The International Pacific Halibut Commission is holding its annual meeting today through Friday at the Hilton Anchorage.
Of course, the IPHC annual meeting is a big event on the commercial fisheries calendar. It's when the bilateral panel — three members from the United State and three from Canada — sets catch limits for the upcoming season.
Here's a handout, known as the Bluebook, containing the meeting schedule, a summary of the 2011 fishery, the latest assessment of the Pacific halibut stock, and much more.
As previously reported here on Deckboss, the meeting is likely to culminate with some rather dismal news.
The elephant in the room is trawl dragger bycatch. Until those drag queens are held accountable and filed in some dusty museum with the dinosaurs, halibut will continue their vanishing act. Speaking of vanishing acts, it's funny how money wraps a screen of invisibility around their destructive bankrupting strip mining of the sea.
ReplyDeleteYeah.......... tholepin.blogspot.com
ReplyDeletetholepin is going soft.
ReplyDeleteIt is the elephant. It will continue to go unrecognized as the problem as long as the commissioners are industry members who benefit from it.
ReplyDeleteThink about this. 30% observer coverage during the fall Pollock fishery, which is a (mid water) fishery. 3,000,000 lbs of halibut were destroyed in 10 days by guys doing their very best to avoid them. How much Halibut was caught by the other 70% of the Pollock fleet, who were not hampered by observers. Statistically speaking, it's probable that upwards of 12 million lbs of Halibut were killed during this short fishery, which also opens again in January. There probably shouldn't be a Halibut fishery in 3A, since between the two Pollock openings, far more Halibut have been taken than The Federally managed fishery allows. It appears to me that the Federal Government is in Violation of it's own laws about sustainable fisheries and they can be held criminally accountable.
ReplyDeleteYeah. Watching the NPFMC in action is like looking at that painting "The Last Supper". Except they're eating halibut and EVERYONE is Judas!
ReplyDeleteit will stop when there are no halibut left or a federal judge makes them.
ReplyDeleteIt speaks to their isolation from reality. All the negative impacts and facts are outside their warm safe political womb. Time for them to come crying into the same world of cause & effect everyone else is born to.
ReplyDeleteHow many Polock's does it take to screw a Halibut Fisherman? Just sayin.
ReplyDeleteWhy do Pollock mothers have such strong arms? Lifting politician dumbbells.
ReplyDeleteThis hole halibut stink is such a drag.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the IPHC needs to assert jurisdiction over fisheries with high halibut bycatch. With the power to close them if conservation is a concern.Or they should meet jointly with the council on the high bycatch fisheries. The mismanagement of halibut has it's roots in the division of fisheries jurisdictions between IPHC & NPFMC on halibut.
ReplyDelete4d won't take a 35 percent cut because one of the commissioners is from st Paul and has 4d quota. 2b won't take the full cut because half of the commission represents Canada. The IPHC system is pure politics. It's time to scrap it.
ReplyDeleteWhat fishery isn't political?
ReplyDeleteFish should be harvested according to the health of the stock, not according to political clout. Look at the state of the halibut fishery. Look at the political pull the trawlers have. That's why they are allowed to waste millions of lbs of halibut every year.
ReplyDeleteThere needs to be a process to impeach members of various fish councils.
ReplyDelete"4d won't take a 35 percent cut because one of the commissioners is from st Paul and has 4d quota. 2b won't take the full cut because half of the commission represents Canada. The IPHC system is pure politics. It's time to scrap it."
ReplyDeleteThe Conference Board aproved outcomes that differ from staff recommended cuts in those areas and the reasonings are justified. I'd say your assumptions about the integrity of the commissioners is unfounded.
The conference board is a bunch of fishermen trying to regulate themselves. They get their recommendations passed if they have a commissioner representing their area! That's like the fox guarding the chicken coop!
ReplyDeleteThe actual elephant in the room is that the assessment model is bogus, the catches from the model were also wrong and yet they are recommending catches from the same model this year (?????). Somebody is not doing his job. On top of this the bycatch to complicate matters. There can only be so much "unspecified mortality" as an excuse for the lack of fish every year. Time to wake up and stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
ReplyDeletese seine buyback new list.
ReplyDeletewww.seiners.net
sur-prise,sur-prise. did anyone not see this coming. what till next year! the draggers are just getting to start.
ReplyDelete