The North Pacific Fishery Management council, which sets management policies for Alaska’s federal fisheries, began meeting Monday to discuss potential new rules to limit chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery. The issue pits a multibillion-dollar industry against Western Alaska subsistence communities struggling with record-low salmon returns — with climate change playing a pivotal role.
Western Alaska’s chum salmon runs are in crisis, with some rivers seeing fish returns drop by about 90% since 2020. For many Alaska Native communities, salmon is more than food — it’s life. So tribal leaders and environmental groups have been urging tighter restrictions on how many salmon can be accidentally caught by pollock trawlers.
But there’s disagreement about whether new limits will help. Many industry representatives point to science that shows climate change, not bycatch, is the main culprit for declining salmon populations.
“Climate change is an issue, but that’s something that we've got no control over,” said Jackie Boyer, whose Cup’ig name is Arnaciar. Boyer is an advocate with SalmonState, an Alaska-based nonprofit that works to protect salmon habitats.
“But what we do have control over is bycatch,” Boyer said.
The council is reviewing options such as closing certain fishing areas when Western Alaska salmon are at their peak or closing the entire fishery when the fleet collectively hits a certain bycatch threshold, a so-called hard cap.
Trent Hartill, vice president of fisheries and sustainability at American Seafoods, the biggest company that fishes pollock in the Bering Sea, said he’d prefer a more nuanced approach.
“We can’t paint in broad brushstrokes,” Hartill said. “We need to craft our approach to specifically addressing minimizing Western Alaska chum salmon, taking into account those times and areas of when they occur.”
For the most part, the pollock industry has strongly pushed back against any type of restrictions. But subsistence communities in Western Alaska, especially in the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta, emphasize that something needs to be done. SalmonState’s Boyer said the trawl fleet can’t continue to self-regulate.
“There needs to be some level of a cap to keep the industry in check,” she said.
Fishing, tribal and environmental organizations, along with private citizens, have submitted nearly 250 comments in advance of this week’s meeting. The council last took up the issue at its April 2024 meeting in Anchorage, which brought hundreds of written public comments and days of testimony from Western Alaska residents pleading for the council to act.
“You hear elders crying about not having traditional food, not having traditional practices, and so many concerns about their children and grandchildren not knowing how to live the traditional ways of life,” Boyer said. “It's really heartbreaking to hear over the years.”
The fishery council, which meets five times a year, might not take any action on the issue this week. But input from the public, as well as presentations from the council’s scientific committee, will likely inform any future rules.
The pollock fishery is the largest in the country, and an economic driver for many Alaska coastal communities. According to federal data, the total number of chum salmon the pollock fleet caught last year was down 94% from 2021, dropping from 545,901 to 35,125.
Fishing groups argue that their voluntary measures, like changing locations when they pull up a trawl net with chum, led to that dramatic reduction. And industry representatives point to research indicating that more than half of the chum caught by Bering Sea pollock trawlers came from hatcheries in Russia and Asia. Multiple federal, state, and local agencies that the council relies on for expertise supported that conclusion.
Public testimony will begin at the council Tuesday. The council hears testimony at the Egan Center in Anchorage and online through the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s website.
