Purpose and Need

The sablefish fishery traditionally had been a foreign longline fishery off Alaska, but in the eastern Gulf of Alaska in the early 1980s, domestic longliners had increased their harvests rapidly as markets developed. With improvements in the market for sablefish, two new gear types, pots and sunken gillnets, entered the fishery in 1984. In addition, trawling by foreign joint ventures in the Central and Western Gulf also took sablefish. All these gears created an overcapacity problem in the domestic sablefish fishery, as well as gear conflicts between longliners and pot fishermen. During the development of Amendment 12, additional information needed to be included, and the amendment was withdrawn and reconsidered as part of Amendment 14. Amendment 14 was designed to address these excess capacity and grounds preemption problems. The Council decided that gear and area restrictions and apportionments to gear types would be most effective.

In the early 1980s, all Sebastes species other than Pacific Ocean perch and four associated slope rockfish species were managed as “other rockfish” on a Gulf-wide basis, and yet a domestic fishery harvesting demersal shelf rockfish in the southeastern area was expanding very rapidly by 1984. Yelloweye and quillback rockfish were the primary targets of this longline fishery.

Other parts of Amendment 14 were designed to address several different issues. These other parts of the amendment were developed to do the following: 1) establish revised optimum yields for several species of groundfish; 2) establish a mechanism for timely reporting of catches by domestic catcher-processors which could stay at sea for long periods, and thus did not report as frequently as catcher vessels that landed their catch ashore and submitted fish tickets; 3) give more flexibility to managers in controlling halibut bycatch in the timely manner in the face of rapidly changing joint venture and domestic fisheries; 4) respond to a new NMFS habitat conservation policy which required more emphasis on habitat concerns in developing fishery management plans and amendments; and lastly, 5) delay the sablefish season opening to address resource allocation, fishermen safety and fish quality concerns.

Analysis

A 48-page EA, 75-page RIR for sablefish management measures, and 65-page RIR for the remaining measures (drafts dated June 1985) were completed for this amendment. The most contentious issue was the allocation of sablefish to the longline fleet, one of the most heated decisions the Council had up until then. Longliners had taken the vast majority of the sablefish harvest of all gear types, particularly in the Eastern Gulf. The OY for sablefish was expected to increase in coming years, and prices and markets were good, so considerable additional capacity was expected to enter the fishery. The alternative chosen slowed the growth in capacity and diminished the possibility of gear conflicts and grounds preemption more than the other alternatives analyzed. The other measures in the amendment allowed for more flexibility in managing the groundfish fishery which was undergoing tremendous growth in domestic fisheries and displacement of foreign fleets in the Gulf of Alaska.

Regulation Summary

The amendment made the following changes: 

1) Established gear/area restrictions and OY apportionments to gear types for sablefish;

2) Established a Central Southeast Outside District with 600 mt OY for demersal shelf rockfish;

3) Changed OYs for pollock, Pacific Ocean perch, other rockfish, Atka mackerel, and other species;

4) Revised the reporting system for catcher/processors;

5) Implemented framework procedure for setting and revising halibut PSC limits;

6) Implemented NMFS habitat policy; and

7) Set seasons for hook and longline and pot sablefish fisheries.

8) defined directed fishing

Also approved was language to be incorporated into the FMP that recognizes the State of Alaska’s management regime for demersal shelf rockfish which is directed at managing rockfish stocks within smaller management units than are provided for by the FMP. This language separated demersal shelf rockfish from the more general “other rockfish” category in the FMP.

• Proposed Rule (51 FR 13891, 04/21/1986)
• Correction (50 FR 48601, 11/26/1985)
• Final Rule (50 FR 43193, 10/24/1985)
• Correction (50 FR 34881, 08/28/1985)
• Correction (50 FR 32456, 08/12/1985)
• Proposed Rule (50 FR 30481, 07/26/1985)
• Notice of Availability (50 FR 26812, 06/28/1985)
• partial implemntation November 18, 1985; final implementation April 21, 1986

Results

This omnibus amendment provided for the first allocations of a species among domestic fishermen, a management approach that would be used for other major species later on. Longliners were allocated 95% of the sablefish in the Eastern Area and trawlers received 5% for bycatch purposes. Pots were excluded the first year. In the Central Gulf, longliners were phased into an 80% allocation over two years, pots were phased out by the second year, and trawlers ended up with 20%. In the Western Gulf, pots were phased out over four years, and longliners and trawlers split the harvest 80/20 after a 4-year phase-in. Years later, GOA Amendment 101 reauthorized the use of sablefish pot gear in the GOA in response to whale depredation issues.

In approving the sablefish allocations, NMFS offered to publish a control date of September 26, 1985, the day of final approval, announcing that anyone entering the fishery after that date would not be guaranteed future participation should the Council develop an effort control regime. As it turned out, it took the Council and NMFS another ten years to develop and implement the individual fishing quota system by which the sablefish and halibut longline fisheries were managed starting in 1995. The sablefish season start was changed from January 1 to April 1. The sablefish IFQ season is now tied to the start of the halibut IFQ season, which, since implementation in 1995, has been March 15- November.

Rockfish management was changed with the separation of the demersal shelf rockfish (DSR) species from other rockfish. Additionally, a new Central Southeast District was established for managing DSR and the State of Alaska was placed in charge of managing the area. The State regulations applied only to vessels registered under the laws of the State.

Prohibited species catch limits for halibut in the Gulf were placed in a framework procedure for setting limits for domestic and joint venture trawl fisheries. Plan amendments would no longer be needed to change PSC limits and the limits would be by area and by specific trawl group (domestic, joint venture, and foreign), rather than domestic and joint venture trawlers combined, so each fishery, not all, would suffer the consequences of taking too much bycatch. When the PSC limit is reached, there would be a closure just to on-bottom trawling, not all trawling as under previous regulations. The limits would apply all year, not just from December 1 through May 31.

The new reporting requirements were applied to catcher/processors and motherships that keep their catch or fish received for 14 days or more. Those vessels were required to report every week, and also to report their position 24 hours before starting or stopping fishing in a regulatory area. A definition of “directed fishing” also was established.