Pollock bycatch fuels fight over trawling in Alaska
Bycatch from industrial pollock trawls — including salmon — is hitting Alaska’s Indigenous communities and small fishers amid collapsing salmon runs.
THE BERING SEA (AP) — The net rose from the heaving Bering Sea swells, packed so tightly with Alaska pollock that their heads squeezed through the webbing.
As the catch spilled onto the deck, other dead marine life came with it: a skate, crabs, jellyfish and, among the most consequential, salmon — the fish at the center of a growing political and cultural fight over industrial trawling in Alaska.