Alaska salmon run declines are a crisis; pointing the finger at trawl is misleading

Trawl-caught pollock harvested during an Alaska research survey. (David Csepp/National Marine Fisheries Service)

By Caitlin Yeager

While some Alaska salmon runs remain strong, sharp declines in others are causing a crisis for numerous Western Alaska communities. Chum salmon run declines will be under the microscope during this year’s North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting, and were discussed in a recent Alaska Beacon commentary. Open debate of how our region’s fisheries are impacting salmon populations is essential, but we need to take a closer look at the causes of abundance declines.

The science is clear that environmental changes, not fisheries, are the overriding cause. Western Alaska chum salmon runs were healthy as recently as 2017, when almost 6 million chum returned to the Yukon River alone. By that year, the Bering Sea trawl fisheries that are now being vilified by out-of-state environmental activists had been operating at their current scale for 50 years. Their impacts were carefully monitored and managed, and salmon bycatch avoidance techniques were heralded as a global gold standard. Then two major heatwaves arrived.

From 2014 to 2016 the Gulf of Alaska was hit by the longest and most intense marine heatwave on record. Then in 2019, a second massive warming event occurred in both the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. Scientists tell us that this warming shifted the zooplankton population, depriving salmon of nutritious foods like copepods and forcing them to eat the marine equivalent of junk food. This robbed young chum of energy reserves and sharply reduced survival rates. It also led to steep abundance declines for coho salmon — a species that trawl fisheries never encounter.

In the face of the crisis these environmental changes have caused, all of us need to respond. Yes, our region’s fisheries do catch Western Alaska salmon, and their management needs to be responsive. But here’s the truth: Alaska pollock trawl fishing accounts for only a tiny fraction of Western Alaska chum salmon fishing mortality. A recent scientific analysis concluded that state commercial salmon fisheries have accounted for 89.44% of Western Alaska chum salmon fishing mortality on average from 2011 to 2022. That is compared to an average of 8.81% by subsistence fisheries and an average of 1.75% by the Bering Sea Alaska pollock fishery in that same time. Any increase in chum salmon returns to Western Alaska from eliminating the pollock fishery would be undetectable.

Every fishery has an environmental impact. The Alaska pollock fleet is committed to continuous improvement, through things like collaborative research with state institutions and gear innovation, all to further reduce its very small impacts on Western Alaska chum salmon in response to the current crisis. As we do so, we are seeking to refine when and where we fish to specifically avoid Western Alaska chum salmon rather than Asian hatchery chum.

Between 2011 and 2023, 81.4% of Alaska pollock chum bycatch was from non-Western Alaska sources. Pacific rim chum salmon hatchery releases, predominantly from Russia and Japan, now total more than 3 billion fish per year and constitute the vast majority of chum salmon that our vessels encounter. How do we know? Because government observers count every single salmon that we catch, and extensive genetic sampling provides a detailed picture of where these salmon originate. As Western Alaska runs have declined, the percentage of our bycatch originating from hatcheries has increased. In 2024, 96% of the Alaska pollock catcher-processor fleet’s chum bycatch was of non-Western Alaska origin. Put another way, the Alaska pollock catcher-processor fleet harvested more than 1.28 billion pounds of pollock in 2024 while taking 313 Western Alaska chum.

The Alaska pollock industry and regional fishery managers have redoubled their efforts in response to growing concern in recent years to avoid chum salmon specifically of Western Alaska origin. This is challenging but increasingly possible, through new tools such as real-time genetic sampling and analysis of historical catch data. The Alaska pollock fleet already invests heavily in salmon lights and excluder devices as well as real-time vessel-to-vessel data sharing that closes fishing grounds if high levels of salmon bycatch occur. Through additional innovations we are committed to further minimizing bycatch of Western Alaska chum.

To address the crisis of salmon declines in Alaska, we need to ground our actions in science and shared understanding. While fishing does play a role, the overwhelming evidence points to broad-scale environmental shifts as the primary drivers. Trawl fisheries represent a small portion of overall impacts, but we recognize that even small impacts matter when abundance is so low. We also know that real solutions will take all of us — Tribal communities, scientists and industry —  working together with transparency, humility and mutual respect. There is a path forward, but it must be shaped by both science and lived experience, and we are committed to being part of that conversation in good faith.

• Caitlin Yeager grew up in Savannah, Georgia, in a family of boat builders. She came to Alaska as a scientist and spent a decade living in Dutch Harbor, running a fleet of pollock and crab vessels while working closely with the fishing community. She now works with the At-Sea Processors Association, helping bridge the gap between life on the water and the policies that shape it. This article originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon, which is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.