At the same time, the groundfish fishery, which accounts for roughly 80 percent of the annual catch in Alaska, has come to dominate the regulatory system that sets fishing quotas for all species, Velsko says. But evidence is growing from government agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, conservation groups and fisheries scientists that the trawl industry is causing greater damage to marine habitat than previously assumed and that the removal of vast quantities of pollock, an important source of food for other species such as fur seals and Steller sea lions, is causing disruptions to the larger ecosystem. The Bering Sea, which has long been one of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems, accounts for nearly 40 percent of all seafood caught in the United States, generating billions in revenue and tens of thousands of jobs. The reasons for the crash of the halibut, crab and salmon populations - a collective disaster that has sucked hundreds of millions of dollars from the Alaskan economy - have been hotly debated for years.
And while red king crab and snow crab fisheries have been shuttered this year, the trawl industry has still been permitted to discard up to 4.3 million individual snow crab and 32,000 red king crab though they don’t always reach their cap. In 2021, when subsistence fishermen were prohibited from fishing for chinook and chum salmon on the Yukon River, pollock boats swept up more than half a million individual salmon from the Bering Sea. Roughly two-thirds of the total halibut caught in the Bering Sea since 2006 has been bycatch taken in trawler nets most of which is dumped. What makes this inequity especially jarring for the captains of halibut, crab and salmon boats is that the trawlers, some as long as a football field, which drag vast nets along the sea bottom, also scoop up millions of pounds of species they don’t actually want, and they throw most of it overboard no matter how valuable it might otherwise be. The fleet of nearly 250 trawl boats that catch groundfish (species such as pollock and yellowfin sole that congregate on or near the ocean floor), have recorded banner seasons - permitted to bring in between 3 and 4 billion pounds of fish annually for worldwide distribution. Want to read more stories like this? POLITICO Weekend delivers gripping reads, smart analysis and a bit of high-minded fun every Friday.
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