Salmon have been scooped up by the massive Bering Sea pollock fleet, a global source of frozen fish sticks, fillets and imitation crab, and the largest fishery by volume in the U.S. This trend is troubling the people living along the great rivers of western Alaska, including the Yukon. Their staple food is salmon are a staple food and in some cases a primary source of cash for dozens of villages from the mouth of the 2,000-mile river to its headwaters in Canada.
It is fact that wild Alaska kings make up a small, but highly valuable segment of the worldwide fish market. The fleet of about 100 pollock trawlers has intercepted record numbers of salmon bound for rivers in Canada, the Pacific Northwest, Asia and Alaska. According to federal laws there is no fishing except pollock, and so fishermen were forced to throw the mostly dead and dying salmon back into the sea.
As per the official record king salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery rose last year to a record 122,000, up from a previous 5-year average of 57,333. The bycatch count for other salmon species hit a record 706,000 in 2005, according to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. This has worsen the salmon problem in the region so the management council, a federal body that regulates the region’s fisheries, expressed tentative support this month for an unprecedented proposal to temporarily close the Bering Sea pollock fishery should king salmon bycatch exceed a certain number.
Diana Stram, a fishery management plan coordinator for the council, told that the council is working to balance the ability of the pollock fleet to optimize their catch while minimizing salmon bycatch. John Gruver, interco-op manager at United Catcher Boats, based in Seattle, told that if new laws are approved then one in five salmon to swim free. He also said that it might be the best way to limit the bycatch problem.
