The general public frequently seems to confuse trolling and trawling, two very different commercial fishing methods. The two words—trolling and trawling—sound alike, but are very different in how they work and their effects on the ocean. In Alaska, a troller is a fishing vessel typically thirty to fifty feet long and operated by a single fisherman or two to three people (not infrequently family members) that drags hooks through the water typically targeting a single species—wild king salmon or wild coho salmon are the best examples for what our fleet does.
Using hook and line makes it much easier to target a single species without catching other species. It also is the best way to ensure quality. Our salmon is caught by small boat fishermen who fish for salmon with a fishing method called trolling, which is essentially dragging hooks through water and catching fish individually. Each fish is landed by hand one at a time and then cleaned and ice individually to maximize quality. In contrast, factory trawlers are large vessels, around 240 feet long, operated by dozens of crew members that drag giant nets that can measure up to 200 feet across that indiscriminately scoop up to 200 metric tons of fish, but also crabs, marine mammals, corals, sponges, and other living seafloor habitat in a single tow. See the difference between trawling and trolling in this video.
Unfortunately, when some people think of commercial fishing, they think of something like trawling. But in the case of our fishermen-owned co-op, we are a fleet of small boats—mom and pop operations making an honest living, grinding it out on the ocean. Ironically, Alaska’s trollers, who individually catch each salmon with a hook-and-line, are some of the most conservation-minded people you’ll meet. They are also the first lines of defense when it comes to protecting wild salmon, their habitat, and marine ecosystems. They are intimately familiar with what wild salmon need to thrive and have advocated on their behalf time and again. It is common to see small boat fishermen coming multiple generations of fishing families and they have a vested interest in the future. They are stewards of the resource.
In contrast, the indiscriminate catching of all species in the water involved in trawling give all commercial fishermen a bad name. When non-targeted fish get caught, they are known as bycatch. Trawl vessels produce an average of 24 million pounds of bycatch each year. This includes 4 million pounds of halibut, 1.6 million pounds of sablefish, and upwards of 21,000 king salmon a year. In addition, 150,000 pounds of living seafloor in the form of corals and sponges are destroyed in trawl bycatch. Once again, this living seafloor is habitat and part of the food web for vast arrays of marine species. It must be known that bycatch isn’t allowed to be sold. Frequently these fish aren’t up to marketable size and are damaged by crushing in the nets.
Our fishermen-owned co-op is made up of a fleet of small boats that fish using hook and line methods. Trawl bycatch is an existential threat for us as we lose salmon, halibut and sablefish to catch when it is indiscriminately pulled out of the water by trawlers, thereby also reducing our quotas set by the International Pacific Halibut Commission, North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, and Pacific Salmon Treaty at levels deemed to be sustainable as allowable harvest.
We illustrated some of the concerns we have with industrial aquaculture in this blog post. Another existential threat for our small boat fishermen-owned co-op is the damage caused by industrial trawling—habitat degradation and disruption of the food chain-- and the effects of trawl bycatch, which result in loss of marketable fish for our small boat fleet.
Why is this important? Small boat fisheries and the industries that support them are an important part of the local economies of coastal Alaska. The region’s commercial fisheries provide direct employment for 14,500 people in the equivalent of 6,000 full time jobs as captains and crew in the region. And many thousands of other jobs are supported by recreational fishing, seafood processing, fisheries management and monitoring, boat and equipment maintenance and repair, and the multiplier effects from fishing income spent in communities that depend on commercial fishing for a way of life. While trawl vessels remove huge amounts of groundfish, they only provide a small proportion of the Gulf of Alaska fishing jobs and contribute less to the state’s economy. The Gulf of Alaska trawl fleet has accounted for 4% of the direct fishing harvest jobs in the Gulf of Alaska, and 3% of its workers.
Trawlers, like other fishing vessels in the United States, have quota limits on target species. However, other species get caught, too, and this bycatch does not get managed well. From our perspective. In Alaska, trawler bycatch includes crab, halibut, king and keta salmon, and sablefish. When these species end up in trawl nets, they are discarded. When this bycatch is taken from the water by industrial trawlers, small boat fishermen lose this part of their quota. For 2025, trawlers pre-approved bycatch of king salmon is 77,500 fish for the year. These are typically smaller fish in early stages of life that won’t be able to grow to a marketable size but rather will be discarded.
Bottom trawlers drag enormous nets along the seafloor, destroying essential fish habitats like corals. Pristine habitat can be forever changed by one pass of a trawl net. It is an indiscriminate fishing method, filling nets with intended and unintended catch species. The intended catch is sold but the unintended catch, bycatch, is discarded dead or ground into fishmeal.
Trawlers’ nets also pass through and can destroy corals, sponges, sea stars, shrimp, all of which are essential parts of the food web. In the twenty-first century alone, trawl nets have scoured 25% of Alaska’s sea floor.
Fishermen from our fleet strongly advocated to close bottom trawling in our region of southeast Alaska and currently trawling is closed in southeast Alaska. However, the vast majority of the central and western Gulf of Alaska remains open to bottom trawling and this is where much of the fish spend at least part of their lives. The southern Bering Sea is considered to be a major nursery area for Pacific Halibut. Episode 5 “Water World” of the Seabank Chronicles podcast illustrates what’s so special about the Gulf of Alaska in terms of marine productivity and the effects of trawling on this unique ecosystem.
Trawling also accelerates climate change by stirring seafloor sediments, where carbon from ancient sea organisms has been sequestered. When these sediments are stirred up it releases carbon dioxide into the sea and eventually the atmosphere.
We’re not advocating for the end of trawling. Trawling does efficiently produce protein for the world and it does so in a more efficient and planet-friendly way than many land proteins. But we do think some measures should be put in place so that we can coexist and better share the ocean. These start with better management of bycatch, continued use of observers on board, and freezing the trawl footprint so that new sea floor areas are not dredged.
