News Summary January 28, 2015
Today's Main Story: Amendment 80 Fleet Takes Further Measures to Reduce Halibut Bycatch
With recent evidence showing a possible decrease in the Bering Sea halibut fishery allocation this year, there has been a growing concern about halibut bycatch and discard mortality and what to do about it. Both groundfish and halibut fishermen will be affected by the outcomes. Here we look at how groundfish species harvested by the Amendment 80 fleet intermingle with halibut and cannot be harvested without some take of halibut. The Amendment 80 fleet maintains a halibut bycatch rate of less than 1 percent and our annual halibut discard mortality has dropped by 509 metric tons (over 1.1 million pounds) since 2005. Significant improvements in bycatch reduction have already been achieved, and efforts to reduce it further should consider potential impacts on our fleet’s fishermen and the Alaska communities that depend on us.
In other news, Pacific Seafood Group has called off its planned acquisition of Ocean Gold Seafoods, citing the need to avoid getting bogged down in litigation as the major reason. On Friday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the company's acquisition of Westport, Washington-based fish processor Ocean Gold. The decision grew out of a hearing on a case filed by Jeff Boardman -- the same plaintiff in the anti-trust case against
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