FishWatch

Harvesting Atlantic Pollock

Atlantic pollock share the same habitat as several other groundfish species in the Northeast. These groundfish are often caught together in the Northeast Multispecies Fishery. Commercial fishermen harvest pollock year-round, primarily with otter trawls and gillnets.

Otter trawls can impact habitat, depending on where they are used. Regulations close key areas to fishing year-round or seasonally to protect habitat and spawning fish. There are also restrictions on the size of fishing gear in certain areas to reduce habitat impacts. Regulations specify a minimum size for the mesh on trawl nets. The current minimum size limit is the largest in the history of the Northeast groundfish fishery. The larger mesh nets catch fewer small fish, and this directly reduces bycatch. There is also a cap on the amount of bycatch that fishing vessels can take.

In New England, gillnets can unintentionally catch marine mammals, especially harbor porpoises and large cetaceans (whales and dolphins). A number of management measures are in place to prevent bycatch in this fishery, including Take Reduction Plans for the harbor porpoise, the Atlantic right whale, and the bottlenose dolphin. Such measures include closed areas, pinger requirements (devices that emit a sound to deter interactions with gear), weak links (breakable sections on gear that prevent entanglement), and gear marking requirements.

Management

Who’s in charge? NOAA Fisheries and the New England Fishery Management Council.

Current management: Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan.
Atlantic pollock are managed as part of the Northeast Multispecies group, a complex of several groundfish species. Management measures include:

• Permitting requirements.
• Time/area closures to control the amount of fishing and harvested fish and to protect spawning fish and habitat.
• Gear restrictions to reduce bycatch (including fish and marine mammals), reduce impacts to habitat, and prevent undersized (immature) fish from being caught.
• Minimum size limits to ensure that fish are able to spawn at least once before being caught.
• Limits on the amount of days vessels can spend fishing and the amount they can catch per fishing trip. This measure is in place to control the amount of fish that may be caught and achieve long-term sustainable catch and population levels.

Managers implemented new measures for the Northeast groundfish fishery in 2010 to end overfishing of and continue to rebuild overfished Northeast groundfish stocks (and maintain healthy ones). These measures include:

• A limit on the amount of all groundfish that can be caught, as well as measures to respond if the catch limits are exceeded.
• Optional catch share program—fishing vessels may fish together in groups (called sectors), which are established annually and are allocated a portion of the total available groundfish catch, based on the combined fishing history of sector member vessels. Sectors are exempt from many gear and area restrictions but must stop fishing for groundfish once the sector catches their allocation of fish. This allows fishermen more control over where and how they fish and the ability to target healthier stocks rather than overfished stocks. Fishermen who choose not to join a sector fish under the existing system of regulations, with limits on the number of days they can fish, amount they can catch, and when and where they can fish.

Representatives from each state are seated on the New England Fishery Management Council, and state regulations generally reflect those developed by the Council. The vast majority of pollock landings come from federal (offshore) rather than state waters. Currently, only about 5 percent of annual quotas (about 1.6 million pounds) are set aside for catch of pollock in state waters.

Annual Harvest

Annual harvests have generally increased since the mid-1990s, ranging between 10 and 20 million pounds since 1998. The 2010 commercial harvest of Atlantic pollock totaled more than 11.4 million pounds—a decrease of nearly 5.1 million pounds (about 31 percent) compared with 2009. This substantial decrease in landings in 2010 is likely to have been influenced by artificially low initial quotas at the beginning of the fishing year (nearly 7 million pounds) that restricted fishing effort before they were substantially increased to over 36 million pounds in July 2010 following an updated stock assessment.

Economy

The commercial harvest was valued at $9.5 million in 2010. While the 2010 harvest dropped nearly 31 percent in volume, value remained relatively high, only declining by 5 percent compared with 2009, signaling that fishermen are earning more money for their catch. Historically, pollock has been a relatively low-value fish, with annual average price never exceeding $1 per pound from 1996 to 2010.

Recreational

There is a small recreational fishery for pollock. Recreational catch accounts for only about 10 percent of overall catch in recent years. Recreational catch peaked at nearly 4 million pounds in 2008, up from a low of approximately 220,000 pounds in 1993. There are currently no regulations governing the amount of pollock that can be caught by recreational vessels, although anglers must still comply with the minimum fish size of 19 inches total length. Regulations allow for a specific allocation of the yearly pollock quota to the recreational fishery if recreational catch in federal waters exceeds 5 percent of overall catch.