Only here do commercial fishermen own halibut

CRAIG MEDRED
OUTDOORS

Published: January 21st, 2007 07:38 AM
Last Modified: December 15th, 2007 11:41 AM

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Bob Hallinen / Photo by BOB HALLINEN / Daily News archive 2005

The International Pacific Halibut Commission is considering a proposal that would limit the catch of sport anglers to one halibut a day in Southcentral and Southeast Alaska.

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The people who manipulated the political system to make halibut into a luxury item priced almost out of reach of the average consumer are at it again.

To keep their lock on 90 percent of Alaska's flatfish catch, commercial fishing interests are now going after John Q. Angler.

The International Pacific Halibut Commission last week endorsed a plea from commercial fishermen to halve the bag limit for Alaska halibut anglers to one fish per day for parts of the season, claiming anglers are threatening the resource by killing and taking home what is estimated to be an annual catch of 9 million pounds.

That sure sounds like a lot of halibut steaks and filets.

Only thing is, it's a mere drop in the sea of halibut. The commercial fishery catches so many halibut that to compare that harvest to the sport harvest would be like comparing apples to oranges. So let's use some more realistic figures.

Compared with the 9 million pounds anglers take home, the commercial fishing industry annually rolls back into the ocean an estimated 12.1 million pounds of dead halibut. These are fish dredged up in nets but required by law to be thrown back into the ocean to prevent fishermen from shifting their trawls from large stocks of low-value species to small and vulnerable stocks of high-value species.

The commercial fishery business calls these wasted halibut "bycatch''.

But bycatch isn't all the halibut commercial fishermen waste. The commission estimates another 1.9 million pounds of undersize halibut are released only to die later, and about 200,000 pounds perish hooked to commercial halibut gear that is never retrieved.

All told, then, the halibut killed and wasted in the commercial fishery comes to about 14.1 million pounds or about 59 percent more than is caught and largely eaten in the sport fishery.

I'm not naive enough to believe there isn't some waste there too. Some people likely do catch more than they can eat, find it freezer-burned before they can share it with friends or food banks and decide to throw it away.

But with halibut going for $15 a pound or more in the market, I'm guessing most anglers -- be they Alaskans or tourists -- eat most of what they catch.

Those who have been around Alaska's fisheries for a long time can, of course, remember when halibut could be bought in the market for a third to a fifth of today's price. That was back in the days before the commercial halibut fishery was, as they say, "privatized.''

Over the course of a summer, commercial halibut fishermen used to see several openings of the fishery lasting a few days each. These halibut derbies, as some called them, put a lot of pressure on commercial fishermen to catch as many halibut as possible in a limited amount of time.

One of the worst results was that some skippers made bad decisions that cost them their boats -- and sometimes their lives.

Fishermen used the resulting carnage in the fishery, plus the depressing effect the derbies had on wholesale halibut prices, to lobby for a new system of management. What they ended up with in 1995 was something called "individual fishing quotas,'' or IFQs.

Basically, the halibut catch was divided up between 4,828 established fishermen based on their past catches. If your fishing history showed you'd caught a lot of halibut, you got a boatload of IFQ shares. If it showed a low harvest, you got a handful.

Whether you got a boatload or a handful of shares, they were yours to do with as you wished. You could buy more if you found a willing seller, or if you wanted to get out of the fishery, you could sell all your shares.

A fair number of fishermen did exactly that. There are now fewer than 4,000 IFQ holders.

At the time the IFQ system was put into play, I was all for it. Having lived part of my life on a boat, I had learned a little about the sea and many of the bad things that can happen there quickly. I figured any system that would provide fishermen a longer season would be a good thing. It would enable them to check weather reports and make good decisions about when and where to fish, instead of charging out of port no matter what.

IFQs were a good way to make fishing safer.

More than that, though, I have always been of the belief that Alaska's resources -- all of Alaska's resources -- should be managed for the maximum benefit of Alaskans. And the IFQs, by providing for a longer halibut season, were sure to do that.

Under the old derby system, a tiny amount of halibut was available for sale fresh, and a lot was frozen. The frozen product could never match the price of the fresh, though properly frozen halibut won't change much in taste for months.

Nevertheless, fresh was what the market wanted. How much the market wanted it is self-evident with the outrageous supermarket prices for halibut.

Unfortunately, IFQs no longer look like such a good thing. They have become to halibut what fish traps were to salmon. A big part of the Alaska statehood movement was driven by a desire to get rid of those traps owned by big Outside corporations. Instead of maximizing the benefits of Alaska salmon to Alaskans, the traps padded the pockets of Outside owners.

Today, IFQs are doing much the same thing.

Of the top 20 companies that hold IFQ shares, as reported by Pacific Fishing magazine in 2002, 17 were based Outside. Nine of the top 10 quota holders were in Washington state. Of the second 10, three were based in Washington state, two in Fort Bragg, Calif., one in Newport, Ore., and one in Virgin, Utah.

All told, these 17 large Outside corporations held the rights to more halibut than the sport fishery catches, which ought to have everyone in this state outraged.

Why? Because the sport fishery maximizes the value of halibut to Alaskans.

The sport catch supports hundreds of mom-and-pop charters catering to both Alaskans and visiting halibut anglers -- and even greater numbers of small businesses providing everything from accommodations to fishing tackle to coffee.

Homer alone is home to approximately 70 charter-boat businesses, at least 30 bed-and-breakfast establishments and, in the summer, who knows how many latte stands.

All are dependent in part on tourist traffic through the Halibut Fishing Capital of the World, and the halibut capital is, obviously, dependent on halibut.

Every charter boat skipper you ask will tell you the same thing about a one-fish limit. It will devastate business. And for what?

To continue to pad the pockets of big, Outside corporations? Alaska is the only state that allows this to happen. It doesn't work this way elsewhere along the Pacific Coast.

In Washington, Oregon and California, the halibut harvest is divided nearly 50-50 between sport and commercial interests.

Only in Alaska do commercial fishermen own the fishery. A 50-50 split here would enable the sport fishery to grow for decades, but that isn't going to happen unless the state's new governor decides to call the commercial fishery interests on this one.

The commies have maneuvered themselves into a position like that of the old Soviet politburo, where they can grab up the riches for themselves while sticking it to the masses. That needs to come to an end.

Daily News Outdoor editor Craig Medred can be reached at cmedred@adn.com.

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