May 28, 2026
Alaska Daily News
Robert Wright, Kevin Whitworth, Barbara ‘Wáahlaal Gidaak Blake, Linda Behnken, Michelle Stratton and Lauren Hynes
For more than 30 years, pollock trawlers have dragged nets across Alaska’s seafloor in areas explicitly closed to bottom trawling. And regulators let them do it because their gear is classified as “midwater.”
The science no longer supports that classification. Despite being categorized as “midwater,” the pollock trawl fleet accounts for roughly 40% of all seafloor contact in the Bering Sea alone.
Bottom trawling is one of the most damaging types of fishing in the world, unquestionably harming the ecology of the ocean floor and ecosystem. Nets, rollers and metal components scrape along the seafloor, wiping out just about everything in the way. Long-lived corals and sea whips, crabs, halibut, salmon, and unlucky whales and seals can all get caught and killed in bottom trawl nets.