Alaska Senate Race Becomes a Fight Over Salmon and Bycatch
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola are clashing over trawler bycatch as Western Alaska villages face empty smokehouses.
At a glance
- Alaska's U.S. Senate race has become a fight over salmon and trawler bycatch as Western Alaska rivers see weak returns.
- Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is promoting a new bycatch bill, while Democrat Mary Peltola says she would ban factory trawlers.
- Pollock trawlers say they caught 40,000 Alaska salmon this year, a tiny share of the pollock harvest, but villages report empty smokehouses.
In Alaska's tight U.S. Senate race this year, fish has become a central issue. Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan is running against Democratic challenger Mary Peltola, and many voters in Western Alaska are angry that salmon are not returning to rivers such as the Kuskokwim. The contest could help decide control of the U.S. Senate, and NPR reports that President Trump is trying to preemptively block election results in Alaska if the Republican incumbent loses.
Evon Waska's home sits beside the river. He says his parents settled there after abandoning a nomadic life. The drying racks outside his smokehouse would normally hold salmon at this time of year, but they are bare. In most recent years, the number of salmon swimming back from the Bering Sea to the Kuskokwim has been too low. Government agencies often shut the river to fishing to protect the remaining fish, a closure that also applies to residents who catch salmon for food. Waska points the finger at trawlers, the industrial vessels that fish far offshore. He argues that authorities close the river to him and his people but not to the trawlers.
The trawling fleet is part of an industry worth $1 billion, with much of it based in Seattle. To catch pollock, the boats pull nets shaped like socks that stretch about a quarter-mile and have mouths as wide as a football field. Pollock is used in products including imitation crab and McDonald's Filet-O-Fish. The same nets also sweep up valuable king salmon and other species by accident, a problem called bycatch. That anger is now visible in Alaska's political advertising.
Sullivan has historically backed the pollock industry, but this year he is promoting a bill he describes as the most sweeping bycatch legislation ever, meant to reduce accidental catches and safeguard seafloor habitat. Peltola, an Indigenous candidate from the Kuskokwim region, wants to prohibit factory trawlers, the biggest boats in the pollock fleet. She dismisses his bill as an election-year gimmick and says he accepted more than $300,000 from trawler interests before offering a half-hearted solution at the last minute.
Heather Mann, who heads a trawlers association, argues that blaming the pollock fishery will not solve Western Alaska's problems. She says scientific evidence indicates that removing pollock fishing would have only a slight effect on restoring salmon runs. Pollock trawlers report catching 40,000 Alaska salmon this year, which they say is a very small fraction of their overall pollock harvest.
In Kwethluk, a village on the Kuskokwim River, the loss is especially painful. Subsistence fishing is the village's main work and a foundation of its culture. Tribal president Mary Nikolai visits a neighbor's unheated smokehouse and is saddened that it sat idle all summer. She says most smokehouses in the area are the same, part of a slow trend that is shutting subsistence workers out. No matter who wins the tight Senate contest, she hopes it draws global attention to the danger her community faces.
NPR's Liz Ruskin reported from Kwethluk, Alaska.
Source: NPR News.
Questions and answers
- What is bycatch in the Alaska Senate race?
- Bycatch is the accidental catch of fish such as king salmon in trawler nets targeting pollock. Alaskans are angry that the practice wastes salmon while subsistence fishing is restricted.
- Where do Dan Sullivan and Mary Peltola stand on trawlers?
- Sullivan is promoting a new bill to reduce bycatch and protect seafloor habitat, while Peltola says she would ban factory trawlers. Peltola calls Sullivan's bill an election-year ploy.
- Why are salmon important to Western Alaska villages?
- Many people rely on salmon to feed their families, and subsistence fishing is the main occupation and backbone of culture in places such as Kwethluk. Empty smokehouses show how scarce the fish have become.
