Alaska pollock huge boon to local communities: whitefish accounts for 30 percent of all fish landed in the U.S.

• Author: Welch, Laine

When you bite into a fish sandwich at America's favorite fast-food restaurant or serve up a batch of fish sticks to the kids--do you know what fish you're enjoying? It's most likely Alaska pollock, a fish that almost everyone eats but few know anything about. And Alaska pollock has a great story to tell.

For starters, Alaska pollock is the world's largest food fishery, providing 25 percent of the entire whitefish supply to global markets. As our nation's largest fishery by weight, Alaska pollock accounts for 30 percent of all fish landed in the U.S. Amazingly, more than 3 billion pounds of pollock are harvested from Alaska waters each year, yet that is a mere fraction of the stock's abundance.

Managing the Resource

Although Alaska's pollock resource has been at near record levels for years, the fishery is managed very conservatively. "Federal managers only allow vessels to catch between 10 and 15 percent of the total mass of adult fish, now estimated at more than 24 billion pounds. Even if the pollock catch doubled, overfishing would not be an issue," said Mark Fina, a senior economist with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the federal group that oversees the vast fishery.

The Alaska pollock fishery in 2004 merited a coveted eco-label by the international Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for being well managed and friendly to the environment. The MSC aims to harness consumer preference to "purchase with a purpose" and buy seafood only from earth-friendly fisheries. Fewer than 20 fisheries in the world have earned the fight to use the MSC label on their products.

Alaska pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) is a whitefish similar to cod. It can grow to 15 pounds, but most of the fish taken commercially weigh about 2 pounds. Pollock is turned into fillets and surimi (used to make imitation crab meat and other popular seafood products); it is also valued for its roe.

Alaska's pollock fishery begins in late January in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, and runs into the spring. A second opener occurs in the summer and lasts into the fall. Pollock is taken primarily with mid-water trawl gear, which minimizes the effects of fishing on the ocean floor.

Sustaining Local Economies

The Gulf pollock fishery began in earnest at Kodiak in the early 1980s at the same time the shrimp and king crab stocks started to take a nosedive. In fact, many scientists believe a regime shift occurred in the ecosystem at that time, and predation by pollock...