Environment groups may have criticized the decisions that affect trawling industry but those involved in the research say the science behind the actions is sound. The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council approved a conditional peak bycatch cap of 60,000 chinook salmon for the Bering Sea Aleutian Islands pollock industry; the Marine Stewardship Council awarded its certification of sustainability to the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea flatfish fisheries.
According to the information the controversial bycatch limit on chinook, a prohibited catch species, takes effect in 2011 and has numerous caveats. Citing Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act requirements to maximize optimum yield, reduce bycatch and account for socio-economic effects, the North Pacific council attempted to appease the interests of the pollock industry and Yukon subsistence fishing communities.
The report says that the record of decision published by the council stated the conditional cap of 60,000 was set to accommodate the potential of large runs with unavoidable bycatch encounters. As per the council incentive plan agreements could further reduce bycatch. Protesting the council decision were Western Alaska villages and fishermen devastated by the collapse of the chinook runs in the Yukon fishery, where the subsistence quota was lowered to an unprecedented 45,312 in 2008, less than the new pollock bycatch cap.
Villages and fishermen sought to cap the bycatch at around 30,000, which the council said it considered and rejected because a hard cap without incentives would not reduce bycatch below the cap, would reduce flexibility to manage large runs and would impact the ability of the pollock fleet to harvest the total allowable catch. John Gruver of the United Catcher Boats Association, said excluder nets, designed to reduce chinook bycatch, have become more widespread and should be widely in use next season.
According to the group’s Pacific biologist Jon Warrenchuk environmental group Oceana was not pleased with the MSC decision to certify the Alaska flatfish fisheries, according to the group’s Pacific biologist Jon Warrenchuk. Both the pollock and flatfish industries use trawling gear, which are large nets that can be 100 meters wide towed by boats to herd and catch fish.
