At this meeting, the Council specified 2020 overfishing and acceptable biological catch levels for Norton Sound red king crab (NSRKC). Dr. Martin Dorn, Co-Chair of the Crab Plan Team (CPT), presented the SSC, AP, and Council with an overview of the 2020 stock assessment for NSRKC as well as other issues addressed at the January… Read More →
BSAI Crab Management
The Council approved 2019/2020 fishing year OFLs and ABCs for the Aleutian Islands golden king crab and Pribilof Islands blue king crab stocks, and reviewed summaries and SSC comments for stock assessment scenarios and other issues addressed at the Crab Plan Team’s May 2019 meeting. The Council also reviewed issues related to rebuilding the St.… Read More →
BSAI Crab Management
The Council reviewed the BSAI Crab Plan Team’s (CPT) report and the 2019 Norton Sound red king crab (NSRKC) stock assessment. The Council made a preliminary determination to approve the NSRKC SAFE report chapter as well as the SSC recommendation that 2019 OFL be set at 0.24 million lb. (0.11 thousand t) and that ABC… Read More →
Partial Deliveries in BSAI Crab Rationalization Fisheries
At the February 2019 meeting, the Council initiated an analysis to allow vessels participating in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) Crab Rationalization (CR) Program to make partial deliveries of crab and then continue fishing before fully offloading all harvested crab. The action would be to remove Federal regulations that prohibit the continuation of… Read More →
BSAI Crab eLogbooks
At the February 2019 meeting, the Council received a short discussion paper on the regulatory process required to allow crab harvesters to switch over to electronic logbooks (elogbooks). NMFS requires daily fishing logbooks (logbooks) for vessels 60 ft length overall or greater that participate in the Crab Rationalization Program fisheries in the Bering Sea and… Read More →
BSAI Crab Specifications
The Council reviewed the final BSAI Crab Stock Assessment Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) report and received information on the status of the ten federally managed crab stocks. Based on this report, the SSC recommends overfishing levels (OFLs) and acceptable biological catch levels (ABCs) for 2018/19 and reports on catch accruing towards these levels in the previous… Read More →
Crab Management – AI GKC Harvest Specifications
The Council approved the SSC’s OFL and ABC recommendations for the Aleutian Island Golden King Crab stock, and received recommendations from the SSC and the Crab Plan Team on model scenarios and other items taken up at their Spring 2018 Crab Plan Team (CPT) meeting. For AI Golden King Crab, the Council adopted the OFL… Read More →
BSAI Crab Specifications
The final Norton Sound red king crab assessment was reviewed by the SSC, AP and Council in order to set catch specifications for the 2018 fishery. This stock has a separate specifications timing in order to accommodate the CDQ fishery which can open in early May. The stock is healthy and with an estimated mature male biomass… Read More →
Small Sideboards
At this meeting, the Council reviewed an initial review draft that analyzed a proposed action to revise federal regulations prohibiting directed fishing for species with sideboard limits insufficient to support directed fishing by non-exempt AFA vessels and crab vessels. NMFS would no longer publish these AFA and Crab Rationalization Program sideboard limits in the annual… Read More →
Crab Binding Arbitration Formula
The Council considered a discussion paper on the non-binding price formula that is part of the Arbitration System in the Bering Sea/ Aleutian Islands crab rationalization program. The discussion paper reviewed the current criteria used by the non-binding price formula arbitrator to aid the Council in determining whether operational cost changes to the participants in… Read More →
