USD 100 million loss predicted on halibut bycatch proposal

The halibut bycatch reductions the North Pacific Fishery Management Council is considering will significantly harm Amendment 80 fishermen, processors and other supporting businesses, according to catcher-processors.

The NPFMC is preparing an amendment to reduce bycatch limits for the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands that could result in up to 60 percent cuts in Pacific halibut prohibited species catch (PSC) limits for the Amendment 80 limited access fishery, and up to a 50 percent reduction for other fisheries. The council will vote on the bycatch limits at its meeting from 1 to 9 June in Sitka, Alaska.

If the council approves up to a 60 percent reduction in bycatch, Amendment 80 catcher-processors face a loss of USD 100 million (EUR 92.7 million) annually and a loss of 2,000 jobs, according to analysis by the Groundfish Forum, which represents the Alaska Seafood Cooperative (AKSC).

“That analysis does not take into account the indirect economic impacts, such as offloads to storage facilities or to the communities that we deliver to. There are significant shoreside businesses that support our fleet of vessels,” Chris Woodley, executive director of the Groundfish Forum in Seattle, Wash., told SeafoodSource.

The analysis also takes into account the impacts on the Alaska Groundfish Cooperative (AGC). In addition, the council’s proposal violates multiple national regulations, according to several catcher-processors.

“Such a drastic reallocation of the halibut resource also fails a practicability test as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Management and Conservation Act,” the law firm of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP wrote on behalf of Rockland, Maine-based O’Hara Corp. to the council. In addition, a major action “that would have severe economic impacts to large portions of the fishery and the economy” requires the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement under the National Environmental Policy Act, the letter stated.

The council’s economic analysis that led to the proposal was not very accurate, and did not take into account how the policy would affect vessel-operators, according to Woodley. “They used an economic model over a period of 10 years. They had a lot of behavioral assumptions that are not accurate about how a vessel owner would respond to this.”

However, the council is expected to release a second analysis in mid-May that will include more details on the economic impacts, “so people will understand it is not just our fleet will be affected by this,” Woodley said. “It will have more of an impact on how vessel operators would behave as well.”

Most importantly, the Pacific halibut stock is not overfished, according to the catcher-processors. “We have reduced our bycatch by about 20 percent since 2008 and the halibut bycatch was the third lowest on record in the Bering Sea,” Woodley said. “Any other reductions are going to result in vessels forgoing catch.”

“In fact, recruitment in the past two decades was at a historic high, and current recruitment rates are therefore indicative of regular stock health,” the O’Hara Corp. letter stated.