A peaceful protest was planned for the Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) annual meeting being held in Seattle on Thursday.
The industry’s fifth-ever event brings together Alaska industry executives from companies such as Trident, Aquamar, American Seafoods and UniSea, and also features allied industry members, lawmakers and social media influencers.
Activists with the “Stop Factory Trawler Bycatch” campaign held a protest outside the annual meeting at Seattle’s Four Seasons Hotel, local news site KUCB reported.
"GAPP, as a marketing organization, is not engaged in political discussions around the fishery taking place in Alaska and elsewhere," the organization said Wednesday.
On Thursday in the late afternoon a small group of protesters stood outside of the Four Seasons where the conference was being held all day.
NOAA is evaluating data collected on 10 killer whales, also known as orcas, incidentally caught in Alaska by Bering Sea and Aleutian Island groundfish trawl fisheries this year.
NOAA Fisheries reported earlier this month that only one of those incidents resulted in the whale being released alive.
GAPP said in a statement sent out Thursday orcas "are not known to swim near pollock fishing vessels or use them as a feeding source."
No Alaska pollock vessel was responsible for any orca fatality this year, GAPP said.
Alaska tribes as well as environmental organizations are intensely scrutinizing the Alaska pollock fishery, asking about its role in critically low chum salmon counts on the Yukon River now for several years in a row.
Bycatch is non-targeted fish caught while vessels are harvesting a different species. A so-called prohibited species catch limit would require the Alaska pollock fishery to close if it caught a specified number of chum.
The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council (NPFMC), which determines fisheries regulations for key fisheries resources in Alaska, is currently looking at implementing a limit on the number of salmon harvested as bycatch by Alaska pollock fishing vessels.
Read more
- CDQ group executive joins Alaska fisheries management council as friction between tribes, pollock sector builds
- The battle over bycatch in the Alaska pollock fishery is more serious than it seems
- Alaska Native groups sue US government over Alaska pollock, cod catch limits
- Pressure builds on Alaska pollock industry to reduce chum salmon bycatch
