“Less Than One Percent”: How Bycatch Statistics Distort Reality

If you follow Alaskan fisheries, you’ve probably heard it: the Bering Sea pollock fishery has “less than one percent bycatch.” It is repeated in reports, headlines, and management meetings as if it settles the issue. The implication is clear. There is nothing to worry about. But that statistic conceals far more than it reveals.

In 2025, the Bering Sea pollock fishery harvested more than 3.1 billion pounds of pollock. One percent of that total equals over 30 million pounds of bycatch. That bycatch is not evenly spread across species, and for salmon runs already near collapse, even relatively small numerical losses can have outsized consequences. In most fisheries, that amount would be treated as a serious problem. In the pollock fishery, it is often absorbed into the scale of the harvest, not because the impact is small, but because the denominator is enormous.

A bycatch rate is a ratio. When the total catch is measured in billions of pounds, the percentage will always look small. The ecological and community harm, however, does not shrink with the denominator. In large-scale trawl fisheries, bycaught species are captured in dense, heavy tows, where pressure, crowding, and oxygen deprivation severely limit their survival. By the time fish are brought on deck, post-capture mortality is effectively assumed. Bycatch in this context represents removal, not temporary displacement. That impact is felt not only in salmon, but also in crab, halibut, and other non-target species whose losses compound across the ecosystem.

The pollock fishery is a major source of salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea. It accounts for nearly all documented chum salmon bycatch in the region’s groundfish fisheries. Even when the fleet stays within its Chinook salmon hard cap, those losses fall on runs already under severe stress. While the pollock fishery is extensively monitored and managed, monitoring does not eliminate impact.

The emphasis is on the wrong question. Bycatch rates were designed to assess efficiency within the pollock fishery. But efficiency is not the question. Impact is. Percentages are not meaningless, but in a fishery of this scale, they are incomplete on their own. The relevant comparison is not the volume of pollock harvested. It is the condition and recovery needs of the species being unintentionally impacted.

When western Alaska salmon runs are already critically low, even modest levels of bycatch can represent a meaningful share of what remains. At the same time, subsistence fisheries are closed to protect fragile runs. This demonstrates how precarious these populations have become. What appears small on an industrial balance sheet can mean the loss of an entire season of food, culture, and continuity for communities.

A low percentage does not mean low harm. Chinook and chum salmon in western Alaska have continued to decline for decades, showing that caps alone do not guarantee recovery. Climate change, freshwater habitat loss, and ocean conditions all play major roles. Bycatch adds an additional preventable source of mortality to already stressed runs. A percentage tells us nothing about whether populations are rebuilding, whether mature spawners are being removed, or how multiple stressors are compounding. It measures optics, not recovery.

Bycatch is recorded in fractions, but over time, those fractions add up to millions of fish removed before spawning. The losses accumulate. Communities feel the impact immediately, while management responses unfold slowly.

This is not an argument against monitoring, management, or the use of percentages. It is an argument against letting a single metric substitute for judgment. When percentages become the primary lens, they can obscure the very impacts management is meant to address.

The phrase “less than one percent” has come to function as a shield. It reassures the public while hiding the real cost to ecosystems and salmon-dependent communities.

A low bycatch rate in the world’s second-largest fishery does not mean a low impact. We owe it to the ecosystem and to the people who depend on it to stop hiding behind fractions. The question is no longer whether the percentage is small, but whether the loss is acceptable.