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Setting catch limits for pollock and several other groundfish species, including Pacific cod, sable fish, yellowfin sole and rock sole was all part of the December meeting of the council, which concluded in mid-December in Anchorage.
While the groundfish harvests overall are limited to 2 million metric tons, the council each December carefully appraises each fishery for its health before determining the total allowable catch of each species.
Federal fisheries managers said if the fleet catches its full allocation of pollock next year, the harvest would amount to about 15 percent of all known adult pollock in the eastern Bering Sea.
Pollock harvests, the most valuable of all Alaska seafood fished commercially, totaled $301.9 million in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands in 2003, compared with $346.9 million in 2002, and $315.9 million in 2001, said Mark Fina, senior economist for the council.
For the Gulf of Alaska, the 2003 harvest of pollock was worth $10.4 million, compared with $12 million in 2002, and $19.1 million in 2001, he said.
Federal fisheries officials also moved forward with a plan to privatize Gulf of Alaska groundfish fisheries. The council worked to refine alternatives for the plan, most of which include some processor component in them.
"The council thinks processors are an important part of the fishery," Fina said. Reasons for gulf rationalization range from the economic benefits of giving fishermen and processors more time for the harvest to the safety issue of avoiding a derby-style fishery. The ability to slow down the fishery would mean the potential for a more stable work force, for both harvesters and processors, Fina said.
Whether processors should be allowed quota shares of the harvest or whether harvesters should be required to deliver a portion of their harvest to specific processors is an issue.
"Fishermen are independent businessmen and should be able to choose whom they deliver to," said Jeff Stephan, manager of the United Fishermen's Marketing Association Inc., at Kodiak. The association represents gulf fishermen involved in crab, groundfish, halibut and sable fish fisheries.
"The rank-and-file harvesters are very concerned about the processor affiliation issue," Stephan said. "To a lot of people it is a very serious matter. Most people don't see why they should be tied to a particular processor."
Stephan said there is a lot of room for improvement in productivity of the Pacific cod and pollock resources, which would translate into higher harvest levels. If this is achieved while harvesters are faced with a diminishing number of processors to deliver to, it does not bode well for the future vitality of coastal communities, he said.
"Rationalization is supposed to allow the marketplace to dictate flow of human and capital resources," he said. Harvesters are concerned about options the federal council is considering that would make it mandatory for harvesters to deliver their catch to specific processors and also make it difficult for new processors to enter the industry, he said.
"Another concern I have is once you have more and more consolidation and economic power and control in fewer hands, that impacts transportation logistics. They are very important to coastal communities not connected to the mainland. All of those other economic support infrastructures come from an open and competitive marketplace," he said.
Coastal communities are concerned that they will become more like truck stops, with fewer and fewer employment opportunities, he said.
"As this system takes hold, I believe you are going to see more and more harvesters based outside of Alaska and more and more profit going Outside, and more political and economic control outside of Alaska," he said. "It really is not healthy for the future growth of Alaska coastal communities, and will put economic control of the fishery in fewer and fewer hands (located) outside of the state."
Salmon bycatch unusually high in '04
The council also expressed concern over increased salmon bycatch in the trawl fishery. Salmon are listed as a prohibited species in the groundfish fishery management plans, meaning that they cannot be retained and sold. The Alaska Marine Conservation Council said the pollock fleet in 2004 intercepted 487,500 salmon, enough to provide for the subsistence salmon needs of 23,700 people for an entire year. That is compared with discards, or bycatch, of salmon by the trawl fleet, which totaled about 250,000 salmon in 2003, and just more than 100,000 in 2001, according to the marine conservation organization.
Chris Oliver, executive director of the North Pacific council, said much of the salmon bycatch from the pollock fishery ended up in food bank programs through the efforts of the At-Sea Processors Association and United Catcher Boats.
While it's good that the salmon bycatch went to hungry people, those fish belong in the ocean, finding their way to the Yukon, Kuskokwim and Norton Sound rivers, said Dorothy Childers, executive director of the marine conservation council. "There they provide for village subsistence needs, local commercial fisheries and the health of the salmon population. It is not acceptable for the trawl fleet to catch so many salmon when they are targeting pollock."
A briefing document prepared by council staff acknowledged that bycatch of salmon, particularly chum, was unusually high in 2003 and 2004. Existing regulations may have contributed to this problem by preventing the fleet from fishing in areas with lower bycatch rates, the staff report said. Reports from the fleet indicate that community development quota boats operating within the closure zones encountered low bycatch rates, whereas the rest of the fleet fishing outside of the zones were unable to find areas without high salmon bycatch rates, staff said.
In the mid-1990s, the council and National Marine Fisheries Service implemented regulations to control chum and chinook salmon bycatch taken in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Island trawl fisheries. These regulations established closures in areas and at times when salmon bycatch had been highest based on historical observer data, the staff noted. "Unfortunately, these regulations did not appear to have been effective in 2003 and 2004, when record amounts of salmon bycatch were taken," the briefing documents said.
The council is now looking into other means to control salmon bycatch.
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