A Solution To Help Limit Bering Sea Chum Salmon Bycatch?

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council announced some guidelines to limit what’s been a divisive commercial fishing issue: chum salmon bycatch numbers in the Bering Sea. Here’s more from Alaska’s News Source:

Per the council’s final decision, an area of the Bering Sea around the Alaska Peninsula — referred to as clusters 1 and 2 — will be limited to 45,000 Western Alaska chum salmon bycatch. If that number is exceeded, half of the area will be closed for the remainder of the season from June 10 to Aug. 31.

The decision was made at the end of NPFMC’s February meeting and accompanies several other requirements. The action comes as communities across the state are concerned about low salmon runs and subsistence lifestyles.

“We are not able to fish on the entire Yukon River for any kind of salmon in the summer now,” said Charlie Wright, Yukon River Inter-tribal Fish Commission chair. “So, we’ve done all the work that we can, we think, inland, in river, and now we’re here to try to push protection corridors through those fisheries.”