Saving Seafood

West Coast Whiting Industry Apprehensive About Shutdown’s Effect on Pacific Hake Season, Treaty

January 9, 2019 —  SEAFOOD NEWS — A recent report by KING-5 TV News in Seattle picked up on NOAA Stock Assessment Scientist Ian Taylor’s recent Tweet about his frustration with the government shutdown and how it could affect the Pacific hake fishery.

“I love my U.S. federal job at @NOAAFish_NWFSC but it’s immensely frustrating to have #shutdown be such a common disturbance,” Taylor said in a Dec. 21, 2018 tweet. “Last time it was short, science got done, and U.S. #pacifichake catch was ~300,000 tons in 2018. Now 2019 assessment needs to happen yet here we go again.”

The U.S. whiting fishery caught more than 266,000 mt last year for a value of close to $50 million, about half of the overall West Coast groundfish fishery value.

Taylor is one of the U.S. scientists who works collaboratively with Canadian scientists to develop the hake stock assessment, scheduled for a draft release and review by Feb. 6, 2019. Without the stock assessment on which to base 2019 regulations, a number of options could occur: the season could be delayed or it could be managed very conservatively. The assessment may rely solely on the Canadian scientists’ work, with limited input already done by U.S. advisers. It’s unclear at this point exactly how the season will proceed, but the treaty process is continuing without the scientific input from the U.S.

However, the series of dominoes that make the whiting fishery work starts with getting the assessment done.

Sarah Nayani, Director of Compliance for Arctic Storm Management Group LLC, based in Seattle, said she’s watching the issue closely.

“We are concerned about the impact the government shutdown may have on the hake assessment and the timing of the Pacific Whiting Treaty process,” Nayani said in an email. “We hope that the U.S. scientists and managers may resume their work soon so that our 2019 fishery won’t be impacted or delayed.”

Taylor and other scientists discussed the pending assessment during a Joint Management Committee conference call in early December. The JMC includes industry and managers from both countries. On the call, U.S. scientists told participants that NMFS was prioritizing other species for stock assessment work; Pacific hake was just lower on the list at the time but still scheduled for completion. It’s likely nobody suspected a government shutdown would happen two weeks later, or that it would drag on into the New Year.

The predicament now is that the only new data for an updated stock assessment from the U.S. side is fishery-dependent data, such as age classes, length-at-age data, volumes, etc. Fishery-independent data, in the form of a NOAA Fisheries acoustic research survey, is done once every two years (2018 was an off year). Therefore, complete data from the 2018 U.S. fishery is essential to developing a scientifically-robust stock assessment for managing the 2019 fishery. This data is currently incomplete because of the government shutdown.

Beyond the stock assessment, the seafood industry frequently relies on preliminary scientific data to make business plans and update customers on volumes and product availability.

“What do we tell our markets?” Pacific Seafood’s Mike Okoniewski said. “Our customers want to know that as far in advance as they can. It can have a detrimental effect on our business side, too.”

For Okoniewski, Nayani and others involved in or watching the whiting process, the politics of the government shutdown are frequently secondary to their business considerations. It’s more frustrating to not have access to scientific information that affects the bottom line.

“They’re [scientists/researchers] considered to be nonessential, but they compose the bulk of the work force that we consider essential,” Okoniewski said.

This story was originally published by SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

West Coast Whiting Stock Assessment Shows Population Highest Since 1980s

February 1, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The draft stock assessment for the Pacific whiting (hake) stock off the west coast of North America was released yesterday with higher estimates of spawning biomass than last year, which could result in an estimated median catch limit for 2017 of 969,840 tons.

In the past, Canada and the U.S. have agreed to a much lower catch limit due to the abundance of smaller fish, but this year the incidence of smaller size fish was only about 15% of the catch. However, uncertainty in abundance, recruitment, and future performance in the stock is high due in part to natural forces, so a precautionary approach is traditionally taken when setting the TAC.

Coastwide catch in 2016 was 329,427 tons, out of a TAC of 497,500 tons. The U.S. landed 70.7% of its quota; the Canadian fleets landed 53.7% of their quota. Both countries had a variety of constraints that prohibited full attainment.

The new estimate for catch is based on the whiting default harvest rule. That rule allows a level of removals that, according to the model, may result in lower spawning biomass as soon as the next two years. For that and other reasons, harvest levels have always been less. Last year’s TAC was the highest set in recent history, which shows a gradual increase since 2012. 

This year’s estimate of spawning biomass at 2.129 million tons compares to last year’s estimate of 1.993 million tons, which is slightly higher than the 1.885 million tons estimated in an earlier assessment.

“The stock is estimated to be at its highest biomass level since the 1980s as a result of es­timated large 2010 and 2014 cohorts. The 2014 cohort has not yet been observed by the survey and only twice by the commercial fishery, thus its absolute size is highly uncertain,” reads the report.

The draft was posted on the Pacific Whiting Treaty website by the Joint Technical Committee (JTC) of the Pacific Hake/Whiting Agreement Between the Governments of the United States and Canada. The Joint Management Committee (JMC) is planning a teleconference to discuss this document, during which the JTC will brief the JMC on the preliminary draft 2017 stock assessment on February 9, 2017.

The stock assessment model for 2017 is similar in structure to the 2016 model. It is fit to an acoustic survey index of abundance and annual commercial catch, as well as age compositions from the survey and commercial fisheries.

The spawning biomass in 2017 is estimated to have increased from 2016 due to the 2014 year-class likely being above average size.

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.