The rockfish population in Alaska is very healthy. They are managed carefully and conservatively—managers allow a catch of only 2% of the biomass, and they actually climb into a tiny submarine and dive down to the rocky bottom to take stock-assessment surveys. Alaska has vast areas of rockfish habitat, including a protected area the size of Texas, so the stocks can sustain themselves.
There is no targeted rockfish fishery in Alaska. The catch is reserved for incidental landings, which is what these fish are—incidentally caught while we are fishing for halibut and blackcod. The halibut and blackcod can be flipped off the hook (if the fish is undersized) with a high survival rate with a simple twist of the gaff. Rockfish have air bladders, and as they are brought up the air expands and they get an extremely bad case of the bends; they would not survive if they were flipped off the hook, so any and all incidentally caught rockfish are kept aboard the boat.
Fishing is closed for rockfish in California, Oregon and Washington, because this long-lived, slow-to-mature species has a hard time surviving the “pressures of society” with so many people fishing the already-depleted stocks. Alaska is an entirely different ballgame (so long as we keep out fish farms and the Pebble mine, etc.), and you can feel good about enjoying this absolutely delicious taste-treat of the sea.
(Source: NMFS, SAFE report for Demersal Shelf Rockfish in the Gulf of Alaska, Dec. 2005)
Note from Matt: Click here to watch Rockfish swimming. Submersible surveys are performed in outer coast management areas in order to estimate the density of yelloweye rockfish for the annual stock assessment.
