00                         HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 8                                                                         
01 Encouraging the Department of Fish and Game to adopt certain regulations relating to                                    
02 fisheries bycatch.                                                                                                      
03 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:                                                                         
04       WHEREAS the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act                                            
05 authorizes the state to have a majority of six seats on the 11-member North Pacific Fishery                             
06 Management Council; and                                                                                                 
07       WHEREAS the North Pacific Fishery Management Council is given authority to                                      
08 manage fisheries in the Arctic Ocean, Bering Sea, and Pacific Ocean seaward of the state; and                           
09 WHEREAS all fisheries managed by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council                                         
10 have bycatch, which the Magnuson-Stevens Act defines as "fish which are harvested in a                                  
11 fishery, but which are not sold or kept for personal use, [including] economic discards and                             
12 regulatory discards"; and                                                                                               
13 WHEREAS National Standard 9 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act provides that                                                 
14 fisheries-related conservation and management measures must, to the extent practicable,                                 
15 minimize bycatch and, to the extent bycatch cannot be avoided, minimize the mortality of                                
16 such bycatch; and                                                                                                       

01 WHEREAS current conservation and management measures implemented by the                                               
02 North Pacific Fishery Management Council, while allowing for the harvest of hundreds of                                 
03 millions of pounds of seafood, also annually result in tens of millions of pounds of bycatch in                         
04 the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska waters seaward of the state; and                                                      
05       WHEREAS virtually all bycatch is currently discarded as dead fish; and                                          
06 WHEREAS many of the species discarded as bycatch are species that are commonly                                        
07 sold, processed, and consumed as marine protein, yet these fish are discarded as bycatch                                
08 because they have been caught with the wrong gear, at the wrong time, or outside what the                               
09 existing regulatory structure permits; and                                                                              
10 WHEREAS adopting regulations that permit fish caught as bycatch to be legally                                         
11 retained instead of being of discarded as they are now would reduce fishery bycatch in                                  
12 accordance with National Standard 9 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act; and                                                    
13 WHEREAS changes in regulations to incrementally allow fishers to retain fish that                                     
14 are currently discarded as bycatch would reduce waste and affirm the intrinsic value of food                            
15 conservation; and                                                                                                       
16 WHEREAS incrementally increasing the quantity and variety of fish currently                                           
17 discarded as bycatch that fishers of the state may legally harvest would improve stewardship                            
18 of state seafood resources and increase the quantity of seafood available to feed Alaskans,                             
19 Americans, and the world; and                                                                                           
20 WHEREAS Governor Dunleavy established the Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force                                            
21 and commissioned the task force for the purpose of "exploring the issue of bycatch and                                  
22 providing recommendations to policy makers with the goal of improving the health and                                    
23 sustainability of Alaska's fisheries, and protecting Alaska's record as a leader of fisheries'                          
24 conservation and sustainability"; and                                                                                   
25 WHEREAS one of the recommendations of the Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force                                            
26 was that "[t]he State of Alaska should support taking incremental measures through the                                  
27 regulatory process to improve bycatch utilization with a particular focus on species that are                           
28 otherwise marketable but are caught with non-targeted gear, or discards in a directed fishery                           
29 that are required by regulation";                                                                                       
30 BE IT RESOLVED that the House of Representatives encourages the Department of                                         
31 Fish and Game, through the department's regulatory authority, and the commissioner of fish                              

01 and game, through the commissioner's seat on the North Pacific Fishery Management                                       
02 Council, to support actions and regulatory changes on both the state and federal levels to                              
03 increase utilization of fish that would otherwise become economic discards; and be it                                   
04 FURTHER RESOLVED that the House of Representatives encourages the                                                     
05 Department of Fish and Game and the commissioner of fish and game, through the                                          
06 commissioner's seat on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, to evaluate the                                    
07 economic value that could be realized through better utilization of bycatch and the benefits to                         
08 fishery management derived from better utilization of bycatch.