World's largest fishery to reduce discarded salmon catch

The world’s largest fishery has taken the first step toward reducing wasteful king salmon bycatch. After pressure from Oceana and its allies, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council moved forward in June on capping salmon bycatch in the Alaska pollock fishery.

In 2007, the Alaska pollock fishery caught and killed a record 130,000 king salmon as unintentional bycatch, more than two times the amount caught in 2003. Many of these salmon killed as bycatch would have otherwise returned to rivers in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest this year. Also known as chinook salmon, the population of these fish has dropped so low that salmon harvests in Alaska have  declined considerably, and the 2008 salmon season was cancelled in Oregon and California. Just 70,000 salmon  returned to spawn in the Sacramento River last fall, less  than one-tenth of the amount that returned in 2001.
 
“Salmon stocks are in trouble throughout the Pacific,” said Jon Warrenchuk, a marine scientist with Oceana. “Wasting salmon as bycatch is  unconscionable. A cap on salmon bycatch in the pollock fishery is long overdue.”

Under the proposed plan, the pollock fishery would be allowed to catch no more than 68,392 king salmon as bycatch, the average number of salmon caught from 2004 to 2006. Upon reaching that number, the pollock fishery would close for the rest of the season.The cap is contingent  upon the pollock industry establishing an incentive program that also addresses bycatch on a vessel-by-vessel basis.

The Alaska pollock fishery catches more than two billion pounds of pollock a year, often bound for America’s fast food restaurants in the form of frozen fish sticks.