March 8, 2018 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:
The North Pacific Research Board is accepting nominations and self-nominations for the FISHING INDUSTRY SEAT on the BOARD until Friday, April 6, 2018. For more information, please visit this link:
BOARD Fishing Industry Seat Nominations
Our mailing address is:
North Pacific Fishery Management Council
605 W 4th Ste 306
Anchorage, AK 99501
March 7, 2018 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:
The meetings are held at the Hilton Hotel, 500 W. 3rd Avenue, in Anchorage, Alaska. The Agenda and Schedule are available, as well as a list of documents for review posted to the agenda prior to the meeting. Other meeting information follows:
Salmon FMP:
The Council will review comments received from stakeholders and will determine the scope of work for a Salmon Committee. A staff report will provide context about how stakeholder recommendations comport with the Magnuson-Stevens Act requirements for fishery management plans, and whether the FMP applies to state waters and the sport fishery in the EEZ. Although the Council has already received submissions for membership (which are being held on file), the Salmon Committee will not be appointed until the Council has formally issued a call for nominations, as is scheduled to occur at this meeting.
Halibut ABM:
The discussion paper on BSAI halibut abundance-based management is being prepared to help the Council refine alternatives with respect to elements of the control rule. The paper will provide: an overview of the current Council motion and suite of alternatives (the control rules aspects), a suggested restructuring of the Council’s suite of alternatives with details on their complexity, and an evaluation of these to help the Council narrow the control rule options to a more reasonable range of control rule types, stepping through each individually (as was done with indices) and then providing the Work Group’s rationale for what might be reasonable for analysis. The draft alternatives brought forward are focusing largely on linear control rules and their application in 2-3D look up table for purposes of setting a PSC limit that may be influenced by information from the trawl survey and/or the IPHC setline survey. Draft alternatives also will also explore setting PSC limits by gear type separately to one or both indices and consider formulations which address halibut stock status.
Learn more about the NPFMC here.
February 16, 2018 — The fallout of shifts in Alaska cod quotas has sparked another scramble among the region’s cod fishermen. Overall P-cod quota is down, but the Aleutian Islands saw a small uptick, which led more boats to target the area in the A-season this year. The allocations, however, have had some unintended consequences.
For some background, in the wild and harsh fishing environments of the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska, a 60-footer qualifies as a small boat. A fleet of these smaller pot-cod boats typically fishes inshore waters and relies on deliveries to the remote Bering Sea island of Adak to run their Aleutian operations.
The remoteness of the region, however, has historically made running a processing plant there logistically implausible without guarantees of landings. This led the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to set aside 5,000 tons of cod quota that must be processed in the remote Aleutian Island community of Adak rather than off-loaded to offshore factory processors, as the larger catcher vessels — sometimes referred to as the Amendment 80 fleet after the legislation that put them into operations — do in the offshore fishery.
“This harvest set-aside provides the opportunity for vessels, [Aleutian Islands] shoreplants, and the communities where AI shoreplants are [located]to receive benefits from a portion of the AI Pacific cod fishery,” according to the council.
Read the full story at National Fishermen
January 23, 2018 — The following was released by the North Pacific Management Council:
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is holding a one-day Ecosystem Research Workshop on Wednesday, February 7th in conjunction with the Council’s upcoming meeting (February 5-12, 2018 at the Renaissance Hotel, 515 Madison St., Seattle WA). The workshop agenda, schedule, and other materials will be available through the agenda on the Council’s website, npfmc.org.
This workshop is built into the official Council meeting week schedule, but is not part of the formally convened Council, Advisory Panel (AP), Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), and Ecosystem Committee (EC) sessions. The workshop does not overlap with other scheduled meeting sessions and all Council, SSC, AP, and EC members will be able to attend. The workshop will convene at 8:00 am in the Courtyard Ballroom and adjourn by 5:30 pm.
Learn more about the NPFMC by visiting their site here.
January 4, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — In big red letters, a one-page alert warns the Gulf of Alaska cod fleets: “Attention Cod Fishermen! 80% Decrease in Catch Limit for 2018” before describing what the massive cut in landings will mean to all gear types in federal and state waters of the Gulf.
At its December 2017 meeting, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council approved a Gulf-wide catch limit for Pacific cod at 18,000 mt, or about 39.7 million pounds for the 2018 season that starts January 20. Last year’s quota for P-cod in the Gulf for both the federal and state waters was about 82,000 mt.
“Recognizing that cod fishermen in the Central and Western Gulf of Alaska need to quickly get this information to adjust their fishing plans for 2018, the Council is providing the following tables that compare the 2018 catch limits to the 2017 limits by area, fishery, and season,” reads the one-page flyer.
The biggest producers are trawl vessels in the Western Gulf, a fleet that landed 6,861 mt in the A season last year and 2,650 mt in the 2017 B season. Those totals will be 1,543 mt in the A season and 596 in the B season this year.
Central Gulf trawlers are suffering a similar fate: catch limits for the A season are 1,275 mt in 2018 compared to 6,933 mt last year. That fleet is allowed 1,233 mt for this year’s B season, compared to 6,708 mt last year.
The flyer covers jig, hook and line, and pot gear throughout the Gulf and includes the breakdown for state catch limits by area. The two most productive areas historically in state waters are the South Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak. Last year’s catch limit for the South Peninsula (jig and pot gear combined) was 10,887 mt and for Kodiak was 5,523 mt. This year, it is 2,425 mt and 1,015 mt respectively.
The smallest fishery is the Central Gulf jig fleet, which got 331 mt last year. This year, the combined total for A and B season will be 61 mt.
The flyer can be found here.
This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.
January 3, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:
CONTRACTOR WANTED: The New England Fishery Management Council is soliciting the services of an independent contractor to update a January 2015 discussion related to river herring and shad. The document reviewed and summarized management and legal considerations associated with adding river herring and shad as stocks in the Atlantic herring fishery. The application deadline is January 15, 2018. More information is available at Council Seeks Contractor to Update “Stocks in the Atlantic Herring Fishery” Discussion Document.
COUNCIL PROGRAM REVIEW: The Council continues to encourage stakeholders to participate in the ongoing external review of how it conducts business. The review is intended help the Council identify its strengths and weaknesses and flag potential areas for improvement. Twelve port meetings and one webinar meeting were held in November and December to gather public input. Two more port meetings are scheduled for:
Three fishery managers and three scientists have been selected to serve on the independent review panel. They are:
The review panel will meet Tuesday, March 13 through Friday, March 16 to discuss Council operations and conduct its work. The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn, Boston Logan Airport.
Stakeholders still have time to take the online survey, which is available HERE. More information can be found at Council Program Review.
JANUARY COUNCIL MEETING: The New England Council will meet for two days in Portsmouth, NH from Tuesday, January 30 through Wednesday, January 31 at the Sheraton Harborside on Market Street. The agenda is available at January 2018 Council meeting.
QUESTIONS: Call or email Janice Plante at (607) 592-4817, jplante@nefmc.org.
December 28, 2017 — Next year is looking like another big one for pollock in the Bering Sea and sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay. But times are tough for cod fishermen, especially in the Gulf of Alaska.
At its December meeting in Anchorage, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council increased the already huge Bering Sea pollock quota to 1.345 million metric tons for 2018, up from 1.34 million mt in 2017. That’s good news for the pollock-dependent community of Unalaska for local revenues and jobs.
Pollock is the fish that annually makes the Aleutian Islands community the nation’s No. 1 port in volume. For the 20th year in a row, Unalaska/Dutch Harbor was the nation’s top fish port with 770 million pounds of seafood landings in 2016, primarily pollock, which accounted for nearly 90 percent of that total, according to a Nov. 1 report from the National Marine Fisheries Service.
In the Gulf of Alaska, the cod quota declined by 85 percent, from 64,442 metric tons in 2017 to 13,096 mt for 2018. That greatly impacts Kodiak, and King Cove and Sand Point in the Aleutians East Borough.
The Gulf pollock quota is also down significantly, from 208,595 metric tons, or mt, in 2017, to 166,228 mt in 2018.
Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce
December 21, 2017 — “Cod Alley” is getting crowded, and some fishermen want to limit the boats in the narrow congested fishing area in the Bering Sea.
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is looking at changes, including restricting flatfish factory trawlers from buying cod offshore.
The Pacific Seafood Processors Association is pushing for restrictions on factory trawlers to protect its members’ shore plants in Unalaska, Akutan, King Cove and Sand Point.
According to the PSPA’s Nicole Kimball, seven factory trawlers bought cod from 17 catcher boats in 2017, up from just one factory trawler that traditionally participated in prior years. The Amendment 80 factory trawlers act as motherships, processing but not catching the Pacific cod.
“The share delivered to motherships increased from 3.3 percent in 2016 to 12.7 percent in 2017, while shoreside processors had a reciprocal decline. This is a meaningful shift. At this point it is open-ended, and there is nothing to prevent future growth in this activity,” Kimball testified at the council’s December meeting in Anchorage.
Local government representatives shared the shoreplants’ concerns, citing a loss of tax revenues needed for schools and other services. On a smaller scale, it’s reminiscent of the inshore-offshore battle in the pollock fishery about 20 years ago.
“This is a big deal,” said Unalaska Mayor Frank Kelty. “It looks like we’ve got trouble coming down the road again.”
Cod is Unalaska’s second-most important product, behind pollock, he said.
Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce
December 18, 2017 — Kodiak officials already are drafting a disaster declaration due to the crash of cod stocks throughout the Gulf of Alaska. The shortage will hurt many other coastal communities as well.
Gulf cod catches for 2018 will drop by 80 percent to just under 29 million pounds in federally managed waters, compared to a harvest this year of nearly 142 million pounds. The crash is expected to continue into 2020 or 2021.
Cod catches in the Bering Sea also will decline by 15 percent to 414 million pounds. In all, Alaska produces 12 percent of global cod fish.
The bad news was announced by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which sets the catches for more than 25 species in waters from 3 miles to 200 miles from shore in the Gulf and the Bering Sea.
“It’s almost like a double, triple, quadruple disaster because it’s not just one year,” said Julie Bonney, director of the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank. She added that the cod decline will decrease revenues for fishermen who use longline, pots, jig and trawl gear and will make it more difficult for processors to fill their market demands. It also will be a huge hit to the coffers of local communities, which get a 3 percent tax on all fish landings.
Kodiak fisheries analyst Heather McCarty called the cod crash “devastating” for the short- and long-term.
November 30, 2017 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is looking for input from Cook Inlet fishermen on how it should develop a management plan for the area’s salmon fisheries.
The federal council, which regulates fisheries in the federal waters between 3 and 200 nautical miles offshore, is currently working on an amendment to the fishery management plan for Cook Inlet’s salmon fisheries. The process is likely to take multiple years of meetings and the council members decided to form a Salmon Committee that includes stakeholders in the fishery to keep the public in the loop on it.
Specifically, the council members are looking for ideas from the public on how the committee will work, according an announcement sent out Tuesday. That can include any fishermen on the salmon stocks of Cook Inlet.
“To develop a scope of work for the Salmon Committee, the council is soliciting written proposals from the public to help the council identify specific, required, conservation and management measures for the Salmon Committee to evaluate relevant to the development of options for a fishery management plan amendment,” the announcement states.
Read the full story at the Peninsula Clarion