Alaska’s seafood industry – already dealing with an uncertain future caused by crab season closures and a down year for the salmon fishery – has been dealt yet another blow with the early closure of Central Regulatory Area of the Gulf of Alaska (CGOA) pollock fishery.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced on 25 September all directed fishing for pollock by vessels using trawl gear in in the CGOA region was halted through the end of 2024 due to a Chinook salmon bycatch incident.
According to the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank, the Chinook bycatch incident occurred on 22 September.
“When this event occurred, both vessels were adhering to best fishing practices, including monitoring for salmon and communicating to each other on the grounds,” AGDB said in a release.
“When the first vessel determined there was an unprecedented amount of salmon, the other vessel fishing nearby was immediately notified and that vessel hauled its gear and ceased fishing, likely resulting in significantly less salmon.”
According to the AGDB, both vessels had observer coverage on board, and that roughly 2,000 Chinook were caught. NOAA said as a result of the incident, the fleet had reached 19,486 Chinook salmon caught, surpassing its allowed bycatch limit of 18,316 salmon.
The fishery was supposed to run through 1 November. NOAA Federal Manager Josh Keaton told SeafoodSource that the closure will leave 49,869 metric tons (MT) of pollock in the water between regions 620 and 630.
According to Keaton, the fishery had so far caught 71,533 MT of pollock of the 90,937 MT available in the 620 region, leaving 19,404 MT in the water. In 630, the fishery had caught 20,122 MT out of the 50,587 MT available, with 30,465 MT still available to catch.
Keaton said the incident was a “lightning-strike” style event – difficult to predict as it represented a complete outlier from the norm. The average Chinook bycatch per vessel is around 10 to 20 fish for an entire fishing trip, he said.
“We have almost full monitoring on this fleet all the time, and every salmon is being delivered and every salmon is being counted,” Keaton said. “This is the highest that I’ve ever seen in the central Gulf of Alaska. For king salmon in the gulf, [this] is the highest that I’ve ever seen in a single trip, verified.”