Council advisers back changes to help small Alaska towns fish their halibut and sablefish quota

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

The Community Quota Entity program, created in 2004, lets small coastal communities in the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands form nonprofits that buy halibut and sablefish quota and lease it to residents. Nine of 46 eligible communities have done so. "Over 750,000 pounds of CQE sablefish and halibut combined went unfished in 2025," said council staffer Sarah Marrinan.

Lauren Howard, an Advisory Panel member who manages a regional CQE in Southeast Alaska, made the motion. Its central change would let CQEs name residents to fish their quota through the hired master system other quota holders use for hired skippers, instead of leasing it to them. Under a lease, Howard said, the quota moves into the fisherman's account and the CQE manager can't see whether it's being fished. Staff said the approach raises a policy question, since the council has long moved toward an owner-operated fleet.

The package would also:

• let time on tenders count toward the 150 days of fishing experience needed to receive quota

• set a minimum age to receive quota, with 11, 14 and 16 as options

• let each community's CQE hold more quota, under the existing cap for all CQEs combined

• waive the three-hour advance landing notice for small deliveries and let tenders take quota fish in more CQE communities

Staff said deliveries of 2,000 pounds or less made up about half of recent halibut landings but under 11% of the catch by weight. The notice gives enforcement officers time to inspect landings.

Linda Behnken of the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust, asked whether testifiers broadly backed the package, said, "I haven't heard anybody who opposes these changes." Duncan Fields, who manages the Old Harbor and Ouzinkie CQEs, said those groups have fished all their quota and that the statistics on unfished CQE quota are "substantially skewed by the inclusion of the Adak data."

Adak's CQE, the Adak Community Development Corporation, holds just under a million pounds of Aleutian sablefish quota, Steve Minor told the panel. "It's staying in the water right now," he said. Because one vessel can catch no more than 50,000 pounds of CQE sablefish a year, Adak would need 14 boats to fish its 2026 quota, staff said.

Howard left the Adak vessel cap out of her motion, saying she didn't feel comfortable addressing it at this time. "I'm not completely against it," she said.

The full council, meeting in Anchorage through Oct. 13, takes up the package next.