Trawl briefing leaves state board asking about its own waters

The federal model that judges whether trawling harms fish habitat has no data on fisheries the state manages itself, such as Prince William Sound pollock, scientists told Alaska Board of Fisheries members Friday.

The briefing came at a joint committee session of the Alaska Board of Fisheries and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in Anchorage. It was meant to inform the board's consideration of any future trawl proposals. The committee cannot act on any of it.

Board Vice Chair Tom Carpenter of Cordova, who chairs the board's side of the committee, said he asked for the session after trawl proposals reached the board in March. Reviewing them, he said, it was clear "the board may not be as informed as it should be in regards to some of the nuances surrounding trawl fisheries."

Three of those proposals dealt with pelagic trawl gear in state waters, and a fourth would have closed the Aleutians west of 170 degrees west longitude to all trawl gear, council staffer Sarah Marrinan said. As Alaska News reported Sept. 24, the board took no action on all four, spending 51 seconds on the last three.

Marrinan said 33 catcher vessels fished Gulf parallel state waters in 2025, all but one under 100 feet. State waters supplied an average of 10% of active vessels' gross revenue. From 2021 through 2025, about 7% of the central Gulf pollock harvest and 25% of the western Gulf harvest came from state waters, she said.

Brad Harris, whose lab at Alaska Pacific University runs the federal Fishing Effects Model, said its grid already crosses state waters and includes any fishery captured through federal catch accounting, including parallel fisheries. "What we don't have is state waters fishing information," Harris said. Council member Nicole Kimball noted the Prince William Sound pollock fishery, which lacks that federal monitoring, falls outside the model. Harris said the tools "could readily be applied to state waters" if the data existed, and that his team is willing to work with the state.

Board Chair Marit Carlson-Van Dort said some public comment raised concern that the model's 5-by-5-kilometer grid is too coarse to capture state waters. Harris said that if the model were applied to state waters, his team would decide what resolution fits.

Harris said the model assumes pollock trawls are on the bottom on every tow, with 70% to 90% of the gear's width in contact. "So we are overestimating effect on purpose," he said. Marrinan said the council has stated the most recent habitat review concluded that fishing effects on essential fish habitat are no more than minimal or temporary.

Carlson-Van Dort later said the federal material "certainly builds confidence in the federal fishery," but her question was whether it applies to state waters. She urged state-waters stakeholders to start advocating to the state Department of Fish and Game to get information state fisheries managers "don't have right now."

The committee also heard from Trident Seafoods, which has put a redesigned footrope, the chain that runs along the bottom of a trawl net's mouth, on all its Bering Sea pollock catcher vessels and catcher processors. The company is testing it under a NOAA exempted fishing permit, which allows experimental gear that regulations would otherwise prohibit. Shannon Carroll of Trident said the project is aimed at what managers call unobserved crab mortality, crab killed by trawl gear without being caught.

Noëlle Yochum, who presented with Carroll, said the redesign breaks the footrope's chain into short pieces, so a net on the bottom touches it about 2 inches every couple of meters, leaving gaps for things on the seafloor to pass under. Trident's slide put the possible cut in seafloor contact at 96%, from 113 two-inch segments, about 19 feet, measured against a 420-foot footrope, assuming full contact. Yochum called the number illustrative and said Trident plans to analyze its catch data and use video to measure how often the footrope is on the bottom.

Carlson-Van Dort asked whether the change amounts to going "from a shovel to a rake." Carroll called it "more of a broom versus a rake," and said the design would be counted in the federal habitat model if it moves from an experimental permit into regulation.

Oceana, the conservation group, called the 96% estimate "a meaningful result and a productive direction for gear innovation" in a May 29 letter, but urged the council to "be precise about what this result does and does not show." The letter said the results came from indirect proxies rather than direct sensor measurement, and argued gear 2 inches off the bottom still hits taller crab, corals and sponges.

Council staff said the council has made a discussion paper on bottom-contact standards for pelagic trawl gear, midwater nets built to hang in the water column, a top priority. Marrinan said the council's stated focus is unobserved crab mortality, in light of depressed red king crab populations. The council's June 8 motion lists options including a maximum bottom-contact rate, a swept-area cap and verifiable gear changes.

A progress update on the Fishing Effects Model goes to the council's Scientific and Statistical Committee in February 2027. The meeting transcript is available.