Unalaska, AK – The National Marine Fisheries Service is accepting public comments on the new rules regarding Chinook salmon bycatch by the Bering Sea pollock fishery. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council approved the regulation during their April meeting last year. The new regulation limits bycatch to 60,000 salmon but includes incentives to keep the bycatch rate under 47,591. The public can comment until May 7, 2010.

If the Commerce Secretary approves the rule it would go into affect for pollock A' season 2011. The proposed rule, Amendment 91, puts a hard cap limit on the number of Chinook, or king, salmon that each individual boat can catch. It the boat goes over that limit, it either needs to buy an allocation from another boat or stop fishing. The rule was developed to limit Chinook salmon bycatch and the potentially damaging effects it's having on statewide and international salmon runs. Of particular concern is the run up the Yukon River. Low returns to that system have caused limits to subsistence fishing and violations of the international Pacific Salmon Treaty.

Comments can be submitted by mail, fax, or electronically. Find out more here.