Announcements| Cook Inlet Salmon Harvest Specifications |Chum Salmon Bycatch Management | Upcoming Meetings |
NPFMC announcements
The Council held a special meeting in February 2025 to take up two issues: harvest specifications for Cook Inlet Salmon, and the chum salmon bycatch analysis. Because this was designed to be an issue-specific rather than a normal Council meeting, the Council did not take up the full complement of agency reports and staff tasking agenda items; those agenda items will be resumed in full at the April Council meeting. The Council’s 3-meeting outlook has been updated online.
C1 Cook Inlet Salmon Harvest Specifications
The SSC and Council reviewed and adopted NMFS’s 2025 preliminary Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) Report for the Cook Inlet EEZ Area Salmon Fishery. Following discussions and public testimony, the Council recommended TACs for the 2025 fishery as shown in the table below. The SSC recommended OFLs and ABCs for the 7 salmon stocks harvested in the Cook Inlet EEZ Area and provided a number of suggestions for the next assessment cycle. Some of their primary recommendations include some independent review in 2025 of the SAFE methodology prior to when the SSC sets the next harvest specifications. This could include a workshop, series of workshops or the formation of a Salmon Plan Team for the Cook Inlet EEZ Area. The SSC also provided further recommendations on considerations for Tier 1 stocks as well as more consistency in establishing buffers for all stocks along with more explanation of appropriate rationale. Further recommendations are contained in the SSC minutes.
During the meeting, NMFS briefed the Council on ongoing tribal consultations and engagement on the Cook Inlet fishery, as well as ongoing discussions on requests to form a tribal fishery in the Cook Inlet EEZ Area.
Table: Proposed 2025 harvest specifications for Cook Inlet EEZ Area salmon stocks.
The SSC recommended minimum stock size threshold (MSST), preseason overfishing level (OFL), acceptable biological catch (ABC), annual catch limit (ACL), and Council recommended total allowable catch (TAC) are in numbers of fish.
| Stock | Tier | MFMT | MSST | OFL | OFLPRE | ABC Buffer | ABC/ACL | TAC Buffer | TAC |
| Kenai Sockeye (KNSOCK) | 1 | 0.196 | 3,030,000 | NA | 514,761 | 30% | 360,332 | 0% | |
| Kasilof Sockeye (KNSOCK) | 1 | 0.511 | 555,000 | NA | 664,294 | 57% | 285,646 | 0% | 800,126* |
| Aggregate Sockeye (AOSOCK) | 3 | NA | 163,000 | 906,757 | 181,351 | 15% | 154,148 | 0% | |
| Aggregate Chinook (ACHIN) | 3 | NA | 40,500 | 2,237 | 373 | 30% | 261 | 0% | 261 |
| Aggregate Coho (COHO) | 3 | NA | 38,800 | 268,053 | 67,013 | 75% | 16,753 | 0% | 16,753 |
| Aggregate Chum (CHUM) | 3 | NA | NA | 390,030 | 97,508 | 20% | 78,006 | 0% | 78,006 |
| Aggregate Pink (PINK) | 3 | NA | NA | 116,348 | 58,174 | 10% | 52,357 | 0% | 52,357 |
* Combined sockeye salmon TAC. The sum of KNSOCK, KASOCK, and AOSOCK.
Staff contact is Diana Stram.
C2 Chum salmon bycatch management
In February, the Council reviewed a second preliminary analysis of proposed management alternatives to reduce chum salmon bycatch, particularly the bycatch of chum salmon originating from Western Alaska river systems, to the extent practicable in the Bering Sea pollock fishery. At its February meeting, the Council reviewed the revised analysis, and received reports from its advisory bodies as well as public testimony from more than 150 people. Based on this information, the Council approved additional changes to the proposed management alternatives being considered and recommended the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) publish the revised analysis as the draft Environmental Impact Statement after additional analysis of these new alternatives.
Annual genetic sampling by fishery observers certified by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) shows the Bering Sea pollock fishery incidentally catches chum salmon originating from countries across the North Pacific Rim. The bycatch is composed of predominantly hatchery origin Russia and Asia chum salmon. On average over the last decade, approximately 17% of the pollock fishery’s chum salmon bycatch has been attributed to Western Alaska. However, the Council is focused on management actions that could minimize Western Alaska chum salmon bycatch because of the recent and ongoing declines in abundance, which have reduced or eliminated in-river harvest opportunities and resulted in broader negative impacts to communities and residents across Western and Interior Alaska that rely on chum salmon for cultural, nutritional, economic, and spiritual wellbeing.
The management measures being considered all aim to reduce Western Alaska chum salmon bycatch. These include limits or “caps” on the number of chum salmon that may be caught in the pollock fishery and closure of all or part of the Bering Sea to pollock fishing once the limit is reached. The Council approved changes to the existing alternatives and included new options for further evaluation including:
- Modifying an alternative to provide an inseason corridor closure to focus on minimizing bycatch on Western Alaska chum salmon stocks. The new options for evaluation include both larger corridor closures, as well as more discrete corridor closures compared to the prior analysis, as well as modified cap amounts. These new closures could be managed either by NMFS in regulation or by the industry within their respective incentive plan agreements. Under either management management framework, the inseason corridor boundaries, the closure window, and cap amount that triggers the closure would be set in federal regulations.
- A threshold under which the corridor cap would not apply if the salmon abundance increased to a certain level.
- Consideration for adjustments to the Winter Herring Savings Area start date with the intention of providing greater flexibility for chum salmon avoidance.
- Additional analysis of the potential impacts and options for the CDQ sector should their CDQ pollock be leased to non-Catcher Processor sectors in the future.
The next required step will be to formally publish the draft EIS as required by Federal law, after staff completes the environmental, social and cultural, and economic analysis of alternatives and options that were revised at this February meeting. Multiple alternatives can be selected, and the full description of the alternatives and options is available here. The Council is tentatively scheduled to review the published draft EIS as well as the public comments received, and take final action to recommend a preferred alternative to NMFS in December 2025 or February 2026 with possible implementation in 2027.
Staff contact is Kate Haapala.
Upcoming Meetings
The Council anticipates the following advisory group meetings in the first half of 2025:
PNCIAC (Pacific Northwest Crab Industry Advisory Committee) – February 24, 2025, 9-11 am Alaska time; Virtual – Agenda: comments on crab proposals for March Board of Fish meeting
Scallop Plan Team – March 4, 2025, Virtual – Agenda: updates on fishery performance, research, assessment model development
Programmatic Q&A/Webinar – March 6, 2025, 12-1 pm Alaska time; Virtual – Agenda: opportunity for clarification about Programmatic Evaluation meeting materials for April Council meeting. Questions may be submitted in advance, and a recording will also be posted after the meeting.
Enforcement Committee (tentative) – March 31, 2025, 1-5 pm Alaska time; Anchorage, AK – Agenda: discussion of enforcement aspects of Maximum Retainable Allowance analysis
Fishery Monitoring Advisory Committee (FMAC) – May 12, 2025; Anchorage, AK and Seattle, WA – Agenda: review Observer Annual Report for 2024
BSAI Crab Plan Team – May 12-16, 2025; Kodiak, AK – Agenda: tools for constructing model-based indices of survey data, review of models for fall crab stock assessments
Staff contact is Diana Evans