Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Newly proposed federal legislation aims to curb Alaska bycatch

January 15, 2026 — Alaska’s congressional delegation introduced legislation Wednesday that aims to reduce bycatch in parts of southwest Alaska using better marine data, technology and gear.

The Bycatch Reduction and Research Act, introduced by U.S. Sens. Dan Sullivan, Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Nick Begich, would address research gaps in environmental data and improve monitoring of fisheries in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska.

It would also establish a fund for fishermen to purchase updated technology and trawl gear to limit seafloor contact and bycatch. That’s when harvesters accidentally catch species they’re not targeting.

The proposed legislation builds on recommendations from the federal Alaska Salmon Research Task Force, which concluded in 2024 and aimed to better understand how humans cause declines in fish and crab species, including through factors like bycatch.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: New bycatch reduction, research act introduced in Congress

January 12, 2026 — Alaska’s congressional delegation has introduced new legislation aimed at improving data on bycatch reduction in the Gulf of Alaska Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.

The delegation announced the Bycatch Reduction and Research Act on Jan. 7, saying the aim is to improve marine environmental data collection, prioritize technology that supports research, bycatch reduction, protect marine seafloor habitat, and enhance electronic monitoring and electronic reporting in United States fisheries.

The legislation is drawing support from commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries entities.

“As both a commercial fisherman and a salmon scientist, I see the consequences of changing ocean conditions and management uncertainty on the water and in our communities,” said Michelle Stratton, executive director of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council and a former member of the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force. “This legislation comes at a pivotal time. Our coastal communities and food systems need thriving fisheries, and for that we need thriving ecosystems.”

Read the full article at the The Cordova Times

ALASKA: New quota system to start for trawl harvests of cod in Bering Sea and Aleutians

August 21, 2023 — Commercial fishermen netting Pacific cod from the Bering Sea and Aleutians region will be working under new individual limits starting next year designed to ease pressure on harvests that regulators concluded were too rushed, too dangerous and too prone to accidentally catch untargeted fish species.

The new system will require fishers who harvest cod by trawl – the net gear that scoops up fish swimming near the bottom of the ocean – to be part of designated cooperatives that will then have assigned quota shares. The fisheries service at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it has notified eligible participants and is asking for applications.

The cod-trawling program, to start next January, is the first new fishery quota system started since 2012 in federal waters off Alaska, according to NOAA Fisheries.

The Pacific cod harvest is the second-biggest commercial groundfish catch in the waters off Alaska, after pollock, according to NOAA Fisheries. The 2021 commercial harvest totaled 330.4 million pounds and was worth $86.5 million, according to NOAA Fisheries.

Read the full story at KTOO

NOAA Releases 2021 Ecosystem Status Reports for the Eastern Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, and Aleutian Islands

December 21, 2021 — These reports are a compilation of inputs from our own research and the work of many contributors from fishing, coastal and Alaska Native communities, academic institutions, the State of Alaska and other federal agencies.

Today, NOAA Fisheries released three key reports on the state of Alaska’s marine ecosystems. For more than two decades, Alaska has been using this ecosystem information to inform fisheries management decisions. To assess the status of Alaska’s marine ecosystems, scientists look at a variety of indicators.

For instance, they monitor oceanographic conditions. These include sea surface temperatures and temperatures near the sea floor, plankton, and wind and weather patterns in the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, and Aleutian Islands annually and over time.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

 

Fishing council ties bycatch limits on Bering Sea trawlers to halibut abundance

December 16, 2021 — The council that manages fishing in federal waters voted this week to link groundfish trawl fishing in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands to halibut abundance. The action caps — at least for now — a six-year debate about curbing halibut bycatch in Alaska.

For many who have been following that debate, the decision comes as a surprise because it’s expected to deal what trawlers say is a crushing blow to their fishery.

But members of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council said it was also important for them to consider how high levels of bycatch hurt small-boat halibut fishermen in Western Alaska — even if they didn’t go quite as far as advocates from those communities had hoped.

The action that ultimately passed Monday came from Rachel Baker, the deputy Fish and Game commissioner who represents Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration on the council. She said it will incentivize the trawl industry to reduce the halibut they incidentally catch in their nets.

When halibut stocks are low, the cap on prohibited species catch, or PSC, will also drop.

Read the full story at KTOO

Council cuts Alaska halibut bycatch caps for groundfish fleet

December 14, 2021 — With four proposed alternatives on the docket to amend the management of halibut bycatch in Alaska’s Amendment 80 groundfish trawl fleet, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted Monday, Dec. 13, to approve a compromise between Alternatives 3 and 4.

“The preferred alternative balances the interests of the two largest halibut user groups in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands — the directed commercial halibut fishery and the Amendment 80 sector — by establishing abundance-based halibut [bycatch] limits for the Amendment 80 sector,” said Rachel Baker, deputy commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish & Game, who devised and presented the compromise to the council.

The bulk of public comments called for significant changes, with many halibut stakeholders urging council members to support Alternative 4.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

NPFMC approaches pivotal decision on halibut bycatch, with USD 100 million potentially at stake

December 9, 2021 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) is once again considering whether or not to implement abundance-based management for halibut bycatch on the groundfish fleet, a decision stakeholders say could cost Alaska’s Amendment 80 fleet over USD 100 million (EUR 88 million).

The council faces four separate alternatives on how to handle the amount of halibut bycatch the Amendment 80 fleet – which harvests various flatfish, rockfish, Atka mackerel, Pacific Ocean perch, and Pacific cod in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska – should be allowed to catch. The four alternatives call for the council to either continue with the status quo on halibut bycatch, or ask the Amendment 80 fleet to reduce it by various amounts, up to a maximum of 40 percent.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Alaska pollock: Alaska product now 86 percent of U.S. consumption

July 6, 2021 — The Bering Sea TAC for pollock has been ratcheted back to 1.375 million metric tons — that’s down from last year’s 1.425 million and close to what it was set at in 2019. In the Aleutian Islands harvest area, the quota has been set at 19,000 metric tons, unchanged from last year. For the Gulf of Alaska waters, the TAC fell from the 115,930 metric tons to 113,227 metric tons for 2021.

In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the purchase of $159.4 million in domestic seafood and agricultural products. Of that, seafood will account for $70.9 million. Alaska pollock products have always been high on the list of purchases by the USDA for school lunch and other institutional food programs, and pollock contracts in 2021 will tally up to $20 million.

Also in May, data released by the National Fisheries Institute indicated that pollock pulled ahead of tilapia to rank fourth place in domestic seafood consumption. Though shrimp, salmon and canned tuna continue to rank above pollock, NFI noted that consumption of pollock products increased by a quarter pound per capita from 2018 to 2019. Meanwhile, the NFI research conducted for the Seattle-based Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers found that wild Alaska pollock products comprised 86 percent of that national increase from 2018 to 2019.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Council’s Swift Action on BSAI Cod Shuts Down Efforts to Restore Adak’s Seafood Economy

June 24, 2021 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council moved quickly to adopt a preliminary preferred alternative (PPA) to rationalize the last major race for fish in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands — trawl-caught Pacific cod — which also relegated Adak’s state-of-the-art seafood plant to the bottom of the pile in terms of access to the resource.

“I am announcing today that, based on the Council’s preliminary preferred alternative in the CV [catcher-vessel] trawl package, Peter Pan Seafood Company is suspending all further work in Adak,” said Steve Minor, Manager of Business Development for Peter Pan, on the day after the Council approved the motion.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Cod stocks creep back up for Gulf of Alaska, but remain down for Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands

April 15, 2021 — Pacific cod stocks have begun to rebound in the Gulf of Alaska, but the total allowable catch (TAC) for 2021 remains low at 17,321 metric tons. Last year, managers curtailed the fishery in federally managed waters after stock assessments put the biomass near the bottom of the threshold for conducting the fishery.

Though recruitment of younger cod and uncaught fish from last year have added to the abundance in most recent assessments, full recovery of the stock could take years. The warm-water “blob” of 2014 has been blamed for the crash.

Read the full story at Seafood Source