May 29, 2024 — Alaska Native groups and others hope two new bills by Rep. Mary Peltola, D, will go where present fishery management plans haven’t gone before and cut down on salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea. The announcements of “The Bottom Trawl Clarity Act” and the “Bycatch Reduction and Mitigation Act” will reduce the incidental harvest of chinooks, chums, and other salmon destined for western Alaska watersheds.
The region has experienced abysmal salmon returns in recent years and wants trawlers to improve their bycatch reduction efforts.
“Subsistence and commercial fisheries throughout Western Alaska have been shuttered in recent years,” said Kevin Whitworth, executive director of the Kuskokwim Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, in a press release put out by SalmonState. “With record-low escapements and few (if any) opportunities for Indigenous and rural fishing families to harvest salmon, there is nothing more that our communities can sacrifice to protect salmon.”
The Bottom Trawl Clarity Act strives to define how trawl gear touches the ocean floor. Though pollock trawls have been hallowed as midwater nets, some studies show that they are towed along the bottom-most of the time. This act would distinguish “substantial” and “limited” times that the trawls hug bottom, then designate “Bottom Trawl Zones” where it would be allowed.