Bycatch management in Alaska groundfish fisheries

The history of the Alaska groundfish fisheries is reviewed with emphasis on the rapid evolution of the domestic fishery and its management based on experience gained through observation and management of the foreign groundfish fisheries since the early 1960s. The stable status of the Alaska groundfish resource is attributed largely to historical and ongoing efforts to collect information on resource status and inseason groundfish harvests, and closure of fisheries when annual quotas are reached. Nonselective harvesting techniques used in the groundfish fisheries result in incidental catches (bycatch) of nontarget species, size categories, or sex. An open-access management of the Alaska groundfish fisheries contributes to bycatch amounts that are greater than what is minimally needed to conduct the groundfish fisheries. Similarly, efforts to control bycatch are hampered by the intense competition for Alaska groundfish resources that result from overcapitalization of the domestic groundfish fleet and increasingly short fishing seasons. The effectiveness of numerous measures implemented to address the bycatch problem is reviewed, and a discussion of future approaches bring considered for effective bycatch management is presented.