Council advisers back changes to help Gulf communities fish their halibut and sablefish quota

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council's Advisory Panel on Thursday recommended, without objection, that the council send Individual Fishing Quota and Community Quota Entity changes to initial review to widen fishery-dependent communities' access to halibut and sablefish.

"Over 750,000 pounds of CQE sablefish and halibut combined went unfished in 2025," said council staffer Sarah Marrinan. Adak's CQE alone held about 650,000 pounds of Aleutian sablefish quota in 2025, while all CQEs landed about 53,000 pounds.

Under the program, implemented in 2004 through Amendment 66, community nonprofits buy quota and lease it to residents. Nine of 46 eligible communities have done so. An original goal, Marrinan said, was to "ensure that the quota share IFQ allocated to eligible community would not be held and unfished."

Lauren Howard, who manages a regional Southeast CQE, moved six elements against a no-action alternative. The central one would let CQE managers assign quota in-season through hired master permits instead of leases, which Howard said "leaves your eFish, it goes to the other person's eFish, and you have no idea their status of fishing." The other elements would count tendering time, set a minimum transfer age of 11, 14 or 16, raise per-community limits under the 21% program-wide cap to as much as 2%, and waive landing notice for deliveries of 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000 pounds, paired with new tender ports. Linda Behnken of the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust said, "I haven't heard anybody who opposes these changes."

Staff said a 2,000-pound waiver would have covered 46% to 50% of halibut trips but only 6.8% to 11% of landed weight, and could affect halibut commission sampling, enforcement response and cost-recovery fees. Higher limits could affect other CQEs, new entrants and quota markets.

Duncan Fields, who manages the Old Harbor and Ouzinkie CQEs, said, "We have fished all of our quota consistently over the 14 or 15 years that we've had quota share," calling the statistics "substantially skewed by the inclusion of the ADAC data."

Under the 50,000-pound vessel cap, Adak would need 13 vessels for its 2025 sablefish quota and 14 for 2026. Steve Minor of the Adak Community Development Corporation said just under a million pounds is "staying in the water right now." Marrinan noted that only 1.7% of Aleutian Islands sablefish quota was harvested fleetwide in 2025. Howard left the Adak cap out of her motion: "I'm not completely against it."

The full council takes up the item Sunday. Staff said the hired master change weighs owner-operator goals and broad distribution of benefits against getting more CQE quota fished.