The Charter Halibut Management Committee met in October 2016, and again in December 2016, to consider management measures designed to keep the charter halibut harvest within each area’s (2C and 3A) 2017 allocation. Management measures recommended by the committee were evaluated by Scott Meyer (ADF&G) to determine their likelihood to keep the charter harvest within… Read More →
Charter Halibut Permits
The Council reviewed a discussion paper that presented information on the use of charter halibut permits (CHPs). The discussion paper addressed Council data requests on latent capacity and use of CHPs by non-CHP holders (i.e., leasing). The discussion paper highlighted some of the challenges associated with the CHP database, including the lack of a verification… Read More →
Charter Halibut Recreational Quota Entity
The Council took final action on a package that would allow the formation of a non-profit charter halibut recreational quota entity (RQE) to purchase and hold commercial halibut quota share (QS), to augment the charter catch limits in IPHC Regulatory Area 2C and Area 3A. Under the Council’s preferred alternative, any IFQ annually generated from… Read More →
Halibut Deck Sorting EFP
The Council reviewed a presentation on the exempted fishing permit (EFP) application to allow on-deck sorting of Pacific halibut on non-pelagic trawl catcher processor vessels, as a means of reducing halibut bycatch mortalities. Under the EFP, vessels are allowed to sort halibut removed from a codend on the deck, rather than routing halibut over the… Read More →
BSAI Harvest Specifications for 2017/2018
The Council approved the BSAI Groundfish SAFE report and annual catch limits based on recommendations from its advisory committees. The sum of the total allowable catches (TACs) or quotas for all BSAI groundfish is 2 million t for 2017 and 2018. The TACs were set below the sum of the recommended ABCs. The sum of… Read More →
GOA Specifications for 2017/2018
The Council approved the Gulf of Alaska Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) report and recommended final catch specifications for the 2017 and 2018 groundfish fisheries. The Plan Team presentations included stock status updates and a report on the ecosystem SAFE report section. Because there was no summer trawl survey in the GOA in 2016… Read More →
Bristol Bay Red King Crab Savings Area
The SSC and Council reviewed an application for an exempted fishing permit to allow for some flatfish trawling within the Bristol Bay red king crab savings area (RKCSA) closure in order to evaluate the relative differences in crab bycatch rates inside and outside of the closure area. The Bristol Bay red king crab savings area… Read More →
Electronic Monitoring
The Council took final action to establish electronic monitoring (EM) as a part of the North Pacific Observer Program. Under the Council’s preferred alternative, Alternative 2, regulations would be implemented to allow EM to be used for catch estimation. EM would be integrated into the established Observer Program process, by which the Council and NMFS… Read More →
Gulf of Alaska Trawl Bycatch Management
The Council received staff reports on three documents: a summary of the public comment scoping process that was conducted over the summer, a preliminary draft Social Impact Assessment, and a preliminary draft Regulatory Impact Review. After reviewing the staff reports and considering public testimony, the Council voted to postpone further action on this issue indefinitely.… Read More →
EFH Effects
EFH Fishing Effects Methods The Council reviewed and approved a proposed method to evaluate the effects of fishing on Essential Fish Habitat for BSAI and GOA Groundfish and BSAI crabs, developed by a subcommittee of the SSC. The proposal presented a three-tiered approach to evaluating the effects of commercial fishing on EFH using the outputs… Read More →
