Tag Archives: North Pacific Fishery Management Council
Groundswell – Opposing Catch Share Embezzlements for the Gulf of Alaska
Gulf of Alaska groundfish trawl bycatch amendments for analysis top this week’s North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Kodiak. First up is the 10-year review of the Crab privatization quota system. It put roughly 1,350 fishermen out of work and shifted roughly $800 million of labor’s surplus to some sealords — embezzled from captains and crew. Into today’s capital flight torrent enters 40 groundfish trawlers, also wanting a mixed economy of brutish capitalism combined with another socialistic program of government giveaways. That’s Alternative 2 in the analysis outline, an IFQ proposal. It will result in more capital fleeing Alaska, robbing our communities of the labor surplus that drives rounds of respending that stimulate coastal economies. Greed and lazy are common economic bedfellows. They’ll embezzle 70% off the top, too. IFQs are euphemistically called “catch shares,” while those who do fish get less of a share than before. Since they saw trawl IFQs as inevitable politically, a splinter group of weak feeling local fishermen came up with a nonsensical idea to at least get one piece of the giveaway trawl pie, in something misnamed a Community Fishing Association. Read the op-ed here 20:51
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is meeting June 6, 2016 at Kodiak Harbor Convention Center
The Council will meet the week of June 6, 2016 at the Kodiak Harbor Convention Center, 236 E. Rezanof Drive, Kodiak, AK. The AGENDA and SCHEDULE are available and will be updated as documents become available. Alaska Air is offering Travel Discounts. Details of meetings to be held during the week follow. The Council’s meeting will be broadcast live beginning their first day via Adobe Connect Click here to Listen Online. 14:55
North Pacific Fishery Management Council convenes in Kodiak with Gulf catch shares in focus
The trawl industry already loathes a recent alternative to a North Pacific Fishery Management Council plan
. Now the council could add another. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will meet in Kodiak from June 6-14 to hear a discussion paper that has enraged the trawl industry since late 2015. A new proposal for “innovative policy,” as referred to in the paper, would give the first catch share allocations to Community Fishing Associations to prevent harmful impacts such as the job losses and high cost of entry that have occurred under previous such programs in halibut and crab. This is an official state position, and the North Pacific council holds a six-member majority of the 11-member body that governs federal Alaska waters. Gov. Bill Walker’s administration prioritizes coastal communities’ economic prospects during the state’s oil-driven financial calamity. Part of that stance concerns keeping the fishing industry, the state’s largest private employer, in Alaskan fishermen’s hands. Read the rest here 08:39
Governor Walker names two good Alaskans to North Pacific Fishery Management Council
“Alaska strong” is the phrase that best describes Gov. Bill Walker’s recent nominations of Theresa Peterson and Buck Laukitis to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, or NPFMC, which is composed of 11 voting members from Alaska and the Pacific Northwest states. Six of those members are nominated by Alaska’s governor. Theresa Peterson is a fisherman, Kodiak resident and multi-term member of the NPFMC advisory panel, as well as a staff member for the Alaska Marine Conservation Council. Buck Laukitis also stresses the importance of catering to the demands of the current fleet while also ensuring that the future of coastal communities is not sacrificed in the process. He also comes with a formidable pedigree for the job. Read the rest here 10:07
Washington rep, trawlers scuttle rumors of Gulf legislation
A Washington congresswoman’s office and members of the North Pacific trawl industry deny rumors that they are collaborating on federal fishing legislation that would circumvent the North Pacific Fishery Management Council process. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council regulates federal fisheries from three to 200 miles off the Alaska coast. Currently, the council is considering a regulatory package of several options to implement a quota share system for Gulf of Alaska groundfish fisheries, one of the last remaining North Pacific fisheries without such a system. Word surfaced that a Washington legislator had crafted language at the behest of the trawl industry to implement a preferred industry alternative at the congressional level. Read the rest here 13:54
Gulf of Alaska fishermen wary of Congressional intrusion into council process
Editor’s note: Stephen Taufen of Groundswell Fisheries Movement did not write the petition distributed by AMCC. This article refers to a separate memo of his own distributed to interested parties in which he alludes to Rep. Beutler. Gulf of Alaska fishermen suspect that Washington, D.C., politics might come into play for fisheries regulations they want left to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. A letter circulated by the Alaska Marine Conservation Council and signed by 250 Gulf of Alaska fishermen and residents was sent to each of Alaska’s three congressional delegation members. The letter asks that the Alaska’s representatives in the nation’s capital oppose any legislation intended to press Gulf of Alaska fisheries regulations. “Specifically, we request our Alaska delegation to support development of a Gulf of Alaska Trawl Bycatch Management Program (aka catch share) in the Council process so all stakeholders may contribute to a transparent process,” the letter asks. Read the rest here12:05 Additional information by scrolling to the comment section.
North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Anchorage, April 4 thru 12, 2016 – Listen Live
The Council will meet the week of April 4, 2016 at the Hilton Hotel, Anchorage. Alaska Air is offering travel discounts. The AGENDA and SCHEDULE are available and will be updated as documents become available. The Council’s meeting will be broadcast live beginning their first day via Adobe Connect HERE. Motions will be posted following the meeting. http://www.npfmc.org/ 15:40
Alaska trawlers furious about Walker’s council nominations
Two months after a heated meeting, trawlers are again accusing Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Sam Cotten of short-changing their industry. Gov. Bill Walker submitted nominations to fill two seats of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council on March 9, sending waves of dissatisfaction throughout an industry segment that claims Walker’s administration is forcing it out of the process at the worst time possible. Trawlers claim nominees were chosen based on fealty to a specific vision of Alaska fisheries rather than experience. Read the rest here 08:07
Victors in suit against NMFS want hired skipper rule scrapped
The victorious plaintiffs in a case challenging a federal rule over hired skippers in the sablefish and halibut fisheries filed a motion Feb. 24 to vacate the National Marine Fisheries Service action. Fairweather Fish Inc. and Ray Welsh filed suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, in 2014, following the finalization of a regulation that prohibited the use of hired skippers to harvest halibut and sablefish quota acquired after Feb. 12, 2010. A U.S. District Court judge in the Western Washington District ruled in their favor on Jan. 13, finding that the regulation didn’t meet legal muster. The court ruled that NMFS violated the Administrative Procedures Act, and failed to ensure the new rule complied with National Standards 9 and 10 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Read the rest here 14:40
Alaska trawlers furious about Walker’s North Pacific Fishery Management Council nominations
Two months after a heated meeting, trawlers are again accusing Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Sam Cotten of short-changing their industry. Gov. Bill Walker submitted nominations to fill two seats of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council on March 9, sending waves of dissatisfaction throughout an industry segment that claims Walker’s administration is forcing it out of the process at the worst time possible. Walker nominated Buck Laukitis of Homer and Theresa Peterson of Kodiak to replace Duncan Fields and David Long among the 11 voting members of the council, one of eight regional councils established by the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Act to oversee federal fisheries from three to 200 miles off the coast. Read the rest here 09:28
Walker names picks for North Pacific Fishery Management Council
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will have two new faces next fall, and the governor’s picks for the seat could push the council toward decisions favorable to small-boat fishermen and coastal communities. Governor Bill Walker announced his nominations for the two seats opening up. Theresa Peterson of Kodiak and Buck Laukitis of Homer were tapped to replace Duncan Fields and David Long, whose three-year terms expire in August. Fields, of Kodiak, has served the maximum three consecutive terms; Long, of Wasilla, simply isn’t being re-appointed. Read the rest here 08:08
Cotten, council get a bycatch reduction plan earful from Gulf of Alaska trawlers
An administrative push to keep fishing jobs in coastal communities is butting heads with the trawl industry claiming they provide the jobs in the first place. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will continue studying a bycatch reduction plan unpopular with Gulf of Alaska trawlers. The option, known as Alternative 3, would allocate individual bycatch caps to groundfish vessels in the Gulf of Alaska rather than the target species. The council is making changes at the fleet’s insistence. The council passed a series of chinook salmon bycatch limits and halibut bycatch reductions in 2011 and 2012, leading to bycatch-related shutdowns of the trawl fleet. Read the rest here 13:23
Bycatch spike, meeting spur trawl stand down
Gulf of Alaska trawlers are flocking to a meeting in Portland, leaving behind a halibut bycatch situation the North Pacific Fishery Management Council is attempting to fix. The trawlers have complaints with council process, but are also standing down from a halibut bycatch spike resulting from a pollock price dispute with area processors. Industry sources say the stand down was already underway prior to a letter from prominent Gulf of Alaska trawl organizations on Jan. 28 asking for the council-related stand down. Trawl industry representatives said the two stand downs are unrelated. Thirty-four Central Gulf of Alaska trawlers and 19 Western Gulf of Alaska trawlers have agreed not to fish from Feb. 3-6, showing solidarity with those trawlers traveling to Portland to testify at the council meeting. Read the rest here 15:44
North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Portland Oregon, Feb 1thru 9, 2016
The Council will meet the week of February 1, 2016 at the Benson Hotel, 309 Southwest Broadway in Portland, Oregon. The AGENDA and SCHEDULE are available and will be updated as documents become available. The Council’s meeting will be broadcast live beginning their first day via Adobe Connect HERE. Motions will be posted following the meeting. 15:26
Gulf of Alaska fishermen to council: don’t experiment with our fisheries
A majority of 
Gulf of Alaska groundfish trawlers will voluntarily suspend fishing in order to attend the North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Portland, Oregon the first week in February. They are concerned that the recent State of Alaska proposal to restructure their fisheries would seriously harm their livelihoods and the economies of their fishery dependent communities. “This is really quite unique,” said Julie Bonney, executive director of the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank based in Kodiak, Alaska, in a press release. “Fishermen agreeing to stand down, essentially losing income, in order to make this trip to provide their input demonstrates just how important this change in management is to the fishing industry.” Read the article here 08:28
AK plans to cut salmon bycatch in Bering Sea pollock fishery; Comments wanted
Federal fish managers are proposing changes to the Bering Sea pollock fishery to better reduce bycatch of Chinook and chum salmon, and they want input from the public. The fishery now has separate programs to account for takes of the two salmon species – for Chinook, incentives are provided to each vessel to avoid bycatch at all times. For chum salmon, Intercooperative agreements help the fleets avoid areas of high bycatch. The North Pacific Council wants to integrate the two programs. Read the post here 19:22
Factory trawlers praised for halibut conservation
What a difference a year makes for the halibut bycatch controversy in the Bering Sea at the December meetings of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in Anchorage. The flatfish factory trawlers, vilified for much of this year, reported vigorous and voluntary efforts at halibut conservation, and even received praise from the Pribilofs. Their zeal was prompted by what might be termed resolution number two-by-four of the fish council last summer, which slashed halibut bycatch by 25 percent. “I’m glad what is happening now is happening,” said Swetzof, who was furious when the issue first arose last year,,, Read the article here 18:32
User conflicts over halibut, salmon on horizon for 2016
The year about to end saw the beginnings of some fisheries regulations and legal battles that will either resolve or present further issues in 2016. Halibut has dominated the federal fisheries agenda for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which oversees the Exclusive Economic Zone from 3 to 200 miles off the coast. Shrinking halibut stocks and dual management have collided to produce a fishery bitterly divided among bycatch users, directed users, and charter anglers struggling to make ends meet with fewer legally harvestable fish. Read the article here 16:04
YEAR IN REVIEW: Federal agenda dominated by halibut bycatch concerns
Halibut 
dominated the federal fisheries process in 2015, with each sector fighting over reduced allocations. Directed halibut fishermen in the North Pacific have watched their quotas drop while the trawl industry prosecuting Bering Sea groundfish has had a relatively static bycatch limit for 20 years. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council governs bycatch while the International Pacific Halibut Commission governs directed removals, and the two have not coordinated on the decline in harvestable halibut biomass. Read the article here 08:38
NPFMC – Pollock gets a 30,000 mt raise, flats take cut
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council raised pollock quota for 2016, but only by half the requested amount, locked in by the two million metric ton cap for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands groundfish fishery. The 2016 pollock limit for the Eastern Bering Sea is 1.34 million metric tons, a 30,000 metric ton increase from the 2015 limit but less than half the 65,000 metric ton increase the Advisory Panel recommended and the pollock biomass could’ve handled. Groundfish — which includes pollock, Pacific cod, and flatfish — is capped at two million metric,,, Read the article here 09:50
North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Anchorage, December 7-15, 2015
The Council will meet the week of December 7, 2015 at the Hilton Hotel in Anchorage, AK. The AGENDA and SCHEDULE are available and will be updated as documents become available. While the Council meeting is in session, you can follow along at https://npfmc.adobeconnect.com/december2015. 12:24
NPFMC Introduces New Alternative After October Meeting for Gulf trawl bycatch management
The Kodiak Fisheries Workgroup sent a letter of community input to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council before the council’s meeting in early October. The letter focused on the gulf trawl bycatch management issue. “The new alternative does not do catch shares on those fisheries resources such as pollock, but provides a share instead of the bycatch quota, which is either halibut or salmon. Chinook salmon. And so, if you’re given a share of that bycatch, you can take that bycatch share into a co-op.” Read the article here 12:29
Trawlers may convert to pot gear for cod catches
One of the tools being talked about to help trawlers reduce salmon and halibut bycatch is the opportunity to voluntarily convert to pot gear to catch Pacific cod. It’s an option being discussed by fishery managers as they craft a trawl bycatch reduction plan for the Gulf of Alaska. Sam Cunningham, “The reason someone might be interested in using pot gear, and the reason is that it would have lower bycatch of prohibited species of Chinook salmon and halibut, and when those species are caught incidentally they would be less likely to die because they are caught in pot gear.” Listen, and read the rest here 17:51
Despite factory trawler opposition, Adak wins 5,000-ton cod quota
Despite factory trawler opposition, Adak has won a guaranteed minimum of 5,000 metric tons of Pacific cod each year, in hopes that the local 
will re-open. The Aleutian Islands Pacific cod catcher vessel fishery and shoreplant delivery requirement was approved last week at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, meeting in Anchorage. While the fish council action doesn’t specify exclusive rights for Adak, it did impose the requirement for cod west of 170 degrees longitude, where the only shore plant is in Adak. Read the rest here 13:24
Alaska’s fishing fatalities are dropping, no matter how you mix the numbers
The deadliest catch is getting a lot less deadly. Last week, the reported to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council that for the first time in known history, no one died on the job while commercial fishing in Alaska during the last federal fiscal year, which ended Sept. 31. “This is the first year, going back as far as we have records, that we didn’t have what I’ll characterize as an operational-related death,” said Coast Guard Capt. Phillip Thorne, chief of enforcement for the Coast Guard in Alaska. That claim comes with a few caveats,,, Read the rest here 08:25
More Catch Shares – NPFMC adds options to Gulf of Alaska bycatch package
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has added an alternative to the ongoing redraft of the Gulf of Alaska bycatch management plan. The council now has a broad array of options, including 100 percent observer coverage for Gulf of Alaska trawlers, cooperative catch shares, individual catch shares of both groundfish quota and bycatch caps, and reductions in overall bycatch caps. The plan aims to slow the “race for fish” that accompanies derby-style, open access fisheries, where vessels compete with each other to catch as much as possible within the season dates. Read the rest here 15:23
McDonald’s urges NPFMC to give Bering Sea canyons careful consideration
“In order to ensure all sources remain comfortably above sustainability standards into the future, we voice our support to the council and ask that it move swiftly to take all appropriate measures to protect the habitat of the Bering Sea canyons and sustain the long-term viability of its fisheries,” wrote Gross. McDonald’s did not, however, come down strongly on either side of the issue that Greenpeace and the pollock fishing industry have butted heads over for years. The NPFMC plans to decide whether to take action on pollock fishing limitation Read the rest here 11:01
Halibut Bycatch: a Disappointing Update
On June 9th (10th?), Alaskan halibut fishermen, who have seen their individual quotas cut by up to 70% over the last ten years gathered to watch the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council (NPFMC or North Pacific Council) vote on reduced halibut bycatch caps for trawl fleets fishing in the Bering Sea. Fact sheets from ALFA, stories from KCAW, NPFMC’s Environmental Assessment, and our previous blog post all describe the conservation fight over halibut, but here are a few crucial bullet points as a reminder: Read the rest here 12:03
Cameras to remedy observer problems in Alaska?
Smaller boats in Alaska’s offshore fisheries may no longer have to carry human observers in the future, if a plan to deploy cameras proves feasible. At its Sitka meeting this month, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council gave the green light to an inter-agency effort to develop Electronic Monitoring. The council would like to see cameras in action within three years. “Our observer was on board. And our observer was seasick for about half the days. Conditions were cramped, and I got to sleep on the galley table,” said Steven Rhoads,,, Read the rest here 18:07
NPFMC must strike a better balance on halibut bycatch – Charlie Wilber
This commentary is written for all those who appreciate halibut. If you eat halibut, catch halibut, or have an interest in a healthy halibut resource you need to be aware of what happened at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in Sitka this past week. Simply put, halibut stocks in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) area are down, and the problem is slowly affecting all of us. Read the rest here 11:07
