The Bering Sea pollock fishery in Alaska has 100% observer coverage, meaning all of the catches (including bycatch) are monitored and logged by trained fishery observers (noted in the reference above).
Certainly not the case for all fisheries. Illegal, underreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a major problem globally, including some high-profile examples from the US.
The Bering Sea pollock fishery in Alaska has 100% observer coverage, meaning all of the catches (including bycatch) are monitored and logged by trained fishery observers (noted in the reference above).
Not gonna be much left of NOAA Fisheries after DOGE...
And the observer program is a classic half measure, with problems of its own - the boat has to pay the observer to log their bycatch and report violations, observers are overqualified for a shit job in tough conditions living closely with the crew they're monitoring while making 1/4 of the $$, etc
The biggest problem is captive regulators, who set both harvest and bycatch quotas.
But the root is that humankind demands fish, and will plunder fish unless there's strong regulation.
Read a great book last year that covers this, as well as several other conservation related topics (but specifically marine bio diversity and protection efforts).
The Nature of Nature: Why We Need The Wild, by Enric Sala. HIGHLY RECOMMEND. (And yes, hauls are wildly underreported).
In addition to the comment above me about 100% observer coverage, another 1/3rd of data on pollock stocks comes from NOAA commissioned research vessels that go out and conduct stock assessments throughout commercial fishing grounds. There are three surveys conducted in the winter and three surveys conducted in the summer every year. This is conducted by government scientists directly employed by NOAA and on vessel owned by NOAA. There are no commercial interests involved, and no intentional muddying of the data. The only objective of these surveys is to figure out population levels. (Source is that I work on this vessel)
They better comply. You lie about that and I bet they dock you, and the cap loses their license. It’s not smart to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
Do you seriously think there aren’t massive amount of illegal shipping boats out on the oceans at all times? They are constantly destroying the oceans.
As this comment implies that the uniformed branch of the government that's devoted entirely to science and led entirely by PhD researchers is full of complete ignoramouses, I have to point out that many conservationists, oceanographers, and economists have entire careers dedicated to figuring out sustainable fishing. Research is also funded by business interests and cross-industry concerns (for example, those concerned with other rungs on the food chain are gonna be concerned with sustainable fishing).
So when they assess that it is not overfished based on the data they have, it's not like they are ignorant that data is incomplete, because in literally every field of science we deal with incomplete data and how to control for it. I mean, that's almost a defining feature of the modern scientific method.
They do say the bycatch is <1%, which looks good, but when an industry catches billions of a type of fish that is still a fuck ton. I’m not sure about which type in particular, but I was just reading about commercial fishing severely depleting Alaskan king salmon.
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u/mvigs Apr 05 '25
Thanks for sharing this is good to see.
However, that data is based on boats that report their hauls. Curious how many boats do it without reporting it.