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Wild Alaska Pollock Season Faces Economic Competition from Russia

Wild Alaska Pollock Season Faces Economic Competition from Russia
An Alaska pollock. Photo via Port of Seattle.

Harvests are underway in the lucrative wild Alaska pollock A season, with an overall 1.5 million metric ton total allowable catch (TAC) in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The fishery survived a potential domestic trawling ban, but still faces stiff economic competition from Russia.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council in December set the TAC at 1.375 million metric tons for the Bering Sea and 171,000 metric tons in the Gulf of Alaska. That decision came after the Alaska Board of Fisheries rejected proposed trawling bans in Prince William Sound.

The volume of the TAC and the Alaska pollock biomass, which refers to the total weight of the pollock in a specific area, has remained relatively consistent over the years, clear evidence of the sustainable, responsible, science-based way the fishery is managed, according to the Alaska Pollock Fishery Alliance.

The alliance, which formed in March 2024, is a coalition of fishery stakeholders representing Alaska’s pollock trawl fishery.

The pollock A season, which began Jan. 20, supports both the state and national economy.  Pollock alone contributes nearly $1.5 billion annually in wholesale value, with products that feed millions of people worldwide.

In the Central Gulf of Alaska, with a TAC of about 80,000 metric tons of pollock, harvesters opted to wait to begin fishing until Feb. 10, a three-week delay which they calculated would offer a much lower possibility of salmon bycatch and higher catch per unit of effort of wild Alaska pollock, according to Julie Bonney, owner and executive director of the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank in Kodiak.

Fishermen and processors suffered a huge economic loss last Sept. 25 when two trawlers from Kodiak caught 2,000 king salmon while fishing for pollock. The fleet had to shut down, leaving 50,000 tons of whitefish in those waters.

Bonney noted that the fleet came together proactively when they got word of the large bycatch of salmon, stopped fishing and came to town to avoid exceeding the salmon bycatch limit. Still, the cost of abiding by regulations had a big financial impact on commercial harvesters, processors and other businesses that deal directly with the pollock fishery, she said.

While there is no way to make up that economic loss from last fall, Central Gulf harvesters and processors are now focused on having a successful A season, she said.

The abundant biomass of pollock is shared with six Community Development Quota (CDQ) entities representing 65 Western Alaska communities, who are allocated a percentage of the annual Bering Sea pollock harvest.

The CDQ program funds a number of local jobs and critical infrastructure, while generating revenue that sustains these fishing communities.

The APFA noted that the A season comes at a pivotal time, with U.S. pollock harvesters facing competition from Russia’s heavily subsidized pollock industry, which has been driving down prices, while domestic policy debates have threatened to cut back pollock fisheries operations. The Russians are also building new processing facilities and using North Korean labor in those processing plants, Bonney said.

Source: https://fishermensnews.com/wild-alaska-pollock-season-faces-economic-competition-from-russia/

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