Chum bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery this B season is outpacing recent years.

According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, more than 37,000 non-chinook salmon have been taken as bycatch through June 27, just a little more than two weeks after the B season opening date. By comparison, just over 13,000 chum salmon were taken in all of 2010.

Still, bycatch isn’t near the levels of 2004 and 2005, where approximately half a million chum salmon were taken in B season.

“Chum bycatch is a little bit higher than normal this year,” says Josh Keaton, an in-season manager with NMFS. “However, it’s not alarmingly so.”

Because of this increase in bycatch, rolling hot spot closures were put into effect last Thursday. The rolling hot spot closure program has existed for about a decade now, and utilizes the fleet’s data to determine where chum bycatch is up. High bycatch rates can then trigger a closure of four or seven days for a cooperative in a given area.

“That system was designed through the [North Pacific Fishery Management] Council and the industry together to allow them to react to high rates of salmon,” says Keaton. “Already, they’ve reacted to the higher rates. They’ve closed a 35 by 55 nautical mile area. They’re watching it daily. After the closure was put into place, it appears to have worked and the rates have come down dramatically since.”

He adds that for to date for this week, only 2,000 chum have been taken as bycatch.

“That’s 10 percent of what it was,” says Keaton.

In the meantime, Keaton says that the fleet and its managers are also trying to figure out how to otherwise reduce chum bycatch.

“Salmon excluder devices continue to be tested,” says Keaton.

At this point in the season, 107,000 metric tons of pollock have been harvested.