Fishing Groups Want Halibut Bycatch Cut

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Created on Friday, 01 June 2012 08:46

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    The charter fleet and the commercial fishing industry in Southeast are often at odds when it comes to halibut regulations.
    But the two sectors have joined forces to push for a reduction in the amount of halibut trawlers can legally take as “bycatch” in the Gulf of Alaska.
    Cuts in the halibut bycatch limit will be on the table at a North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Kodiak next week.
    Since 1989 the Gulf of Alaska trawl fleet has been limited to 2,300 tons, or just over 5 million pounds, of halibut bycatch. Bycatch are fish caught unintentionally as the trawl fleet targets species like Pacific cod and pollock.
    Proposals before the council would drop the allowable bycatch by 5, 10 or 15 percent.
    The Alaska Longline Fisherman’s Association wants the maximum reduction, and the Southeast Alaska Guides Organization (SEAGO), which represents charter operators in Sitka and across the region, agrees.
    Heath Hilyard, SEAGO’s executive director, called the bycatch reduction a “sound conservation measure” that is consistent with federal laws.
    “We’ve looked for opportunities to work with ALFA,” Hilyard said. “We put aside our differences periodically and get behind something that’s good for everybody.”
    Hilyard will join Linda Behnken, ALFA’S executive director, and other Southeast fishermen at the Kodiak meeting to testify in support of the bycatch reduction.
    Behnken said trawlers, who drag large nets across the ocean floor, often catch halibut that are under 26 inches. Halibut scooped up in trawl nets are thrown back into the water and most die.
     Behnken said the smaller fish are “vitally important” to rebuilding the halibut stocks in Southeast, where longliners have seen steep quota declines in recent years.
    “That’s our future, and if we don’t take care of them now, we don’t have a future,” she said.
    Behnken said it’s still unclear why halibut stocks have fallen off, but she said reducing the bycatch would take some of the pressure off the resource.
    “We’re not saying trawlers are the cause for the decline,” Behnken said. “What we’re saying is everybody needs to share the conservation burden and share in rebuilding the stocks.”
    SEAGO recently passed a position statement in support of a 15-percent bycatch reduction.
    SEAGO mostly agrees with ALFA on the bycatch issue, but Hilyard said he wasn’t interested in arguing that trawlers need to share in the conservation burden.
    “The second any other sector gets whiny about what one sector is getting or not getting, it starts to dilute the message,” he said. “The optics kind of change when you make it one gear group against another. But we can all hold hands and say let’s save the resource.”
    Hilyard said the charter captains  he represents don’t compete with trawlers for fish because dragging is banned in Southeast. And he said there were questions about the “causal” relationship between trawl bycatch and halibut stock reductions.
    “If we reduce bycatch even by 50 percent, we’re not sure we’ll start to see recovery in the total biomass,” he said. “SEAGO wants to follow the science. We feel like it’s a little bit inconclusive.”
    Still, SEAGO had no trouble getting behind the bycatch reduction.
    “SEAGO’s support of this position does not reflect a punitive attitude toward these sectors or gear groups,” the organization’s formal state said. “Rather, this position reflects our dedication to best practices, conservation and regulatory/statutory mandates by state and federal government (MSA, specifically).
    SEAGO was referring to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act, which requires the National Marine Fishery Service to minimize bycatch and bycatch mortality.
    Behnken pointed out that the commercial quota for halibut in the Gulf of Alaska is down 60 percent over the last seven years. Many Sitka longliners have quota in Southeast and the central Gulf. She also noted halibut migrate from west to east, which is part of the reason local fishermen are so concerned about bycatch by trawlers.
    Behnken said the number of fish killed as bycatch coastwide in Alaska is equal to the number of fish being taken in the commercial fishery.
    The 2,300-ton cap is spread over a variety of trawl fisheries in the Gulf. The Pacific cod fleet, for instance, is allocated a percentage of the overall bycatch cap. And if they hit that mark, it can trigger a fishery closure.
    The North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting opens June 6 in Kodiak.
    The Sitka Assembly recently voted 7-0 to support the 15-percent bycatch reduction.

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