Fisheries

Commerce Needs to Improve Fisheries Management in the North Pacific Gao ID: RCED-91-96 March 28, 1991

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed: (1) federal management of the groundfish fishery in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska; (2) systems for calculating domestic processing capability; and (3) systems for releasing surplus allocations to joint-venture fishermen.

GAO found that: (1) the North Pacific Fishery Management Council's recommended 2-million metric ton cap for groundfish in the Bering Sea was conservative, based on the National Marine Fisheries Service's (NMFS) 1984 estimate; (2) the Council maintained the conservative cap to Americanize the fishery, protect markets for groundfish, and sustain the ecological balance; (3) domestic processors provided NMFS with preseason estimates which were 43 percent higher than actual use, and NMFS believed that estimates were inflated primarily to limit or eliminate allocations to joint-venture and foreign fishermen; (4) the system for allocating groundfish often gave domestic processors larger initial allocations than they needed and reduced the allocations to joint-venture and foreign fishermen; and (5) joint-venture and foreign fishing in the North Pacific fishery was eliminated when all allocations of groundfish in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea went to domestic processors in 1990 and 1991.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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