Dan Hull, Chairman
Chris Oliver, Executive Director
SUBJECT: title
Pollock ICA/IPA Reports; Update on Salmon Genetics; Salmon PSC Genetics Distribution Discussion Paper
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STAFF CONTACT: Diana Stram
ACTION REQUIRED: recommended action
Review and action as necessary.
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BACKGROUND:
Chinook salmon Incentive Plan Agreements annual reports
Under regulations to implement the Amendment 91 Bering Sea Chinook salmon bycatch management program, annual reports are required of each IPA entity and are provided to the Council at the April Council meeting. Regulations at 50 CFR 679.21(f)(13) stipulates that IPA entities report annually on the following:
• Incentive measures in effect in the previous year;
• How incentive measures affected individual vessels;
• How incentive measures affected salmon savings beyond current levels;
• IPA amendments approved by NMFS since the last annual report and the reasons for amendments;
• Sub-allocations to each participating vessel;
• Number of Chinook PSC and amount of pollock (mt) at the start of each fishing season;
• Number of Chinook PSC and amount of pollock (mt) caught at the end of each season;
• In-season transfers among entities of Chinook salmon PSC or pollock among AFA cooperatives;
• Transfers among IPA vessels; and amount of pollock (mt) transferred.
Regulations promulgated under Amendment 110 as it relates to IPAs also incorporated chum salmon bycatch into the IPAs in lieu of the exemption to the Chum Salmon Savings Area previously enacted under Amendment 84. Some description of how chum salmon will be managed under the IPAs should be included in reports from the IPAs. Reports from each of the three IPAs are attached.
Non-Chinook (chum) salmon intercooperative agreement (ICA) annual report
In conjunction with requirements under Amendment 84, the Non-Chinook Inter-Cooperative Agreement (ICA) provides an annual report on the efficacy of Chum (Non-Chinook) salmon bycatch management measures under the rolling hot spot (RHS) program. The ICA report to the Council contains the following:
1. Number of salmon taken by species and season.
2. Estimate of number of salmon avoided as demonstrated by the movement of fishing effort away from salmon hot-spots.
3. A compliance/enforcement report which will include the results of an internal compliance audit and an external compliance audit if one has been done.
4. List of each vessel’s number of appearances on the weekly vessel performance lists (note this is a requirement of the AFA coop reports).
5. Acknowledgement that the Agreement term has been extended for another year (maintaining the three-year lifespan) and report of any changes to the Agreement that were made at the time of the renewal.
An annual third party audit is also conducted to ensure compliance (or report on non-compliance) with the provisions of the ICA. The third-party audit is attached in conjunction with the annual performance review. Representative from each IPA and ICA will provide summary presentations to the Council of their annual reports. Given new regulatory requirements for chum salmon under Amendment 110 whereby chum salmon bycatch avoidance is managed under the IPAs, this will be the last year that the ICA report will be provided. The ICA report for 2016 is attached. The ICA representative will be available to discuss the report.
Salmon bycatch genetics:
2015 genetics update: Genetics reports on stock of origin of Chinook and chum salmon bycatch are available for the 2015 Bering Sea pollock fishery, the GOA pollock fishery, GOA rockfish (and arrowtooth) CV trawl fishery and the GOA non-pollock CP trawl fisheries. These reports are attached and NOAA genetics staff will be available to present these results.
Salmon genetics workgroup update: The Council has requested further investigations into temporal and spatial refinements of stock composition data. To meet this request a group of analysts from NMFS AFSC (Juneau, Seattle), ADF&G (Anchorage, Juneau), and NPFMC have met periodically in person, and via teleconference to address these requests. Two discussion papers are attached which address some of these issues including an update on age-specific chum salmon stock composition estimates for the EBS pollock fishery and a description of a methodology to establish smaller scale spatial and temporal stock composition estimates (attached). Two AKFIN reports have been produced with data from 2013 to present. The first report contains data at the genetic sample level. The second report contains Bering Sea- Aleutian Islands (BSAI) salmon bycatch data at the haul/offload level. A third report for the GOA salmon bycatch data at the haul/offload level from 2014 to present is under development. The reports contain data in tabular, map, and graphical formats. Genetics staff from NOAA will be available to discuss these results. Members of the salmon genetics workgroup will also be available to answer questions and discuss future planning for additional analyses.