February 2025 NPFMC toolkit
What is the North Pacific Fishery Management Council?
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional councils established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976 to manage fisheries in the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone, 3 miles off the coast of Alaska.
The intent of Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) is to prevent overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks, increase long-term economic and social benefits of fisheries, and ensure a safe and sustainable seafood supply.
The council manages:
trawling, longline, jig, pot and dredge fishermen;
catcher vessels and catcher-processors in the industry
and groundfish, Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands crab, scallops, salmon bycatch, and halibut.
The council has been outlined by the MSA to:
Set harvest quotas
Set prohibited species catch limits
Set gear/season area restrictions
Design ecosystem and habitat protections
Develop community protections
Construct monitoring programs
Create limited entry access privileges
The council ultimately makes recommendations to the secretary of commerce to approve fishery management plans and is required to balance conservation, economic, and social concerns for managing sustainable fisheries to the greatest benefit for the nation. And they need to hear from you in order to make informed decisions on how decisions impact Tribal governments and citizens in Alaska.
What are they talking about at this meeting?
This is a unique meeting in which the council is only taking up 2 agenda items: a second review of the chum salmon bycatch analysis and appendices (the Council last reviewed this analysis in April 2024), and 2025 harvest specifications for Cook Inlet salmon. The council would normally have other issues they would take up, but since they are dropping down their number of meetings per year, this is what is left over. Additionally the council recognizes the hundreds of comments that come in on salmon bycatch issues and is dedicating more time to the issue.
What is chum bycatch?
Bycatch as referred to in this meeting, is the large scale industrial trawl fleets discard or waste when they are fishing for other species, mostly pollock. In fishing for pollock and other whitefish, they often catch other species that they aren’t allowed to: salmon, halibut, orcas. However, right now, the council is considering the impacts on chum salmon. Currently there is no cap on the number of chum the industry is allowed to bycatch.
What are the numbers?
In 2024 Bering Sea & Gulf of Alaska Trawlers bycaught and largely discarded
38,751 Chinook salmon
48,643 chum salmon
4.5 million pounds of halibut
3 million pounds of herring
950,680 individual crabs
1 orca
Where are we in the process of addressing chum salmon bycatch?
The council is looking at the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) which is part of the National Environmental Policy Act (link and more information below). Below is a quick excerpt on the process, essentially, this is one of the long and many steps for change.
How can I take action on this?
Sign onto our letter here: https://salmonstate.org/bycatch
How to provide your own written comments:
Visit: The NPFMC Meeting Page.
Scroll until you see the box pictured below:
then click “agenda” on either the AP, Council, or the SSC. The AP and the SSC have the same agenda and written comments submitted go to both. The SSC is separate, but you can also submit information there.
Scroll down to Agenda item C2, as pictured below, and click “comment now”:
and fill in the information in the box that pops up, as pictured below. You can also submit pictures and other files with your written comments, to tell more of a story. We highly encourage personal stories and images to showcase how much salmon means to you. The deadline for submitting written comments is January 31st at noon.
Sign up for oral testimony:
Visit: The NPFMC Meeting Page.
Scroll until you see the box pictured below:
Click testimony sign up and fill in the information as pictured below.
You can sign up for the SSC, AP, and the Council. The oral testimony portion will open when each portion of the meeting does (you can sign up for the full council starting on the 6th, the AP the 4th, the SSC the 3rd). Testimony closes right after staff finish presentations on the topic, you can gauge time based on the agenda here: https://www.npfmc.org/wp-content/PDFdocuments/meetings/SCHEDULE_0225.pdf
Tips for oral testimony
When you sign up, you will not be given a time slot for when you are going to testify. It is recommended that you listen online to gauge when public testimony will be taken on the agenda item. The AP will keep public testimony open through Thursday morning, however the AP will begin to take public testimony as soon as the staff presentation ends (likely Wednesday). The full council will . You can also view the testimony sign-ups once the public testimony session is closed to help guesstimate when your timeslot will pop up - a rule of thumb is 10 minutes per person with breaks every so often and a lunch break to help narrow down the times.
When the council is done discussing the agenda item, they will close the sign-ups for that agenda item, it is recommended that you sign up as soon as possible. If you have any questions, you can email npfmc.admin@noaa.gov with any questions and they will get answered quickly. You can also email them with any timing concerns if you may have a conflict arise once public testimony starts.
How much time are individuals given to speak?
Individuals have 3 minutes to speak and organizations have 6 minutes. The council members may also ask questions and you can speak longer to respond, but you do not have to answer and you can select the box that you do not want to take questions.
Can I get high-level talking points?
Management of the Bering Sea Pollock fishery disproportionately favors large, industrial-scale trawl fisheries status quo over the coastal and Indigenous communities, whose livelihoods depend upon fish and their fisheries.
For years, the Council has been aware of the Chinook and chum salmon declines and high bycatch numbers by the pollock fishery. With recent steep declines in Western Alaska Chinook and chum salmon returning runs, the Council must act now to set a meaningful cap on chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery.
Meaningful management measures must be taken to address the Chum salmon bycatch continues to rise as the trawl fishery is permitted to maintain their status quo, while Western Alaskan communities must forego multiple fishing seasons due to the declining runs to their natal waters. This inequity must be addressed by the Council to aid in the recovery of fisheries populations important to coastal and upriver communities.
A PSC hard cap for chum should be set at a level that is reflective of the status of the ecosystem, chum salmon populations, and the conservation measures undertaken by those that depend upon chum, and not on the historical catch of the pollock fishery.
The selected preferred alternative should include a hard cap on chum salmon bycatch that is set at a level which reflects chum population health and access to subsistence fishing by coastal and upriver communities.
A PSC cap of 100,000-550,000 chums in a pollock season is not adequate to address the declines in chum salmon abundance, and the closure of subsistence fisheries. A much lower cap must be selected to aid in the recovery of Western Alaska chum salmon populations.
Traditional knowledge and the interests and requests of the the people most impacted by the chum salmon declines should be paramount in further development of alternatives, analysis of alternatives and management actions, and in ultimately deciding the final agency action and the preferred alternative.
Though many factors impact stock abundance, bycatch reduction in the trawl fishery is one of the most immediate precautionary actions fishery managers can take.
The best available science illuminates the declines in runs of Chinook and chum salmon; in the preferred alternative and the agency final action, the Council should impose conservation measures on the trawl fishery, including setting a meaningful chum salmon PSC cap, time and area closures to protect migration corridors, and other measures that reflect the health and abundance of Western Alaska chum salmon.
Can I get help navigating the council website for submitting comments and signing up for oral testimony:
What documents are the council looking at?
Where we are now
The council at this meeting will consider “alternatives” for addressing chum salmon bycatch. This is following action in April 2023 where they developed a “purpose and need statement” that aimed to “develop actions to minimize bycatch of Western Alaska origin chum salmon in the Eastern Bering Sea pollock fishery consistent with the MagnusonStevens Act, National Standards, and other applicable law”
What are the alternatives?
Alternative 1 - Status quo - no cap
Alternative 2 - a prohibited species catch (PSC) limit of between 100,000 and 500,000 chum salmon
Alternative 3 - A PSC limit of between 75,000 and 550,000 in effect during lower chum salmon abundance. The indices: three river or yukon river summer and fall chum salmon or threshold amounts for abundance
Alternative 4 - adding bycatch reduction requirements - also called incentive plans agreements (IPAs)
Alternative 5 - temporary area closure triggered by area limits
More information on the Chum EIS
The full documents for the Chum EIS are here with summary excerpts taken out, be advised the full documents for each are over 300 pages, each:
C2 Bering Sea Chum Salmon Bycatch Management
C2 Appendices to Bering Sea Chum Analysis
Acronyms frequently used list: https://www.npfmc.org/library/acronyms/
Can I learn more about the NPFMC?
What is the AP, SSC, and Council? Who are they?
The full North Pacific Fishery Management Council is responsible for making final decisions on voting issues related to fisheries in this management zone in Alaska. There are 15 council members - 11 voting and 4 non-voting. You can read more about the members here.
The Advisory Panel (AP) is made up of members that represent major fishery sectors in Alaska. The body is responsible for making recommendations to the full North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council). You can read more about the AP members and their backgrounds here.
The Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) is responsible for providing recommendations to the full council with technical and scientific matters. The committee is composed of leading scientists in biology, economics, statistics, and social science. You can read more about them here.