Northeast Pacific flatfish management

Exploitation of northeast Pacific flatfish effectively began in the late 1800s with the fishery for Pacific halibut. Harvest of other flatfish occurred on a limited, local basis until foreign fishing fleets came to the area in the late 1950s. When US and Canadian fishermen replaced the foreign fleets in the 1970s and 1980s, a conservation-based management system designed to control foreign fishing was applied to the domestic fleet. Flatfish stock assessment is based on scientific surveys, both trawl and longline, and on catch-age models. In Alaskan waters since 1989 and since 1996 in Canadian waters, mandatory observers collect data on species composition, discards of flatfish and other groundfish, and catch and discards of prohibited species. Fishermen pay observer costs. Most biomass and harvest occurs in the Bering Sea-Aleutian Islands area. Many northeast Pacific flatfish are near record-high abundance, an order of magnitude higher than 20 years ago. Exploitation rates based on F35% or F0.1 generate acceptable biological catch of more than 1 million mt, but annual harvest reaches only 300,000 mt. Total groundfish harvest is limited by an optimum yield limit of 2 million mt in the Bering Sea-Aleutian Islands, where the acceptable biological catch is 3 million mt, and by limits on amounts of Pacific halibut and other prohibited species bycatch. Most flatfish are relatively low-value species, and fishermen chose to fish for more valuable species. A large, powerful fleet which developed under open access in the US saw fishing time decline and economic problems increase as catching capacity grew, while Canada stabilized its fleet with limited entry and catch restrictions for individual vessels.