By ALEX GIMARC
April 3, 2026 – One of the unexpected (artificial?) issues in this year’s gubernatorial race cropped up over the course of the last couple weeks – a demand to shut down the pollock trawl fleet in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and the Gulf of Alaska. Note that any issue is never artificial if it works, which it does for at least three Republican candidates for governor.
While every campaign needs an easy target for voter angst, this is one of the dumber ones. Worse, it exposes at least four Republican candidates as idiots, pandering vermin, people who bloody well ought to know better, all participating in today’s artificial Two Minutes Hate.
Now that I have started off by calling Our Side names, what is really going on?
The newly discovered issue is the environmental damage the Bering Sea trawl fleet is doing to the ocean bottom, midwater, and salmon populations in their yearly search for pollock. Bycatch is a continual complaint. While this is a long-standing issue, it is a relatively surprising addition to this year’s gubernatorial race, particularly on the Republican side. More surprisingly, the commfish trawlers figured out that they are under political attack and are fighting back via a series of radio ads over the last few weeks.
As of today, three Republicans are promising to shut down Bering Sea trawling Day One upon taking office. These candidates are Treg Taylor, Dave Bronson and Shelley Hughes, one of the most disappointing lists of Republicans since those who chose to caucus with democrats in the legislature a year and a half ago, as every single one of them would make an acceptable if not great governor. Every single one of them is better than any democrat candidate filed or rumored today.
Why?
Because the problem is not the trawl fleet. The problem is the number of commfish nets in the salt water, for whatever reason, targeting any species. The solution is not to single out one fleet. The solution is to move the entire commfish business model from hunter – gatherer in the open ocean commons to a farming one. These guys (and gals) are businessmen who have built their business models on chasing fish in the salt.
If that chase turns out to be destructive to the greater North Pacific at any level, why do we single the pollock trawl fleet out for punishment when every single commercial fisherman in the state is doing something similar?
What do we do about it? What would a possible solution be?
A democrat response would be to simply shut them down because they are evil, putting them on welfare, with a backhanded “sucks to be you” response and a not so friendly pat on their pointy little heads afterwards. A conservative approach would be to give them something else to do, an option that minimizes commfish nets in the water.
Fish farming, onshore and offshore is an obvious solution. This would mean eventually repealing the 1991 ban on fish farming here in Alaska. And that conversation ought to have started yesterday.
I don’t know if pollock can be farmed. But instead of jumping on a table, waving your arms, and promising to solve the problem by summarily destroying businesses owned by fellow friends and neighbors, shouldn’t we at least have a conversation about a solution that will keep them in business, starting with the finding out if it fish farming (a solution that will decrease the number of nets in the water) is at least possible?
Refusal to even consider or mention the fish farming option is pandering at its most basic level, pandering which ought to tell us that these four Republican candidates are little more than brainless pander machines, telling the electorate whatever they want to hear based on friendly polling, something that smacks of all things democrat rather than Republican.
We used to be better than that. Sadly, not anymore, at least for these four.
All the while, Democrats and Democrat-lite candidates (Click Bishop, you know who you are) sit quietly, enjoying the show, plotting their next move in the Great Game while we on the political right do our circular firing squad routine, destroying one another and attack viable Alaskan businessmen.
If trawling is a problem, give them something else to do, and in doing so, you end up solving the greater problem caused by commfish on all fish populations statewide (king returns, for instance), and on all user groups (sportfish, dip netters, subsistence).
Figure out how to grow the pie rather than engaging in increasingly bitter fights for a static to shrinking one, and you will actually improve things in this state, something statewide candidates used to do.
Keep doing what you are doing vis a vis your attacks on the trawl fleet without offering solutions, and you self-identify as little more than democrats in drag.
Color me disappointed in Our Side. We used to be able to do better. Perhaps we will.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
7 thoughts on “Alex Gimarc: How to shoot yourself in the foot on the trawling issue”
Wow! This is an unintelligent, minimally informed person writing this article. You can’t even do 2 minutes of basic research about fish farming before you write this. Fish farming is not going to happen in Alaska. Pollock cant be farmed at scale. Trawl fleet are not our friends and neighbors, they are major consolidated corporations from Seattle. Local commercial fisherman are not destroying the ocean and not causing bycatch at scale like the trawlers. This is a very important issue and it’s not going away.
Pretty funny coming from a doctor who’s never been to a fisheries meeting, never been to Kodiak, Sand Point, Unalaska, or any of the communities where Alaska-based trawlers live. And someone who doesn’t know enough about the fishing industry to understand that shoreside processing (which you have to have to support local fishermen) wouldn’t exist without either trawl deliveries or Seattle investment. Get bent, owen.
Wowsers back to you. If you recall what I wrote, “I don’t know if pollock can be farmed”, it turns out that the Koreans have figured it out, at least at a small scale, which means there is an opening for an alternate solution.
If you clowns aren’t even open to trying to explore an alternate approach, why am I even talking with you, as you are not bringing anything to the table other than sadly predictable invective.
Local commfish are destroying salmon and other returns statewide, and have been doing so for decades. I am offering an off ramp, which you summarily reject. In doing so, you also reject any outside help to save your foolishly protected business business model. Sucks to be you. Or not. Cheers –
The trawler industry leaders brought the attacks on themselves.
Because the State of Alaska refused to listen (if they even have listening skills) to those complaining for decades the salmon aren’t returning up to the rivers, there being lesser and lesser while communities are watching Trawlers scoop up massive tons of salmon and other foods that go to waste. The state and federal government negligence to not listen and to not get more salmon in the smoke houses, the freezers, and tables of Alaskans brought on the contempt and distrust from the Alaskans living near the rivers no longer providing food.
So get off your high horse and go learn some listening skills because Alaskans have been complaining for twenty five years where is the salmon!!!
You know that Alaskans are poor, ignorant and illiterate. Those in the smaller coastal communities dont really care about the billions in profits loss if trawlers are reduced, they just want leaders who have listening skills developed, an honest heart, and get the salmon back into their rivers.
At this point of negligence on state and federal leaders part to meaningful address the decades of complaints, your arguement of the industry will only fall on ears closed because these people feeling ignored for decades will just see it as an attempt to continue collecting the riches while their freezers, smokehouses, and tables aren’t full.
In 2026, how much are these PNW based trawler fleets benefiting AK? Their ops are based in Wa, they hire H-1B’s, they have shuttered the Alaska processing plants, the product is exported and they do their ship maintenance in Seattle, Nobody wants to purchase the fish, anyways. The market is bad. So, they purchase some fuel and groceries from the locals. It’s worth having that conversation.
Farm fish – not good for “local” stocks, genetics are poor.