Pollock fishery is under scanner due to bycatch of king salmon. Regulators said that the bycatch of king salmon has threatened the pollock fishery in the United States. It is fact that wild Alaska kings also make up a small, but highly valuable segment of the worldwide fish market. In recent years, 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 pollock fleet is not allowed to keep the salmon, so fishermen generally throw the mostly dead and dying fish back into the sea, or donate a fraction to food banks. As per the record king salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery rose last year to a record 122,000, up from a previous five-year average of 57,333. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council told that the bycatch count for other salmon species hit a record 706,000 in 2005.
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A federal body that regulates the region’s fisheries proposes to temporarily close the Bering Sea pollock fishery if king salmon bycatch exceeds a certain number. Diana Stram, a fishery management plan coordinator for the fishery council, informed that the authority is working to balance the ability of the pollock fleet to optimize their catch while minimizing salmon bycatch.
John Gruver, a manager at United Catcher Boats, a Seattle trade group of fishing vessels, explained that the industry has spent more than a half million dollars in the last five years to develop nets that allow salmon to escape while keeping pollock in. He told that a segment of the pollock fleet is pushing for the cap on bycatch. Members of a federal programme set up to aid impoverished Western Alaska villages rely almost exclusively on pollock for income.
