Bering Sea Halibut Harvesters Say More Bycatch Action Needed to Maintain Viable Fishery
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [The Cordova Times] by Margaret Bauman - June 12, 2015
In the wake of three days of impassioned testimony from direct harvesters, communities, environmentalists and the groundfish industry, federal fisheries managers cut halibut bycatch caps in the Bering Sea by 21 percent overall.
And nobody was happy.
The bottom line, said Mateo Paz-Soldan, legal counsel to the Pribilof Island community of St. Paul, is that the communities of the central Bering Sea got screwed, that the decision will leave these direct halibut fishery harvesters without the minimum halibut needed for a viable fishery.
It's a major loss for the Amendment 80 sector, said Chris Woodley, executive director of the Groundfish Forum, a trade association representing trawl companies fishing for flatfish in the Bering Sea...
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