'Tis the season for even greater Alaska catches when groundfish seasons open at the start of the New Year.
Pollock, cod, flounder and other groundfish account for nearly 85 percent of Alaska's total harvest by weight, and 67 percent of the nation's groundfish harvest. Those numbers could increase due to boosts in several catch quotas for the next two years in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea.
For pollock, the nation's largest fishery, the catch is up slightly to 1.3 million metric tons — or just less than 3 billion pounds.
The Pacific cod quota is down a bit to 525 million pounds — not because the stock is shrinking, but to accommodate catches by competing gears and fleets, said Diana Stram. Stram is Bering Sea groundfish plan coordinator for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which oversees fisheries from 3 to 200 miles offshore. Flatfish stocks also are healthy, Stram said, but catches were lowered due to halibut bycatch concerns.
"The fisheries worked voluntarily last year to reduce their halibut bycatch and they did a good job but it still remains a concern," she said.
That means fishery managers take a 2 million metric ton harvest cap seriously.
"The biomass … in the Bering Sea is extremely healthy for all … stocks. In terms of the catch quotas, the balancing act is really the constraint of the 2 million metric ton cap," Stram explained. "While a lot of the stocks could have higher TACs (total allowable catches), the council balances between the different stocks and the different fleets in order to meet that limit."
Twenty-two species come under the council's purview, Stram added, along, with non-targeted species like sharks, sculpin and squid incidentally taken by commercial fishermen.
Fish stocks also are healthy in the Gulf of Alaska, where the allowable catch will rise 6 percent overall.
"It sure looks good. Pollock is up about 30 percent and Pacific cod is down just a smidge but nothing we're too worried about," said Jim Armstrong, plan coordinator for Gulf groundfish. Gulf pollock catches will be capped at 572 million pounds in 2016 and 2017, cod at 158 million pounds.
A red flag, Armstrong said, is sablefish, which is managed in both the Gulf and Bering Sea as a single-unit stock. A continued downward population trend has decreased those catches 14 percent.
"It's a concern," he said. "This coming year, we're going to have a sort of second opinion by the Center for Independent Experts, who will review the sablefish stock assessment so we'll better understand what's behind the downward trend."
Both coordinators credit the council for its ecosystem approach to fisheries management that always defers to the best available science.
"Our council has always valued the … rigorous assessments that go into each fishing cycle, as well as taking into consideration … bycatch of halibut, and also salmon, crab and herring," Stram said.
Armstrong joined the council staff in July after 10 years with the mid-Atlantic council.
"This is the big leagues," he said. "It's 10 times greater in terms of the value and the quantity, the number of fish species that are managed, and I think it scales up the amount of energy that is put into management. Everything is bigger here."
Millions more pounds of groundfish will be caught in state-managed fisheries within 3 miles of shore.
Got jellies?
Jellyfish abundance can inform what is happening in the oceans on a larger scale, and researchers are asking citizen scientists to post jellyfish observations on a special website.
"Citizen science … is valuable because it is multiplied with such large numbers. To tap into that pool of has huge advantages," said Steven Haddock, a researcher at the University of California at Santa Cruz who studies marine bioluminescence, zooplankton and deep-sea jellyfish.
Haddock wants to test hypotheses that contend a warmer climate has boosted jellyfish blooms. There is a misconception that jellyfish thrive in warmer waters, but any seagoing Alaskan knows that's not necessarily the case.
"In Alaska, species like the lion's mane are really restricted to colder water," he told KTOO in Juneau.
Haddock prefers website postings with a photo but descriptions alone are helpful, such as one from a Ketchikan diver.
"He gave a description of this jelly that sounds like a deep-sea species we discovered here in Monterey. It's called Tiburonia and we call it 'big red' because it's the size of a beach ball," Haddock explained. "So this guy diving said, 'I feel like I'm reporting a Bigfoot sighting.' I think it actually could be a sighting of this relatively newly discovered deep-sea species that he saw while scuba diving off Ketchikan."
Sightings of barren terrain without jellyfish are also helpful.
Give salmon a brake
Washington state is protecting salmon by removing copper from automotive brakes. A Better Brakes law passed in 2010 went into effect this year and will phase out copper by 2025.
"You touch your brakes and a little bit of material gets deposited on the road. And from there it washes into a stream or river where salmon may be spawning or trying to go home or getting back to the ocean," said Ian Wesley, Better Brakes coordinator at the Washington Department of Ecology.
"The Northwest Fisheries Science Center has done a lot of work on how copper affects a salmon's ability to smell, and juvenile salmon are particularly susceptible to these effects," Wesley explained. "Even trace levels of copper will damage their ability to smell, which inhibits their ability to avoid predators. They will release a hormone into the water that alerts other fish when there is danger nearby, and (copper) prevents other salmon from being able to smell that."
Wesley said the program was driven by a partnership between brake makers, water-quality watchers and regulators. Brake manufacturers agreed that if it was shown their products were causing environmental harm, they would work to phase copper out of brake pads. Now, any brakes sold in the state come with a Better Brake logo.
"If you want to sell brakes in Washington state you need to mark your products with a three-leaf logo," Wesley said. "It shows the level of copper concentration in a brake pad. If all three leafs are filled in, it means there is no copper. When two are filled in, it means there is less than 5 percent copper, and when one is filled in, it means there is no asbestos or lead in the product."
Copper-free brakes cost the same as less fish-friendly models, Wesley said. Penalties for noncompliance starting in 2025 will be applied to the brake makers, with a maximum penalty of $10,000 per violation.
California has adopted a similar program and the Better Brake program is spreading.
"Brake manufacturers have signed a memorandum of understanding with the EPA to voluntarily agree to comply with Washington's requirements on a nationwide basis," Wesley said. "Large retailers and distributors and manufacturers have agreed to only sell certified brakes throughout the country, and to make sure the copper requirements are met for all the brakes made."
Wesley credits U.S. brake makers for willingly making changes.
"They have been moving faster than we expected," he said.
Laine Welch is a Kodiak-based commercial fishing columnist . Contact her at msfish@alaskan.com.