Killer whales push fishermen out from areas
Big flocks of killer whales are stripping the fisher lines, forcing fishermen out of areas in the Bering Sea. (Google Maps and photo from Allen Shimada NOAA/NMFS/OST/AMD).
In the Bering Sea, fishermen are trying to escape a predator that seems to outwit them at every turn, stripping their fishing lines and lurking behind their vessels.
In the Bering Sea, fishermen are trying to escape a predator that seems to outwit them at every turn, stripping their fishing lines and lurking behind their vessels.
The newspaper Alaska Dispatch News tells the story of the struggle between fishermen and killer whales in the high seas of Alaska – close to the Russian border.
The predators are pods of killer whales chasing down the halibut and black cod caught by longline fishermen. The whales are becoming a common sight, and problem, in recent years, as they've gone from an occasional pest to apparently targeting the fishermen's lines, the ADN states.
Fishermen can harvest 20,000 to 30,000 pounds of halibut in a single day, only to harvest next to nothing the next when a pod of killer whales recognizes their boat.
The hooks will be stripped clean, longtime Bering Sea longliner Jay Hebert said in a phone interview this week. Sometimes there will be just halibut "lips" still attached to hooks — if anything at all.