Because of catch limit changes by the International Pacific Halibut Commission, the Coastal Villages Region Fund's (CVRF's) allowable catch will be reduced by almost 50 percent.
During a brief two-week period in summer 2013, some 184 commercial halibut captains caught 210,248 pounds of halibut, exceeding the Coastal Villages' quota for the year. Because the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation intervened, the fund avoided paying a penalty for the 8,209 pounds of halibut that exceeded the quota.
Now the commission has reduced the allowable catch limits of halibut for the United States and Canada by 11.2 percent. Before the commission's 90th annual meeting in Seattle last month, the fund proposed an increase in the area's quota to 450,000 pounds, which would be more than double the 210,248 pounds that was allowed in 2013. Instead, the commission cut the quota to a maximum of 107,384 pounds.
The change came as a shock to those within the coastal villages region, as more than 150 comments were submitted to the commission before the end of the year expressing support for the raising of the quota to 450,000 pounds, and a handful were reported to have supported a number even larger.
"Our residents are in for a rude awakening when they see the CVRF's 2014 halibut quota limit," board member Robert Pitka Sr. said in a press release. "Our area has been overlooked for ages and halibut fishing has been abundant. We believe that there is enough halibut in our area to support an increase in quota, certainly not this massive reduction."
The commission sets the quota limits for allowable catch numbers for a given fishing season between the United States and Canada, which are made based on surveys that are done in the specific halibut fishing areas. Because the quota was set so low this year, the fund is arguing that the surveys and reports done in fishing area 4E, one of the primary areas for halibut fishing overseen by the fund, are outdated and inaccurate.
"There haven't been any surveys done in our area as far as we know of that were recent," said Dawson Hoover, the communications and community benefits manager for the fund. "We believe that the basis that the commission is using their arguments for comes from these reports that are not as accurate as they could or should be. The halibut we catch are larger towards the end of the summer as the commercial fishing season is closing. We don't have a close relationship with the commission, and that is probably the reason why our case hasn't been made as effectively as we needed it to be. We have sent representatives to the meetings but that is all we could have done."
According to Hoover, the reasons as to why the quota for the 2014 halibut fishing season for area 4E was set so low are based on the area itself. For the area 4E, the community development quota, which allocates a certain percentage of Bering Sea and Aleutians Islands quotas to eligible communities, is 30 percent, and 24 percent of that allocation is given to the fund. As the community development quotas and their percentages vary from region to region, the research and surveys that are done to arrive at these figures vary too much from area to area and are a poor basis for arriving at a fair quota.
"In some of the southern areas, we've heard that the halibut that are first caught are much bigger at the beginning of the season and get much smaller as the season goes on," said Hoover. "In the St. Paul area, however, we've seen from some of the comments to the commission and from talking to multiple fisherman in the area firsthand that as the season goes on and these fisherman start fishing in deeper water, the halibut get much bigger towards the end of the season. I don't know if this is because of a migration thing or a depth reason, but there have not been any accurate surveys in our area that reflect this and some of the reasons and excuses that we were given as to why the quota was set so low. These figures from the Bering sea are based on pounds of fish, which don't accurately represent our catches because of the varying sizes of the halibut."
Henry Mitchell is a fisheries consultant with the fund and according to his understanding, many of the things that happen in the meetings are not openly discussed. Many of the issues that were debated by the commissioners from the United States and Canada are not clear, but after the commission hears from representatives from the numerous areas affected by the quota changes and the information, which are often based on surveys of these areas, the commissioners hold private negotiations to decide what the allowable catch limits for the fishing areas will be.
"For the cases of areas 4C, 4D, and 4E, which are lumped together, from my understanding, the Canadians in particular were concerned about the scope of the halibut bycatch in the trawl fisheries," said Mitchell. "According to the American commissioners, the Canadian commissioners were really upset about the fact that their reported catches had very little to do with the reduction of the bycatch of halibut. Based on their survey of the spawning biomass in these areas, they determined that there was very little fish for a directive fishery in these areas."
According to Mitchell, at the most recent council meeting, the commission will make room for hearings to determine whether any improvements to the process of setting quotas can be made, and are asking for the fishing industry to reduce its bycatch.
However, at this point, the council has not reduced the bycatch cap. Mitchell claims that while the effort is being publicized, he has no idea whether the council will be able to minimize the bycatch in these areas.
"If their surveys look very poor next year, I think that there is a good possibility that we may not have any kind of directive fishery in these areas in the Bering Sea," said Mitchell. "It's already tragic, a lot of people are already upset about it and our fishermen are upset that they are only going to be able to get a measly 107,000 pounds in total for 180 boats. It's like nothing."
However unfair the new quota may seem for the fishermen of area 4E, the revised 2014 quota has already been set and there is not much that the residents of these areas can do other than send letters of protest to the IPHC and Congress. Representatives from the fund have said that they are open to new and updated research to be done in the area to prove to the commission that the previous quotas have been set using inaccurate and outdated information.
"It looks pretty bleak," said Mitchell. "The other thing is that there has not been a setline survey done in 4E, which is the most eastern area of the Bering Sea closest to Bristol Bay, in probably close to 25 years."
"All our residents are doing right now is writing letters to let them know how unfair it is and all they want is their fair share," said Dawson. "They are asking Congress to make a change, that's all our residents can do right now, just learning what they can and writing the delegation and hoping for a change next year."
This story first appeared in The Bristol Bay Times/Dutch Harbor Fisherman and is republished here with permission.