By Melanie Bahnke, Vivian Korthuis, Kevin Whitworth, Craig Chythlook and Jaylene Wheeler
Anchorage Daily News, February 2, 2026
Chum salmon in Western and Interior Alaska desperately need protection.
Chum are facing significant pressures, contributing to a serious crisis for the species and subsistence fishing communities. There are at least two pressures that we can do something about: the waste of chum as bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery, and the harvest and sale of chum in the Area M salmon fishery.
The impacts of these two fisheries play a crushing role in the cumulative threats facing chum salmon.
Image: Area M salmon fishery
In the pollock trawl fishery, all of the salmon caught as bycatch die, and almost all are wasted, with the exception of those used in a small charitable donation program that is not a substitute for subsistence opportunity. Astonishingly, there is currently no limit on how many chum salmon the pollock fleet can bycatch and waste. Over the past three decades, the pollock fleet has wasted millions of chum salmon, many of which were bound for rivers in Western and Interior Alaska.
In Area M, commercial vessels targeting sockeye and pink salmon are allowed to retain and sell incidentally caught chum salmon. There is no consistent enforcement of accurate reporting or catch observing in this fishery, leading to rampant “chum chucking” to stay under chum harvest limits.
According to the best available genetic data, over 1.9 million Western and Interior Alaska chum salmon have been caught at sea and discarded or sold between these two fisheries in the past 15 years.
At the same time, stocks from our rivers have plummeted. Across Western and Interior Alaska, subsistence salmon fishing has faced severe restrictions and even closures, where no salmon could be caught by in-river fishermen. Chum salmon and subsistence communities are entirely bearing the burden of conservation. This is a preventable injustice and failure of management.
The state of Alaska — which manages most statewide in-river fisheries, manages Area M and selects the majority of North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) seats — is largely responsible for this failure. The state simultaneously allows an enormous harvest of Western Alaska chum salmon in Area M, and massive waste of chum as bycatch in the offshore pollock fishery managed by the NPFMC — all while restricting subsistence salmon fishing opportunities for in-river harvesters who have nothing to do with causing the problem.
This broken system of management-by-convenience for the benefit of the powerful harms Alaska communities and the wild salmon they rely on. We are calling on the state to properly manage and change commercial fishing practices to fix this injustice and meaningfully protect and conserve our salmon in the oceans.
The solution will come from an all-hands-on-deck approach.
In the Bering Sea, the NPFMC is finally considering a cap on chum salmon bycatch and creating a migratory corridor for Western and Interior Alaska chum salmon to get by trawl nets.
However, there are challenges to making this a reality. In February, the NPFMC could consider options to set caps above the historical average of bycatch, or to simply formalize industry practices that are already in use, and pass that off as ‘action’ for salmon conservation. The pollock industry has been pressuring the NPFMC and the state of Alaska to leave chum salmon bycatch uncapped, claiming they can keep bycatch numbers low with their own measures. We don’t believe this is true, since leaving the industry largely to its own devices has resulted in an average of nearly 250,000 chum salmon being wasted per year over the past decade and a half. The pollock industry is incapable of self-managing this issue on its own.
The pathway forward to true salmon conservation and bycatch reductions in the Bering Sea requires the NPFMC to:
1. Codify improvements to industry agreements.
2. Create a conservation corridor that closes trawling in times and areas where the most Western and Interior Alaska chum salmon are caught.
3. Implement a hard cap on the entire pollock fishery’s chum salmon bycatch that is well below historical averages.
All three actions must occur together to achieve meaningful reductions in bycatch.
In Area M, the pathway involves the Alaska Board of Fisheries, whose membership is also appointed by the state, passing a proposal to implement fleet stand-downs for long enough periods in June for Western and Interior Alaska chum (and chinook) salmon to move through. Our salmon need a safe passageway through this fishery on the southside of the Alaska Peninsula, and they need that safe passageway to extend to the northside, where the pollock trawlers are operating.
The upcoming fisheries council and fisheries board meetings can ensure safe passage, meaningful limits and good marine stewardship of salmon. We can all start moving toward fixing this catastrophic crisis for salmon and salmon people – but only if managers and policymakers have the will to take real, meaningful action.
Melanie Bahnke is president of Kawerak, Inc.
Vivian Korthuis is CEO of the Association of Village Council Presidents.
Kevin Whitworth is executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
Craig Chythlook is executive director of the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
Jaylene Wheeler is executive director of the Bering Sea Elders Group.
