Saving Seafood

Abundance-based Management of Halibut Bycatch Draws Focus of NPFMC This Week

April 15, 2021 — For six years the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has grappled with shifting the management of halibut bycatch in the Bering Sea trawl fleets by limits set with no correlation to halibut abundance to pinning the limits — and therefore the use of halibut as bycatch — to an abundance-based policy.

The stakes in the fundamental question are high: can the Amendment 80 (A80) fleet catch their annual allotment of flatfish in the Bering Sea throughout the year without exceeding abundance-based limits? The A80 fleet is one of the jewels in the Council’s crown of fisheries management, perhaps second only to the pollock fleet that makes up more than half of the 2 million metric ton sustainable harvest of the Bering Sea. A80 has built a fishery and a market for Bering Sea flatfish as well as other species, but when they are on schools of yellowfin sole and northern rock sole, they also inadvertently catch high levels of halibut, a prohibited species catch (PSC) that they must throw back. However, in the 13 years since A80 was implemented, the fleet has never exceeded their halibut PSC limit.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Cod stocks creep back up for Gulf of Alaska, but remain down for Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands

April 15, 2021 — Pacific cod stocks have begun to rebound in the Gulf of Alaska, but the total allowable catch (TAC) for 2021 remains low at 17,321 metric tons. Last year, managers curtailed the fishery in federally managed waters after stock assessments put the biomass near the bottom of the threshold for conducting the fishery.

Though recruitment of younger cod and uncaught fish from last year have added to the abundance in most recent assessments, full recovery of the stock could take years. The warm-water “blob” of 2014 has been blamed for the crash.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

As halibut decline, Alaska Native fishers square off against industrial fleet

April 14, 2021 — Each year in mid-June, Father John, dressed in long black robes, heads to the small boat harbor on St. Paul, a tiny island of 500 souls in the middle of the Bering Sea. It’s the start of the fishing season, and the Blessing of the Fleet is a community affair, an opportunity to give best wishes to the fishermen heading out into the unforgiving northern waters in search of halibut.

The island’s small, independent fishing fleet of only 15 vessels needs all the help it can get: Far offshore, factory trawlers targeting other fish species net and chuck overboard as waste millions of pounds of the valuable fish each year. “They’re killing our halibut,” says St. Paul fisherman Myron Melovidov, who fishes with his grown sons.

Pacific halibut are flat and bottom dwelling, and can weigh hundreds of pounds. About 20 years ago, the population started taking a dive, and St. Paul fishermen—as well as halibut fishermen across Alaska—faced increasing cuts in their harvest limits.

“A lot of people had to fold,” says Jeff Kauffman, a member of the St. Paul fishing fleet whose kids have grown up fishing on his boat.

Read the full story at National Geographic

Key federal fisheries advisory panel loses Alaska Native voice

April 13, 2021 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council often flies under the radar, meeting in dimly lit conference rooms and delving into technical questions about fish stocks and ecosystems. But it has a hugely important job: conservation of species and managing offshore fisheries for species like cod, pollock and crab, which are huge economic drivers for coastal communities on the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.

At the end of last year, the council went into a closed door meeting. When it emerged, it had eliminated two seats on its key advisory panel: Ernie Weiss of Anchorage who had reached his cap for reappointment on the panel, and Natasha Hayden of Kodiak, a vocal advocate for smaller vessels and Alaska Natives, who had been seeking reappointment.

The blowback of Hayden’s ouster was immediate, especially among stakeholders advocating for Indigenous voices in fisheries management.

At the council’s February meeting, more than 20 people — from conservation council representatives, to well established commercial fishermen, to policy directors at Native non-profits — provided public testimony calling for Hayden’s reappointment.

“This is a time when we should be adding more Indigenous voices to council bodies and not less,” Marissa Merculieff, director of justice and governance administration for the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island Tribal Government, told the council.

Read the full story at KTOO

As halibut decline, Alaska Native fishers square off against industrial fleets

April 9, 2021 — Each year in mid-June, Father John, dressed in long black robes, heads to the small boat harbor on St. Paul, a tiny island of 500 souls in the middle of the Bering Sea. It’s the start of the fishing season, and the Blessing of the Fleet is a community affair, an opportunity to give best wishes to the fishermen heading out into the unforgiving northern waters in search of halibut.

The island’s small, independent fishing fleet of only 15 vessels needs all the help it can get: Far offshore, factory trawlers targeting other fish species net and chuck overboard as waste millions of pounds of the valuable fish each year. “They’re killing our halibut,” says St. Paul fisherman Myron Melovidov, who fishes with his grown sons.

Pacific halibut are flat and bottom dwelling, and can weigh hundreds of pounds. About 20 years ago, the population started taking a dive, and St. Paul fishermen—as well as halibut fishermen across Alaska—faced increasing cuts in their harvest limits.

Read the full story at Food & Environment Reporting Network

Climate Change Raises Risk of Prey Mismatch for Young Cod in Alaska

April 9, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

For a young Pacific cod, first feeding is a life-or-death moment. Cod larva are nourished by a yolk sac after they hatch. Once the yolk sac is depleted, they must find food within days in order to survive. If there is no prey available during that critical window for first feeding, young fish face starvation.

Warming Alaska waters are increasing the risk of prey mismatch and starvation for cod larvae, a new study finds.

NOAA Fisheries scientists collaborated with our partners to look at how temperature shifts affected first feeding Pacific cod larvae in two large ecosystems: the southeast Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The models made predictions for 1998–2019, a period that encompassed warm and cool years, including a series of extreme heatwave events beginning in 2014.

“Warming can increase the metabolic demands of fish and shift the timing of their food production. So you have temperature unravelling the system, moving food around. And you have fish needing food now. When mismatched prey timing and increased metabolic demand line up, it can be pretty disastrous,” said Ben Laurel, NOAA Fisheries scientist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, who led the study. “The better we can understand and predict these effects, the more effectively we can manage them now and in the future.”

Read the full release here

Alaska cod: Gulf cod stocks creep back, but Bering and Aleutian still down

April 5, 2021 — Pacific cod stocks have begun to rebound in the Gulf of Alaska, but the TAC for 2021 remains low at 17,321 metric tons. Last year managers curtailed the fishery in federally managed waters after stock assessments put the biomass near the bottom of the threshold for conducting the fishery.

Though the recruitment of younger cod and the uncaught fish from last year have added to the abundance in most recent assessments, full recovery of the stock could take years. The warm-water blob of 2014 has been blamed for the crash.

The warming waters began in 2013 and precipitated a 79 percent decline in the stocks. Prevalent theories suggest that warmer waters raise the metabolic rates for the young cod. At the same time the forage species for young cod appeared to have higher concentrations of protein and lower concentrations of fat. More recent studies determined that the eggs of cod survive in a narrow range of temperature (3 to 6 degrees C, or 37.4 to 42.8 degrees F).

Stocks also continue to decline in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands harvest areas. The 2021 TAC for the Bering Sea has been set at 111,380 metric tons with a TAC of 13,796 metric tons for the Aleutian Islands.

The 2020 TACs for the respective areas had been set at 141,799 metric tons and 14,214 metric tons.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Climate Change Raises Risk of Prey Mismatch for Young Cod in Alaska

March 30, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

For a young Pacific cod, first feeding is a life-or-death moment. Cod larva are nourished by a yolk sac after they hatch. Once the yolk sac is depleted, they must find food within days in order to survive. If there is no prey available during that critical window for first feeding, young fish face starvation.

Warming Alaska waters are increasing the risk of prey mismatch and starvation for cod larvae, a new study finds.

NOAA Fisheries scientists collaborated with our partners to look at how temperature shifts affected first feeding Pacific cod larvae in two large ecosystems: the southeast Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The models made predictions for 1998–2019, a period that encompassed warm and cool years, including a series of extreme heatwave events beginning in 2014.

“Warming can increase the metabolic demands of fish and shift the timing of their food production. So you have temperature unravelling the system, moving food around. And you have fish needing food now. When mismatched prey timing and increased metabolic demand line up, it can be pretty disastrous,” said Ben Laurel, NOAA Fisheries scientist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, who led the study. “The better we can understand and predict these effects, the more effectively we can manage them now and in the future.”

Read the full release here