Bycatch is repeatedly noted as a primary problem of fisheries management
and as the foremost negative impact of commercial fishing. In the Bering
Sea pollock fishery, salmon bycatch reduction measures have included gear
modifications but have principally consisted of area closures. Bycatch
levels of chum and Chinook salmon have risen...
With the creation of multi-species catch share programs, halibut bycatch reduction efforts, and through actions to reduce Chinook and chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska pollock fisheries, we have seen a variety of new bycatch management programs implemented over the last decade in Alaska. The...
In the 1990s the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service established regulations to limit the amount of Chinook and chum salmon taken as bycatch in Bering Sea trawl fisheries. The Bering Sea pollock fishery has in recent years (2002-2005) caught a significant number of sockeye...
For every fish species, future potential harvests are impacted by current
catch levels and patterns. Traditionally, managers use regulations on gear
(e.g., mesh size) to control so-called growth overfishing. Such regulations
are likely economically inefficient due to increased search costs and lower
catch rates. Bioeconomic models typically evaluate efficiency for...
Fisheries managers around the world have identified bycatch as a key management challenge in fisheries today. However, like the classic common property open-access problem in fisheries, a limit on fleet-wide bycatch may have similar consequences for fishing practices since bycatch is a common property open-access resource. If avoiding bycatch is...
One component of the Bering Sea Integrated Ecosystem Research Project
(BSIERP) is a spatial economic model that predicts changes in fishing
activity in the Bering Sea pollock fishery that may result from climate
change. Models such as the one employed here have been used in the
Bering Sea and elsewhere...
In the quest to limit the bycatch of non-target species, marine protected
areas (MPAs) have been frequently utilized. MPAs are popular with
ecologists and fishery managers because of their relative ease of
administration, habitat protection benefits, and the widespread acceptance
of MPAs as an instrument of choice for the ecosystem...
After salmon bycatch levels reached record levels in 2006 and 2007 in the
Bering Sea pollock fishery, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council
(NPFMC) began consideration of a hard cap that would close the fishery if
it were reached. The NPFMC asked for input from economists at the
National Marine...
Pollock recruitment and biomass in the Bering Sea has fluctuated in concert with environmental changes since the early 2000s. As pollock spatial distributions, densities, and abundances varied, fishers have adjusted their fishing behavior. Utilizing ~30,000 trips made by Bering Sea pollock catcher vessels from 2003 – 2014, we found strong...
Spatial closures are a prominent tool for ecosystem-based management in commercial fisheries. The potential benefits of spatial closures in commercial fisheries have been discussed thoroughly in the literature; however, empirical estimates of the potential short-run costs incurred by the commercial fishing industry are relatively scarce. Spatial closures constrain the ability...