June 11, 2020 — The annual three month survey of Pacific halibut will be about 30% lighter this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, Alaska Fish Radio’s Laine Welch reports.
A total of 898 stations will be surveyed by longline gear, roughly 30% fewer than the usual 1,283 stations.
“We’re going to maintain sampling in the core regions where the vast majority of the stock resides,” David Wilson, director of the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC), told Welch. “So while it’s important to still sample those peripheries, we still are going to be sampling about 74% of the known distribution and biomass of the stock so it’s going to be a particularly robust survey.”