The Seattle-based Fishing Vessel Owners' Association has submitted an intriguing proposal to reduce the minimum size requirement for commercially caught halibut from 32 inches to 30 inches.
The proposal will be up for consideration at the Jan. 26-30 meeting of the International Pacific Halibut Commission.
FVOA is a major player in Alaska's halibut fishery, representing a large number of commercial longliners. Its manager, Bob Alverson, is one of the three U.S. members on the halibut commission.
The FVOA proposal is signed by the group's president, Per Odegaard.
The proposal explains that retaining more small halibut, rather than releasing them, could substantially reduce handling and "wastage" in the fishery.
FVOA is asking the commission to review the proposal for possible implementation in 2015.
The halbiut fishermen letter to IPHC says they have 1.38m pounds of wastage. Can that be right? If they are using a mortality rate of about 10%, that means they are "bycatching" about 14 million pounds of their own target species every year. Can that possibly be right? Does anybody know what mortality rate they use for halibut fishermen's bycatch for halibut? Seriously, does the Canadian IPHC make US fishermen throw away 14 million pounds of halibut every year as "bycatch", then only let them keep about 400,000 pounds as target? I hope this is wrong, but if it is even close, then we need to get out IPHC yesterday. What a colossal waste of fish. Where are the NGO's on this and why arent they hammering the IPHC for this massive waste of fish? They should be on the fishermen side on this one, demanding the IPHC let the fishermen keep the fish they catch, so they can catch a lot less of it. Better for everybody and the planet.
ReplyDeletetotaley rediculous proposal!slow the roller down and shake the small ones.thats the best way to fight wasteage!
ReplyDeleteThen it'll be 20" then 10" then sushimi size bites...then everyone will have nothing!
ReplyDelete8:09 is absolutely correct!!!
ReplyDeletemortality for sub-legal fish is based on longer strings on "hot" bottom areas where the fish are not in great shape when they hit the surface. does not have anything to do with slowing down the roller.
ReplyDeleteanother thing we all can do to slow the wastage in commercial longling for halibut is to not allow a cruifier to be onboard said vessel while targeting halibut.when you tear the face off a small halibut it makes them pretty unhealthy too!but i guess it keeps the roller going and production up!also use shorter strings,and soak them a shorter time.
ReplyDeleteShorter strings, shorter soaks, no overnight fishing, electronic monitoring. I strip large fish and NEVER small fish. Halibut is my fishery. Get rid of bottom trawling.
ReplyDeleteEither go along with the proposal or let the uncontrolled halibut trawl bycatch continue to the point where trawling puts both longliners and salmon fishermen out of business. Heck of a lot less halibut mortality in longlining than trawling.
ReplyDeleteNo overnight fishing?? What?
ReplyDeleteIf they had half a brain between the whole IPHC, they'd raise the lower size limit 4-6 inches and put in an upper size limit to protect the breeders the way Washington and Oregon do with sturgeon. Those soakers are way more valuable as breeders than they are as eaters.
ReplyDeleteAs for raising the lower size limit, it takes a lot more chickens to fill your quota than 30-50 lbers. So with a smaller limit, you're taking more individual fish out of the ocean to catch the same number of lbs.
But then until the trawlers are under control with their obscenely high by-catch, conservation measures on targeted halibut fishermen are kind of meaningless. The Halibut Commission should be leading the push to limit by-catch.