Trawl fishery bycatch further burdens West Coast chinook
Trawlers are enormous ’catch and process’ vessels capable of harvesting, processing and freezing their catch. Their target is groundfish species like pollock. They account for roughly 80 per cent of the annual catch in Alaska, generating several billion dollars, giving the industry power that extends all the way to the White House.
A report prepared for the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council shows the weight of Alaska trawl fisheries bycatch falls most heavily on B.C. chinook.
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional councils established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976 to govern fisheries in the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone of the United States.
The report finds that the Gulf of Alaska groundfish trawl caught 7,705 B.C. chinook in 2023. Another 2,532 were caught in the Bering Sea. This take follows disturbing reports of B.C. trawl salmon bycatch resulting in 26,000 chinook from B.C., Washington and Oregon caught off Vancouver Island during the same period.
The relentless infringement from trawlers increases pressure on chinook - which are threatened from California to the Yukon.
Chinook are not the only incidental catch. The extremely large net sets which occur ‘mid-water’ or along the ocean floor, killed 10 orcas in 2023, and outrage is building over the tonnes of halibut, snow crab, and herring the industry discards each year. Investigative journalists from Politico to The Nation to The Narwhal have painted a troubling picture of an industry that is the heavy hitter in an internecine conflict between factory and family fisheries in Alaska, and British Columbia. With some light shining on the industry, and growing public pressure, signs are pointing towards some long overdue change. Last week, the Alaska trawl fishery was closed early after two Gulf of Alaska trawlers caught 2,000 king salmon in less than a week. And this year's DFO integrated fisheries groundfish management plan requires one hundred per cent at sea monitoring via onboard observers or electronic monitoring for B.C. trawlers.
The alarming (70 per cent) amount of Pacific Northwest chinook identified as bycatch during the North Pacific Fishery Management Council study period is additional to the hundreds of thousands of chinook caught annually in the southeast Alaska salmon net and troll fisheries which are from B.C., Washington and Oregon. It’s another damning indictment of the impact unselective industrial-scale harvesting has on B.C.-bound salmon, and another indicator that Alaska’s fisheries management writ-large is the single largest threat facing Canadian salmon populations.
The takeaway is that trawling is the most wasteful way to fish. Corporations with no connection to the licence areas in which they operate often run trawlers, and trawl nets catch anything and everything in their path - from whatever fish is too big to slip through the mesh, to whales, the world's largest creatures. For up-to-date information on the trawl fishery, explore these links.
STOP Alaskan Trawler Bycatch Facebook Group | Stop Wasteful Trawl Bycatch — SalmonState | North Pacific Fishery Management Council