Thanks to the Annika Hammerschlag and the Independent Online for the Headline
Alaska pollock supplies is the world’s second-largest fishery, and supplies global food chains, providing key fish ingredients into their products. I like pollock and I am quite happy to eat it as an alternative to cod.
Unfortunately though pollock nets often catch other marine life, in the industry this is known as bycatch. One species affected is the Chinook Salmon which is a traditional catch of Native communities along the Yukon River. They have been stopped from fishing legally in order to preserve the Salmon so they don’t disappear.
Ocean researchers attribute the salmon collapse primarily to rising sea temperatures and shifting ocean conditions, however, the bycatch factor may be adding to what is already a precarious situation for wildlife.
The Pollock fishermen have not just ignored the problem , in fact they communicate with each other when they are at sea to identify salmon concentrations and will stop fishing to allow the salmon time to do whatever salmon do at sea. Every pollock vessel also carries a salmon excluder, a specialised device offering salmon an escape route from the net.
Bycatch and possibly damaging the ocean floor are Political hot potatoes which have all-party backing from local politicians. So the big players in Pollock Fishing are being careful and are gathering data to see the impact that their efforts to supply Global Demand for their fish are having on the smaller operators on rivers and coastal outlets who fish for crab and halibut.
Also I suspect that as fishermen they respect the sea.
Namaste and Thank You for Reading.🙏
