(Courtesy of NOAA FishWatch)

After several years of poor salmon returns along the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, federal managers are considering new ways to cut back on salmon bycatch in the commercial pollock fishery.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will hold a statewide teleconference on Thursday to discuss their options for reducing bycatch in the Bering Sea.

"We’re hosting this teleconference to allow people the opportunity to hear about the alternatives that are being considered,” says NPFMC staff member Steve MacLean. “To learn something about the council process and how they can become involved in that council process, and then to voice questions and concerns they might have about the action currently being evaluated.”

That could include lower caps on bycatch in years of poor salmon abundance. There’s also a proposal to require the use of excluder devices -- which are designed to keep pollock in and allow salmon to swim out of trawl nets.

Aside from the teleconference, the council is sending representatives to upcoming Subsistence Regional Advisory Council meetings in southwest Alaska.

"We will collect that information and public comments, bring that information back to the council and include that information in our analysis that the council will then see at our meeting in April," MacLean says.

The council is scheduled to take final action on the bycatch proposals at that meeting.

The teleconference starts at 1 p.m. on Thursday. To join the call, dial (877) 214-2906 and enter 1214 as the access code. 

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misreported the date of the teleconference meeting.