March 18, 2025 โ A U.S. district court judge has rejected a lawsuit seeking a new environmental impact study of the Bering Sea commercial pollock fishery, allowing NOAA Fisheries to continue relying on studies from 2004 and 2007 to regulate the fishery.
โWe are deeply disappointed by this decision, which allows the National Marine Fisheries Service to continue relying on outdated studies while our salmon populations collapse,โ TCC Chief and Chairman Brian Ridley said in a statement.
August 23, 2024 โ Scientists had previously linked the crash of the Bering Sea snow crab population in recent years to warming ocean waters. But a new study released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration deepens the connection between human-caused climate change and the die-off.
Snow crabs are well suited for Arctic conditions. But Mike Litzow โ the lead author of the report, which was published in the journal โNature Climate Changeโ โ said the southeastern Bering Sea is changing to more sub-Arctic conditions through a process called borealization. St. Matthew Island to the south, nothing north of 60 degreesโ latitude is included in the southeastern Bering Sea. Itโs a process thatโs also happening in terrestrial ecosystems in Alaska.
December 14, 2023 โ The total amount of pollock allowed to be scooped up by trawlers in the Bering Sea will stay the same in 2024. In its Dec. 9 meeting in Anchorage, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) moved to keep the total allowable catch (TAC) for pollock at its current level of 1.3 million metric tons, a move that has generated criticism from conservationists, tribes, and the trawling industry alike.
Alaskaโs pollock fishery is responsible for the vast majority of salmon bycatch in the region. And amid alarming declines in returns of multiple species of salmon to Western Alaska rivers, the pollock trawl fishery has faced increasing criticism for its perceived role driving the crisis. But federal fisheries managers and the trawling industry pushed back, asserting that the claims are unfounded.
Trade organizations representing the trawl industry said during testimony at the NPFMC meeting that the decision to hold the pollock quota steady is misguided.
Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the At-Sea Processors Association, told the council the move could lead to missed opportunities to harvest increased numbers of mature pollock in the Bering Sea.
โWe canโt bank them like some fish species. They will age out of the system and they will be not available to the fishery,โ Madsen said.
Madsen also told the council that the industry request for a modest increase to the pollock quota, which was ultimately denied, was already a compromise.
โI would just remind you that the Russian fishery in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Western Bering Sea take more pollock than our Eastern Bering Sea pollock,โ Madsen said. โSo a 20,000 metric ton increase in the Eastern Bering Sea is likely to have very little impact on a global situation.โ
May 17, 2017 โ The U.S. seafood industryโs contribution to the nationโs economy sank a bit, while Alaskaโs output increased slightly and dollar values held steady.
An eagerly anticipated annual report released May 9 by NOAA Fisheries measures the economic impacts of U.S. commercial and recreational fisheries.
It highlights values, jobs, and sales for 2015, along with a 10-year snapshot of comparisons. A second report provides the status of U.S. fish stocks for 2016.
The Fisheries Economics Report shows that including imports, U.S. commercial fishing and the seafood industry generated $144 billion in sales in 2015, a six percent decline from the previous year, and supported 1.2 million jobs, a 15 percent decline.
โHowever, itโs important to consider these figures are still above the five-year average. In fact, 2015 represents the second-highest level during that period,โ Alan Risenhoover, Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs said at a May 9 press teleconference.
For Alaska, commercial fishermen landed more than 6 billion pounds of fish and shellfish in 2015, a 6 percent increase from 2014, while the value of the catch held steady at $1.7 billion.
Fishing and processing in Alaska generated $4.4 billion in sales in 2015 and 53,400 jobs, of which 38,000 were fishermen.
Other highlights:
Pollock accounted for 54 percent of the total Alaska harvest volume.
Alaska crab values totaled $284 million, the highest level since 1999. Halibut received the highest dock price at $4.85 per pound in 2015; herring fetched the lowest price, averaging just one penny a pound.
Alaska pollock ($509 million), salmon ($413 million), and crab ($284 million) dominated landings revenue.
May 9, 2017 โ Thereโs a new tool to help scientists and others interested in monitoring how Bering Sea fisheries respond to a changing climate.
Biologist Steve Barbeaux of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center has created hundreds of graphics mapping where 22 species of fish spend their time during different life stages.
The data comes from annual trawl surveys dating back to 1984, but Barbeaux says that information was hard to analyze as a whole.
โTo understand the true impacts of climate change we have to look across all of these life stages to get a true picture of whatโs going on,โ Barbeaux said. โIt potentially could be beneficial at one stage of life, but harmful at another stage of itโs life.โ
Barbeaux started small โ looking at greenland turbot, a species that is greatly impacted by temperature changes. When the fish develop from larvae to juveniles, they depend on a cold pool in the Bering Sea. But without it:
โYou get high natural mortality,โ Barbeaux said. โSo for [the greenland turbot] the impact really is at that settlement stage. Versus pollock where that impact has more potentially to do with their midlife stage.โ
April 24, 2017 โ A newly released study from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center tracks distribution shifts of groundfish in the Eastern Bering Sea from 1982 to 2015.
Researchers say the visualizations provided by this 331-page document will help them to understand the life histories of 22 groundfish and skate species over time and space and provide clues to how climate change may potentially impact those species at different life stages.
During the standardized bottom trawl surveys of the Eastern Bering Sea shelf area between 20 and 200 meters from May to August in those years, researchers collected species composition and bottom temperature for all tows, as well as measurements from all fish encountered. That data provides a unique look at the spatial and environmental preferences of many species, as well as ontogenetic shifts in spatial distribution and environmental preferences over 34 years, they said.
Steve Barbeaux, the fisheries biologist who served as lead author of the study, said climate variability has increased in the Bering Sea in recent years and AFSC will use this information to study how ecosystems respond to change.
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