Unalaska, AK – Two years ago, pollock biomass declined substantially, and some biologists and conservationists warned that the Bering Sea's pollock fishery could potentially collapse. Now, they are recommending cautious optimism.

Pollock biomass has since increased, doubling from 4.6 million MT to 9.6 million MT. The allowable biological catch (ABC) for 2011 has been put at 1.267 million metric tons, a 56% percent increase over last year's ABC of 813,000 metric tons.

John Warrenchuk is a biologist with the conservation group Oceana, and in 2008, he warned against overfishing and expressed concern over the effect that the decline of the pollock fishery would have on the ecosystem.

"In the last couple of years, there has been a slow fishing out of the larger, older pollock that remain in the Bering Sea, and with fewer young fish recruiting into the population, there was a lot of worry that we were heading to perhaps trouble," says Warrenchuck.

He also credits the turnaround to the survival of the four-year-old pollock class.

"All the other older fish are way below average, which really means we didn't have a lot left in the bank until these fish showed up," says Warrenchuk. "So, it's not a moment too soon."

John Hocevar is Greenpeace's oceans campaign director. Two years ago, he warned that the continued decline of the pollock stock could result in "disaster." He still expresses some worry about the state of the pollock fishery.

"The concern here is that the recovery we saw this year may prevent fishery managers from learning the lessons that I think they should from the past several years," says Hocever. "And that is in part that it's really playing with fire to continue to fish on spawning aggregations, and also to set catch limits so close to the edge when there is such high uncertainty with many of the parameters."

In 2008, NMFS biologist Jim Ianelli projected that stock levels would rise again this year because "2006 was a more successful year for the hatching and survival of young pollock."