By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
Sitkans representing a variety of groups and interests advocated for reduced halibut bycatch and abundance-based management in the Bering Sea, at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s week-long meeting in mid-April.
Sitka Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins told the council the call for reduced trawler bycatch is a bipartisan issue.
“There is very little ambiguity about where most Alaskans are on this issue, regardless of party and regardless of geography ... there is very, very little diversity in perspective within the Legislature, about what legislators - be they Democrat or Republican, rural or urban - would like to see. And they would like to see less halibut bycatch by the trawl fleet, period,” Kreiss-Tomkins said during the public comment period for an agenda item regarding halibut bycatch limits.
While the council didn’t take formal action on the issue and isn’t slated to until fall, Kreiss-Tomkins urged an abundance-based bycatch approach that would significantly reduce bycatch limits in times of lower abundance.
“It’s one of the most unifying, bipartisan issues I’ve encountered in the Legislature… (and) Alternative 4 is most in alignment with what I would say is the overwhelming consensus within the Legislature,” he said.
Alternative 4 would set the lowest bycatch limits on the Bering Sea trawl fleet, stipulating a 45-percent bycatch reduction in times of very low abundance. In high abundance, the limit would remain as it is today. The alternative operates on a sliding scale. The current static Prohibited Species Catch (PSC) limit stands at 1,745 megatons, while the Alternative 4 scale could reduce it down to 960 megatons in low abundance times.
Other alternatives included smaller reductions in bycatch, while Alternative 1 was a No Action option.
While Kreiss-Tomkins was the only legislator to address the council in person, he and three other Southeast Alaska lawmakers co-signed a letter to the council requesting abundance-based management.
“A healthy, sustainable halibut harvest is vital to the future of our coastal communities and our constituents… In November 2019, ADF&G Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang identified Alaska’s priorities in Alaska Fish and Wildlife News, emphasizing the need to explore more tailored management options. Presently, halibut bycatch quotas are fixed; they do not change as abundance changes,” the public letter reads. “Thus, when halibut abundance declines, halibut bycatch amounts to a larger portion — and in our opinion, an unsustainable and inappropriate portion — of total halibut catch. Abundance based management of halibut bycatch would ensure that allocations are more fair and equitable.”
Representatives Sara Hannan and Andi Story, both of Juneau, and Dan Ortiz, Ketchikan, also signed the letter.
The legislators weren’t the only ones citing a wide-ranging desire for reduced halibut bycatch.
“I’ve noticed over time that it is rare to find a topic or an issue where you find sport, charter, subsistence, and conservation interests all unified on a position,” Sitka Fish and Game Advisory Committee chair Heather Bauscher testified. “The great unifier of the moment is the undeniable fact that the current allowable bycatch of such important species as halibut and others is out of control and this degree of waste is simply not acceptable… Halibut is critical to local food security.”
Bauscher also advocated abundance-based management practices for the PSC limit.
“To allow these large, industrial-scale interests to take such a large amount of fish as bycatch also impacts us directly in terms of how much of the annual take of this species is left… In times of low abundance it should not be those who need this resource the most that should have to pay the price for the industry’s wasteful practices,” she told the council.
Speaking for the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, Linda Behnken argued that in the absence of abundance-based PSC limits, the directed halibut fishery suffers.
“The directed halibut fishery is the conservation buffer between halibut bycatch and the spawning biomass—a buffer that works until the directed fishery is gone. To claim bycatch does not have an impact on the spawning biomass is to ignore the conservation buffer demanded of the directed fisheries—and to ignore the ‘borrowing’ of halibut from the Gulf built into the simulation model at bycatch levels that exceed harvestable halibut biomass levels in the Bering Sea under low abundance scenarios,” Behnken and ALFA wrote in a letter to the council.
In the letter, she requested that the council not decide on a preferred alternative on the matter until the halibut stock analysis model is changed.
ALFA called on the council to reduce bycatch.
“While identifying the index for that abundance-based approach has proven far more challenging than we initially anticipated, the goal of bycatch reduction has only become more important. Bering Sea communities and halibut fishermen remain at risk of complete resource preemption, and the resource remains at risk until the Council acknowledges conservation responsibility for halibut killed in the groundfish fisheries. We remain fully committed to this process and to improving conservation and management of the halibut resource,” the letter stated.
Much of the decision, Behnken argued, boils down to equity between small local fishermen and industrial trawlers.
“There are glaring social equity issues underlying the... decision that we expect are clear to the Council: on one side, over 2,000 halibut fishermen, rural communities, indigenous dependence, and a small-scale fishing industry that is one of few long-term success stories in fisheries management vs five factory trawl corporations and 18-20 industrial fishing factories,” ALFA wrote.
While many of the 254 commenters spoke and wrote in favor of abundance-based bycatch limits, Groundfish Forum representative Chris Woodley argued against them. He said that any of the reduction options on the table would result in reduced fishing.
“Our vessels are incentivized to avoid halibut… The Amendment 80 sector (the trawl fleet) is already maximizing the use of their tools to reduce bycatch and bycatch mortality to the extent practicable. With vessels already exercising all available tools, with Alternatives 2 through 4 implemented, the remaining option will be to reduce fishing effort and harvest,” Woodley testified.
Woodley highlighted the trawl fishery’s impact on global food supply.
“We proudly feed people across the globe by sustainably harvesting fish from the Bering Sea… The council should consider the benefits of food production derived from providing seafood to consumers… The number of groundfish meals available to customers would be reduced by nearly a 100 to 1 ratio for every increment reduction in halibut PSC,” he claimed. “Not only would there be an enormous reduction in food production, but these reductions would impact different consumer groups differently.”
Focusing on halibut conservation over groundfish harvest, he said, would “favor affluent consumers over consumers of more modest means… In order for our sector to continue producing hundreds of millions of meals annually, this action must be practicable, and it currently is not. The proposed cuts to PSC caps within alternatives two through four, combined with any performance standards, are simply not achievable without significant to many companies and their crew... What moves the needle is we start reducing our harvest, or we start tying up early.”
While council members generally did not respond to public comments directly, council member Kenny Downs - a Seattle maritime investor - pushed back against Woodley’s comment.
“The fact that you have an inexpensive sandwich at Popeye’s (fast food restaurant) doesn’t resonate,” Downs said.
Looking into past years and speaking from a village where residents rely on wild foods, Organized Village of Kake president Joel Jackson said that he has witnessed a steady decline in halibut stocks and sizes.
“I’ve seen the halibut decline pretty steadily. I know there’s many factors but when I see the excess bycatch by the trawlers, they are concerning. I was talking with my late uncle about four years ago and he told me stories of halibut fishing and salmon fishing. He was telling me he caught halibut, about a 40-pound halibut that was tagged in the Bering Sea, out here in Frederick Sound in front of our community,” Jackson told the council.
Jackson stressed the importance of halibut in Kake, a small community off of the road system.
“When I started learning about the trawling bycatch it became very concerning to me, because next to salmon, catching halibut here in our community is very, very important to us. It sustains us year round basically, when there is no salmon we rely heavily on halibut for fresh fish… I can’t stress enough during the pandemic over the past year, how much food security means to us,” Jackson testified. “And my concern is all those halibut out there that look like mostly juvenile halibut that we can’t catch because they’re too small are being dumped back in… It’s really concerning.”
As a subsistence user, Jackson likened trawl fleet bycatch to wanton waste.
“Wanton waste by decimation,” he said. “And if we did that as subsistence users we would be fined heavily, even just one fish over our limit. We would be fined heavily for taking it or throwing it back.”
Testifying as an individual, Sitka fisherman, Eric Jordan told the council he sees “trawling as an existential threat to marine habitat, fish populations, other fishing groups, subsistence, and the environment.”
While environmental considerations beyond halibut abundance weren’t discussed, a recent piece in the Smithsonian Magazine highlighted climate-related impacts of trawl fishing. The March 22 article stated bottom trawling can release a gigaton of carbon into the atmosphere annually - an amount equivalent to the yearly emissions of the aviation industry.
The five-day council meeting was livestreamed on YouTube. While most line items received little attention from the public, testimony on the issue of halibut bycatch consumed nearly eight hours on April 14 and 15.
Following the meeting, the council altered commenting rules to “allow staff to remove comments that are inconsistent with policy.”
That included a prohibition of profane language and a ban on comments deemed “off topic” or “unsupported accusations,” the council website states.
The comment period will be shortened, opening later, once meeting materials are online, and closing earlier to allow for comment moderation. Comments won’t publicly displayed until the comment period closes, the new council policy from April 21 reads.
The council said that these changes are needed to prevent comments from becoming a “blog.”
“There have recently been instances of profanity or threats being included among the comments. Without moderation to filter out inappropriate content, the comment section can quickly begin to read like a blog with comments on comments, and disrespectful dialogue,” the council statement reads.
These changes to policy have received criticism in recent days.
Writing for National Fisherman on April 29, Jessica Hathaway argued that the changes place a burden on commenters.
“Opening avenues for staff to strike comments from the record before they’re documented for the public to see puts far too much onus on the public to double check on its own access to its own government. And what if a stricken comment is deemed to be edited unfairly?” Hathaway wrote.
She said that the new rules offer council staff too much leeway to strike a comment and shorten the comment period too severely.
“However, the new terms cut too wide a path for staff to strike from the record any comments that they interpret to be ‘off topic’ or that make ‘unsupported accusations.’ The changes also include severe limitations on the time frame in which comments may be submitted — opening the comment period 7-10 days before the meeting but also suggesting that they be closed up to five days before the meeting.... Does that mean the public would have roughly three to six days to submit comments? Many Alaska fishing trips last longer than that” Hathaway stated.
In a later interview, Bauscher agreed foul language is improper, but the council is wrong to shorten the comment period.
“They’re trying to focus on the fact that there was all this vulgar and horrible language (directed) at council members - which is definitely not acceptable - but all the additional things they added in, with the reviewing and shortened comment period are not good… This is coming from a place of people feeling shut out and ignored,” Bauscher said.
For the council, the next steps are to make final changes to the halibut bycatch document before the publication of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement this summer, council Deputy Director Diana Evans told the Sentinel last week.
On the topic of halibut, Evans noted that opinions range widely.
“There is a lot of diversity of opinion on this particular topic, people obviously, halibut is a very important fishery in our state as are the other fisheries, the Amendment 80 fishery (trawl) is an important economic driver as well. There is a lot of diversity of opinion,” Evans said.
Once public, the DEIS will open for a 45-day public comment period.
The council, she said, plans to return to in-person meetings in October, but she noted it’s looking into ways to allow continued remote testimony beyond that.
