Saving Seafood

Environmental NGOs form new partnership to combat bycatch

April 18, 2022 — The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), and Birdlife International have formed a new partnership to protect marine wildlife from bycatch.

The new partnership intends to work directly with major retailers, brands, and foodservice companies in order to conduct bycatch audits. The audits are to identify the level of threats to endangered, threatened, and protected (ETP) species in fisheries that are supplier to the retailers and brands, allowing companies to identify and prioritize actions to take in the seafood supply chain in order to reduce overall bycatch.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Alaska: What is the State Doing to Address Bycatch?

March 17, 2022 — There has been much discussion and debate about bycatch in marine fisheries off Alaska’s coasts recently, including several recent opinion pieces. All are chastising a perceived inaction to address bycatch, especially in the face of recent declines in salmon and crab in western Alaska.

Bycatch, by definition, is fish which are harvested but are not sold or kept. Simply put, bycatch is unintentionally caught fish that are unwanted, can’t be sold, or can’t be kept — like halibut, crab or salmon caught while targeting cod or pollock. While some bycatch occurs in state waters, most occurs in federal waters managed under plans established by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. Bycatch is NOT the intercept of fish in mixed stock fisheries, such as occurs along the Alaska Peninsula when chum salmon of Yukon origin are harvested in directed sockeye salmon fisheries.

Let me begin by clearly stating that the state is concerned about bycatch. We should do our best to reduce the catch of unintended fish that are discarded and not used. That work is underway right now on multiple fronts.

Read the full story at Seafood News

ALASKA: Bycatch task force works to refine mission ahead of November deadline

February 17, 2022 — The governor’s task force to review the effect of bycatch in Alaska fisheries is working to organize against its tight timeline for submitting recommendations to state and federal policymakers. It also has to balance commercial and subsistence interests.

Bycatch is when fishing vessels catch something they’re not targeting. It could be tanner crab caught in a black cod pot, or halibut scooped up in a pollock trawl net. It’s been an incendiary issue in Alaska’s fisheries for decades. Now, as stocks of crab, salmon and halibut decline, trawl fisheries have come under fire for their role, which represents the vast majority of incidental catch in and around Alaska.

The governor’s office took notice. Gov. Mike Dunleavy established a task force to review bycatch late last year with a deadline of November to submit its recommendations.

But during that time, the Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force also has to establish its own priorities, break into subcommittees, and decide what it’s going to focus on before its mandate expires in just nine months. And there’s a lot of information to sort through already as it plays catch-up.

Read the full story at KSTK

NOAA Fisheries Denies Petition For Emergency Action on Bering Sea Salmon Bycatch

February 2, 2022 — Four days after the Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo approved eight fisheries in Alaska for official disaster determinations, including the 2020 Kuskokwim River salmon fishery and the 2020 and 2021 Yukon River salmon fisheries, NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Janet Coit denied a petition for emergency action to lower the number of salmon caught incidentally in the Bering Sea.

The petitioners — the Association of Village Council Presidents, the Bering Sea Elders Group, Kawerak, Inc., the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, representing over 118 Alaska Tribes — saw significant salmon declines both years. The Yukon was particularly hard hit: the fishery had its lowest runs ever last summer. The commercial fishery remained closed. Yukon River families were not allowed to fish for subsistence salmon.

Th petition asked Raimondo for emergency action to eliminate Chinook salmon bycatch and set a cap on chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock trawl fishery in the 2022 season.

Coits letter of denial reached them a few days after news of the fishery disaster approvals was reported, opening the door for relief funds. Responding to the disaster declaration, which was requested by Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, the state’s Congressional delegation issued a joint written statement that the federal funds could help compensate “crews, seafood processors, and research initiatives in the impacted regions.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

‘Should have happened a long time ago’: Hope and skepticism ahead of first meeting of governor’s Bycatch Task Force

January 27, 2022 — Bycatch – or species accidentally caught while targeting a different fish – has been a hot-button issue in Alaska for decades. But it rose to the forefront last year when Alaska Native organizations and fishing groups called for dramatic reductions to halibut, crab and salmon bycatch at federal fisheries meetings.

The state legislature took notice, holding a special meeting on bycatch in mid-November. Also in mid-November, Governor Mike Dunleavy announced the formation of the Alaska Bycatch Task Force.

On the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, subsistence and small commercial salmon fisheries were severely curtailed or completely shuttered last year. That same year, federal data show trawlers in the Bering Sea scooped up more than half a million chum, pink and silver salmon, and almost 14,000 king salmon. In the Gulf of Alaska, groundfish harvesters caught more than 17,000 king salmon as bycatch. That fish can’t be sold, although some of the bycatch is donated.

For more than a decade, commercial and subsistence fishermen in Western Alaska have felt the impacts of declining salmon runs and didn’t have a task force to address the problem.

During a recent Tribal listening session with the National Marine Fisheries Service, John Lamont from Lamont Slough on the lower Yukon River told federal fisheries managers that he supports the idea of an Alaska Bycatch Task Force.

Read the full story at KSTK

 

ALASKA: Gov. Dunleavy announces members of new fisheries bycatch task force

January 10, 2022 — Gov. Mike Dunleavy has named 11 people to a new task force set to study fish bycatch happening in Alaska waters.

In November, Dunleavy issued an administrative order to establish the Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force, with the aim of “exploring the issue of bycatch and providing recommendations to policymakers with the goal of improving the health and sustainability of Alaska’s fisheries.”

Bycatch is the incidental harvest of fish like salmon and halibut by commercial operators that cannot be processed or sold. The practice remains a target of criticism by subsistence and personal-use fishermen, particularly at a time when stocks of a number of species are collapsing around Alaska.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

NOAA Fisheries Announces $2.4M to Support Bycatch Reduction Projects

December 17, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is pleased to announce the 2022 federal funding opportunity to support applied management projects and activities under the agency’s Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program, also known as BREP.

The funding opportunity outlines five high priority areas including developing innovative and effective technologies, further testing and development of technologies or gear modifications that have already been piloted, improving understanding of post release mortality, developing techniques to reduce interactions between corals and sponges, and international bycatch issues. Non-federal researchers working on the development of improved fishing practices and innovative gear technologies are eligible to apply for funding.

The deadline for pre-proposals is January 20, 2022. Full proposals are due April 4, 2022. 

Bycatch reduction is a priority for NOAA Fisheries because bycatch can contribute to overfishing, threaten endangered and threatened species and protected marine mammals, and can close fisheries, significantly impacting U.S. economic growth.

For more information on the FFO and program impacts to date, visit our BREP webpage. 

 

Fishery council must act to reduce Alaska halibut bycatch

December 13, 2021 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, or NPFMC, has hardly been an Alaska household name, but we think it should become one. The 11-member council makes fisheries policy for the North Pacific Ocean that greatly shapes Alaskans’ livelihoods and lives, including an awfully big decision in the coming days that all Alaskans should know about.

This decision is an “all the marbles” decision to reduce — or to fail to reduce — how much halibut the Seattle-based Bering Sea groundfish trawl fishery can catch and discard as bycatch. Bycatch is when a “non-target” species of fish is accidentally caught while fishing — and is almost always discarded, often dead or dying, back to the ocean.

This is a very important decision for all Alaskans who care about our fisheries and our halibut. We believe halibut trawl bycatch caps must be substantially reduced. We believe most Alaskans feel similarly.

Right now, 3.3 million pounds of halibut are caught and discarded by the Bering Sea trawl fleets every year. Of the various trawlers in the Bering Sea, the 19 vessels that constitute the groundfish bottom trawl fleet — also known as the “Amendment 80″ fleet — are the biggest contributors to halibut bycatch.

Read the full op-ed at the Anchorage Daily News

NPFMC approaches pivotal decision on halibut bycatch, with USD 100 million potentially at stake

December 9, 2021 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) is once again considering whether or not to implement abundance-based management for halibut bycatch on the groundfish fleet, a decision stakeholders say could cost Alaska’s Amendment 80 fleet over USD 100 million (EUR 88 million).

The council faces four separate alternatives on how to handle the amount of halibut bycatch the Amendment 80 fleet – which harvests various flatfish, rockfish, Atka mackerel, Pacific Ocean perch, and Pacific cod in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska – should be allowed to catch. The four alternatives call for the council to either continue with the status quo on halibut bycatch, or ask the Amendment 80 fleet to reduce it by various amounts, up to a maximum of 40 percent.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Scientists Support New Measures, Changes to Hawaii Longline Tuna Fishery

December 3, 2021 — Blue bait or tori lines: Which is better for saving seabirds?

To the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, tori lines.

The SSC continued to support replacing blue-dyed fish bait and strategic offal discard requirements in the Hawai‘i deep-set longline fishery with tori lines for seabird bycatch mitigation when it met recently.

Read the full story at SeafoodNews.com