June 11, 2019 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:
Renowned scientists from throughout the Pacific will meet June 18-20 in Honolulu to consider a range of issues facing the offshore fisheries of Hawai’i and the US Territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Recommendations from this group known as the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) will be forwarded to the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which meets in Honolulu on June 25-27. The Council develops fishery management measures for the fisheries, which are transmitted to the US Secretary of Commerce for approval and implemented by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
Kona Crab: SSC members will hear reports to inform their setting the acceptable biological catch for the main Hawaiian Islands Kona crab. Updated information is now available from a 2019 benchmark stock assessment with catch projection to 2026. The SSC’s recommendation, including a new way to incorporate management uncertainties and risk of overfishing, will help the Council specify multi-year harvest limits for fishing years 2020-2023.
Bigeye Tuna: In December 2018, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission agreed to limit the US longline bigeye tuna catch in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean to 3,554 metric tons annually in 2019 and 2020. In 2014, an amendment to the Council’s Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan in part provided NMFS with the authority to specify annual catch limits in US participating territories. It also allows NMFS to specify a limit, recommended by the Council, authorizing a US participating territory to allocate a portion of that specified catch limit to eligible US vessels through a fishing agreement. The SSC will decide on potential catch and/or allocation limits to recommend to the Council, in addition to considering if the limits should be re-evaluated annually or after multiple years.
Other Issues:
- The SSC will review and provide input on a NOAA Fisheries framework for determining that stock status determinations and catch specifications are based on the best scientific information available.
- A working group of the SSC will seek to define benefits and limitations to spatial management actions, both existing and potential, relative to pertinent regional fishery issues and management objectives.
- The SSC will review and may endorse a process developed by its working group to comply with the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Act (2018) requirement for greater incorporation of non-governmental information sources into federal fisheries management.