A halibut-bycatch report is dropped for the Bering Sea's biggest bycatch fleet

A report on halibut bycatch is being dropped from what the North Pacific Fishery Management Council reviews each year — and it concerns the fleet that kills more halibut than any other in the Bering Sea.

The change, tucked into a federal paperwork notice, ends a separate report on halibut-bycatch avoidance by the Amendment 80 fleet, about 20 factory trawlers, and folds that material into a single annual bycatch report. The Council, the notice says, no longer receives the standalone halibut report.

It lands on one of the most bitterly fought issues in Alaska fisheries. The Amendment 80 trawlers, chasing cod and sole, account for most of the halibut killed incidentally in the Bering Sea. As halibut abundance has fallen over the past decade, that bycatch has taken a bigger share of what's left for everyone else — the commercial, subsistence, and sport fishermen whose halibut limits shrink as the stock declines.

Small-boat and coastal fishermen fought for years to rein the trawl bycatch in. In 2024, a new rule finally linked the fleet's halibut bycatch cap to abundance, so the limit drops when fish are scarce. Reports like the one being folded in are how the Council tracks whether the fleet is actually avoiding halibut.

Industry says its transparency is unmatched. At a June Council meeting, Austin Esterbrooks of the At Sea Processors Association said no other fishery in Alaska, "or possibly the world," shares as much data. The consolidated report still covers vessel-by-vessel bycatch performance.