The International Pacific Halibut Commission is considering a cut of 870,000 pounds to Southeast Alaska’s 2017 halibut quota.
The IPHC, the joint Canadian-American body that sets annual halibut harvests, concluded its interim meeting Nov. 30 in Seattle. The IPHC will set the 2017 quota at its 93rd annual meeting from Jan. 23 to Jan. 27 in Victoria, B.C.
During the interim meeting, IPHC staff recommended that the entire North Pacific halibut catch be reduced from 29.89 million pounds to 26.12 million pounds.
Most of the reduction would fall in the eastern portion of the Gulf of Alaska and in Pacific Canada.
In regulatory area 2C, which covers Southeast Alaska, IPHC staff are recommending a 4.08 million-pound quota. That’s down from 4.95 million pounds in 2016.
Both figures are for commercial and sport fishermen combined.
Throughout the North Pacific, halibut stocks declined continuously from the late 1990s to about 2010. Since 2010, halibut stocks have begun increasing gradually, IPHC studies report. The issue for fishermen, scientists and regulators is continuing that recovery while balancing the need for a healthy fishing industry across Canada, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest states.
Since 1993, Alaska’s halibut fishery has operated under a federally managed “individual fishing quota” system that allocates portions of the coastwise catch to individual fishermen or corporations.
The eight-month commercial halibut fishing season runs from March to November, and Juneau is usually among the busiest commercial halibut fishing ports in the state.
According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, Juneau landed just over 1 million pounds of commercial halibut in 2016, making it the No. 6 halibut port in Alaska. Petersburg was No. 1 in Southeast, with 1.37 million pounds landed; Kodiak was No. 1 in Alaska, with 2.57 million pounds landed.
Those figures do not include recreational and subsistence landings.
At the interim meeting, IPHC leaders were presented with a range of options, but the “blue line,” the suggested choice, would impact Canada hardest. In Canadian waters, the catch would decline from 7.3 million pounds to 4.72 million pounds. In the central Gulf of Alaska, the catch would fall from 9.6 million pounds to 9.41 million. It would rise in the western gulf and fall in most of the Aleutians and Alaska Peninsula.
Even at the blue line harvest levels, IPHC staff believe there is a significant chance — about one in three — that the recommended 2018 quota will be at least 10 percent less than in 2017. The chance drops dramatically if the IPHC picks a 2017 quota below the blue line.
