Federal fisheries managers listened to hours of impassioned testimony at Sitka, then cut the bycatch of halibut in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands groundfish trawl fisheries by 25 percent, a decision that left nobody happy. Commercial fishermen in coastal fishing communities dependent on directed halibut fisheries, charter boat operators, sport anglers and conservation groups […]
With Alaska’s commercial halibut fishery underway, for a harvest limit of 18,474,000 pounds, federal fisheries managers are continuing to wrestle with the thorny issue of halibut caught incidentally in Bering Sea groundfish fisheries. A final decision on prohibited species catch of halibut in Bering Sea groundfish fisheries is scheduled for the June meeting of the […]
