The North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting held at the Anchorage Hilton in October was not just one meeting – it was three meetings. In addition to the council itself, there was a meeting of industry stakeholders called the Advisory Panel, and a meeting of scientists called the Scientific and Statistical Committee – or SSC.
This fall the council tasked the SSC with reviewing a 120-page preliminary analysis of Bering Sea Chum Salmon Bycatch Management, and providing input on the “relative scientific uncertainty of management options.”
As KCAW’s Robert Woolsey reports, the committee of university, state, and federal scientists found a few things that were relatively uncertain.
At its October meeting the North Pacific Fishery Management Council examined some potential management measures intended to reduce the amount of chum salmon caught by trawlers fishing for pollock in the Bering Sea. Many of those chum salmon – referred to as “bycatch” – may have been intercepted on their way to the Yukon, Kuskokwim, and other large river systems of Western Alaska, where chum salmon populations have crashed.
The council believes broader forces may be at work in causing chum salmon declines. The preliminary analysis prepared by the council’s scientists states that “declines in chum salmon populations appear to be driven by warmer water temperatures in both the marine and freshwater environments.”
Scientific and Statistical Committee member Dr. Ian Stewart, with the International Pacific Halibut Commission, had reservations about relying too heavily on temperature data.
“I think we should really caution the Council against making too much of the temperature very weak temperature relationship,” said Stewart. “Fisheries literature is littered with weak relationships that don’t last. And in fact, in this case, it’s possibly even more challenging than that, because not only is it is a potential for change in the biological relationship, but the utility of this is going to be based not only on the biology, but also on the fishery behavior and response. And that’s even less predictable than the biology perhaps.”
The council is considering imposing caps on allowable bycatch, but hasn’t determined what will trigger those caps. Dr. Jason Gasper, with the National Marine Fisheries Service, also had concerns about linking any proposed action to temperature.
“I particularly agree on being skeptical about the temperature data, Gasper said. “And I just note that this is also for retrospective approach, and it appears the desire is to set a cap based on that assumed relationship with with bycatch, but of course, the environment is likely to continue to experience warming, so it’s difficult to ascertain how that relationship would even hold into the future.”
The Council adopted the following set of alternatives for preliminary analysis on April 8th, 2023. Read the full Bering Sea Chum Bycatch Management analysis.
Alternative 1: Status Quo
All action alternatives apply to the entire Bering Sea pollock B season, the season in which chum salmon are taken as bycatch (prohibited species catch or PSC).
Alternative 2: Overall bycatch (PSC) limit for chum salmon
Option 1: Chum salmon PSC limit based on historical total bycatch numbers.
Option 2: Weighted, step-down PSC limit triggered by a three-river chum index.
Alternative 3: Bycatch (PSC) limit for Western Alaska chum salmon
Option 1: Western Alaska chum salmon PSC limit based on historical total bycatch numbers. PSC limits are apportioned among CDQ, catcher processor, mothership and inshore sectors based on historical total bycatch by sector. The inshore limit is further apportioned among the inshore cooperatives. The CDQ limit is further apportioned among the CDQ groups. Reaching a limit closes the pollock fishery to which the limit applies.
Option 2: Weighted, step-down Western Alaska chum PSC limit triggered by a three-river chum index (Kwiniuk (or index developed for Norton Sound area), Yukon, Kuskokwim) that is linked to prior years’ chum abundance/ANS/escapement and weighted to account for variance in stock sizes across river systems. PSC limits would be triggered and in effect when one or more Western Alaska chum index areas fails to meet index thresholds. As more areas fail to meet index thresholds, chum PSC limits would step-down and become more restrictive.
Alternative 4: Additional regulatory requirements for Incentive Plan Agreements (IPAs) to be managed by either NMFS or within the IPAs
Option 1: Require a chum salmon reduction plan agreement to prioritize avoidance in genetic cluster areas 1 and 2 for a specified amount of time based on two triggers being met: 1) an established C4 Chum Salmon Bycatch October 2023 Bering Sea Chum Salmon Bycatch, September 8, 2023 17 chum salmon incidental catch rate and 2) historical genetic composition (proportion) of Western Alaska chum salmon to non-Western Alaska chum salmon.
Option 2: Additional regulatory provisions requiring Incentive Plan Agreements to utilize the most refined genetics information available to further prioritize avoidance of areas and times of highest proportion of Western Alaska and Upper/Middle Yukon chum stocks.
Dr. Curry Cunningham, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, favored an integrated approach that also considered the abundance of chum that actually return to the rivers. “ANS” in council-speak means Amount Reasonably Necessary for Subsistence. A bycatch cap, or threshold, should account for humans.
“We have two objectives, right? The sustainability of these salmon populations and the sustainability of the human communities that depend on them,” said Cunningham. “So I would encourage broader consideration of how both of those — both the ANS component and the return abundance component — could be wrapped up in a threshold determination either above or below.”
The chum bycatch issue continues to draw the attention of fisheries advocates, and to evoke much impassioned testimony from the residents of communities whose lives have been disrupted by the chum crash. Dr. Christopher Anderson, with the University of Washington, wanted to ensure that pursuing a cap on trawl bycatch would have the intended results.
“We see that the stocks are in trouble,” said Anderson. “We have the super well-intended impulse that we would really like to support them. To me, the first question you ask is, Does reducing bycatch increase the fish in the rivers? And intuitively, that makes sense. But that should be based on evidence, and we should be saying science has something to say here about how big that effect is.”
That conclusion was also among the recommendations presented to the Council by the Advisory Panel, which is comprised of fishing industry interests and processors. In its report, the AP wrote, “An impact analysis of Western Alaska chum stocks is important to help answer the question of whether or not any of the suggested management measures will meet the purpose and need.”
The council agreed to move forward with the four possible management alternatives to reduce chum bycatch, each of which must now be subject to a federal impact analysis. That should be completed sometime in the mid-2024, with final action by the council expected the following December.
