Meateater- Trawl Bycatch

[OXN939]

Glad to see this issue getting some high level national exposure. If you've ever though it's a little weird that you as a fisherman will catch a criminal charge for misidentifying and retaining one (1) single king salmon, but industrial trawlers are legally allowed to kill and dump tens of thousands of them overboard as bycatch, this has a lot of the answers about how that came to be.

If anyone from Trident seafoods is reading this, I want you to seriously look at how many views this has gotten in 36 hours. No amount of lobbyists or well placed donations to politicians can beat this. The public has learned the truth about what trawling does to our fisheries, and you will be out of a job soon.

Thanks to Meateater for helping get the word out.

 

[yfarm]

Is a problem in multiple fisheries. Shrimp trawling in the Gulf of Mexico(Am) ranges from 8-22 lbs of juvenile finfish per lb of shrimp.

 

[Elkman17]

I’m glad this is getting more attention and hopefully it will get shut down sooner rather then later.

 

[Slickhill]

If only this was getting traction 20 years ago. I remember days of C&R a bunch of kings on road system streams until getting a nice buck to keep, off the bank with no boat. Or fishing out of a boat in a river accessible from the road and catching 2 dozen kings in a single day, just me the others in the boat caught their own, before high grading one buck out for the table.

None of those places are open for kings anymore I don’t think. It hasn’t been that long ago since I moved up and heard how good it used to be, never crossed my mind that I was experiencing “the good old days”.

 

[chancey]

I spent many years working on the ocean. There are lots of “sustainable” ways to commercial fish, most are more focused on providing for a local community or exporting to a non local community that wants something the locals don’t. The amount of bycatch from any form of net fishing is astonishing. If it goes on unchecked the oceans will be devoid of anything to eat. Imagine planes and helicopters spotting, and then circling herds of elk so you could drive a net around them in your sxs.

 

[Yoteassasin]

I spent many years working on the ocean. There are lots of “sustainable” ways to commercial fish, most are more focused on providing for a local community or exporting to a non local community that wants something the locals don’t. The amount of bycatch from any form of net fishing is astonishing. If it goes on unchecked the oceans will be devoid of anything to eat. Imagine planes and helicopters spotting, and then circling herds of elk so you could drive a net around them in your sxs.

Hmmm drag fegs … as a former “out west” longliner dragging is insane even we got fined on bycatch

 

[LostArra]

Seems ridiculous the years we were fishing Alaska and were lucky to keep 1 king per year (non -resident). Some years zero. Like the sport fishermen were the problem.

 

[OXN939]

Seems ridiculous the years we were fishing Alaska and were lucky to keep 1 king per year (non -resident). Some years zero. Like the sport fishermen were the problem.

I've spent the last 8 years positioning myself to move full time to Alaska, should finally be there next summer. Remember watching Larry Csonka catch a big king on the Kenai one time when I was a kid and being absolutely enthralled by how majestic an animal it was. Honestly have no idea if I ever will catch a king, even as an AK resident. All for corporate greed.

The silver lining here is that public pressure on this issue is growing to the point that something will be giving soon. For anyone interested in speaking up, I'll plug the "Stop Alaskan trawl Bycatch" facebook group. If you give them a follow, you'll hear about every important opportunity to contact your reps and help us get some real laws on the books to protect halibut and salmon.

 

[Laelkhunter]

Just a drop in the bucket. It goes on continuously especially here in the South (Gulf of America). In September 2022 a trawler (believed to be Chinese) had a catch so large, it couldn't hoist the net aboard the ship, so they cut it loose to let everything die and go to waste and they left the area. Estimated to be 500,000 pounds of Menhaden (Pogies), red drum, and other bycatch all wasted. No one was caught to answer for it.

 

[FranklinBluth]

I have no problem with commercial fishing, but they have to be last ones to eat. Fish are a public resource and should be available to the public first before anyone can come in and profit off of it. That said, it shouldn't be hard to manage for abundance in AK so there's space for the commercial guys to make a living.

When you have consistent year over year decline in halibut and salmon size (not to mention runs that are failing nearly completely), all options should be on the table to reverse that and a pause on the commercial operations have to be on the table.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

Make them buy quota for all their by catch, at whatever price those who have quota a willing to sell, and they’d change their fishing practices.

 

[Jimmy]

Very eye opening to me I had no idea. And what insane waste of fish!

 

[Tjdeerslayer37]

Make them buy quota for all their by catch, at whatever price those who have quota a willing to sell, and they’d change their fishing practices.

basically works the other way around. the halibut charters get penalized and have fishing days taken away from them throughout the summer to account for the quota that is given to the trawlers and to cover the bycatch.

 

[hikenhunt]

I listened to that podcast and hope it continues to gain traction. I like the idea of trawlers having to buy the quota of their bycatch, but it doesn't help the habitat destruction of the bottom trawlers.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

basically works the other way around. the halibut charters get penalized and have fishing days taken away from them throughout the summer to account for the quota that is given to the trawlers and to cover the bycatch.

I understand that which is ridiculous. If they were held accountable for what they harvest (and penalized further for what they waste and don't bring in) they would change how and where they fish.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

I listened to that podcast and hope it continues to gain traction. I like the idea of trawlers having to buy the quota of their bycatch, but it doesn't help the habitat destruction of the bottom trawlers.

Its because they aren't held accountable for "mid column" or whatever the term is, nets being on the bottom. They have control over how they fish and they do what they can to maximize profit where regulations allow them to. Which currently means they run them close or on the bottom but they could avoid it, its just more profitable to do it currently.

 

[Jimmy]

and how are some not considered bottom trawlers but they are dragging up starfish....

 

[fisherman983]

Its because they aren't held accountable for "mid column" or whatever the term is, nets being on the bottom. They have control over how they fish and they do what they can to maximize profit where regulations allow them to. Which currently means they run them close or on the bottom but they could avoid it, its just more profitable to do it currently.

Its called midwater and they dont drag those nets on tbe bottom, they put them close to it for Pollock. For ground fish, such as rock fish Grey cod and black cod they do actually drag on the bottom and use a completely different net and codend.
No Pollock boat in their right mind intentionally drags the bottom and tears up the gear every tow except maybe some factory trawlers. The catcher boats dont do that unless the captain is retarded

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

 

[BBob]

Its called midwater and they dont drag those nets on tbe bottom, they put them close to it for Pollock. For ground fish, such as rock fish Grey cod and black cod they do actually drag on the bottom and use a completely different net and codend.
No Pollock boat in their right mind intentionally drags the bottom and tears up the gear every tow except maybe some factory trawlers. The catcher boats dont do that unless the captain is retarded

So are you saying the information presented in the podcast where the midwater nets are dragging bottom pretty regularly is incorrect? The number was 20% to xxx% of the time if I recall correctly? If they don't drag bottom how are they pulling up tons of bottom bycatch if they never drag bottom or is that info incorrect as well?

 

[Big Sky Guy]

Thanks for sharing. I will have to give this a watch/listen. I spent a summer working as an observer on these rigs. The majority of my time was on a "mid size" (giant to me) trawler, targeting pollock. It was an incredibly "clean" fishery from what I observed. That was probably the most boring ship I was on as my job was literally to sample each haul and record the bycatch and take otoliths from the fish. This would have been 2010, so I may be forgetting, but in the thousands of fish I sampled I don't recall hardly ever recording any bycatch - just an unfathomable amount of pollock. It was certainly a modern marvel to me coming from Ohio and seeing literally school bus loads of pollock brought out of the great ocean, haul after haul, after haul. I will say there is certainly a bit of an art to it, if the seafloor was exactly level then things would certainly be easier. Rough seas I believe contribute to it as well. I do remember "scraping" bottom a couple times, both with roughish seas, one instance resulting in them "catching" a forklift (presumably fell off a cargo ship?) and it was a life and death situation getting that thing cut out of the codend, I was nearly certain I was going to watch one of the fisherman fall overboard as they could not get it up on the ship and had to cut it free while it hung over the stern in uncalm seas - absolutely crazy to me. The other instance I believe they were just above the floor as there were the biggest king crabs I've ever seen clinging to the OUTSIDE of the codend when they brought it up. So just as @fisherman983 said, the pollock trawler I was on was never intentionally dragging the bottom. To what extent it happens and specifically the impacts other fisheries besides pollock are likely having with regards to bycatch is a discussion worth having. I do believe the pollock trawler fishery was sustainable (presuming other pollock captains operated the same way the one I was with did) at the time and as heavily as NOAA/NMFS was involved would sure hope that hasn't changed.