The commercial quotas of halibut are going to be lower this year, probably by 27 percent, in the southeast of USA. It is expected that the International Pacific Halibut Commission is going to recommend the commercial limit of halibut harvesting at 6.21 million pounds for 2008, plunged from 8.51 million pounds in 2007.
According to the commission the harvest limits will be affected in Alaska and along the west coasts of the United States and Canada. The limitation based largely on changes that came into being in stock assessment methods that accounts the eastward migration pattern of halibut from the western Gulf of Alaska through Southeast Alaska and west coasts of Canada and the USA.
The commission informed that a slash in Southeast Alaska’s overall harvest is gong to affect the region’s charter fishing fleet in 2008 because the National Marine Fisheries Service has regularized the limitation.
Now the commission is proposing rules to minimize the charter harvest of halibut that could cut charter anglers’catch limits from two to one halibut each day. Even the limits of individual charter client anglers also came down to an annual harvest of four halibut per angler.
