Federal fisheries managers meeting in Anchorage Feb. 5-11 are scheduled to make final recommendations on changes to groundfish regulations to reduce chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery.
Members of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council are tasked with reviewing the draft environmental impact statement, including five alternatives, ranging from limits or "caps" on a number of chum salmon that may be caught in the pollock fishery and closure of all or part of the Bering Sea to pollock fishing once the cap is met, as well as changes to the pollock industry's incentive plan agreements.
Of the five alternatives, as of the Jan. 30 deadline for written public comment, Alternative 4, calling for modifications of the pollock industry's Incentive Plan Agreements (IPA), garnered a lot of support from environmental entities and commercial harvesters among the 123 comments submitted.
IPAs are contractual, industry-led, and mandatory programs designed to minimize the bycatch of Chinook and chum salmon in the Bering Sea pollock fishery.
"The Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association (ALFA) strongly supports Alternative 4 and all six provisions outlined under this alternative," said Linda Behnken, executive director of ALFA. "The measures included in Alternative 4 build on demonstrated progress by the pollock fleet while strengthening accountability, transparency, and conservation outcomes... Collectively, these provisions represent meaningful improvements over the status quo and should be fully implemented."
In particular, ALFA supports the continuation and strengthening of IPAs as a complementary tool to enforceable management measures, Behnken added.
United Catcher Boats (UCB) urged support of Alternative 4 as the only one "that reflects both the conservation realities facing Western Alaska chum salmon and the operational realities facing Western Alaska chum salmon and the operational realities of the pollock fishery," said UCB executive director Andrea Keikkala.
The Alaska Marine Community Coalition (formerly the Alaska Marine Conservation Council) did not identify a specific alternative, but threw its support to a firm, enforceable overall chum salmon prohibited species cap, targeted spatial protections to address high-risk areas, and strong, transparent, and enforceable IPA requirements.
"As an initial step to curtail the wasteful practices of trawling in Alaska waters, this Council should impose an overall hard cap of 100,000 chum salmon in combination with Alternative 5 Option 1 with a corridor cap of 50,000," wrote Loretta Brown, legal and policy analyst with SalmonState.
The environmental entity Oceana voiced its support for the implementation of Alternative 4, "but only if applied alongside other alternatives and not as a standalone alternative," Oceana's Lauren Hynes and Ben Enticknap said.
"IPA measures aimed at reducing chum salmon bycatch have been in place since 2016 and have served as the primary management tool under the status quo, yet bycatch levels of chum salmon in the Bering Sea continued to rise, peaking at 545,901 chum salmon taken during the 2021 pollock trawl B-season," they added.
