While pollock is often<\/a> held<\/a> up<\/a> as a prime example of sustainably sourced seafood\u2014industry groups claim it is \u201cone of the most climate-friendly proteins in the world\u201d\u2014the reality is far more murky.<\/p>\n To get all this fish from the Bering Sea, which provides more than 40 percent<\/a> of all seafood caught in the United States, factory trawlers drag huge nets that sweep up catches by the ton. Their gear regularly<\/a> scrapes the bottom of the seafloor for miles at a time, destroying vital, slow-growing habitat<\/a>. Trawling boats\u2014those that catch species living on the bottom, and those that target pollock\u2014often snag species they don\u2019t intend to, what\u2019s known as bycatch. Regulators reported this included 10 orca whales<\/a> in the Bering Sea last year.<\/p>\n Trawlers\u2019 bycatch also includes failing fisheries like Chinook salmon\u2014whose population has declined<\/a> so much that residents on the Yukon River who rely on them are prohibited<\/a> from catching any for the next seven years<\/a>. Critics warn that years of disrupting marine habitat and food webs have contributed to massive population collapses in other species like seals<\/a> and crabs<\/a>. \u201cThey\u2019re destroying the building blocks of the entire ecosystem,\u201d says Kevin Whitworth, the executive director for Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, a group representing 33 federally recognized tribes along the Kuskokwim River.<\/p>\n Advocates say regulators are ignoring the mounting catastrophe, in part because many members of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the federal body that oversees the Bering Sea\u2019s fisheries, have close ties to\u2014and in some cases simultaneously work for\u2014the commercial fleets they manage. Smaller-scale fishermen, lawmakers, and tribal governments say the system is designed to protect the industry\u2019s status quo.<\/p>\n A recent lawsuit against the council claims the regulatory body ignores<\/a> well-conducted, peer-reviewed studies about trawling\u2019s impacts on the Bering Sea floor, which stretches between Russia\u2019s Siberian coast and Alaska\u2019s Aleutian islands. Meanwhile, trawlers receive tax credits<\/a> for funding research<\/a> that helps shape council decisions. Even basic information like how often<\/a> the fleet\u2019s gear is making contact with the bottom has been overlooked, obscuring potential causes for species\u2019 declines.<\/p>\n The council, and several of its members, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.<\/p>\n The trawl industry has aggressively pushed back against criticism, reportedly intimidating fishermen<\/a> and journalists from speaking out for fear of losing jobs or limiting access to markets. Multiple people, including former council members, spoke to The Lever<\/em> on condition of anonymity, citing previous personal threats. The Alaska Pollock Fishery Alliance<\/a>, which represents the region\u2019s pollock companies, told The Lever<\/em> these fears are \u201cunfounded.\u201d<\/p>\n Even as the climate has rapidly changed, putting stress on the marine ecosystem, government regulators have been slow to update harvest or bycatch limits for commercial fisheries. Now, two tribal groups are suing the federal government over its use of outdated 20-year-old assessments<\/a> for its catch limits.<\/p>\n As halibut populations shrink<\/a>, for example, trawling vessels\u2014primarily in the fleets that target species on the bottom\u2014are allowed to accidentally catch and discard more<\/a> halibut than sport and subsistence fishermen intentionally harvest. This gives industry \u201cno incentive to reduce halibut mortality,\u201d dozens of state legislators wrote in a recent bipartisan letter<\/a>.<\/p>\n After years of pleading by Alaskan residents worried<\/a> about the obvious decline<\/a> of other fish stocks, the council finally adopted an amendment<\/a> tying how much halibut bycatch trawlers can sweep up to the fish\u2019s relative abundance. Because this might restrict their fishing, trawlers promptly sued<\/a>; the case is currently making its way through the federal court system.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, trawlers are still hauling in bycatch. At the end of September, pollock trawlers based out of Kodiak, Alaska, accidentally caught around 12,000 Chinook salmon<\/a>\u2014almost the same amount that made it back to Canada<\/a> last year. The ships were fishing in the Gulf of Alaska, but using the same kind of nets as they do farther north in the Bering Sea. The discovery prompted federal managers to shut down the fleet\u2019s operations<\/a> a month before it normally stops for the winter.<\/p>\n For Eva Burk, a Dene\u2019 Athabascan who sits on a nonvoting advisory panel to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, it feels like the deep-pocketed trawling industry, which is largely based<\/a> in Washington, is getting a free pass, while tribal residents in Alaska are losing access to their traditional foods. \u201cWhen you can\u2019t fish, but other people are intercepting your fish, that is not sharing the burden of conservation,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Sitting in her kitchen in Fairbanks this spring, Burk was preparing smoked sockeye salmon, her hands swiftly packing cherry-red strips into jars. She\u2019s had to modify her traditional recipes since the moratorium on catching the Yukon\u2019s Chinook salmon, which threatens not only food security<\/a>, but a crucial link<\/a> to a way of life.<\/p>\n Her practiced gestures sharpen with frustration as she explains that for decades, residents have been sounding the alarm that Chinook were dwindling, not growing as large, and carrying fewer eggs. When fish navigate the turbulent waters of Alaska\u2019s rivers, they are generally managed by the state, which has its own strained relationship<\/a> with tribal residents. But salmon mature in the Bering Sea, where the waters between three and 200 miles offshore are regulated by the federal North Pacific Fishery Management Council. This fragmented system is a \u201csuper toxic, unhealthy space that\u2019s dominated by economic interests,\u201d Burk says.<\/p>\n As a result, \u201cit\u2019s not just the salmon that are in decline in my area,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is everything, freshwater fish, migratory birds\u2014everything.\u201d But as a member on the council\u2019s advisory panel, it\u2019s been difficult for Burk to share traditional knowledge about how Alaska\u2019s ocean and rivers are changing, like how baselines have shifted\u2014or perspectives that don\u2019t prioritize profits. \u201cThere\u2019s just so much pressure on this resource,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t know how to cure American capitalism, and that\u2019s what this whole process needs.\u201d<\/p>\n David Bayes points the bow of his low-prowed boat out of Homer\u2019s harbor as a sloppy chop pounds sheets of water against the windshield. Clouds ride low over the nearby glaciers. Bayes grew up fishing with his dad, before getting his degree in biology.<\/p>\n He started a charter boat business in the early aughts, taking tourists out for a day on the water. Unlike commercial trawlers, this kind of sport fishing\u2014which usually uses reel and tackle\u2014catches just a handful of fish at a time.<\/p>\n Watching the halibut and salmon populations his business depends on dwindle, Bayes began to question the North Pacific Fishery Management Council\u2019s approach to bycatch.<\/p>\n \u201cI was young and ignorant,\u201d he said, steering into the swells. \u201cI was like, \u2018They\u2019re just missing this data.\u2019\u201d By then the chair of the Alaska Charter Association, he wrote letters, pointing out how much halibut trawlers simply threw away, even as limits for fishermen like him tightened. The council was unswayed.<\/p>\n The details differ for each fishery, Bayes says, but trawling\u2019s impact is widespread. Since the 1980s, trawl-fleet fishing has developed large commercial markets in the region. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the scientific and regulatory agency that manages marine fishing, says<\/a> the pollock fleet uses \u201cmidwater trawl nets\u201d that \u201csometimes\u201d make contact with the bottom. But for more than 20 years<\/a>, the agency has known this fishing gear actually makes frequent seafloor contact. In 2022, research was presented to the council that vessels that catch and process pollock have gear that can actually drag the bottom up to 100 percent of the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the ships in the Bering Sea pollock fleet are allowed to fish in places where vessels that admit to bottom contact aren\u2019t, like in areas that are closed<\/a> to protect crabs. Some of them can process up to 225 metric tons<\/a> of fish a day. \u201cBottom contact in the pollock fishery has been well understood by [NOAA\u2019s] National Marine Fisheries Service and the council for decades,\u201d says the Alaska Pollock Fishery Alliance, arguing that \u201cthe impact on habitat from pollock trawling is minimal and temporary.\u201d<\/p>\n \n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/david-bayes-fish.jpg\")
\u201cThere\u2019s A Game Within A Game\u201d<\/h4>\n