The North Pacific council just adjourned after adopting Bering Sea Aleutian Island harvest levels, and after a lengthy discussion that split the state delegations, members of industry and the Alaska Community Development Quota groups, it adopted a 2012 harvest quota for eastern Bering Sea pollock of 1.2 million metric tons.
The harvest level is a slight decrease from the 1.25 million metric tons in 2011.
Deliberations were a lively back-and-forth as John Henderschedt of Seattle introduced the original motion to set the pollock total allowable catch, or TAC, at 1.2 million metric tons, just lower than the Plan Team and SSC recommendations for an acceptable biological catch, or ABC, of 1.22 million metric tons. The TAC cannot be set above the ABC.
However, fellow Washington council member Dave Benson introduced a motion to set the TAC at 1.08 million metric tons, in line with stock assessment author Jim Ianelli’s recommendation of an ABC at that level. Ianelli’s recommendation was based on assuming the 2008 age class was average or below average from the observations of many fishermen during 2011 and previous seasons. Ianelli’s suggestion that the 2008 class may not be as robust as the model assumes was considered but ultimately not adopted by the Plan Team, and later the SSC.
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