A common thread linking marine predators in western Alaska is their reliance on walleye pollock
(Theragra chalcogramma), a prolific hake-like member of the cod family whose range extends across
the North Pacific Rim from Puget Sound to the Sea of Japan. Pollock's central importance as a forage
fish in the Bering Sea food web has been known since the 19th century, hence pollock's scientific name,
Theragra, from the Greek Ther = beast, agra = prey or food.1 Pollock is widely consumed at every stage
of its life cycle by mammals, birds and fishes.
Pollock is the dominant fish prey in the eastern Bering Sea,2 and pollock was the dominant prey fish
of groundfish and Steller sea lions in the Gulf of Alaska during the 1990s.3 Groundfish predators
of pollock include some of the most abundant and most highly valued species in the Bering Sea and Gulf
of Alaska, in addition to adult pollock: Pacific halibut, Greenland turbot, arrowtooth flounder, flathead
sole, Pacific cod, and sablefish, as well as Pacific sandfish, shortspine thornyhead, great sculpin, and
Alaska skate.4 Major marine mammal predators of pollock include the endangered Steller sea lion, depleted
northern fur seal, depleted Pacific harbor seal, spotted and ribbon seals in the Bering Sea, as well as
harbor and Dall's porpoises, fin, minke and humpback whales.5 Seabird predators of pollock include some
world's largest nesting colonies of kittiwakes, murres, and puffins in the Pacific Ocean, in addition to
fulmars, guillemots, cormorants, shearwaters, murrelets and auklets.
Fishery
Long regarded as a commercially worthless "scrap" fish by American fishermen who targeted salmon, halibut,
herring and crab, pollock�s potential as a cheap and plentiful protein source was only realized in the early
1960s when Japanese factory trawlers introduced a process for reducing pollock's white flesh into a protein
paste called surimi. In the 1990s, as cod stocks in the North Atlantic collapsed from overfishing, pollock
became a popular whitefish substitute for cod in the global seafood trade. Today pollock is widely marketed
in Asia, Europe and North America as surimi (imitation crabmeat), fast food fish fillets and frozen fish
sticks, in addition to a highly lucrative market for pollock roe (fish eggs).
The scale of the modern pollock fishery has no historical precedent in the region, with recent catches
of ~1.5 million metric tons/year (3.3 billion pounds) � representing 70-75% of the annual Bering Sea groundfish
catch and nearly one-third of all marine fish caught in U.S. waters annually. Pollock has accounted for over 70%
of all groundfish landings off Alaska since the 1960s (~52 million tons, more than 114 billion pounds),6 and
another 20 million tons of pollock have been taken from adjacent international waters of the central Bering
Sea (Donut Hole) and Russian waters off Cape Navarin, northwestern Bering Sea.
While fishery officials point proudly to the enormous yields and revenues generated by the Alaska pollock
fishery as proof of its sustainability, the National Research Council recognized nearly a decade ago that
several regions where pollock were once abundant have been heavily exploited and the pollock stocks in those
regions have suffered major declines (NRC 1996).7 Intense concentration of the pollock fisheries on spawning
aggregations since the 1980s has been accompanied by serial declines in pollock abundance in the Gulf of
Alaska (1980s), Bogoslof/Aleutian Basin (1987-1992), and Aleutian Islands (1990s), leading to the closure
of the latter two areas in the 1990s. Overall yields have remained high throughout the period of U.S.
management, but three of the four defined "stocks" in the fishery management plans (FMPs) remain at or
near historic low abundance levels today. With the Aleutian Basin and Aleutian Islands closed to directed
pollock fishing due to low abundance, and the Gulf of Alaska experiencing historic low pollock abundance
and lower TAC levels, fully 96% of all pollock caught off Alaska are now taken from the eastern Bering Sea.
Management Issues
While fishery officials point to the enormous yields and revenues generated by the Alaska pollock fishery as
proof of its sustainability, the National Research Council recognized nearly a decade ago that several regions
where pollock were once abundant have been heavily exploited and the pollock stocks in those regions have
suffered major declines (NRC 1996). Intense concentration of the pollock fisheries on spawning aggregations
since the 1980s has been accompanied by serial declines in pollock abundance in the Gulf of Alaska (1980s),
Bogoslof/Aleutian Basin (1987-1992), and Aleutian Islands (1990s), leading to the closure of the latter two
areas in the 1990s. Overall yields have remained high throughout the period of U.S. management, but three of
the four defined "stocks" in the fishery management plans (FMPs) remain at or near historic low abundance
levels today. The Aleutian Basin and Aleutian Islands stocks are closed to directed pollock fishing due to
low abundance, and the Gulf of Alaska is experiencing historic low pollock abundance. Thus, fully 96% of all
pollock caught off Alaska are now taken from the eastern Bering Sea.
The impacts of these trends on pollock predators in the ecosystem could be devastating. In 1998 and again
in 2000, NMFS prepared legally required Endangered Species Act Section 7 Biological Opinions on the pollock
fisheries in which the agency concluded that the intense spatial and temporal concentration of the pollock
fisheries within designated critical habitat jeopardizes Steller sea lions and adversely modifies sea lion
critical habitat, the most important feature of which is the prey field. But the effects on sea lions (and
other pollock predators) of the fishery catch levels were not considered directly then and remain unaddressed
today.
The abundance of Bering Sea pollock has declined steadily since 2003 under intense fishing pressure and is
now estimated to be at the lowest level since 1980, when the stock was recovering from the first wave of foreign
trawling during the 1970s. The projected 2008 Bering Sea pollock abundance will be the lowest in the history of
the U.S.-managed fishery, and the proposed 2008 fishery quota of 1 million tons (2.2 billion pounds) could drive
the stock to collapse. Given the risk of a fishery catastrophe and ecological havoc caused by the loss of the
most important forage fish off Alaska, NMFS should require a far more precautionary approach.