November 6, 2020
Ten harvester groups from Alaska urged NOAA Fisheries Administrator Chris Oliver to consider “area closures, payback provisions, and even hard cap inseason closure authority ”to reduce the overharvest of sablefish bycatch in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.
For the second year in a row, the Bering Sea trawl fishery caught more sablefish as bycatch than their allocation allowed -- by 484% this year, after a 356% overage last year. Together, that amounts to over 11 million pounds in the last two years alone.
Peggy Parker
SeafoodNews.com
1-781-861-1441
peggyparker@urnerbarry.com