A federal fisheries panel meeting in Sitka voted June 10 to establish a northern boundary for bottom trawling, as part of a commitment to protect essential fish habitat from impacts caused by trawling.
The action by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council prevents movement of trawl fleets into new grounds where sensitive marine mammals and seabirds feed and migrate. Council members made the move as part of a commitment under the federal Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
Conservationists and others have argued for years that bottom trawling is harmful to the Bering Sea ecosystem.
Dave Benton, executive director of the Marine Conservation Alliance in Juneau, called the action an important step for the health of Alaska's oceans and the seafood industry.
MCA is a nonprofit, Juneau-based organization of those involved in North Pacific groundfish fisheries, including coastal residents, commercial fishermen, vessel owners and crews, processors, fishing organizations, support industries and Western Alaska Community Development Quota organizations who are allocated a percentage of the groundfish harvests.
“The council took a number of precautionary actions that are supported by Alaska's seafood industry,” said Benton, himself a former chairman of the federal panel. “They closed approximately 130,000 square miles to bottom trawling to protect important habitat, and approved measures to implement gear modifications developed jointly by the industry and NOAA to reduce the impacts of bottom trawls throughout the Bering Sea.”
The new protection area is a migratory pathway for halibut, salmon, herring, walrus, bowhead whales and ice seals. Walrus and seals use the sea ice as a winter platform for feeding, resting and pupping.
The entire population of spectacled eiders, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, winters in open water leads within the pack ice south of St. Lawrence Island. Walrus and eiders dive to the seafloor to feed on clams and other animals that would be harmed if bottom trawling were permitted in those offshore areas, according to the Alaska Marine Conservation Council.
Bottom trawling involves dragging large nets — fixed with heavy tires, chains and other hardware — across the bottom of the ocean. The practice is widely considered by conservationists to be destructive to the physical structure and marine life on the seafloor.
Yup'ik and Inupiaq Eskimo villages dotting the coastline of the Bering Sea, Nunivak Island, St. Lawrence Island, and King and Diomede islands are dependent on the region for subsistence harvesting and small-scale local fisheries. More than 25 Bering Sea tribal governments and Alaska Native organizations requested the bottom trawl closure.
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council chose to limit bottom trawling to those areas of the southern Bering Sea where it has historically occurred. “Freezing the footprint” is a precautionary measure to ensure this fishery does not expand into untrawled habitats without an explicit plan for how to strictly limit bottom trawling to those areas where impact would be minimal.
Dorothy Childers, program director for the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, said in a statement issued that creating a northern boundary for bottom trawl fisheries will prevent damage to this unique part of the Bering Sea.
“Bottom trawling is not compatible with subsistence practices or the sensitive marine life in the region,” Childers said. “The Bering Sea faces diminishing sea ice and other uncertain changes caused by global warming. Now more than ever, it is important to prevent the introduction of new sources of impact like bottom trawling in the sensitive northern region.”
In addition to the northern bottom trawl boundary, federal fishery managers also considered a future management arrangement in the event that rising ocean temperatures cause a major redistribution of commercially valuable fish species into the northern area.
Specifically, they stipulated that before they would consider allowing bottom trawling beyond the northern boundary, they will establish protections in the northern area for marine mammals, species listed under the Endangered Species Act, crab populations and areas important for subsistence.
It is anticipated that subsistence areas would be delineated through a tribal consultation process. This plan will be developed over two years. Following these protections, there would be research conducted in the remaining area to evaluate the effects of trawling on that habitat.
Margaret Bauman can be reached at
margie.bauman@alaskajournal.com.
37,482
142.87 - RECORD
| Contact Us | Jobs | Subscribe