December 5th, 2016 — Bering Sea fish stocks are booming, but it’s a mixed bag for groundfish in the Gulf of Alaska.
Fishery managers will set 2017 catches this week for pollock, cod and other fisheries that make up Alaska’s largest fish hauls, which are taken from 3 to 200 miles offshore. More than 80 percent of Alaska’s seafood comes from those federally managed waters, and by all accounts the Bering fish stocks are in great shape.
“For the Bering Sea, just about every catch is up,” said Diana Stram, Bering groundfish plan coordinator for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.
Twenty-two species are under the council’s purview, along with such nontargeted species as sharks, octopus and squid. For the nation’s largest food fishery — Bering pollock — the stock is so robust that catches could safely double to nearly 6 billion pounds, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists who presented their data to the council last week.
But the allowable catch will remain close to this year’s harvest, Stram said, due to a strict cap applied to all fish removals.
“The sum of all the catches in the Bering Sea cannot exceed 2 million metric tons,” she explained.
With all stocks so healthy, catch-setting becomes a trade-off among the varying species, Stram said. The council also sets bycatch levels for the fisheries, another constraint.