Trawlers are worried over the possibility the council might recommend limits, or caps, on the number of chum the fleet could take each season. Once met, such caps could result in closure of the fishery, leaving valuable pollock quota stranded in the water.
The council is under enormous pressure from Western Alaska villagers, environmental groups and others to impose caps on the trawl fleet, which has been broadly blamed for poor chum returns and subsistence fishing restrictions.
"The salmon situation in our communities has become an existential crisis," the Bethel-based Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission said in a letter to the council.
The pollock industry is adamantly opposed to caps, arguing they wouldn't do much to help improve Western Alaska chum runs. For one thing, they argue, many of the chum caught as bycatch in the pollock trawl fishery actually come from Japanese and Russian hatcheries, not Alaska rivers.
Trawl interests urge the council to select a different option, one that would build upon steps the fleet already has begun to avoid chum — particularly Western Alaska chums. These steps include fleet communication, avoidance of chum "hot spots," genetic identification of chum to determine their origin, and the use of salmon excluders in nets.
"It is obvious that the pollock fishery's bycatch is not driving Western Alaska chum declines," United Catcher Boats, a Seattle-based fleet organization, said in a letter to the council. UCB noted complex factors such as changing ocean conditions.
The chum bycatch issue is expected to draw a ton of public comment at the meeting. Council members likely won't have an easy time deciding this one.
16 comments:
Population along the Yukon river in 1976 was 22,000 the population in 2025 46,500 so the population has doubled in 50 years. There are a lot more users on the Yukon River. The population will increase in the next 50 years. I’ve been fishing in area M for 45 years. There are 370 permit holders. combine in our area that has stayed the same since 1974 and will stay the same for the next 50 years people that live along the Yukon in the future will be fighting for every fish. commercial fisherman are in for a long fight
"It is obvious that the pollock fishery's bycatch is not driving Western Alaska chum declines," United Catcher Boats........ It is obvious that the by catch right now might not be driving the decline, but its not clear at all that decades of much higher by catch has not been a contributing factor to get us to where we are now. That is the nuance of this issue. Clearly it is not the driver, at the moment, because there are so few WAK Chums returning anymore. Im neither a Yukon salmon person or a trawler, but I am informed and I believe the very least there should be some kind of cap, until the genetic date sampling improves to a point where we know for certain if they are encountering WAK Chum or Asian Chums. It's a policy call and people will remember who votes for the Salmon and who votes for the pollock.
Assirluci! to all involved.
The reason they call them dog salmon is because they feed them to there dogs.
Gotta hand it to the NGOs, they’ve been wildly successful engaging the public on this issue and blaming pollock for declines in just about everything. Whether or not it was true was of no concern.
But sooner or later the facts come out, and the scientists have shown that even the most restrictive tools don’t accomplish much—they just don’t catch that much salmon. But then it’s time to make hard decisions with real consequences. Anyone watching this from other fisheries should be deeply concerned.
Every time their is a bycatch restriction for trawler they cry - claiming its the end of the world. GOA halibut cuts in the mid to thousands "Kodiak will be a ghost town", Amendment 80 cuts "the fleet will be shut down". It just a ploy.
Care to expand on this point ?
There blaming everyone but there own river even there own people say its the silt from upriver but can't blame that, have to shut someone else down.
With in river fisheries shutdown, the only mortality of chum and king salmon that can be reduced is bycatch.
I know for a fact 99 percent of chums caught are Japanese bound, but its messed up that they can't keep the salmon and give to the natives, or even halibut to them.
They can - it’s called SeaShare but instead the processors want to claim it’s not fit for human consumption so it has to be discarded at the dock. Sounds like they just don’t wanna do the work.
“You’re telling me we should shut down the biggest fishery in the United States because your river is facing a crisis of chum salmon?
And that we should perform that shutdown even though we know it won’t make a meaningful difference to restore your chum runs?”
“Yes
“Why, then should we shut down the pollock fishery?”
“It’s optics. We sit on the beach while they catch chums”.
“And you know the chums they catch are overwhelmingly not bound for your river or any other river in W. Alaska?”
“Yes, I know that. But that doesn’t matter. I’m sitting on the beach and someone else should share my hurt”
“OK - at least you’re being honest about it…”
All those hatchery pinks screwing up the world is the trawlers fault. It's a competition for who can round haul drag up the most prison food for the USDA.
Oh no how dare fisherman harvest affordable healthy protein for the world. I forgot fish are only for rich douches who need their food to "tell a story" to give their life meaning
No I think the point is the rich douches are the pollock trawlers who are screwing everyone else for their own enrichment and nobody is buying your feeding the world horseshit
Lobster was Prison Food back in Nantucket and Massachusetts. After every westerly they blew up on the beach, sometimes two feet deep. Feeding the prisoners scrap has been popular for generations. The cheap free shit.
Having listened to hours of public testimony, the council is expected to make a decision tomorrow morning.
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