Saving Seafood

North Pacific Council’s New Public Comment Policy Triggers Intense Reactions

May 6, 2021 — Personal attacks and profanity laced five of the 250 written comments submitted to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council last month on just one of the half dozen issues before the Alaska fisheries management panel. Council staff pulled the comments after they’d been live for a few hours and reached out to each author to ask them to resubmit their comments without the offensive language. Only one did.

The issue was abundance based management (ABM) of halibut in the Bering Sea, where far more halibut is taken as incidental bycatch in bottom trawls than by halibut quota holders with their longline gear, and salmon bycatch in mid-water trawls in an area that has seen precipitous drops in Chinook returns. Public testimony during the meeting was intense but for the most part civil. ABM and bycatch is one of a few lightning-rod issues — like the on-shore/off-shore fight over the Bering Sea/Aleutian Island fisheries and others — that the council has faced in the nearly half century it has managed Alaska’s federal fisheries.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Stakeholders worry after profanity prompts federal fisheries council to tighten comment policies

May 6, 2021 — For all the controversy and high-strung emotion that can accompany fisheries decision-making bodies, the federal council that manages fisheries in the North Pacific says it hadn’t ever received public comments with explicit language… until last month.

North Pacific Fishery Management Council members like Bill Twiet said at the council’s April meeting they worried that crude language and personal attacks could prevent people from speaking up.

“We lose collectively — the council loses, but also the council family loses — when people choose not to engage with us because they look at some of that testimony and they think ‘If that’s the cost of speaking up, I don’t want to,’” Tweit explained.

Council members say five of the nearly 600 comments submitted to the council last month contained vulgar language or personal attacks. The council’s executive director says his staff reached out to the commenters and asked them to resubmit, sans swearing. One did.

But those five comments were apparently enough to prompt changes to the council’s written comment policies. That includes a profanity filter, tighter deadlines for submitting comments and some discretionary power for Council staff to move — or remove — off-topic comments.

And that’s prompted outcry from longtime fisheries advocates. The head of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association Linda Behnken says she’s never seen the council move like that: “I mean, never seen them bring something up, take action, boom, done without more opportunity for meaningful engagement.”

Read the full story at KSTK

North Pacific Fishery Management Council Acts to Reduce Threatening Online Comments

May 5, 2021 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has approved changes to its public input process after “instances of profanity or threats” were included in comments at a recent meeting.

The council — the primary entity that manages Alaska’s federal fisheries — made changes that included allowing staff to remove comments that are inconsistent with policy, such as those that use vulgar language, personal attacks, offensive terms, service or product promotions, unsupported accusations, or comments that are not related to fisheries or are off topic.

Read the full story at Seafood News

NOAA Fisheries releases new video looking at environmental conditions in the Gulf of Alaska in 2020

May 4, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

More than 90 researchers and local community members contributed knowledge and information to help NOAA Fisheries scientists generate an ecosystem status report for the Gulf of Alaska ecosystem last year. This new video captures some of the high points of that report.

“We are excited to offer another way of sharing what we learned about ecosystem conditions in the Gulf of Alaska last year,” said Bridget Ferriss, Gulf of Alaska Ecosystem Status Report editor. “This video is a nice complement to our other communications products.”

For decades, scientists at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center have been pulling together data for numerous indicators of ecosystem health including water temperature, plankton abundance, and seabird reproductive success. NOAA Fisheries and other scientists from other organizations monitor these indicators for the four marine ecosystems that surround Alaska–the Aleutian Islands, the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, and the Arctic.

Every fall, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council sets catch limits for groundfish and crab in federal waters off Alaska for the upcoming fishing year. They base these decisions on scientific research and analysis including fish stock assessments, economic information on the commercial fishery, and these annual ecosystem assessments.

“Ecosystem assessments help us understand the context by explaining, among other things, how changes in the ecosystem might affect present and future abundance of commercially important fish and crab stocks,” said Ferriss.

For each of the Alaska Ecosystem Status Reports, a variety of indicators are evaluated annually. All of this information helps fisheries managers to determine what steps to take to ensure sustainable fish and crab fisheries while preserving the health of the overall ecosystem.

The goal of this video is to communicate our updated summary of ecosystem information beyond the Council, to the broader community.

Read the full release here

Cut off: Council makes sweeping changes on public input

April 30, 2021 — A long with the certainty of death and taxes, fishermen know universally that the council process is a slog. We are often faced with the dual realities that a slow process works to ensure robust stakeholder input as well as sometimes letting fishery oversight slip behind the pace of changing ocean dynamics.

Indeed, by the time a management plan is amended, the council and stakeholders typically get right to work on the next one to address the problems that evolved during the arduous process of making the last one.

Though there are many things one might change about the process, none of them is likely to transform fishery management into that elusive unicorn of efficient bureaucracy.

Earlier this month, however, at the close of its spring meeting, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council moved faster than I’ve ever witnessed in council history by making a series of rule changes in response to something that happened around that very April meeting. This swift action was taken to address the council’s public comment guidelines based on the quality and apparent abundance of input on halibut and salmon bycatch.

I understand that stakeholder input in a blue-collar industry is not always going to be composed in the same language an office dweller might employ. I also appreciate that social media and casual access to industry leadership may encourage less formal and even occasionally uncomfortably personal commentary. I don’t think it’s appropriate for anyone to submit public comments that include personal attacks, profanity or baseless accusations. And ostensibly, that’s what these new rules aim to curb.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NPFMC 2021 April Newsletter

April 22, 2021 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Council met via web-conference April 5-16. The digital newsletter is published, the 3 meeting outlook is updated, and you can listen to the audio recording on box.net. Please note that the Council made changes to the written comment policy which will be effective for the June Council meeting. As always, you can access all other meeting materials including motions through the eAgenda.

ALASKA: Kodiak Fisheries Adjust to Tariffs, Pandemic and Climate Change

April 15, 2021 — For the first time in 20 years, China is not a viable market for U.S. seafood suppliers due to increased tariffs between the two countries, as well as complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This uncertainty has raised concerns among Kodiak processors, harvesters and industry leaders.

In an effort to keep processors working, the trawl industry had requested that the rockfish season begin on April 1, one month earlier than is typically authorized.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Abundance-based Management of Halibut Bycatch Draws Focus of NPFMC This Week

April 15, 2021 — For six years the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has grappled with shifting the management of halibut bycatch in the Bering Sea trawl fleets by limits set with no correlation to halibut abundance to pinning the limits — and therefore the use of halibut as bycatch — to an abundance-based policy.

The stakes in the fundamental question are high: can the Amendment 80 (A80) fleet catch their annual allotment of flatfish in the Bering Sea throughout the year without exceeding abundance-based limits? The A80 fleet is one of the jewels in the Council’s crown of fisheries management, perhaps second only to the pollock fleet that makes up more than half of the 2 million metric ton sustainable harvest of the Bering Sea. A80 has built a fishery and a market for Bering Sea flatfish as well as other species, but when they are on schools of yellowfin sole and northern rock sole, they also inadvertently catch high levels of halibut, a prohibited species catch (PSC) that they must throw back. However, in the 13 years since A80 was implemented, the fleet has never exceeded their halibut PSC limit.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Key federal fisheries advisory panel loses Alaska Native voice

April 13, 2021 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council often flies under the radar, meeting in dimly lit conference rooms and delving into technical questions about fish stocks and ecosystems. But it has a hugely important job: conservation of species and managing offshore fisheries for species like cod, pollock and crab, which are huge economic drivers for coastal communities on the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.

At the end of last year, the council went into a closed door meeting. When it emerged, it had eliminated two seats on its key advisory panel: Ernie Weiss of Anchorage who had reached his cap for reappointment on the panel, and Natasha Hayden of Kodiak, a vocal advocate for smaller vessels and Alaska Natives, who had been seeking reappointment.

The blowback of Hayden’s ouster was immediate, especially among stakeholders advocating for Indigenous voices in fisheries management.

At the council’s February meeting, more than 20 people — from conservation council representatives, to well established commercial fishermen, to policy directors at Native non-profits — provided public testimony calling for Hayden’s reappointment.

“This is a time when we should be adding more Indigenous voices to council bodies and not less,” Marissa Merculieff, director of justice and governance administration for the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island Tribal Government, told the council.

Read the full story at KTOO

PFMC: Sablefish management strategy evaluation workshop to be held online April 27-28, 2021

April 2, 2021 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

The Pacific Sablefish Transboundary Assessment Team, in collaboration with the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Pacific Fishery Management Council, and North Pacific Fishery Management Council, is holding a public workshop to solicit feedback on the ongoing range-wide sablefish management strategy evaluation (MSE).   The Sablefish MSE Workshop is open to the public and will be held Tuesday, April 27, 2021 through Wednesday, April 28, 2021 beginning at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) and ending at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, reconvening at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday and ending at 5 p.m. or when business for the workshop has been completed

Please see the Sablefish MSE Workshop notice on the Council’s website for details, including workshop attendee registration information and deadlines.

If you have additional questions:

  • Contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff officer John DeVore at 503-820-2413;  toll-free 1-866-806-7204.