Saving Seafood

NOAA issues final ruling on Cook Inlet federal fishing waters

May 2, 2024 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued a final ruling on a disputed commercial salmon fishing area in Cook Inlet.

The Cook Inlet Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ, starts three miles off shore and is where drift gillnet fishermen catch the majority of fish. In 2020, commercial fishermen sued over management of the fishery. Courts and fishermen went back and forth, and a year ago, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council was tasked with choosing a new management plan. In an unprecedented move, the council took no action, which turned the decision over to NOAA Fisheries.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

December 2023 NPFMC Meeting

October 31, 2023 — The NPFMC will meet in person and online December 4-12 at the Hilton Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska.

The eAgenda, schedule, and the pre-meeting review documents and the release dates are available on the website. Please note the SSC has a separate SSC eAgenda.

Discount code for Alaska Airlines ECMK147. The Hilton room block is now open. Please book your stay by November 17, 2023.

Written comments can be submitted starting November 10, 2023 through the eAgendas. The deadline is 12:00 pm (Alaska time) on Friday, December 1, 2023.Submitted comments will be reviewed then visible online after the deadline closes, as per the Council’s comment policy.  In-person and remote testimony will be available in all three meetings. For questions, email npfmc.admin@noaa.gov.

Upcoming Deadlines

Call for Nominations for Advisory Panel 2024; deadline October 31, 2023; Research Priorities Request for Information deadline October 31, 2023; Call for Nominations for Alaska Native Tribal Advisory Panel Seat; deadline November 17, 2023.

Scheduled Meetings

  • BS FEP Climate Change Taskforce: November 1-2, eAgenda
  • Social Science Planning Team: November 3. eAgenda
  • BSAI/GOA Groundfish Plan Team Meetings: November 13-17, eAgenda
  • PNCIAC Meeting: November 28, eAgenda
  • Crab Plan Team Research Priorities Meeting: December 1, eAgenda
  • Charter Halibut Managemenr Committee Meeting: Decemebr 6, eAgenda

NPFMC’s local and traditional knowledge recommendations receive broad support

July 1, 2023 — Recommendations on how to include local and traditional knowledge into the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) has received broad support from tribes, industry groups, environmental groups, and other stakeholders.

“At a time when our fisheries are in crisis, and the subsistence Way of Life practiced by our people since time immemorial is in jeopardy, it is imperative that we use all available resource to identify solutions to this disaster – including traditional and indigenous knowledge,” Association of Village Council Presidents CEO Vivian Korthuis said in supporting the recommendations.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NPFMC declines to set chum salmon bycatch limits, granting reprieve to US pollock trawlers

April 16, 2023 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has adopted a plan that would set parameters on managing bycatch of chum salmon in the Alaska pollock industry, a move that sidestepped the placement of a hard cap on chum salmon bycatch.

The move comes as Alaska tribal leaders from the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers regions filed a  lawsuit on 10 April, asking the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service review groundfish catch limits in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. The tribes claim salmon bycatch from pollock fishing in the region has caused declines in the chum salmon population that have harmed the tribes’ ability to continue their subsistence fishery.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Proposed Bering Sea Marine Sanctuaries Topic of Roundtable Thursday After First Day of NPFMC

April 5, 2023 — This Thursday, after the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s first day, a public roundtable discussion on two nominations for National Marine Sanctuaries in Alaska will take place from 5:30-7:30, Alaska time. Hosted by NOAA Fisheries, the discussion will cover the recently nominated St. George Unangan Heritage from St. George Island and Alagum Kanuux (Heart of the Ocean) from St. Paul Island, the two largest of the Pribilof Island group.

During this roundtable, NOAA will share information about the process for nominating and designating national marine sanctuaries and for attendees to share their perspectives and ask questions regarding the process and NOAA’s inventory of successful nominations.

Addition to the inventory does not guarantee that a nominated area will become a national marine sanctuary. National marine sanctuary designation is a separate public process that by law, is highly public and participatory, and often takes several years to complete.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

North Pacific council hears renewed demands on bycatch

December 22, 2022 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council met in Anchorage during the second week in December. Among items on its agenda the panel was to deliberate on action steps to mitigate the incidental take of chum and chinook salmon, red king crab, opilio crab and other species that come up in the tows of pollock trawlers.

Many from Kuskokwim and Yukon River villages, the crabbing industry and those representing other interests had hoped the council would take immediate action to close down trawling in vast areas of the Bering Sea.

That didn’t happen.

“The council has decided to protect the status quo and allow the trawl fleets to continue catching and discarding prohibited species such as chum salmon, chinook salmon and crab while entire western Alaska runs and crab stocks are in collapse,” says Lindsey Bloom, a campaign strategist, with SalmonState, in Juneau.  “This is a total failure in fisheries management.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Management council declines action on Bering Sea bycatch to address Yukon-Kuskokwim salmon subsistence worries

June 22, 2022 — Despite hours of testimony from residents of the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers who called for urgent action to curb the salmon bycatch by Bering Sea trawlers, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council decided to approach the problem more methodically.

In a unanimous vote near the end of its five-day meeting in Sitka, the Council recommended further study of salmon declines in the Bering Sea, and a closer look at their connection to climate change.

Salmon abundance in the Yukon River, the third-largest river in North America, has dropped sharply in the past two years.

The forecast is no better this season.

Many Yukon and Kuskokwim River residents voiced concern during last Monday’s call.

“At this point, there should be alarm bells going off all over not only in our communities, but all over the state and federal government agencies,” said Vivian Korthuis, the chief executive officer for the Association of Village Council Presidents, a consortium of 56 federally-recognized tribes on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Scientists point to climate change as likely cause for Alaska snow crab decline

June 17, 2022 — Even as scientists are still trying to figure out why the Bering Sea snow crab stock crashed in 2021, federal managers are working on a plan to help rebuild it.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council last week voted to accept alternatives for analysis on its snow crab rebuilding plan — a middle step before implementing an actual plan that will change fishing regulations or openings. The council is on track to approve a final plan for action in December, which would then go to the Secretary of Commerce and through the federal regulation process before becoming official.

Data from last year’s survey at this point seems to confirm that there was a massive decline in the number of young snow crab in the Eastern Bering Sea — something like 99% fewer female snow crab showed up in the survey from 2021.

There’s no complete consensus about why the stock crashed in the first place. Increasingly, however, the models seem to indicate that it’s due to temperature increases linked to climate change.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

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

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