Monday December 6, 2021
KDLL —
All three Kenai Peninsula representatives to Juneau have signed onto a letter to the council that oversees commercial fishing in Alaska’s federal waters, joining a bipartisan chorus of voices demanding reduction of halibut bycatch.
Specifically, representatives are asking the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to approve Alternative 4 at its meeting next week, which would take the most significant swing toward linking the trawl fleet’s fishing with halibut abundance in the Bering Sea.
It’s a strategy called abundance-based management and it’s one proponents say would curb the number of halibut that get incidentally scooped up by trawl nets each year in Western Alaska.
Andy Mezirow is a charter operator in Seward and a member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. He said it’s a complicated issue — one the council has been considering for years.