In March 2016, the Council recommended that trawl gear regulations be updated to reflect the individual accountability provided by the trawl catch share program. Specifically, the Council recommended: allowing vessels to carry and use multiple trawl gears types on a single trip (fish caught using different gears must be stowed separately) eliminating minimum mesh size […]
In September 2018, the Council initiated a review of the Council’s Pacific Coast Fishery Ecosystem Plan. In March 2020 the Council took final action to adopt revised FEP Chapters 1 & 2 based on the public review draft with revisions recommended by its advisory bodies and the public. In March 2021 the EWG provided revised […]
In March 2017, the Council was presented with proposed changes to the HMS FMP as Amendment 4. These proposed changes originated from a 2016 recommendation from the HMS Management Team (HMSMT) for housekeeping changes that would revise dated and inaccurate text. At its June 2017 meeting the Council adopted for public review proposed these changes to […]
Based on issues identified in its first review of the trawl catch share program (review of Amendment 20 to the FMP), the Council undertook a number of follow-on actions (see Section 5.0 of the review document, completed in November 2017). One of these issues was related to gear switching in the shoreside individual fishing quoa […]
CPS Amendment 16 adds a description to the CPS FMP of a very small sector of the CPS fishery that is not part of the primary commercial directed fishery and harvests minor amounts of CPS finfish. The intent of Amendment 16 is to allow this sector to continue targeting CPS finfish after a directed fishery […]
In September 2016, the Council changed management of the at-sea whiting sector allocations of darkblotched rockfish and Pacific ocean perch to set-asides, while maintaining the allocation formulas in the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan for these two stocks to determine the set-aside amounts. Amendment 21-3 was included as part of this action. The final rule was published […]
In March 2017 the Council took final action to adopt Amendment 5 to the Fishery Management Plan for West U.S. Coast Fisheries for Highly Migratory Species (HMS FMP). This amendment would create a Federal limited entry permit for the California large mesh drift gillnet (DGN) fishery. Upon publication of NMFS’s final rule to establish the […]
Under Amendment 20, overfished species such as widow rockfish were allocated to permit holders based on the quota share allocation of the target species with which the overfished species are incidentally caught. Amendment 20 states that for overfished species, the quota share allocations may be reconsidered when the species is rebuilt. Widow rockfish is now […]
Date: September 15, 2017 Federal Register summary: “This advance notice provides information on a request by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) to establish a control date of September 15, 2017, for the Pacific Coast groundfish fishery. The Council may use the control date to limit the extent, location, or ability to use non-trawl gear […]
Date: June 13, 2017 Federal Register summary: “This advance notice of proposed rulemaking provides information on a request by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) to announce deliberations of potential accumulation limits for Catcher Processor Permit use or ownership in the Pacific Coast groundfish fishery. The Council may not count any acquisition and usage of […]