Unalaska, AK – In one of the final sessions of its meeting in Unalaska on Sunday, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council agreed to keep on the table a proposal that would restrict bottom trawling in parts of the Bering Sea.

The plan would mark off essential fish habitat areas in the Bering Sea, establishing limits to where vessels using high-impact trawl gear can fish. The council also agreed to consider a northern boundary to trawling in the region, a measure that had been sought by environmental groups.

The northernmost reaches of the Bering Sea have yet to be targeted by the head-and-gut trawl fleet, which fishes for sole and other groundfish species. But that could change as global warming raises water temperatures and melts sea ice, a trend that could move fish populations northward.

Dave Benton is the executive director of the Marine Conservation Alliance, a non-profit group supported by the fishing industry and fishing communities. He says that if groundfish populations do move north, it makes little sense to make those areas off limits to the fishermen.

But Alaska Marine Conservation Council Program Director Dorothy Childers says the point is to study what's there before the fishing fleet moves in, so that government regulators can proceed in an environmentally sensible manner.

An actual decision on the Bering Sea essential fish habitat is still months away. The council expects to take up the issue at its December meeting in Anchorage.