North Pacific Fishery Management Council Archives - Page 20 of 21

ALASKA: It’s time to talk crab season projections

September 30, 2016 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will meet in Anchorage from Oct. 5-11 to overview crab season projections, hear further discussions of halibut management, and decide what to do about a recent federal appeals court decision that will require more attention to salmon management.

The council will approve catch limits for the 2016-17 crab fisheries and review the stock assessment for the last year.

Stocks for both snow crab and Bairdi Tanner crab were down according to surveys in 2016, and stakeholders are holding their breath to see if the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will need to close fisheries if abundance doesn’t meet the department thresholds.

The crab fishing management plan, or FMP, requires federal scientists to set an overfishing limit, or OFL, and an acceptable biological catch, or ABC.

Based on these numbers, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will determine a total allowable catch, or TAC, under its joint management with the council.

Read the full story at Juneau Empire

Southern fisheries earn win in federal court

September 26th, 2016 — A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of a state commercial fishing organization that challenged a decision to move several southern Alaska salmon fisheries from federal to state management.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday overturned the decision by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. The ruling means the case will go back to U.S. Alaska District Court and that federal fisheries policymakers will have to work with state managers on a new management plan, The Alaska Journal of Commerce reported.

The United Cook Inlet Drift Association sued over the council’s 2011 decision to remove Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound and Alaska Peninsula salmon fisheries from the federal fisheries management plan. The 2013 suit was initially rejected by District Court Judge Timothy Burgess. But the group appealed, arguing that the state’s plan doesn’t adhere to the same high standards as federal rules.

Federal fisheries management plans must be in line with the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which require fisheries managers to consider optimum yield, best available science, equitable allocations and community health among other factors.

The Cook Inlet group called the appeals court ruling a win for Alaska’s fishermen and the health of the resource.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Juneau Empire

Southern Alaska fisheries earn victory in federal court

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of a state commercial fishing organization that challenged a decision to move several southern Alaska salmon fisheries from federal to state management.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Seattle Pi

ALASKA: North Pacific Fishery Managment Council appointments approved, AP changes upcoming

June 30, 2016 — U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced the appointments of Buck Laukitis and Theresa Peterson to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council June 27, further strengthening Gov. Bill Walker’s fisheries management position on preserving local fisheries participation in coastal Alaska.

The nominations will go into effect Aug. 11. Governors submit nominations to the Commerce Department, which must then be approved by the secretary.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is the most economically powerful of eight regional councils that oversee federal fisheries between three and 200 miles off the U.S. coast. As of 2014, the North Pacific region accounts for 65 percent of the nation’s total seafood harvest value, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports.

Peterson and Laukitis replace Duncan Fields and David Long, respectively. Fields, a Kodiak attorney and fisherman, finished his third three-year term in June 2016, the maximum terms allowed consecutively under the U.S. fisheries governing regulation, the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Long, a Wasilla resident and Bering Sea groundfish fisherman, served one three-year term and was not reappointed though he did submit his name for consideration.

Peterson and Laukitis will fill two of six designated Alaska seats on the 11-member body.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: Council convenes in Kodiak with Gulf catch shares in focus

June 2, 2016 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will meet in Kodiak from June 6-14 to hear a discussion paper that has enraged the trawl industry since late 2015.

Two proposals are engineered to prevent harmful impacts such as the job losses and high cost of entry that have occurred under previous such programs in halibut and crab.

This is an official state position, and the North Pacific council holds a six-member majority of the 11-member body that governs federal Alaska waters.

Gov. Bill Walker’s administration prioritizes coastal communities’ economic prospects during the state’s oil-driven financial calamity. Part of that stance concerns keeping the fishing industry, the state’s largest private employer, in Alaskan fishermen’s hands.

“The greatest challenge facing fishery managers and communities to date has been how to adequately protect communities and working fishermen from the effects of fisheries privatization, notably excessive consolidation and concentration of fishing privileges, crew job loss, rising entry costs, absentee ownership of quota and high leasing fees, and the flight of fishing rights and wealth from fishery dependent communities,” the council’s discussion paper reads. “Collectively, these impacts are altering and in some cases severing the connection between Alaska coastal communities and fisheries.”

For years, the council has mulled over a regulations to install catch shares in the Gulf of Alaska groundfish fisheries. Mainly trawlers go after this fishery, which includes pollock, a midwater fish, and species such as Pacific cod and arrowtooth flounder, which are bottom, or pelagic, fish.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Cook Inlet Salmon is a Prime Example of a Fishery Magnuson Has Not Been Able to Help

April 20, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Magnuson Act 40 Years Later – Promises not kept for all fisheries

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act turned 40 last week and Federal and State fishery managers marked that event with an opinion piece (ADN, April 12) extolling the successes of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and its implementation in Alaska as a “global model of sustainability.” As the authors point out, the Magnuson-Stevens Act sets up a “transparent governing process” intended to ensure that “science is behind every fishery management decision” in Alaska. Indeed, the Magnuson-Stevens Act sets up national standards ensuring that all fisheries are managed to achieve “optimum yield from each fishery” with management decisions “based on the best scientific information available,” and guided by carefully considered fishery management plans.

We can all find common ground in recognizing the benefits associated with management under the Act, as well as many of the successes of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (the Council) and NOAA Fisheries in ensuring the long-term stewardship of Alaska’s fisheries.

The problem is that many important fisheries have been left out of the fold of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The Cook Inlet salmon fishery is a prime example. Every year, some 10 to 30 million salmon pass through Federal waters in Cook Inlet, in route to their native streams. These are some of the largest wild salmon runs in the world, and they go largely unharvested.

But the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and NOAA Fisheries plainly don’t want anything to do with Cook Inlet salmon fisheries, despite their obligation under federal law. The Council never took an active role in managing the fishery, and in 2012, with approval from NOAA Fisheries, removed Cook Inlet from the Council’s Fishery Management Plan, despite the objections of the commercial fishing industry.

The result is that the benefits of Magnuson-Stevens Act have never come to pass in Cook Inlet. Cook Inlet does not get the benefit of “drawing on NOAA’s environmental intelligence to improve stock assessments and assess the impact of climate change on fish population.” Cook Inlet does not get to draw upon the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s “transparent governing process” or the robust “public-private management process founded under MSA.” Cook Inlet does not get to draw on the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s promises of optimum yield for each fishery, or the promise that “science is behind every fishery management decision” in Alaska.

Instead, Cook Inlet is left with the Board of Fisheries. Regardless of whether you believe those who claim the Board of Fish “isn’t broken” (ADN commentary March 16, 2016) or others who believe it certainly is broken (ADN commentary March 30, 2016), no one can reasonably argue that the Board of Fish process can match the transparency of the Council, or claim that “science is behind every fishery management decision” made by the Board of Fish.

There should not be any real doubt, of course, why the Council doesn’t want to deal with salmon management in Cook Inlet. The resource disputes between user groups are contentious and longstanding. But the need for the scientific rigor and transparency that the Council can provide has never been greater. The Board of Fish has made no real effort to find solutions to managing Cook Inlet salmon fisheries in light of poor returns of some stocks, the identification of several “stocks of concern,” impacts from invasive species, and growing habitat problems from both urbanization and climate change. The result in recent years has been sport and commercial fishery closures and restrictions, the loss of millions of un-harvested salmon, the loss of tens of millions of dollars to the regional economy and the loss of millions of dollars to the State treasury.

All Cook Inlet salmon fisheries would plainly benefit from coordinating the State’s long-standing salmon management experience with the Council’s transparent, science-based process. This is precisely what the Magnuson-Stevens Act contemplates. Hopefully, the sport and commercial fishermen and the coastal communities in Cook Inlet won’t have to wait another 40 years for the promises of the Magnuson-Stevens Act to be fulfilled.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

North Pacific Fishery Management Council April 2016 Newsletter

April 18, 2016 — The following was released by the NPFMC:

The Council Newsletter is now available online. Documents, handouts, and motions are still available through links on that meeting’s Agenda.

Our next scheduled meeting will be in Kodiak, Alaska the week of June 6, 2016 at the Kodiak Harbor Convention Center.

ALASKA: Gulf fishermen wary of Congressional intrusion into council process

April 7, 2016 — Gulf of Alaska fishermen suspect that Washington, D.C., politics might come into play for fisheries regulations they want left to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

A letter circulated by the Alaska Marine Conservation Council and signed by 250 Gulf of Alaska fishermen and residents was sent to each of Alaska’s three congressional delegation members.

The letter asks that the Alaska’s representatives in the nation’s capital oppose any legislation intended to press Gulf of Alaska fisheries regulations.

“Specifically, we request our Alaska delegation to support development of a Gulf of Alaska Trawl Bycatch Management Program (aka catch share) in the Council process so all stakeholders may contribute to a transparent process,” the letter asks.

“Please do not support any attempt to circumvent the council process through legislation in Washington, D.C., as that would effectively preclude Alaskan coastal communities and stakeholders from having a direct voice in the process.”

During ComFish, an annual Kodiak commercial fisheries booster event, Stephen Taufen of Groundswell Fisheries Movement acknowledged writing the letter and said that the Congresswoman in question is Rep. Jaime Hererra Beutler, R-Wash.

Beutler, a representative of southwest Washington, sits on the House Appropriations Committee. Much of the Gulf trawl industry is based in Seattle.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

The West Coast Challenge

March 9, 2016 — Fisheries on the West Coast of America have come under intense pressure after closures and a dramatic fall in stock levels. Adrian Tatum looks at the challenges over the last few years.

Sometimes when something is broken it seems almost impossible to fix. Commercial fishing on the West Coast of America is far from broken but parts of it do need fixing.

Nearly a year ago its commercial sardine fishery was closed after the population of Pacific sardines had fallen to alarming levels. In April last year, scientists made a recommendation for full closure after the population was estimated to be below 150,000 tonnes. It has been a dramatic decline, as in 2007 there were 1.4 million tonnes.

The sardine fishery has not only been a major revenue source for West Coast fishermen, but many other species of fish such as tuna also rely on a plentiful supply for food. Scientists believed that by closing it last year it would give the population a chance to recover. But just last month, it was revealed that the sardine population has not recovered, and is in fact still declining at a fast rate. Scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service say that by the summer, the population is likely to be 33% lower than in 2015.

Bycatch reduction

Like most fisheries around the world, West Coast fishermen are facing up to a bycatch reduction plan. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is considering a plan which would allocate individual bycatch caps to groundfish vessels in the Gulf of Alaska rather than targeting specific large species. Back in 2011, the council passed a series of salmon and halibut bycatch reductions which angered fleet owners and fishermen. Now many Gulf of Alaska fishermen feel the recent changes will have a ‘crippling’ affect on its groundfish fleet.

Approximately 85% of the North Pacific groundfish fisheries are rationalised. This means fish quotas are assigned to individual vessels or fishing cooperatives. It is widely believed by some experts that this is the best way to ensure minimal bycatch, meaning vessels can fish without a time limit and are therefore more likely to avoid some of the endangered species such as salmon and halibut. But this process can also have a negative effect on the industry. Recent years have seen rationalisation being applied to the Bering Sea crab fishery where the number of boats fishing for crab fell by two thirds in just one year, with the loss of over 1,000 jobs.

Read the full story at World Fishing & Aquaculture

ALASKA: Scientists draft fish management plan as Bering Sea changes

February 17, 2016 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council heard a draft plan for addressing climate change in the eastern Bering Sea earlier this month.

The plan was put together by scientists at the Seattle-based Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which is part of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Mike Sigler, program leader for the habitat and ecological processes research program at the science center, said the plan pulls together work scientists there are already doing, and research they’d like to undertake.

“We have a clear understanding of species like walleye Pollock, northern rock sole, red king crab, what will happen to them, and we can make quantitative forecasts of where they’re going. They’re not completely certain, but we have some good ideas of ecological processes,” Sigler said. “But then, we don’t have such good understanding for other species, like yellowfin sole, and we’re making a qualitative assessment of their vulnerability to climate.”

Eventually, the group wants to provide fisheries managers, like the North Pacific council, with a better look at what might be coming in 10 years – or even farther down the road. One of the first parts of the plan is just putting together that qualitative assessment for more than a dozen species, which he expects to happen this year.

Read the full story at KDLG