As bycatch concerns grow and key fish stocks struggle, Alaska’s trawl fisheries have become a defining issue heading into the fall elections
Trawling is big business in Alaska. In the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, billions of pounds of fish are scooped up each year — most of it pollock. This is the largest fishery in the United States, but hundreds of millions of pounds of flatfish such as flounder are also harvested by trawl.
What’s been in the news lately isn’t the poundage of the target species. It’s the unintended bycatch — the focus of Alaskan politicians and the rest of the country as the midterms draw closer.
Trawling is an efficient way to catch fish. Instead of trying to coax fish into biting lures, these draggers use nets the size of football fields to scoop up huge schools. Efficiency isn’t the problem; the unwanted bycatch is. The amount of bycatch is a relatively small percentage of the total catch, but it still amounts to a significant number of fish removed from the ecosystem. And as Alaska grapples with halibut stocks at a 40-year low and struggling river systems like the Yukon, where king and keta salmon returns are under pressure, bycatch has become a central issue for politicians.
As the Senate race heats up, more Alaskans than ever oppose trawling. A recent poll found that 74% of Alaskans oppose bottom trawling. Most of the trawling harvest is processed by out-of-state freezer companies, so it might seem like a straightforward win for Alaska’s politicians — but never before has trawling been such a pivotal issue. The Facebook group STOP Alaska Trawler Bycatch has more than 59,000 members, where advocates for banning trawling share ideas and data. Recently, Senate candidate Mary Peltola has made shutting down trawling one of her campaign promises. Incumbent Dan Sullivan has said, “The voice of the people is clear,” in reference to challenging out-of-state trawlers. He has also put forward two proposals that opponents say are “too soft” on trawlers. Opponents of Peltola argue that she may be unable to pass meaningful legislation on trawling.
Here in Sitka, community support to limit trawling has long existed — particularly to protect small-boat fishermen. In 1998, with the work of the Linda Behnken, executive director of Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, trawling was banned across all of Southeast Alaska. Now, local gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Thomkins is running for governor with limiting trawling as part of his platform. His proposal reflects an effort to protect what works in Alaska’s fishery management by restricting parts of the system that no longer serve Alaskans well.
Alaskans are passionate about the ability to harvest their own food and about protecting subsistence fisheries in rural communities. Given that, it’s timely that trawling is under the spotlight. As of August 15 of this year, 22,385 king salmon and 81,602 chum salmon have been killed as bycatch, along with 3.4 million pounds of halibut, 600,088 individual crabs, and 3.8 million pounds of herring — all caught unintentionally and dumped overboard. With climate change and a changing ocean, can Alaska’s fisheries continue to sustain such waste and habitat destruction? It remains to be seen. What we do know is that Alaskans are making it clear that they want the right to harvest their own fish — not trawlers’ dominance — and they’re bringing that energy to the polls this fall.
Marsh Skeele
Marsh is our original fisherman and helped start Sitka Seafood Market over a decade ago. He grew up fishing with his family outside of Sitka and began his own fishing journey captaining the F/V Loon in 2011. Shortly thereafter at a dinner party sharing his catch, he met friends that figured out how to get his fish to the Midwest and Sitka Seafood Market was born. He loves finding the highest quality ingredients and sharing the stories of their harvest over a dinner party. You can find him fishing with his family in Sitka and searching for the next delicious piece of seafood to share with you.
