February 29, 2024 — A broad coalition of commercial fishermen, charter operators, processors and community organizations representing the wide range of halibut-dependent communities across Alaska and the Pacific Northwest have intervened in litigation filed by the “Amendment 80” groundfish trawlers to defend new regulations that limit halibut bycatch in the Bering Sea. Members of the coalition — known as the Halibut Defense Alliance — are intervening on the side of the National Marine Fisheries Service to combat a legal challenge by trawlers that seeks to strike down the new rules.
The new halibut bycatch rules were adopted with broad support by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2023. The new rules impose commonsense limits on halibut bycatch — allowing more bycatch when halibut abundance is high and less bycatch when abundance is low. They are critical to conserving halibut in the Bering Sea and beyond and will ensure more equitable access to the halibut fisheries by fishermen, tribes, and communities.
The Amendment 80 fleet is the single largest source of halibut bycatch in the Bering Sea and is responsible for the overwhelming majority of halibut bycatch across all trawl fisheries. Nearly 90% of its bycatch in recent years has been concentrated in known halibut nursery habitat in the Bering Sea. Excessive bycatch in these areas harms the halibut population all along the coast because the juvenile halibut the Amendment 80 fleet kills will not mature, reproduce, or migrate to other areas.
Halibut is an iconic species that holds tremendous economic, social and cultural significance along the entire Pacific coast. Alliance members are committed to sound fisheries management and wise use of the halibut resource. Members have been leaders in the 12-year fight to limit halibut bycatch in the Bering Sea, where they have advocated for “abundance-based” bycatch management since 2016.
Setting fishery limits based on abundance is a fundamental fisheries management concept: catch limits go up when abundance is high and go down when abundance is low. While all halibut fishermen have been held to this standard, the Amendment 80 fleet of bottom trawlers was not. Instead, the Amendment 80 fleet was allowed to kill large amounts of halibut regardless of the status of the halibut population. The new rules correct this inequity and protect community-based fisheries.
Despite halibut numbers declining to historically low levels, a trade association representing the Amendment 80 fleet has challenged the bycatch limits, asking a federal court in Alaska to overturn them. They ask the court to reinstate antiquated and excessive bycatch limits that would allow the fleet to kill more halibut as bycatch than are allowed to be removed by commercial halibut fishermen in the central, northern, and eastern Bering Sea combined. This would place the burden of conserving halibut exclusively on the halibut fleet and threaten the future of diverse businesses and communities that depend on halibut for subsistence, economic and cultural values.
The halibut fisheries’ future depends on sustainable, abundance-based management. Halibut are central to the cultures, traditions and lifestyles of fishery participants, from fishery dependent Alaska Native communities, commercial fishermen working in a historic and iconic fishery, to subsistence halibut users, and those who hope for a once-in-a-lifetime Alaska sportfishing experience.
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For additional information contact:
Heather McCarty