Bronson calls for bottom trawling ban in state waters at Kodiak fisheries debate

Dave Bronson called for banning bottom trawling inside Alaska's three-mile state waters at the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce fisheries debate Wednesday, a step none of his three rivals for governor matched in a hall whose sponsors included the Alaska Whitefish Trawlers and Alaska Pollock Fishery Alliance.

"I've called for a ban on trawling, especially bottom trawling, in the 3-mile zone. I know that's gonna be painful for some folks," Bronson said, putting the affected catch at about 1% of the trawl harvest. Bernadette Wilson said the state should distinguish "the big corporate trawlers where you've got boats that are up to 295 feet long and 3,000 horsepower" from smaller operators, and would send it to a revived bycatch task force, fish caught while targeting others. Treg Taylor said "we have to end practices that destroy our habitat, period," without naming a gear ban. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins said reductions should be pursued fishery by fishery and at the federal council, citing a legislative sign-on letter he led seeking hard Chinook bycatch caps in the Gulf of Alaska trawl fishery.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which sets federal trawl rules from three to 200 miles, adopted a 45,000-fish Western Alaska chum bycatch limit in February and closed a Bering Sea corridor to pollock boats. NOAA Fisheries estimated the 2020 impact rate of Bering Sea groundfish bycatch on western Alaska Chinook stocks at 3.4%, and 0.94% for upper Yukon stocks, while pointing to changing marine conditions as a driver of the same declines. Yukon River subsistence salmon fishing has closed every season since 2021, and a seven-year Alaska-Canada agreement holds directed Chinook harvest closed to 2030.

Bronson tied the fisheries to those closures: "Fish camps are closed. They've been closed now, I think, for 6 years, and their cultures are being lost there. Because there's no salmon."

Asked by moderator Gary Stevens if they would hire a fisheries advisor, a position Kreiss-Tomkins said "has gone away under the Dunleavy administration," all four raised the green paddle. Alaskans vote November 3.