Growing up on the beaches of St. George Island, one of the five Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, I remember combing the beaches. There was, and is, so much to be found. Glass balls, I even found a container with chopsticks, very fancy, that I took to the Governments Island Manager’s house to find out what it was, and lots of other debris that we thought interesting and valuable. And so, after large storms, we went out on our favorite beaches looking to see what was there.

I remember that as children, growing up on this little Island, we used to collect glass balls, little balls of glass about the size of softballs today, covered with woven net. This was a prize. We used to, as kids in school, brag about how many we found, what sizes, and sometimes where. We exchanged stories about them. We talked about what we did with them, what trinkets we made, how we glued them together to make Christmas trees, and how we used files, a steel tool used to sharpen other tools, to cut a slit in them to make banks. And in these banks we put our dimes, nickels, pennies and the occasional quarter to go to the company store, or canteen run by the United States Government to buy candy. And we wondered where they came from and what they were used for. We did not know. Now we know they were used to hold up the miles long nets on the surface of the water used to kill hundreds and thousands of animals, mostly for fish, but birds, seals, whales, and anything else that would come into contact with them. And they were used by either the Japanese or Taiwanese Governments. We know that now, but not then. And they were a prize.

As time flowed by, now into the 60’s and 70’s we began to see different things coming ashore on our Islands.  Along with the occasional coke bottle, plastic bottle, glove and basket, large pieces of net began to show up. Again, being on a small Island, we did not know what these things were being used for. So, as far as we were concerned, all of this debris was normal. After all, everyone else in the world, our small world to be sure, was going through the same thing. Sure. If it was happening here it was surely happening elsewhere. Or was it?

You see? What was happening during the 60’s and 70’s while beach combing, miles and miles, and yards and yards of monofiliment nets were used to catch fish. Nets made of plastics, which would never degrade, made of by products of oil, to stretch out over the Bering Sea to kill. We did not know that, but now we do. And kill they did. They did not fall apart or come loose. They were made of a product that would last years and years. And they would, even if those who put them into the water, the fishers lost them, continue to kill and kill until there was nothing else to kill. Whales, fish, birds, seals, walruses, plankton and seaweed, no matter what came into contact with them, they were doomed to death.

Today, in the 2000’s, not much has changed, really. We still comb the beaches of the Pribilof Islands, both St. Paul and St. George and pick up stuff. Now instead of glass balls and chop sticks, we pick up nets, plastic balls, plastic gloves, plastic, plastic, plastic. Pop can  rings used to hold a six pack together is common. Plastic nets, ropes, lines caught in and around the necks of curious fur seals is oh so frequent. Often the nets are so tight around the necks of these animals that their flesh shows because it cuts into their fur. Plastic whatever. Imagine it and we pick them up. I remember not too long ago when I first began working for Greenpeace that we were on St. Paul Island. I took my buds to see one of the long sandy beaches on the Island, to walk and talk. To discuss what it was that they expected of me, an Unangan person working for a conservation group, and how I expected to fit in. We walked the beach and talked. At one point, one of the guys/gals stopped to pick up a plastic something, handed to one of the other Greenpeace persons with me and said, now its your responsibility. I did not know what that meant. Come to find out, if you pick up some piece of trash, no matter what it is, and handed it over to another of your buds, that person was now responsible for it. Needless to say, I did not accept anything from anyone else on our walk.

Today, large nets are still used to kill. The difference now is, is that they are not left to drift out in the ocean to arbitrarily kill, but are focused. Its called “directed fishery.” I am gonna kill these fishes, but sadly in the process, hundreds of millions of metric tonns of non directed fishes, called by-catch, are killed also. But, this is legal. It is considered fishing for fish using the best available science.

You know how it is said? That no matter how much has changed, everything remains the same? It’s true. Today, instead of collecting glass balls, our Tribal Government of the Aleut Community of St. Paul cleans our beaches every year. They go out to the same beaches that I used to collect collectibles and collect trash, tons of trash. And its all plastic trash, made to never degrade.Look at  www.tribaleco.com/entang/

Instead of talking to our friends in school about making Christmas trees and glass ball banks with what we found on the beach, we are now talking about what kind of people live out there who allow this to happen. Who are they? What are there values? What are they thinking? Indeed, what are we thinking that we allow this to happen?

When the fishing gear, be they larger than football field sized nets that drag the oceans floor for fish, crab pots, longline fishing hooks, or other gear used to catch and kill fish, much more than fish are being destroyed. Lets look at one of them. The deep-sea trawlers that hunt and search for pollock and other flat fishes.

The first major commercial groundfish fishery in the Gulf of Alaska targeted Pacific Ocean perch. The size of the catch rose quickly through the early 1960’s until the resource was depleted.  The fishery then began targeting walley pollock. As happened with perch, the catch of pollock rose gradually through 1980 when a large spawning aggregation was discovered in the waters off of Kodiak Island. Over the next 5 years the spawning aggregation was heavily exploited and the fishery peaked and collapsed. (Trites 1991).

The same picture can be painted for these fisheries in the Bering Sea. Yellowfin sole catches rose from 1954 to 1961 until the stock declined due to overfishing. As the yellowfin sole declined, the fishery moved to pollock. (Trites 1991).

Now we know that the pollock fishery in the Kodiak waters, the Bogoslov Island waters, and the Aleutian Islands have either been shut down due to overfishing or their catchable amounts severely cut because of overfishing. So what’s new? Outside multinational fishing companies see an opportunity to exploit beyond reason, come into our waters and destroy. Sounds like a familiar tune when discussing other resources in our Great State? Oil and gas, minerals, forests, salmon populations and sadly, people.


Its beginning to sound like a problem that needs some serious attention from our state and federal governments. After all, our governments lay claim to represent all the people of both our State and Nation. Oh ya, we do have such oversight boards and councils. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Alaska Board of Fish (ABF) are legally charged with that responsibility. And to help in these processes, Advisory Councils are put in place to help give direction. NMFS has the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) and the ABF has regional advisory Councils. But guess what? The NPFMC and the ABF are stocked, not with fish, but with commercial fishing representatives and interests to make these decisions. And these councils and boards are ripe for the plucking. Industry lobbyists and lawyers often wine and dine these “representatives of the people’s resource” to get their quotas, no matter the science. And they often get their way. Take a quick look at the NPFMC’s web site and see who the Council members are and whom they work for.

&ldquorill, baby, drill” is not a new cry for resource development at any cost. In the 1980’s and 1990’s and up to this day it has been “fish, baby, fish” before there are no more fish to catch. With the problems of climate change, other animals’ populations crashing and people being dislocated, it is time to reappoint “representative” people to these councils and boards. Industry greed and ways of doing business has got to stop. There is a lot of talk these days about reform. If ever an industry needed reform, this is it.

Just last year, the NPFMC cut the total amount of pollock catch a whopping 24% from the year before! If that same amount of decline were done to, say, the oil and gas industries, you would hear a loud cry from the public. We need to pay close attention to the reasons for this kind of management of our resources. One of the reasons given for the drastic cut the pollock fishery took was lack of recruitment. Oh ya. I forgot to tell you that twice a year, millions of pounds of pollock roe, the caviar of the Bering Sea, is auctioned off to a hand full of “by invitation only” companies.
“Fish, baby, fish.”

This is the people’s resource put into the trusting hands of appointed Councils. We must hold them accountable. They work for us, not the industry.