After hours of testimony and discussion at its October meeting in Anchorage, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council took steps toward resolving contentious issues stemming from charter halibut operators harvesting more than their allowable quotas.
The council voted to release to the public review documents containing options that would put some brakes on the lucrative sport fisheries, which are exceeding their harvest quotas. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game agreed to examine prohibiting skippers and crew from retaining fish during the 2008 season. Final action is expected at the council's meeting next October.
The council is also considering methods that would allow individual charter businesses to lease commercial quota shares of halibut, so they can offer charters to clients after all halibut allocated for charters has been harvested.
Final estimates of 2006 charter halibut harvests released this fall by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game showed that charters in Southeast Alaska, known as Area 2C, harvested 1.8 million pounds of halibut, which was 26 percent over the allowed guideline harvest level of 1.4 million pounds. In Southcentral Alaska, known as Area 3A, the charter harvest was 3.6 million pounds, or 0.37 percent over the guideline harvest level of 3.6 million pounds.
Fishery managers have, over the years, considered a number of options to bring the charter industry into compliance with the allowed harvest. After years of working with the NPFMC, and seeing steps to resolve the charter quandary agreed upon and then reneged, some veteran charter operators, like Bob Ward of Homer, say they have lost faith in the council process.
“The charter industry in general has no faith in the council process,” Ward said in a telephone interview from Homer, following the council's latest action on the charter industry on Oct. 5 in Anchorage. “The council in 2000 passed individual (halibut) fishing quotas for charters, and then in 2005, they voted it down. Now the charters feel the council is not capable of making any management decisions for the charter industry. The original decision should have stood.”
Ward, who has operated Award Charters out of Homer for more than two decades, spent more than 14 years working with the council to resolve charter issues. “Now they say we have to share a smaller and smaller bucket (of fish),” he said. “Why can't the charter industry have its own quota and lease quota from others in the charter industry?”
Ward said in working through the council process, he found tremendous support from the commercial halibut fleet for the charter fleet to have its own IFQs, but there was also vocal opposition from charter operators who lack sufficient history in the charter business to earn an allocation of halibut.
Ward, who has fished for halibut commercially, said he has 1,000 pounds of commercial halibut IFQ that he could use in his charter business, and that he is commercially qualified to buy more quota share, if allowed. Still, if it comes to that, Ward said he would measure the value coming back to his business from leasing and fishing halibut quota shares.
It would also be a good deal for some owners of commercial quota, who could earn money by leasing their quota share, rather than fishing for it themselves, he said.
Ward's own 2007 charter season went well, he said, despite a prohibition on skippers and crew aboard Southcentral charter vessels retaining any fish. After a relatively slow start to the season, which for Ward runs from May 1 through Aug. 30, his customers were harvesting an average of two 35-pound halibut per trip, he said. Harvests ranged from 15 pounds to three halibut weighing more than 200 pounds apiece, he said.
Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaskajournal.com.
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