Fish-dumping dilemma: waste not, want not.

• Author: Richardson, Jeffrey
• Position: Fishery management

Experts call for drastic measures to halt the dumping of tons of fish on Alaska's ocean floors each year.

An estimated 500 million pounds of fish are legally caught, and then legally dumped, into the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska every year. Some people call that the worst kind of waste, deploring the loss of protein to a hungry world. There are also concerns that the dumping is symptomatic of poor fishing and management practices that may jeopardize fish stocks and set off a rippling ecological crisis.

Basically, the so-called bycatch problem arises because the sea isn't a tidy environment designed for the convenience of human harvesters, but rather a simmering broth of diverse species, habitats and shifting, largely unknown biological circumstances.

According to the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, a trawl dragging along the continental shelf might bring up 40 metric tons of pollock or cod and a host of untargeted bycatch as well, some of it very valuable: flatfish, halibut, skates, rays, squid and seaweed. A mid-water trawl would sweep up the target species, but might also capture salmon and herring in the process. Experts say the bycatch rate varies according to the fishery, the area, the season and the abilities of the skipper.

Fish are thrown back for a variety of reasons. In the case of herring, stock depletion is a major concern. In other instances, fish, such as halibut, are returned to protect markets of other fisheries. If the untargeted bycatch of halibut were retained and sold, those who make their living catching and selling halibut would be undermined.

Other fish dumped are those which are too small or too large for on-board processing machines, or those whose economic value is unknown. This includes spawning male pollock taken when females are captured for roe, and arrowtooth flounder. (Although researchers have identified an enzyme that inhibits disintegration of the arrowtooth's flesh during cooking, this large-volume species often travels with halibut and poses a substantial bycatch problem of its own.)

Big Bucks, Big Fish Lost

A recent report by the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation paints a vivid picture of the economic cost to the industry posed by the bycatch problem:

"Bycatch, especially of halibut, has been called the single biggest problem suffered by the North Pacific fisheries today. In the last three years, 180,556 metric tons of available Pacific cod went unharvested because trawlers and longliners exceeded halibut bycatch limits. During...