When Skipper Bill Hayes brings up his trawl net from the bottom of the Bering Sea, he often finds halibut mixed in with the yellowfin sole and other fish he pursues with a Seattle-based trawler.

Poached in a lemon herb sauce or seared on the grill, these firm white-fleshed fish would be fine eating. People often pay more than $15 a pound for halibut at the store.

But federal harvest rules only allow hook-and-line fishermen — not trawlers such as the boat Hayes captains — to sell these fish.

To make trawlers try to avoid halibut, they are required to dump this “bycatch” overboard. They can’t even donate the fish to a food bank

Read the full story at the Seattle Times >>

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