Oct. 24–A new fleet will prosecute the Bering Sea Pacific cod fishery next year.
Alaska’s Board of Fisheries decided Oct. 20 that pot cod fishermen will have access to about 3 percent of the acceptable biological catch, or ABC, in the Bering Sea through a new state waters guideline harvest level, or GHL, fishery.
Federal managers set the ABC for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands based on abundance and other factors.
The new fishery will be open to vessels 58 feet in length or shorter, with a maximum of 60 groundfish pots and exclusive registration.
The new Bering Sea subdistrict is near Unimak Island and Akutan, in the Aleutian Islands.
The fishery was created in a 5-1 vote, with member Fritz Johnson, of Dillingham, abstaining because his employer had taken a position on the issue. John Jensen, of Petersburg, cast the no vote.
Johnson works for Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., or BBEDC, which participates in the federal cod fishery in the Bering Sea as a Community Development Quota group. The six CDQ groups represent 65 Western Alaska villages and receive a combined 10.7 percent of the harvest for multiple species, including cod, crab, halibut and pollock in federal waters.
Board member Tom Kluberton, of Talkeetna, and chair Karl Johnstone, of Anchorage, both referenced the requests from stakeholders for additional harvest opportunity when they discussed the proposal.
Kluberton said that an entry level, open access fishery in the Bering Sea seemed to respond to requests the board heard.
A parallel fishery also operates in state waters in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, which generally follows federal rules.
In 2006, the board created a state waters Pacific cod fishery that is southwest of the new fishery, in the Aleutian Islands, which also takes 3 percent of the BSAI ABC. That fishery had a GHL of 20.7 million pounds in 2012, although it ranged from 11.6 to 15.5 million pounds from 2006 to 2011.
In the A season last year, which ran from January through June, state waters participants harvested about 11.4 million pounds of Pacific cod, for a fishery value of about $3.6 million dollars.
The new subdistrict will open each year after the federal BSAI fishery closes to vessels under 60 feet, and will close Aug. 28 to allow the parallel season to reopen, with the opportunity to reopen the state waters fishery in the fall if GHL remains after the parallel season closes.
Public testimony on the new fishery was mixed, with some participants in the federal Bering Sea groundfish fisheries opposing a new state fishery, but some small boat fishermen and others supporting the change.
Aleutians East Borough Natural Resources Director Ernie Weiss said he thought the new fishery would offer some additional opportunity for borough residents.
“That was the one proposal that the borough supported on the record, so we’re happy,” Weiss said.
The federal fishery operates under a total allowable catch, or TAC, which is equal to or less than the ABC. The federal fishery TAC is divided among participants as sector allocations based on gear and operation type.
At current levels of abundance, the federal cod TAC has been much lower than the ABC because the total groundfish catch in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands is constrained to an overall limit of 2 million metric tons.
That cap that is mostly taken up by the pollock harvest (typically more than 1 million metric tons), followed by Pacific cod and other groundfish species such as yellowfin sole and Arrowtooth flounder.
For now, that means that federal fishery participants likely won’t see a reduced harvest as a result of the new state fishery.
But that could change if cod abundance shifts and the TAC comes within six percent of the ABC, said Todd Loomis, from Ocean Peace Inc., after the board made its decision.
“When the pendulum swings, and it will, it’s going to impact people,” he said.
Fishery participants operating under hard caps, like Community Development Quota and the Amendment 80 groundfish trawl fleet, will have a particularly hard time because their cap, based on the ABC, must be used for both directed cod fishing and incidental catch in other fisheries, Loomis said.
Unalaska Advisory Committee Representative Frank Kelty shared those concerns for large vessels, and said smaller vessels from his area had other issues with the new fishery, as well. Longliners won’t be able to participate, but could still be affected if additional vessels participate in the parallel fishery and shorten that season as a result, Kelty said.
“That impacts some of our local small boats here,” Kelty said.
Kelty did note that Unalaska processors could receive some additional cod landings, which would benefit the area.
The new fishery will be restricted by the same regulations that are used in federal fisheries to protect Steller sea lions, including closing certain areas.
Despite that, the new fishery could trigger consultation for the National Marine Fisheries Service, and participants in other fisheries said they were concerned about potential impacts to their own catch if NMFS determined that the state waters fishery jeopardizes Steller sea lion food sources, and further restricts federal harvests as a result.
Glenn Merrill, from NMFS, told the board that while the closures were a positive sign, the agency would likely need to review the jeopardy and adverse modification designation under the Endangered Species Act as a result of the new fishery.
The board’s meeting, which ran Oct. 18 to 22, was focused on Pacific cod issues throughout the state. Many of the proposals looked at expanding state waters fishing opportunity, largely in response to the upcoming Gulf of Alaska rationalization.
Weiss said the board’s actions reflected an awareness that federal managers were preparing for changes in the Gulf of Alaska fisheries.
“It’s good that they’re cognizant of the upcoming federal action,” Weiss said.
The board also added some additional state waters harvest opportunity to the South Alaska Peninsula pacific cod fishery, but did not expand the Chignik, Cook Inlet or Kodiak fisheries as had been proposed.
Molly Dischner can be reached at [email protected].