Federal fishery council to vote on Alaska's 2027 groundfish catch limits in December

Federal fishery managers will vote next month on how much pollock, cod, sablefish and other groundfish fleets can catch in federal waters off Alaska in 2027 and 2028.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council meets Dec. 4-9 at the Egan Center in Anchorage, according to a federal notice published Tuesday. It will recommend final limits for the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska, plus 2027 limits for Norton Sound red king crab.

This time, the numbers will rest on fresh science. The limits now in force were set last December without new stock assessments, because a lapse in federal funding from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, 2025, kept scientists from finishing them.

Draft assessments released this month point in different directions. Scientists recommend a 20% cut to the 2027 sablefish limit and a Gulf of Alaska pollock limit about 17% higher for 2027, followed by a cut in 2028.

Scientists go first. The council's Scientific and Statistical Committee meets Nov. 30 through Dec. 3 to review the assessments and recommend how much of each stock can be caught. The council has said federal law bars it from going above those numbers.

"Scientists are the ones that set the catch limits, or the overfishing limits and the acceptable biological catch limits. That's baked into federal law," council member Nicole Kimball said at a Resource Development Council breakfast forum in September.

The council can set catches lower than the scientists' numbers. In the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, federal rules also cap the combined groundfish catch at 2 million metric tons a year, and this year's limits sit at that cap.

Norton Sound red king crab, fished near Nome, gets its own number. Last December, the council set the stock's 2026 acceptable catch at 135 metric tons.

The council will also take up 2027 charter halibut rules and Cook Inlet salmon. Written comments are due at noon Nov. 27 through the council's eAgenda.

The federal government typically publishes the final limits in March. The Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands limits now in force run through March 18, 2027.