The panels that shape Alaska's pollock and cod catch limits meet next month

The scientific panels that help set catch limits for Alaska's biggest fisheries meet Sept. 8-11 to begin work on how much pollock, Pacific cod and rockfish can be caught across the Bering Sea, Aleutians and Gulf of Alaska in 2027 and 2028.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council's two Groundfish Plan Teams, one for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands and one for the Gulf of Alaska, are meeting for scientific and management review, not a council vote. They will review an ecosystem status report and climate preview, survey data, progress on stock assessments due in November, and final assessments, then recommend overfishing limits and acceptable biological catches for the two years ahead.

Those recommendations are where the numbers start. The teams don't set legal catch limits themselves; their work feeds the council's specification process, which NOAA Fisheries finalizes, the same path that produced this year's groundfish limits. But the assessments and catch figures the teams land on shape what the fleet is ultimately allowed to take from the fisheries that anchor Alaska's seafood economy.

The meeting is hybrid, in person at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle and online through the council's meetings portal, where public comment also goes. The plan teams generally meet twice a year, in September and November.