Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Off Alaska’s coast, halibut abundance and size pose challenges to fishermen and orcas

November 24, 2025 — Over the past decade, it’s become more difficult for commercial halibut fishermen off Alaska’s coasts to catch enough to meet their quotas, as the flat whitefish have become less abundant and smaller.

That’s according to a recent series of stories from fisheries reporter Hal Bernton, published in the Anchorage Daily News, Seattle Times and Northern Journal.

Bernton says the potential reasons for the decline include a warmer ocean leading to less food for young halibut, as well as a flawed model used for managing the fishery.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Hal Bernton: While the resource was in a cyclical decline, the models that the International Pacific Halibut Commission were using to basically estimate how many fish are out there and what’s the future, they were significantly flawed. And there was one scientist who was very outspoken about flaws in the model, and it wasn’t well received, and he ended up getting fired. Then they developed new models that really bore out some of the criticism that he made. So there’s a mix of environmental conditions, and then some would say, also, there have been some fishing pressures as well that have contributed to the decline.

Casey Grove: So for commercial halibut fishing, the folks that you talked to, they’re doing longlining, so they’ve got, you know, hundreds of baited hooks out. But then in some of the same areas, you’ve got folks that are bottom trawlers that are catching fish with nets. And you talked to a captain of one of those boats, who essentially said one of the things that keeps him up at night is catching too many halibut. I wonder if you could explain how that works.

Read the full transcript at Alaska Public Media

Research reports capture climate change impacts on halibut

October 29, 2025 — Two recent research reports focused on halibut spatial dynamics, habitat occupation, and spawning dynamics suggest that new management considerations of commercial stocks may be warranted.

The first document, published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries & Aquatic Sciences this past spring, focuses on identifying halibut spawning dynamics, including locating spawning grounds, and identifying the conditions occupied and the timing of occupation on these grounds, notes Austin Flanigan, a fisheries master student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and principal author of both papers.

Researchers attached pop-up satellite telemetry tags to large female halibut in the Northern Bering Sea, with time series data and tag reporting locations being used to infer spawning behavior and to identify occupied spawning habitat conditions, location, and timing

The research team found that these halibut occupied spawning habitats later and farther north than previously described. Their spawning habitat was occupied from January to May and reached as far north as the Russian continental shelf. They also observed that 42 percent of mature halibut never occupied presumed spawning habitat, suggesting the presence of skip spawning behavior. Such findings, they said, suggest that Pacific halibut exhibit unique spawning dynamics in the Northern Bering Sea, which may result in reduced reproductive potential within the northern population component.

Flanigan said that understanding reproductive output would require fecundity (number of eggs produced) data, as if skip spawning Pacific halibut have the same fecundity as those that spawn annually, then they would produce fewer offspring.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: New plan seeks to restore rural access to Alaska halibut fishery

July 11, 2025 — A Southeast Alaska fisheries entity with a proven track record for providing thousands of free seafood meals to those in need and educating the next generation of commercial harvesters has a new plan to make more halibut quota available to the area’s traditional coastal fishing communities.

Using grants and investments totaling $934,000 from the Rasmuson Foundation, the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust (ASFT), in collaboration with Sealaska Corporation, Central Council of Tlingit, and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and Spruce Root, a non-profit community development financial institution, will purchase halibut quota on the open market this fall and winter to make the highly popular whitefish available for harvest in Craig, Kasaan, and Yakutat. The plans were announced on July 7.

The funds include a $700,000 grant and a $234,000 program-related investment (PRI) aimed at restoring rural and indigenous access to the coastal fisheries. All three communities have signed resolutions in support of the regional community quota entity (CQE).

“With this funding, which includes both Program Related Investment and grant funds, we will anchor access to the halibut fishery in rural communities and ensure residents enjoy the cultural, social, and economic benefits of participating in Alaska’s commercial fisheries,” said Linda Behnken, board president of ASFT, executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA), and a veteran halibut and black cod commercial harvester from Sitka.

The halibut assigned to these communities is to be fished only by residents.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Pacific stocks hit 40-year low, cuts loom for 2025 season

February 5, 2025 — Halibut fishermen, sport charter operators, and subsistence users will all face lesser takes of the prized fish again this year as the Pacific stock continues to flounder.

That sums up the bleak news at the 101st Session of the IPHC Annual Meeting, which wrapped up on Friday in British Columbia.

“This year’s meeting was decidedly somber and tense as stakeholders grappled with the consequences of the lowest spawning biomass in 40 years,” said Maddie Lightsey of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer. “There was consensus on the need for substantial cuts, resulting in a coastwide cut to total removals of 15.6 percent and a18 percent cut to the commercial catch limits.

The IPHC annual meeting report says that in terms of coastwide stock distribution, after increases in 2020-2021, the proportion of the stock in Biological Region 3 decreased in 2022-24 to the lowest estimate in the time series. This trend occurred in tandem with increases in Biological Region 2.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

New halibut catch-sharing plan included in federal bill

January 6, 2023 — Charter operators in the Gulf of Alaska will soon be able to buy halibut quota from willing commercial fishermen. That’s after funding was included for a new catch-sharing program in the federal omnibus budget bill, passed at the end of last month.

Seward’s Andy Mezirow is on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and has been a champion of the program for a while. He said it’s a long time coming. The program was vetoed by President Donald Trump in his final weeks in office and had to go through the Congressional approval process — twice.

“This language that made it into the omnibus bill has been kicking around Washington D.C. for like six years,” he said.

The plan is designed to fix a problem that can occur when halibut abundance in the gulf is low.

Read the full article at Alaska Public News

North Pacific Council Opens Reallocation Issue For Halibut Charter vs Commercial Fishermen in Alaska

February 11, 2022 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council took action yesterday that reopens the specter of “uncompensated reallocation” from commercial fishermen to charter operators in Alaska. The Council adopted a Purpose and Needs Statement to analyze a revision in the halibut Catch Sharing Plan (CSP) that would increase the halibut charter sector allocation by taking from the halibut longline fleet without compensation.

The possibility of that triggered strong testimony from both charter operators and halibut fishermen — over 130 written comments and 70 public testimonies, the majority of which were opposed to any notion of uncompensated reallocation. The commercial sector, many of whom had helped create the CSP a decade ago, made the case that the CSP is working as planned. Charter fishermen countered that their business models don’t work under these continued low levels of halibut abundance. Charter operators in Area 2C are constrained from allowing their clients to catch two halibut a day. Area 3A charter operators can offer two halibut, but are under size restrictions as well.

Low levels of halibut abundance impact all stakeholders, and commercial skippers pointed out that their investment in quota shares over the years has lost value as abundance declines but the loan payments are still due.

Read the full story at Seafood News

 

AK: Southeast crabbers are expecting one of their best seasons ever

February 8, 2022 — Frigid February fishing in Alaska features crabbing from the Panhandle to the Bering Sea, followed in March by halibut, black cod and herring.

Crabbers throughout Southeast will drop pots for Tanners on Feb. 11, and they’re expecting one of the best seasons ever. Fishery managers said they are seeing “historically high levels” of Tanner crab, with good recruitment coming up from behind.

The catch limit won’t be set until the fishery is underway, but last year’s take was 1.27 million pounds (504,369 crabs), with crabs weighing 2.5 pounds on average. Crabbers know they will fetch historically high prices based on the recent payout for westward region Tanners.

Prices to fishermen at Kodiak, Chignik and the South Peninsula reached a jaw-dropping  $8.50/lb for the weeklong fishery that ended in late January and produced 1.8 million pounds of good-looking crab.

Back at Southeast, crabbers also can concurrently pull up golden king crabs starting Feb. 11. The harvest limit is 75,300 pounds, up from 61,000 pound last year. The crabs weigh 5 to 8 pounds on average and last year paid out at $11.55/lb at the Southeast docks.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

Commission boosts fishing limits for halibut

February 4, 2022 — A joint U.S. and Canadian commission that regulates halibut voted last week to boost this year’s fishing limits for the valuable bottomfish.

The International Pacific Halibut Commission held its annual meeting virtually from Jan. 24-28. It sets the overall combined annual limits for commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries stretching from Alaska to California.

The commission approved this year’s total coast-wide limit at 41.22 million pounds, more than a 5% increase from last year.

Commission scientist Ian Stewart reported on some more encouraging signs from halibut surveys and fishing.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Radio

 

‘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