Managers OK increase in Gulf of Alaska cod harvest after shutdown delayed analysis

A Pacific cod is seen swimming near the ocean floor in Alaska waters in this undated photo. A 2019 marine heatwave in the Gulf of Alaska was not as damaging to cod stocks as a more prolonged heatwave that ran from 2014 to 2016, scientists have concluded. (Photo provided by NOAA Fisheries)

By Yereth Rosen

Alaska Beacon

In a decision that was delayed by the prolonged federal government shutdown last fall, federal fishery regulators have increased this year’s allowable harvest of Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska.

The approximately 37.5% increase in total allowable catch was approved by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the panel that oversees commercial seafood harvests in federal waters off Alaska. The new limit approved by council members on Thursday totaled 30,053 metric tons across all three designated regions of the Gulf of Alaska, up from 21,826 metric tons tentatively approved in December.

Normally, the annual harvest limits for groundfish species like pollock and Pacific cod for both the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska are set at the council’s regular December meetings.

Fishery scientists lacked sufficient time to analyze data from summer surveys because of the record 43-day federal government shutdown that ended on Nov. 12, so the council then wound up using 2024 recommendations to set 2026 harvest limits.

But Gulf of Alaska Pacific cod was an exception. Though council members set status quo limits for that harvest in December, they agreed to revisit the issue at the February meeting, if more up-to-date data were presented. Preliminary information indicated increases in Gulf cod stocks, and council members pledged to consider increasing the allowable harvest if more complete information were available to warrant it.

That led to the council’s action on Thursday.

Gulf of Alaska cod stocks collapsed after the region was hit by a massive North Pacific marine heatwave that came to be known as “the Blob.” The yearslong heatwave, which emerged in 2014, caused a sharp decline in the Pacific cod population and triggered drastic cuts in allowable harvests; by 2020, Gulf of Alaska Pacific cod harvests were closed entirely.

But another heatwave that struck the Gulf in 2019, though severe, wound up having a less durable effect on Pacific cod, Pete Hulson, a research biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center, told the council.

Surveys indicate that Pacific cod rebounded after that heatwave, Hulson said.

“We had that high event in 2019, but the population seemed to recover from it, and it wasn’t as affected as it was after 2014, ‘15 and ’16,” he said. The longer-lasting Blob event appeared to be more damaging, he said. “It looks like they didn’t do well when you had multiple years stacked up against each other,” he said.

The action on Gulf of Alaska Pacific cod was completed before the council moved on to consideration of the meeting’s most hot-button issue: Interception of Western Alaska chum salmon by Bering Sea trawl vessels. The council was scheduled to take action at the meeting on a new system to limit that incidental catch, known as bycatch.

• Yereth Rosen came to Alaska in 1987 to work for the Anchorage Times. She has been reporting on Alaska news ever since, covering stories ranging from oil spills to sled-dog races. She has reported for Reuters, for the Alaska Dispatch News, for Arctic Today and for other organizations. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.