Read the group's letter to congressional leaders.
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Alaska commercial fishing news and notes
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- Deckboss
- I'm a journalist covering Alaska's commercial fishing industry. My real name is Wesley Loy. Reach me at wloy61@gmail.com.
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13 comments:
Read a second letter here:
https://tinyurl.com/kvvw9khp
It should not be lost on the reader that the trawl lobbyists and trawl corps are all over this letter. In Alaska the demands on bycatch reduction are predominately aimed at the trawl fleet. The bottom line is the scale of waste in the trawl fleet in unacceptable, and we have heard the doom predications from the trawl fleet at every bycatch reduction measure taken up by NPFMC.
Every fishery has incidental catch and by the percentages, the trawl fleets are much less than other fisheries in Alaska. And also more accurate since we take observers way more than the other fleets. The rewrite being contemplated will impact all commercial fishing and even recreational fishing. You can't put one hook in the water and know with 100% certainty what you will catch. Anyone who says different is lying. All fisheries have incidental catch, period- and I'm not afraid to post my name, unlike the last person who posted anonymously.
Heather Mann Midwater Trawlers Cooperative
The first commentor's comments are still entirely valid, when without a social security number attached.
While the trawl lobbyist above is correct on one single point - you cannot put a hook in the water without taking some risk - she is conveniently passing over the scale of the impact to the resources by massive corporate trawlers with giant nets. These ocean-going factories staffed by foreign workers have a many orders of magnitude a greater bycatch impact compared to the intensively managed artisanal fisherfolk eeking out a living with their small coastal boats and hook-and-line fisheries.
We all know how the trawl fleet plays the observer game - if an observer is on board, they drag the less productive "clean" grounds. When they drop the observer at the dock, they know where to set the nets - it's game-on, no holds barred. Don't be fooled by the "mid-water trawl" label - they all have chafe gear to protect their nets from the effects of regularly mauling the ocean's bottom-dwelling flora and fauna.
When the king salmon bycatch of the pollack fleet actually exceeds the total allowable take of all gear groups in Southeast Alaska, commercial and sport alike, something is terribly wrong. The money and connections the pollack fleet have in AK have historically guided policy makers.
It's high time for the trawl fleet's wholesale slaughter and wastage of our very limited king salmon resource (among others - like king crab and undersize halibut) to be put under the microscope. Southeast AK trollers are facing a huge cut with the recent ruling by a Washington State judge that says there isn't enough proof that we aren't overtaxing the resource that Southern Resident orcas need. Yet there's no mention of the pollack fleet's outsized negative impacts, which speaks volumes about which fishing groups up here the lawyers in the lower 48 know they have a chance to outspend on legal wrangling.
Don't drink the pollack fleet's kool-aid - they are firmly against any increase in accountability for their actions, and they will loudly protest any attempt to be regulated in a rational, sustainable manner.
Clearly, in Alaska, the offshore Blue Water commercial fishing industry reigns supreme. It is a major economic generator and reductions would devastate the entire commercial fishing industry in many not-so-obvious ways. I am curious in the individuals who are advocating for changes. I see the usual players, they have their reasons but the one that I really find heinous is the recreational/guide/lodge industry. They operate within this Dunleavy administration unabated. They are not supporters of the commercial fishing industry and are looking to minimize any and all economic activities generated by the hard working commercial fishing families within Alaska. For those who frequent this PF publication, "beware of what you wish for, the end game will be more nightmare and less a utopia".
Trawlers operating in Alaska have bycatch of 141,000,000 per year plus habitat destruction. Trawl lobbyist number one response is too bring up other fisheries bycatch to avoid discussing there dismal bycatch record. Number two response is to claim trawl limits will kill the economy. Number three response is minority worker jobs. Number four response is convoluted legal arguments with the MSA.
The letter and Heather Mann's comment reveal the trawl fleets strategy which is based on "if we go down, we are taking everyone with us". The trawl fleet's points should be taken into consideration. The changes to the MSA should be focused on the fisheries with the highest volumes of bycatch - Trawlers.
For the record, I'm not a trawl lobbyist. I work for the Midwater Trawlers Cooperative - a small group of 31 trawl vessels primarily from multi-generational fishing families. We are family-owned businesses that support small communities and we deliver millions of pounds of fish into Alaskan communities helping to support those economies. The MTC fleet's entire incidental catch of chinook in the 2021 pollock season was less than 500 fish. We are 100% observed in the BS pollock fishery ALL THE TIME - so the comment about observer effect is not applicable to us. It is, however, to other non-trawl sectors. Bycatch is bycatch. everyone has it. The bycatch by MTC vessels is minuscule compared to non-trawl fleets. I welcome a holistic conversation about bycatch that includes everyone. Under 60 cod pot fleet with hundreds of thousands of red king crab animals caught as bycatch. MTC trawlers? Less than 100 animals during the same time frame. And that is with 100% observer coverage. We also use cameras - voluntarily- and those are on 100% of the time. The fixed gear fleet that has cameras will only turn them on a fraction of the time, even though the systems are on their boats. Why's that I wonder? On the West Coast we work together as fishermen - across gear types, geography, tribal and non-tribal, even with recreational fishermen. Fishing is a way of life that we all embrace. Living in fishing communities and being a part of the fabric of that community cannot be replicated. I've been working in Alaska now for over 10 years, but working on the West Coast for more than 25. It is a sad day when fellow fishermen attack each other instead of understanding the concerns each other has, acknowledging them and working together. I find it especially frustrating when the MTC captains and crew go out of their way to be as careful as possible while prosecuting pollock. Above and beyond what is required. We do everything in our power to avoid salmon. But it is never enough for you guys. You want us out of business. How is it that the livelihood of the Captain/owner and the crew of a 90 foot trawl vessel (which is small for the BS) and his family are any less important that the owner and crew of a 90-foot crab vessel or sablefish vessel? I will continue to fight for MTC trawlers - we are food providers. We are multi-generational families and we have demonstrated we are good stewards of the resource and the ocean. Heather Mann, MTC
Why can't the trawl rely on the merits of its own bycatch performance, instead of always trying to deflect the bycatch issue to other fisheries.
HM 12:45 Response shows a lack of understanding. The state has acknowledged the crab bycatch mortality rates in the pot fisheries are wildly overstated. Us who were born and raised in Alaskan fishing communities have seen the damage done by the Washington and Oregon trawl fleet. Transients never understand, and are just in AK for a quick buck.
Don’t forget the 8M lbs of sablefish bycatch overage by the Bering Sea pollock fleet last year that didn’t even get the fleet a slap on the wrist and hardly any press! It must be nice to be untouchable.
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To Heather Mann, the observer coverage has been way less for the trawlers in the last 8 years than the pot or long line boats. These last couple years the council finally recommended slightly higher coverage for the trawlers in the gulf than other sectors. I seen how it evolved since the restructured observer program in 2013 when the council decided to put observers on small vessels 40 feet and over. The first 3 years the small vessels where in a 2 month selection pool if you get selected your supposed to have an observer for 2 months straight and some vessels where lucky to get selected 2 sometimes 3 times in a row that's 6 months of non stop observer coverage on small vessels at the same time the trawl went from %30 coverage to less than %15 during that time there were not enough observers because most of them where on small long liners. When we complained about no bunk space the main nmfs said observers have priority over bunk space the crew can sleep on the floor or outside they didn't care. Couple years later after all the bull crap they came up with a solution if you don't like observers we can put cameras which alot of boats did then the council decided to double the camera coverage to more than %30 who has cameras. Without cameras was half less coverage with observers. It's like lottery you have to log every trip before you go fishing and some boats get selected alot more than other boats. During the years I talked with alot of observers and alot of them had alot of sad stories about trawler bycatch. Around 2013 one of the observers said he seen 1 trawler out of kodiak catch 700 kings in 1 tow for pollock. Alot of the observers where saying that while they do random samples on trawl boats there is alot of fish. they can't sample everything so they sample a small percentage of the catch and whatever by catch they see in those samples they average it out on the rest of the catch. The observer will tell the trawl crew not to touch any fish in certain spots so they can sample all the fish at random spots to calculate by catch while the observer is not paying attention sampling fish random spots the trawl crew will start throwing all the bycatch over board make it seem like there is no bycatch in front of the observer. The trawlers in the gulf get %20 sable fish from the total qouta and can go target sablefish around 300 fathoms that's the deepest they can trawl on the bottom. 1 observer said that the trawlers dump alot of small sablefish over board dead. When they target sablefish the observer said they catch way more bycatch than the target species one of the dirtiest trawl fishing in the gulf and the trawlers are still allowed to do it.
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