Bycatch Reduction Agreements – Integrating Electronic Data with Fishing Practices in the Bering Sea Pollock Fishery

In 1999 the American Fisheries Act (AFA) rationalized the Bering Sea pollock fishery via a cooperative structure program.  Utilizing formal agreements to manage fishing practices by the AFA vessels and cooperatives has resulted in the creation of several Intercooperative Agreements (ICAs); all of which require access to a reliable source of fishing data in order to accomplish their intent.  While various ICAs have been written to monitor and manage both directed fishing and bycatch issues, the most complex ICAs are used to reduce Chinook and chum salmon bycatch.  Due to the high variability of salmon encounters, in terms of both time and area, the salmon bycatch ICAs require rapid data collection, analysis, and distribution to the fleet.  These initial bycatch ICAs, also called a Rolling Hot Spot Agreement, have been employed voluntarily by the Bering Sea pollock fleet for reducing both Chinook and chum salmon bycatch.  More recently, the North Pacific Management Council has initiated new Chinook salmon bycatch regulations that provide several hard cap options.  One of those options allows vessels that elect to participate in an Incentive Plan Agreement (IPA), similar to an ICA, access to a higher hard cap provided the IPA provides incentives or penalties to keep bycatch low at all levels of encounter.  For the incentives in an IPA to be effective, and for penalties to be enforced, the “data bar” has been set to a new height.