U.S. Panel Puts Emergency Limits on Bering Sea Pollock Fishing

A federal panel has ordered emergency limits on the Bering Sea catch of pollock--the most important U.S. commercial seafood--to make more of the fish available for endangered Steller sea lions.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which reports to the U.S. Department of Commerce, mandated the restrictions late on Sunday after days of negotiations and bitter protests from the fishing industry, which argued that the limits are too severe, and environmentalists, who said they are too weak.

Scientists have said the sea lions, which eat pollock, are slowly starving. Environmentalists say the problem coincides with the rise of industrial-scale pollock trawling in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska.

Alaskan pollock, a low-priced whitefish, is sold in fillets and as a paste that forms imitation crab meat and other food products.

The plan approved on Sunday divides the 1999 pollock harvest into four seasons instead of the current two, expands no-trawling buffer zones around rocky beaches where sea lions gather and eliminates pollock harvesting entirely from Aleutian Island waters south of the Bering Sea.

“We had to take some drastic action to protect Steller sea lions,” said David Benton, deputy commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilley in Seattle will decide whether the limits satisfy the Endangered Species Act.

The western Alaska population of Steller sea lions was declared threatened in 1990 and endangered in 1997. From the central Gulf of Alaska to the western Aleutian Islands, the population crashed from 110,000 in the late 1970s to about 20,000 now.

In recent years, Alaskan pollock has accounted for about 40% of the U.S. commercial seafood catch, according to North Pacific council figures. The 1998 pollock catch exceeded 2.5 billion pounds and was worth $673 million after processing, the NMFS said.

Fishing industry officials said the harvest restrictions could cost the industry between $24 million and $100 million a year.