Pollock ‘B’ Season opened today in the Aleutian Islands and Eastern Bering Seas Region.
Mary Furness is a Fisheries Resource Specialist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Juneau.
“The total allowable catch is up for the Bering Sea Pollock fishery this year, about 43,000 metric tons and the allocation is divided by the A season which gets 40% and the B season gets 60%,” she said.
According to Furness, there are about 19,000 more metric tons of Pollock available for harvest in this year’s B season.
Pollock numbers have been up in recent years. Last year’s was the second largest biomass estimate on record since scientists started surveying the fish in 1982. But harvest levels for groundfish are not allowed to surpass 2 million metric tons, regardless of increased assessments.
Furness said federal managers expect the Pollock B Season to wrap up by early to mid-October.
