Advisory panel asks scientists to test four more sablefish models before December

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council's Advisory Panel voted unanimously Thursday to ask the scientists who assess Alaska's sablefish, also known as black cod, to test four more ways of modeling the stock before the council sets 2027 and 2028 catch limits in December.

The scientists' two new models would lower the Alaska-wide catch ceiling 13% or 32% from this year's level of about 47,000 metric tons. Their slides say 2027 figures will likely be higher with population growth and new data on young fish entering the stock. Linda Behnken, executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association, said there are more sablefish in the water now than at any time since the 1970s.

The models changed in part because the survey did. Since 2025, the federal longline survey has alternated each year between the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, instead of covering the Gulf every year. Advisory Panel member Nels Evans said that cut the share of survey stations sampled each year from 75% to 50%. This year's survey was mixed: the Aleutian Islands index rose 26%, while the Bering Sea index fell 14%.

Council staffer Sara Cleaver said the combined changes to the models' structure, driven partly by the survey change, produced "a decline that is not necessarily indicative of a change kind of in the population."

The assessment authors and the council's groundfish plan teams called the newer model, which treats each region's survey separately, the "best available science," and an independent review agreed. The council's science committee suggested another version, and plan team coordinator Diana Stram said as many as four will be reviewed in November, with no final choice made yet. Phasing in a change happens only when the catch ceiling rises, Stram said: "We only do it on the way up and not on the way down."

The panel's requests include three- and five-year phase-ins of the newer model, a version of the other new model that carries forward survey data from the region not surveyed that year, and two technical variations of the newer model. The panel also backed restoring comprehensive annual surveys and using commercial fishing data on fish size and catch rates.

Behnken said the uncertainty "comes from a lack of data, not having an annual survey anymore, and because the stock assessment authors are not getting commercial catch data." She put the possible loss at "the $50 million that could cost the industry if that's what happens here." Advisory Panel co-vice chair Chelsae Radell, speaking for shoreside processors, said that had a 30% cut in the Gulf applied in 2026, processors would have to decide which plants stay open.

"Due to the unprecedented cuts that are proposed through this— through these new models to the 2027 ABC and no biological concern for the stock, I believe that this is warranted," Evans said. Panel chair Shannon Carroll said supporting it was not about second-guessing the scientists but about what is lost when surveys and data fall short.

The full council takes up groundfish harvest specifications Saturday. The plan teams review the models in November, and the council decides in December.