Friday, March 18, 2011

Work advances to control Chinook bycatch in Gulf

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is making progress toward controlling the incidental capture, or bycatch, of Chinook salmon in Gulf of Alaska pollock trawl nets.

How can we tell?

Check out this 295-page analysis posted this week on the council's website.

The analysis is a necessary step for meetings coming up later this month and in June, when the council could elect to impose a "hard cap" on the pollock fishery. That means the fishery would be closed down once a certain number of Chinook are taken as bycatch.

Chinook bycatch last year in the Gulf pollock fishery was an alarming 43,915 fish, according to the chart on page 21 of the analysis.

A hard cap, if approved, could be implemented in mid-2012.

The analysis says addressing Chinook bycatch in the Gulf is the council's highest priority.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny how they pare it back from the over 60,000 to a mere 43,000. The more time you give them the more time they spend spinning. NOAA is pro trawler and so they push to make light of whatever damage the trawlers do. Capture you say...crazy man...death is what happens, capture my ass!

Anonymous said...

Were not blind, trawling is the only fishing method were having major bycatch problems with. Happening all around the state. Feel pretty small against NOAA... frustrating huh? Watching legendary kodiak and yukon chinooks collapse, and for what, handfull of trawl boat owners and some crew... Alaskans? Sure, that dont respect their own state.

Anonymous said...

295 pages is sure to clear this problem up.

More pages equals less solutions, but try and tell a bureaucrat that.

Anonymous said...

Check out: http://www.tholepin.blogspot.com/

Looks like the factory longliners aint so pure, but at least they don't kill crab or scour the bottom.