27, NMFS data indicated the PSC estimate for Chinook salmon in the central Gulf pollock fishery at 19,665 fish. In last week’s incident, the captain immediately notified the partner trawler he was fishing with and they both notified the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank of the bycatch. Both are local vessels based in Kodiak.

Total PSC estimates are calculated using verified information collected by observers.

“This was unprecedented,” said Julie Bonney, owner and executive director of the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank. “Over the last 20 years, there has never been that much prohibit species salmon taken in one tow of the trawlers fishing in the Central Gulf for pollock.”

Measures taken by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to minimize bycatch worked —but the cost to fishermen, processors and the city of Kodiak will be in the millions of dollars, Bonney said. The 19 trawlers had caught just 18,000 tons of pollock.

Closing down the fishery left 50,000 tons of pollock in the ocean, which will impact jobs of commercial fishing crews, processing company workers, and myriad businesses that are engaged with the fishing industry. Bonney said she even got a call from a Kodiak man whose company services vending machines in the processing facilities in Kodiak.

Read the full article at The Cordova Times

New Evidence of Seasonal and Temperature-Driven Movement of Alaska Pollock across the U.S.-Russia Maritime Boundary

June 22, 2024 — Scientists placed specially designed moorings, equipped with sonar, on the seafloor to acoustically monitor pollock abundance and movements between U.S. and Russian waters. They found that a substantial amount of pollock travel between the two exclusive economic zones (EEZs) seasonally.

The study was conducted from summer 2019 to summer 2020. During this time, pollock moved southeast over the maritime boundary in winter as the sea ice formed. They were largely absent in late spring when ocean temperatures were near freezing and the sea ice was still present. They subsequently migrated northwest in late spring and early summer as waters warmed. The extent of the movement between EEZs) appears to be partially driven by water temperature.

When the moorings were deployed in summer 2019 the area was unusually warm. Following the winter migration into U.S. waters, conditions were cooler in summer 2020. Over the year of observations, 2.3 times more pollock moved into the U.S. EEZ in fall and winter then exited during the subsequent spring and summer. Scientists believe the cooler conditions in 2020 led to fewer pollock moving into Russian waters than had the previous year.

“There are some important implications for pollock management,” said Robert Levine, physical scientist and lead author on a new paper published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science. “Our research suggests that in years when water temperatures are warmer than average, the proportion of fish moving across the boundary will be greater.”

Scientists suspect that continued warming in the eastern Bering Sea will increase the proportion of the pollock stock found in Russian waters. Currently, pollock support the top U.S. commercial fishery, which harvests more than 1 million metric tons annually.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

ALASKA: Peltola sponsors a bill to limit salmon bycatch. The pollock industry calls it ‘unworkable.’

May 23, 2024 — Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola introduced two bills Wednesday that aim to deliver on one of her campaign themes: Reducing the number of salmon that the Bering Sea fishing fleet catches by accident.

One of the bills would curtail the use of fishing nets that scrape sensitive parts of the sea floor. It would require regional fisheries management councils to designate bottom trawl zones and limit that kind of fishing to those areas.

It also attempts to crack down on fishing gear that hits the sea floor but goes by a different name. Peltola said areas that are closed to bottom trawling off Alaska’s coast are too often open to pelagic trawling, which in theory means the nets are in the mid-water.

“I think 40 to 80% of the time, that ‘pelagic’ gear is actually on the bottom,” she said. “So I think that defining these terms and having a more accurate definition of what bottom trawl is, and the percentage of time that those nets are on the bottom, is really important.”

A second bill would increase the money available for a grant program that funds research and equipment to help fishing fleets reduce bycatch. That program would get up to $10 million per year, $7 million more than its current cap.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: NOAA denies emergency petition to zero out Alaska pollock fishery’s permitted king salmon bycatch

April 22, 2024 — NOAA Fisheries has denied a request for emergency action to institute a cap of zero on Chinook salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery, which would have closed the fishery for the first half of 2024.

Group’s representing Alaska’s commercial and recreational salmon fisheries and Native Alaskan groups have clashed with the Alaska pollock sector over the cause of smaller Chinook salmon runs and actions that can be taken to reverse the decline.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Alaska Pollock Fishery Alliance formed to create “more balanced conversation” around Alaska’s pollock trawl fishery

March 28, 2024 — The Alaska Pollock Fishery Alliance (APFA) was created on 7 March to provide unified industry representation of Alaska’s pollock trawl fishery in public forums.

APFA will have the goal of emphasizing the industry’s commitment to a science-based management approach and to sustainable harvesting of Alaska pollock.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Notable seafood product launches hitting US market in early 2024

February 7, 2024 —  A slew of new seafood products are hitting shelves and freezers in U.S. supermarkets in February 2024.

Essen, Germany-based retailer ALDI is offering specials on several of its private-label seafood products in February and is launching pollock portions for the first time. Available from 28 February onward, the pollock portions – coming in the form of sandwiches in original and dill pickle flavors under the company’s Fremont Fish Market brand – retail for USD 4.99 (EUR 4.60) each.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Cod harvests are down, a trend likely to continue

January 30, 2024 — Global cod landings are down 33 percent over the past decade, and the downward trend has accelerated over the past three years.

On 25 January, at the 2024 Global Seafood Market Conference in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A., Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers Director of Industry Relations, Partnerships, and Fishery Analysis Ron Rogness reported global cod catch declined to 1.12 million metric tons (MT) in 2023.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Federal fisheries managers hold Bering Sea pollock quota steady

December 20, 2023 — The total amount of pollock allowed to be scooped up by trawlers in the Bering Sea will stay the same in 2024. In its Dec. 9 meeting in Anchorage, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council moved to keep the total allowable catch for pollock at its current level of 1.3 million metric tons, a move that has generated criticism from conservationists, tribes and the trawling industry alike.

Alaska’s pollock fishery is responsible for the vast majority of salmon bycatch in the region. And amid alarming declines in returns of multiple species of salmon to Western Alaska rivers, the pollock trawl fishery has faced increasing criticism for its perceived role driving the crisis. But federal fisheries managers and the trawling industry pushed back, asserting that the claims are unfounded.

Trade organizations representing the trawl industry said during testimony at the council meeting that the decision to hold the pollock quota steady is misguided.

Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the At-Sea Processors Association, told the council the move could lead to missed opportunities to harvest increased numbers of mature pollock in the Bering Sea.

“We can’t bank them like some fish species. They will age out of the system and they will be not available to the fishery,” Madsen said.

Madsen also told the council that the industry request for a modest increase to the pollock quota, which was ultimately denied, was already a compromise.

“I would just remind you that the Russian fishery in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Western Bering Sea take more pollock than our Eastern Bering Sea pollock,” Madsen said. “So a 20,000 metric ton increase in the Eastern Bering Sea is likely to have very little impact on a global situation.”

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media