The Pacific halibut catch appears to be on a downward trend in both volume and size, according to the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC).
At the group’s annual meeting in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., last month, the IPHC Lead Scientist Ian Stewart painted a grim picture for the harvest in coming years.
“In short, the model survey trends as you’ve seen from the previous presentations are down both in numbers and weight per unit of effort,” he said. “This is as predicted and has been predicted for several years. This is projected to continue for all 2020 TCEYs [halibut over 26 inches] greater than approximately 18.4 million pounds. Essentially, the break-even point over the next three years. So we’re looking at a period of relatively low productivity for the pacific halibut stock over the next three years.”
Stewart suggested that smaller yields would be necessary in order to bring down higher intensity of fishing.
A report at the meeting, which wrapped up the 2019 season, suggests that the fishery is 4 percent smaller than last year, with the average fish weight 5 percent smaller than last year. Area 3A, the Central Gulf of Alaska, showed the largest decrease in halibut, although Stewart said that spawning biomass of halibut had decreased along the entire coast from 2018 to 2019.
Stewart said that halibut bycatch was up this year.
“Commercial fishery landings were up by over a million pounds over 2018; also the ‘non-directed discards,’ meaning bycatch was up from a little over six million pounds to a little over 6.4 million pounds.”
This year, Alaskan fishermen harvested some 94 percent of a 20 million pound catch limit. In Area 2A, which consists of California, Oregon, and Washington state, fishermen took 90 percent of a non-treaty directed commercial catch limit of just over 250,000 pounds. In British Columbia, the commercial fishery harvested 100 percent of its five-million-pound limit.
Photo courtesy of Earl D. Walker/Shutterstock
