Regulators shift unused halibut allowance to Bering Sea trawlers

The National Marine Fisheries Service have shifted unused halibut bycatch allowance to Bering Sea trawlers' current cod season, raising the sector's cap and reopening a long-running Alaska fight over how much halibut the trawl fleet takes as bycatch.

The federal regulators moved 100 metric tons of allowance that went unused earlier in the year to the trawl catcher-vessel fleet, lifting its halibut cap for the season from 15 metric tons to 115. Without the transfer, NMFS said, the fleet could exceed its halibut limit and face an early closure. The agency made the change without public comment, saying the latest bycatch data arrived only days before it signed the rule.

Halibut caught in groundfish trawls must be discarded, dead or alive, and it counts against a stock that commercial, charter and subsistence fishermen all rely on. That makes the caps contentious, and more so now: the Pacific halibut spawning stock is near its lowest level since the 1970s, and Alaska absorbed the sharpest catch cuts in 2025.

The two sides read it differently. Halibut fishermen and coastal communities that fish the directed halibut fishery see large trawl bycatch allowances as waste that leaves less for small-boat operators; the advocacy group SalmonState, citing NOAA data, says trawlers have caught more than 3 million pounds of halibut incidentally in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska so far this year. Trawl operators counter that they need enough halibut allowance to keep fishing groundfish at all, and that moving unused caps between seasons is what keeps their fishery from closing early.

Regulators have tightened the caps repeatedly over the past decade. This latest move shifts allowance within the existing cod-fishery limit; it does not raise the total.