Saving Seafood

Rise of hybrid crabs raises questions for Bering Sea management

October 22, 2026 — A surge in hybrid crabs in the Bering Sea is raising new questions about how federal regulators count crab populations and set harvest limits, according to new Kodiak-based research.

The study, “A Bering Sea marine heatwave triggers unprecedented crab hybridization, challenging fisheries management,” was authored by Erin Fedewa, Emily Ryznar, Connor Cleary and Mike Litzow at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center Kodiak Lab, and published Monday in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Read the full article at the Kodiak Daily Mirror

ALASKA: Bering Sea crabbers buoyed by increased catch limits this season

October 13, 2026 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game recently released catch limits for the upcoming Bering Sea crab seasons. The seasons for Bristol Bay red king crab, Bering Sea snow crab and Tanner crab open on Thursday.

The Bristol Bay red king crab total allowable catch is up over half a million pounds from last year, set at 3.4 million pounds this season.

The Tanner, or Bairdi crab, limit increased significantly to 32.1 million pounds, with most of that — 27.2 million pounds — in the western Bering Sea.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Alaska trawler group leader says pollock fishing isn’t to blame for salmon decline

October 13, 2026 — Alaska’s pollock trawlers are under fire for accidentally catching salmon while salmon returns in the fall, and the head of the group that represents the boats says banning them would not solve the problem.

The boats target pollock, which ends up in fish sticks, fast food fish sandwiches and imitation crab sold worldwide. Their nets also pull in salmon, a practice known as bycatch. Critics say that hurts local fishermen and threatens a way of life for some Alaskan communities. Janet Woods, a local resident, put it this way: “The industry is taking away again part of our life, part of our culture, because it’s all about money.”

Read the full article at News-Nation

The fish behind America’s fish sticks is fueling a fight over trawling in Alaska

October 9, 2026 — The net rose from the heaving Bering Sea swells, packed so tightly with Alaska pollock that their heads squeezed through the webbing.

As the catch spilled onto the deck, other dead marine life came with it: a skate, crabs, jellyfish and, among the most consequential, salmon — the fish at the center of a growing political and cultural fight over industrial trawling in Alaska.

“This is a wild capture fishery so you do run into your nontarget species, and a lot of people have a problem with that,” said Maverick Blake, the boat’s captain. “But this is what it takes to put seafood on the table.”

Blake redirected the boat toward another fishing ground where he hoped to encounter fewer salmon.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

ALASKA: 2026-27 catch limits set for red king, snow, and Bairdi crab

October 8, 2026 — Alaska crab fishermen will head into the 2026-27 season with total allowable catches set for Bristol Bay red king crab, Bering Sea snow crab, and Bairdi Tanner crab, with all three fisheries scheduled to open Oct. 15.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) set the Bristol Bay red king crab TAC at 3.41 million pounds, while the Bering Sea snow crab, or opilio, TAC was set at 5.1 million pounds, according to an Oct. 6 release from seafood supplier Keyport LLC.

Bairdi Tanner crab will account for the largest harvest, with a combined 32.1 million pounds available across the eastern and western Bering Sea. The western Bering Sea TAC is set at 27.2 million pounds, while the eastern Bering Sea TAC is 4.9 million pounds.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Pollock industry, Senate race and culture collide in a fight over fish

October 7, 2026 — Evon Waska’s fish camp was too quiet this summer.

“Well, this is my smokehouse,” he said, opening the door to the plywood structure at the water’s edge in Bethel, where he says his parents settled when they gave up their nomadic ways.

It’s next to empty salmon-drying racks and fish-cutting tables that have seen too few fish for many years running.

A few smoked king fillets still hang. Waska caught about 40 at the start of summer. That was a relief. Some years subsistence fishermen on the Kuskokwim River weren’t allowed to harvest any, and it’s worse on the Yukon. But Waska said he got only half of what his household needs.

His fish racks should be filled with silver salmon now. But the silver return was too weak to fish. So instead of getting more salmon in late August, his family was already dipping into what they put up for winter.

Waska, like a lot of people along the Kuskokwim River, say the problem is in the Bering Sea, with the trawl fleet. The trawlers are after pollock, but they are allowed to waste thousands of king and chum salmon, some bound for Western Alaska rivers like the Kuskokwim.

“They don’t close the trawlers,” Waska said. “They close me and my people first.”

Waska is up against a giant. Trawlers in the federal waters of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska catch nearly 3 billion pounds of Alaska pollock, the nation’s largest fishery by volume. They can tow nets as wide at the mouth as a football field and a quarter-mile in length.

It’s not just subsistence fishermen who are upset about bycatch — the other species those nets scoop up. Sport, charter and commercial fishermen are also boiling mad and demanding change. In Alaska’s tight U.S. Senate race, bycatch has become a flashpoint, and the race may turn on which candidate — Sen. Dan Sullivan or challenger Mary Peltola — is perceived as the most willing and able to rein in the the trawlers.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

US Senator Ed Markey blocks quick passage of Bycatch Reduction Act

September 25, 2026 — U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) blocked an attempt by U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) to quickly pass his Bycatch Reduction Act in the Senate.

During remarks given on the Senate floor 23 September, Sullivan called on his fellow senators to pass his legislation, which calls for new trawling and bottom floor contact regulations and the implementation of salmon excluder devices for commercial fishing operations off the coast of Alaska in the Bering Sea. The legislation was first introduced at the beginning of the year, but Sullivan introduced an updated version with stronger provisions regarding bycatch and seafloor contact regulations in June. After the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation advanced the legislation earlier in September, Sullivan pushed to quickly pass the bill by unanimous consent.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Sullivan’s trawl bycatch bill clears a U.S. Senate committee

September 17, 2026 — A bill that aims to reduce the pollock fleet’s bycatch of salmon, halibut and other species passed the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday.

Sen. Dan Sullivan is the sponsor of the Bycatch Reduction Act. He said it would tell the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council to change how it treats the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska trawlers, to limit their impact on the marine environment.

“This sets out timelines. It sets out standards,” he said in a phone interview. “It sets out direct action to reduce bycatch, to limit — and, in many ways, do away with — trawl gear contact with the seafloor, and setting clearer standards.”

The bill also reconstitutes a group from a 2022 Sullivan bill, the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force Act. Sullivan said it will give Alaskans a direct say in what the federal government studies.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Dutch Harbor genetics lab monitors hotly contested chum salmon bycatch numbers

September 14, 2026 — In a one-room genetics lab in Dutch Harbor, Abby Duffy was getting ready to load extracted fish DNA into what’s called a chip. It’s a clear, rectangular plate with rows of small wells separated by a silicone center.

“I like to make sure I’ve eaten recently so my hands are the least shaky they’re going to be,” she said. “Make sure my brain’s doing what it should be doing.”

Duffy is the lab manager at the Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute’s Dutch Harbor location. The space is brightly lit, with tables and shelves lining the walls. Small incubators, a robotic pipetting machine, and a centrifuge sit on top of the tables.

Every week from June to October — the Bering Sea pollock B season — Duffy and her team collect genetic information from chum salmon that get scooped up in pollock nets as bycatch. They want to know how many of those fish are from Western Alaska.

“There are communities and people who really rely on those stocks for economics, for subsistence food, for cultural health,” Duffy said.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: AOOS: Home of Alaska ocean data

September 3, 2026 — Bordered by the Pacific and Arctic oceans and the Bering Sea, Alaska is home to the richest fisheries in the world, and the source of half the wild fisheries harvest in the U.S.

Managing the fisheries of the 900,000 square mile EEZ, or exclusive economic zone, surrounding the state effectively requires massive amounts of data that are often collected by different entities, public and private, using different methods. Harvesting the bounty safely and economically also relies on information about weather, waves, ice conditions, stock migration patterns, and more.

To gather and share the data being collected to support Alaska’s marine economic and subsistence activities, the Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS) was founded in 2003 and started operating in 2004 as one of the regional hubs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) national Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). IOOS was formally established in 2007 and continues to expand in its role as an information portal on many fronts.

“It’s a lot to manage,” says AOOS’ executive director, Sheyna Wisdom. “If you look at California, for example, they have two regional hubs, and they’re both on the Pacific. Ours are very spread out, and if you look at the Arctic, it doesn’t have the same information needs as Southeast.”

Besides marine traffic, water quality, and other projects, much of the AOOS budget of over $4 million goes into funding research that supports fisheries and coastal communities that depend on fisheries.

“What we do is collect information and make sure it is available to the people who need it,” says Wisdom. “With the Alaska Sea Grant, we co-host the bi-monthly Alaska Marine Policy Forum where the public gets updates on marine policy issues. We also facilitate several collaboration networks to connect people across Alaska, such as the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network or the Alaska Ocean Acidification Network. We take our role as a connector very seriously.”

Read the full article at National Fisherman