Sen. Mike Cronk of Tok has filed legislation addressing the impact of trawl and dredge fishing gear that makes substantial contact with the seafloor.
Senate Bill 161, “An Act relating to the use of certain trawl or dredge fishing gear in state water; and providing for an effective date,” also mandates a detailed study of its effects on marine ecosystems and fish habitats.
The bill amends Alaska Statute 16.10 by adding Section 16.10.135, which prohibits the use of bottom-contact trawl or dredge gear in state waters, as determined by the Department of Fish and Game. In Alaska, state waters extend three nautical miles offshore from the baseline of the coast, which is typically the low-water tide line along the shore.
This prohibition would take effect on Jan. 1, 2028, giving regulators and the fishing industry time to prepare. In the interim, the bill requires the Department of Fish and Game to conduct a comprehensive study on the health of seafloor ecosystems and fishery resources in state waters, with a report due to the Legislature by January, 2027.
The study would examine the impacts of bottom trawling and dredging on Alaska’s marine environments and fisheries. It will include data on bycatch, which are marine species unintentionally caught during fishing, over the past 10 years, broken down by species where possible. The report would also provide recommendations on whether such fishing gear should be permanently banned or restricted to ensure sustainable fish stocks and benefit Alaska’s residents.
Bottom trawling involves dragging heavy nets across the seafloor to catch fish, a method known for its efficiency but also for its ability to disturb marine habitats and capture unintended species, including those that are in short supply. Those dragging for pollock catch other species, like halibut, salmon, and crab.
The legislation would take effect immediately, except for the gear prohibition, which would be deferred until 2028. The outcome of the proposed study could shape future fishing regulations in Alaska.
This would be good. But if that can’t be accomplished, make the trawling industry keep all fish with each net set and put the total weight of the catch against their quotas. No more dumping of killed catch that doesn’t match their quota. All or none.
If not required in this proposed legislation, all of the underwater gear should be “Tagged” // “Registered” to the vessel owner. So, when it washes up onshore, fines and levees can be applied accordingly. Otherwise, the ocean areas within Alaskan waters continues to be a mass garbage dump, poisoning the aquaculture, adding to the waste and toxic cleanup at Taxpayers cost.
“This prohibition would take effect on Jan. 1, 2028, giving regulators and the fishing industry time to prepare. In the interim, the bill requires the Department of Fish and Game to conduct a comprehensive study on the health of seafloor ecosystems and fishery resources in state waters, with a report due to the Legislature by January, 2027”
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So they want to create a law, and THEN do a study on it??
How about we have the ADF&G conduct the study first, compile the results, and THEN pass a law based on the science?
A better idea
It’s about damm time! The draggers have been destroying everything in their path ruining all fisheries resources. He should add an amendment that bans out-of-state boats from fishing in state waters. Next, hammer the creek robbers up to and including asset forfietures of boats, licenses and equipment used in the offense.
Excellent Idea Steve
ITS ABOUT TIME!!
The problem is enforcement! I agree this needs to be done but we need sufficient law enforcement to patrol the waters and stop this from happening.
Please, tell me how I can help, from Oregon. Have you folks heard of the fb group stop Alaskan bycatch? We have 50,000 members.
I haven’t heard of that particular organization, but by-catch is a major part of the problem. The question is, is when you are straining the waters of all ocean life in one pass, how do you avoid by-catch using that method?
Why does it take someone from ultra-interior Tok to file this?
It’s the interior folk that are restricted from subsistence fishing due to the commercial fishing causing all the damage to the fisheries.
Probably because it takes someone from the deep interior to have little appreciation of the full effects of his proposal on many coastal communities. There is far too much blame being put in the trawlers because they are an easy target. Don’t get me wrong, trawlers need to clean up their operations but they aren’t the only problem and very possibly aren’t the real problem.
He’s not bought and payed for by the commecial fishermen.
Another issue that needs addressed is that state waters only extend three miles out. The remaining 197 miles are under federal government control, so the big pirate boats still have access to rape the ocean.
The vast majority of trawl fisheries are in Federal waters and well beyond state waters, I can only think of the one in Prince William Sound that was in state waters and I’m not sure that’s fished anymore. There are some shrimp trawl fisheries in PWS and Southeast I believe, but I don’t think they contact the bottom.
There are “Parallel” State waters trawl fisheries in South Central Alaska that open and close related to the federal fisheries, They are just hidden in the regulations.
Thank you, Senator Cronk. A good start. I wish it could happen sooner.
I have been in Seward Alaska for around 50 years and the shrimping in Ailak bay use to be great , then a trawler came in and cleaned the bay and it has never come back like it was. Stopping trawling in all waters is a good idea because it wrecks the habitat for the marine life.
Mid water trawlers are a joke, needs to be all trawling in state waters, just look at the tons of crabs and starfish dumped by them. Where they midwater crabs and starfish?
Way to go, Mike Cronk. Finally a Politician of Action not just a bunch hot air.
By 2028 there won’t be any fish left to protect and no chance for recovery, there is no reason to study it’s a fact that the trawlers are not only killing all species of fish , crab, and mammals it needs to end now.
Another aspect of bottom trawling not discussed or even under consideration is the carbon sink capture on the ocean floor. These are natural processes that store carbon for extremely long periods of time. Bottom trawling radically changes the composition of marine waters locally and regionally, disturbing sea floor environments that perform natural and critical processes for maintaining the health of the oceans and their ecosystems.
Needs to include banning mid-ocean trawling which catches salmon and marine mammals.
A good start – but it will do nothing to protect the millions of crabs and the millions of pounds of small halibut taken from the Bering Sea nursery area — taken primarily by huge Seattle-based hard on bottom factory trawlers that each year take 78% of the value of ALL groundfish from the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. ‘https://reports.psmfc.org/akfin/f?p=501:1000::::::
And those “midwater” nets? A report by the NPFMC’s own staff showed that those nets are on the bottom more than 85% of the time. ‘https://alaskafish.news/04/2022/trawlers-take-the-mid-out-of-mid-water/
“Bottom trawling involves dragging heavy nets across the seafloor to catch fish, a method known for its efficiency but also for its ability to disturb marine habitats and capture unintended species, including those that are in short supply. Those dragging for pollock catch other species, like halibut, salmon, and crab.”
Disturb marine habitats? Capture unintended species?
No, bottom trawling is an abomination that destroys marine habitats, slaughters everything caught in the net and the dumps the carnage overboard.
Ms. Downing, bottom trawling is such a horror that using mitigating language to disguise it is wholly uncalled for. Fishery after fisher after fishery has been destroyed in this state by bottom trawling with ramifications throughout the food chain.
Why do you think these pillagers are so desperate to pin the blame on ‘climate change’?
Studies have been done. They know enough already about the negative effects of dragging the ocean floor.
Trawler claim to be mid-trawling so there’s only incidental contact.
3 miles is not enough, needs to be banned completely. The by catch is to heavy of a price to pay for this type fishery.
So Tim what exactly are we going to study?? What we have already been studying for the last 20 years. Hell we can study things completely to death. Then we can study them again and again and again. There are companies formed in Alaska that can study every last cent out of any potential study. Hell we study to study.