HOUSE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES February 6, 1995 5:04 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT Representative Alan Austerman, Chairman Representative Carl Moses, Vice Chair Representative Gary Davis Representative Scott Ogan Representative Kim Elton MEMBERS ABSENT None COMMITTEE CALENDAR National Marine Fisheries Service on Stellar Sea Lions North Pacific Fisheries Management Council presentation by Rick Lauber WITNESS REGISTER SUE MELLO, ECOLOGIST Protected Resources Management Division National Marine Fisheries Service P.O. Box 21668 Juneau, AK 99802 Phone: 586-7235 POSITION STATEMENT: Provided presentation for National Marine Fisheries Service RICK LAUBER, CHAIRMAN North Pacific Fisheries Management Council 321 Highland Drive Juneau, AK 99801 Phone: 586-6366 POSITION STATEMENT: Provided presentation on North Pacific Fisheries Management Council ACTION NARRATIVE TAPE 95-6, SIDE A Number 000 CHAIRMAN ALAN AUSTERMAN called the meeting to order at 5:04 p.m. Members present at the call to order were Representatives Davis, Elton and Moses. Chairman Austerman noted that a quorum was present. Number 020 SUE MELLO, Ecologist, Protected Resources Management Division, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), began her testimony saying, "As you probably all know, Stellar sea lions are large marine mammals that range from California through the Alaska North Pacific Rim, into Russia. In the early 60s their numbers were estimated as something between 200 and 300,000 with the bulk of the population occurring in the central Gulf of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. At least 75 percent occurred there. It has always been the heart of their abundance. In the early 80s, biologists started to note a decline in the eastern Aleutians. At that time, it was thought that perhaps sea lions were just redistributing to other areas. Subsequent surveys in 1985 documented that the animals had been reduced by about 50 percent, since the 60s. Surveys in `89 showed another drastic decline of over 50 percent between `85 and `89 in the Gulf and in the Aleutian Islands. By 1990 the decline had been documented in the western Aleutians, Russian and Prince William Sound, as well. The reasons for the decline in sea lions are not really well known. Scientists have hypothesized it could be the synergistic effects of commercial fisheries, such as incidental takes, intentional takes and also prey depletion. Other factors such as disease and natural predation have been looked at as well, but to this date no one really knows what exactly is driving this decline." MS. MELLO testified, "In 1990, NMFS listed the Stellar sea lions as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) even though the decline had only been west of Kenai, to that point, we had no information to show there were separate populations so we listed it range wide. This is despite the fact that Southeast Alaska, Oregon and California were stable populations. At the time of listing, we also instituted regulations to help the population recover. These consisted of a prohibition on shooting sea lions which at the time was legal, in defense of catch. We also created three nautical mile no-entry zones around rookery zones west of Kenai Peninsula, which are 37 sites. And we also reduced the incidental take level that was allowable in commercial fisheries by one half, although that level really was not significant at the time. Fisheries were taking about 30 animals per year (while) the take level was 1350. The agency also appointed a recovery team which developed the recovery plan which is in front of you and is basically the blueprint for trying to reverse the decline. The thing is: No one knows what's causing the decline. Most of what's in that recovery plan is a research program and also basic management actions. In 1991 and 1992, the NMFS passed regulations under the Magnuson Act to prohibit trawling around rookeries west of Kenai over broader areas than we had previously. Those regulations were passed because the NMFS in reviewing the data on the commercial groundfish fisheries and sea lions, noted that there had been a coincident movement of the fishery from an offshore fishery, in the days of the foreign fleets, to a more near shore fishery." Number 112 MS. MELLO proceeded, "Since that time, we've done no new regulations. We did designate critical habitat which is a requirement under the ESA, but we did not prohibit any actions in new critical habitat. Alaska critical habitat are the rookeries, major haul outs and also aquatic areas associated with them." Number 121 MS. MELLO said, "Last year in November after continuing to see the population decline, the agency announced the formal status review under the ESA. Basically, giving the public notice that we intended to make another determination this time to determine whether or not sea lions should be listed as endangered, rather than threatened." Ms. Mello indicated that the status review is nearing completion. She added, "The `94 survey results showed that sea lions had declined another 21 percent west of Kenai since 1990. (But) Southeast continues to be stable." MS MELLO continued, "One of the things that has been shown through our research is that the population from Cape Suckling to the east appears to be reproductively isolated from the population to the west. The significance is that we can now show that there are probably separate populations and therefore list them separately under the ESA. So there is a possibility of having one stock listed and the other one not listed. That didn't exist before." She then indicated that the recovery team last November recommended that the sea lions be listed as endangered only west of Cape Suckling and east of Cape Suckling they remain on the threatened list. She said newspapers had described the recovery team's recommendations as closing fisheries but what the team recommended was to evaluate the effects of commercial fishing and "if necessary, put in more time-area closures." MS. MELLO concluded, "Where we are now, our intention is to come out with a proposed rule in the next few months making a determination on how sea lions should be listed. It would be a proposed rule, it's not a final rule, it would be a request for comments for 60 to 90 days. We'd be coordinating with the state and then within the year we would make a final determination. We are also committed to reviewing all our management actions to date. We are also committed to reviewing all our management actions to date. One of the real problems with sea lions management has been both the threatened listing and the closure. The groundfish closures were done by emergency action rather than going through a normal public comment period and I think the public has not really had a full opportunity to review the management program. That's something we're committed to before making any changes." REPRESENTATIVE GARY DAVIS inquired about the fisheries moving towards shore. MS. MELLO indicated that the fishery, before the Magnuson Act, was mostly foreign and operated outside of 12 miles. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS asked, "And the fishery in Southeast really hasn't changed and those populations are stable?" MS. MELLO pointed out, "Other than the shooting prohibition, all the regulations have not affected Southeast at all." Number 217 REPRESENTATIVE KIM ELTON asked, "What will be the effect on fisheries management if the sea lion is moved from the threatened to the endangered list." MS. MELLO said, "There's no automatic effect. Last year the Marine Mammal Protection Act was amended and before that amendment, if sea lions had been listed as endangered, we would not have been allowed to permit incidental takes in fisheries." REPRESENTATIVE ELTON asked, "Is there any coordination between with what the NMFS is doing with their research program, their population studies, and what the University of British Columbia is doing?" MS. MELLO replied, "There is coordination. The NMFS and the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G) receive a congressional appropriation for research," and indicated the agencies do work together as a group. REPRESENTATIVE ELTON briefly told the committee about the North Pacific Universities Marine Mammal Research Consortium. MS. MELLO described some of the research being performed by the consortium. Number 259 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN compared the Stellar sea lion population decline to the decline in king crab populations and asked if the king crab could be listed as threatened. MS. MELLO described the differences in the two animals and said, "Large marine mammals of that type are unlikely to go through the large boom and bust cycles that are familiar in shell fisheries. It's just not expected for that kind of animal, especially not one that's not being harvested." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked about no-trawl zones. MS. MELLO said, "There are 10-mile no trawl zones around all the rookeries west of the Kenai Peninsula, year round, which are 37 rookeries. During the pollock A season, there are 20-mile zones around six rookeries basically those right around Dutch Harbor and two in Seguam Pass." She added an explanation of why the 10-mile zones were not enough from January 25 to "sometime in March" for the pollock season. Number 310 CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if an analysis has been done comparing the sea lion's environment at the time of the foreign fleet. MS. MELLO said, "We weren't really in the business of protecting sea lions then. We've only been in recent years." Number 344 REPRESENTATIVE SCOTT OGAN asked what sea lions eat. MS. MELLO called them "opportunistic eaters" and described the sea lion diet. REPRESENTATIVE OGAN asked if they would eat the bycatch thrown over on trawl fishers. MS. MELLO indicated she was unaware of any studies on that particular topic. REPRESENTATIVE OGAN asked if sea lions are afraid of nearing fishing vessels. MS. MELLO said, "They are sort of peculiar animals in that they are very, very easily disturbed by humans when they're on haulouts or rookeries. So if they catch sight or smell of people they will just stampede into the water. On the other hand, in Unalaska, we've had an animal that's been biting people and jumping on the docks. So they can easily become accustomed to people in human environments." Number 390 REPRESENTATIVE OGAN asked, "Is there any kind of traditional animosity that fishermen had towards Stellar sea lions?" MS. MELLO said, "There is a definite history of that. There's also a history of both the federal and state governments trying to find a good use for sea lions or do anything with them because they were competing with salmon fisheries." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN said when he was growing up in Kodiak one rarely saw sea lions but now there are 30 or 40 living in the Kodiak boat harbor. Number 414 RICK LAUBER, Chairman, North Pacific Fisheries Management Council (NPFMC or council), testified saying, "We make recommendations to the Secretary of Commerce, NMFS, and much of the regulations that Ms. Mello was talking about were touched upon by the council." He then described the birth and composition of the council. MR. LAUBER said, "The North Pacific Council has, under its jurisdiction, combined fisheries larger than all of the other seven councils in value or in volume. In fact, the two largest fishing ports in the United States are in Alaska: Dutch Harbor and Kodiak. The Gulf of Alaska's are not as great certainly in tonnage but they're very high value. While we have jurisdiction over a number of the species, we have assigned either a co-management, or assigned management to the state of Alaska. The crab fisheries is an example of that and many of the salmon fisheries, likewise. We have joint management or primary management with the state. Although the council could come up with a management plan. The reason for the Act was pretty obvious. I'm sure many of you can remember back in the days when Alaska, off its coast had nothing but foreign caught and foreign processed seafood. There were many countries fishing off of Alaska; Japan, Korea, Russia, Poland, others. Ninety-nine percent of the fish prior to 1976 was caught and processed by foreign factory ships or mother ship operations. As such, there was very little benefit to Alaska. In addition to that, these fisheries were not managed by anyone." MR. LAUBER continued, "So in late 1976 when the North Pacific Fishery Management Council went in existence, its primary responsibility was the permitting of foreign processing and foreign catching boats because, as I said, about 99 percent of the offshore catch was taken by foreigners. It wasn't long after that (and) probably due to a loophole in the law, the situation arose as we refer to as a joint venture: A sale to an American fisherman with a foreign factory ship. And these became very popular. It was the first time we entered into any type of Americanization. Probably, that slowed down the total Americanization of the fisheries but in any case, it did provide a market for American fishermen. That went on for a number of years." Number 530 MR. LAUBER said, "The real growth in the Americanization came through factory trawlers. These are vessels that both catch and process the fish they catch. This fleet, largely based out of Seattle, grew at far beyond anyone's imagination from the five years of 1985 to 1990. Seventy factory ships or mother ships, entered the fishery. So many entered the fishery that they would have been able to totally catch and process in the jurisdiction two or three times, maybe more. By this time, the shorebased industry had started. There were a number of plants in the Gulf of Alaska and some large plants in Dutch Harbor that started. They soon found themselves in a situation, that they were going to be preempted by the offshore fleet. So along came a proposal in the NPFMC to provide an allocation for the offshore fleet and the onshore fleet. It resulted in a plan for 35 percent of the fisheries in the Bering Sea to be harvested by fishermen who deliver to onshore processors. And the balance went to the factory trawlers and the mothership operations. At the same time, coming right off the top, the council created the Community Development Quotas (CDQs) where they give seven and a half percent of the pollock in the Bering Sea to coastal communities in western Alaska and the Aleutian Islands." He added, "The take during the four year life of that plan will probably be about $60 million to those coastal communities. This was part of the onshore-offshore allocation. And it expires, as does the CDQ portion of it, at the end of this year. So the council's in the process of renewing or rolling over that inshore-offshore allocation. It has some opposition of course. The offshore fleet would like to have it all but I think that we'll probably prevail." Number 620 MR. LAUBER highlighted the council's new observer program, Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) program and bycatch caps. TAPE 95-6, SIDE B Number 000 MR. LAUBER said regarding discards, "We are going to do something about it. We have several plans in the works to reward people who are clean fishermen. This is called a harvest priority where, if you operate a clean fishery, you would be rewarded by either being able to fish longer, or starting sooner or something of that nature. All of these are difficult because you have to have a very good reporting system of actually what's taken, what's harvested. But we are working on that." He then talked about comprehensive rationalization for all groundfish and crab saying, "We are currently looking at a vessel licensing system which would take over from our vessel moratorium. A vessel licensing system differs from the IFQ system and would be similar to what's in place in the state of Alaska for salmon. We have a vessel licensing system there. It does not control the number of fish that are taken, but it controls the number of vessels that can engage in that fishery. He then provided another considered system for limiting access to the groundfish and crab fisheries. Number 124 REPRESENTATIVE OGAN asked if the state has given up its right to manage halibut within state waters 100 percent of the total allowable catch (TAC) has been allocated through IFQs. MR. LAUBER said, "The question under discussion as to in-state jurisdiction - I would defer to the state on that issue. They are working on it," and added, "On the halibut charter boat issue, the council, about a year and a half ago, there was a proposal made by someone that wanted to put the halibut charter boats under council jurisdiction. We have met a number of times on this. I appointed a committee composed largely of charter boat people. Some commercial fishermen and largely charter boat people. I can't tell you the feeling of all council members, but I understand that what a lot of the people feel is that if there is a problem, it is not statewide. There are some areas of the state where it would be ludicrous for us to propose any type of management regime other than maybe registration or something of that sort on charter boats; there aren't many of them. Other places, there is some crowding, localized depletion and things of that nature that we may need to take a look at. But we have asked for a legal opinion from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) general counsel as to what the counsel can and cannot do, which will be due in April at our meeting and we served notice on the charter boat people that we will not touch this or bring it up at the soonest, the December meeting. There's been no action taken. And on the charter boat people, we have again, like Alaskans, they run the gamut from those that feel there should be some regulation and moratorium or something of that sort to those that are incensed that anyone would even consider the possibility, anyone would think of regulating them in any way." Number 212 REPRESENTATIVE OGAN reiterated that there may be a problem with the federal government allocating all halibut, even that within Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet. He said, "Those two areas essentially could have a state-managed fishery, but again we have the problem that 100 percent of the allocation has been given to the federal fishery." MR. LAUBER said, "Halibut falls under a different category because it is controlled by a treaty between the United States and Canada. And that treaty covers both inside and outside waters. They set various quotas for areas...and they count inshore catches inside of three miles. Halibut is considered to be a...it's not a highly migratory species but it all comes out of a common stock. So therefore they do set these quotas whether they are taken inshore or offshore. And at the current time, the halibut commission does take into account the halibut charter boat fleet's catch. After they take out the sports catch and the halibut charter boat catch, the incidental catch by trawler and the number that's left over is the number that's left for the commercial fisheries. REPRESENTATIVE OGAN continued, "Potentially, the state of Alaska could have a state regulated commercial fishery for halibut in Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet because that's not included in the Magnuson Act area but legally, I think it could be argued that we can't do that because all of the fish are already allocated out in the federal programs." MR. LAUBER said, "I could be mistaken with this, but I think with the allocation of fish, that's not council. The NPFMC does not have anything to do with the allocation of halibut. That's allocated by the International Halibut Commission. The treaty between Canada and the United States and that takes precedence over state law and we can do certain things to regulate the inshore catch. For instance, the Board of Fish might be able to limit the daily bag limit of halibut. There's a number of things the state can do and there's a number of things that the NPFMC can do that would affect inshore" CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN clarified, "But that is only on sport fish because the commercial fishing of halibut is totally regulated by the International Halibut Commission." MR. LAUBER disagreed, "They set the amount of fish that's available. I don't know what more regulation you can have than the regulation of passing out quota shares, parceling out the halibut to individual fishermen and that was done by the NPFMC." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN said, "The state of Alaska is never going to have a commercial halibut opening of its own because it's all controlled by the International Halibut Commission." MR. LAUBER agreed saying, "I believe that's correct. The council has no management plan for halibut. This is done by the International Halibut Commission." REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS said, "You're looking for the legal question as to whether you can legally get into that area. And the legal question is you would have to some sort of subcontract role with the International Halibut Commission?" MR. LAUBER said, "My understanding, oversimplification, but their responsibility is to determine the amount of halibut available and to set the amount of fish to be taken and set the amount of fish that would be taken in their individual regulatory areas," and he indicated that the halibut commission was the one who used to set the opening dates of the halibut fisheries. He added, "But when it comes to regulating the fishery as to who can fish and that type of thing, that's up to the council." Number 329 REPRESENTATIVE OGAN asked, "What steps are being taken specifically to reduce the bycatch of the king salmon," regarding the depleted king salmon populations in his Mat-Su. MR. LAUBER said, "We don't know as much about it as we'd would like to know, but I can tell you what I do know. That we have felt that the bycatch rate of salmon, the two areas with the biggest problem are chum salmon and king salmon. But there are other forms taken. It's too high and we have done a number of things. Some have been more successful than others. One of the frustrations we have found is: In Alaska, the Commissioner of Fish and Game is given substantial amounts of authority to do emergency closures and openings and restrict areas and so forth by emergency order. The feds don't operate that way. We attempted to give the director of the NMFS what we call hot spot authority when the observers were finding that a particular fishery was running into bycatch of salmon, to shut that fishery down. Well, the legal eagles of the federal government told us, `You can't do that, you have to go through a hearing process and have to go out for public process and so forth.' Talk about closing the barn door after the horse is gone. In fact, the ludicrous part was, they said the only thing we could do was build a plan based upon the previous year's experience." MR. LAUBER continued, "The other thing that has been a problem for us is that you can have a relatively high bycatch of another species whether it be salmon or other and the crew of the vessel doesn't know it. If you're pulling up a net with hundreds of tons of fish in it, a relatively few salmon in that may not be noticed and they may not be aware of it until after they get the observer report and so forth. So it's not an instantaneous thing." He said, "So there's a lot of frustration in it. We need timely information to get those people out of those areas." MR. LAUBER added, "The best we've done is we have taken areas that are extremely high, for instance in a very high bycatch area and set cap on the number of fish that can be taken. And then put the observers aboard every vessel and when that number of fish is reached, it just shuts that number down and everybody has to move out of it." He indicated that it was highly unlikely that the trawl fishery was "a major cause" of the Deshka River king salmon problem. He said, "It is sometimes easy to look at a political solution or a popular solution. For instance, blaming foreign fisheries when we had them, and they did intercept some, but the thing it caused us to do sometimes was ignore other causes that probably were more significant, in that case the foreign fishing. I'm not minimizing the fact that they contributed to the decline in some areas, but I suspect that there are a lot of other reasons that were the major cause for our decline in salmon runs, say in the '70s. We need to not just point our finger at the offshore trawlers (but) they deserve their share of the blame." Number 440 REPRESENTATIVE AUSTERMAN asked about high seas drift net fishing. MR. LAUBER confirmed that the Anadromous Fish Commission Treaty has banned all high seas salmon fishing. "Between that and the drift net voluntary ban in the United Nations, there hasn't been high seas drift net fishing targeting on salmon for a number of years." CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN asked if consideration was given to leasing IFQs rather than giving away the resource. MR. LAUBER indicated that proposals to auction and to lease were considered but were declined by the council. Number 545 REPRESENTATIVE ELTON asked, "Under the IFQ system as proposed, there's a certain number of pounds that were allocated, divided up amongst the fleet. In management of the bioresource, it seems that you are giving away one of your strongest management tools is to reduce the harvest from year to year if in fact your biomass is going down." MR. LAUBER clarified, "It's computed based upon the pounds of halibut and black cod that you caught and delivered, but once the number is determined...once that number is set, you merely take the number of shares and divide it into whatever the halibut commission says is available for that area that you're entitled to fish in. ADJOURNMENT CHAIRMAN AUSTERMAN thanked his guests and adjourned the meeting at 6:25 p.m.