Incorporating climate science into Bering Sea fishery management

By Megan Alvanna Stimpfle

The status of Norton Sound Red King Crab, improving outreach to Alaska Native communities, and the creation of an Ecosystem Health Report Card for the Bering Sea shaped the agenda for the 253rd meeting of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council. The Council, NPFMC for short, process kicked off with the Advisory Panel and the Science and Statistical Committee on February 1, 2021.

Norton Sound Crab harvest levels & scientific modeling

The population of Norton Sound Red King Crab crashed in 2020, resulting in the summer closure of the fishery. Whether or not the fishery will rebound in 2021 remains a top concern. Charlie Lean, Chairman of the Northern Norton Sound Fish and Game Advisory Committee, urged the crab fishery remain closed for another year in order for the recovery of legal-size crab.

“We’re in crisis,” he said. “We’re in rebuilding mode.”

The Council on Feb. 10 adopted the Science and Statistical Committee’s recommendation to set the overfishing limit, OFL for short, at 0.63 million pounds and an acceptable biological catch, or ABC, of 0.38 million pounds for Norton Sound Red King Crab. The Crab Plan Team of the Council met in mid-January to discuss the availability of data of the crab stock and what scientific model to utilize in setting catch limits for 2021.

The Crab Plan Team adopted the use of a harvest model, known as “Model 19” by Toshihide Hamazaki for setting abundance and harvest limits. The Crab Plan Team made requests of Hamazaki, a biometrician with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, to revisit the assumptions for growth of the population, as the growth of the stock is consistently over- estimated in the assessment and establishing an over-fishing limit based on total catch (retained and discarded crab) that will produce higher exploitation rates to more accurately estimate the population of Norton Sound Red King Crab.

On the use of Model 19, Lean highlighted further worries. “We are very concerned because management seems totally dependent on this model for the Norton Sound fishery. It’s a bit of an unfair burden in that the model seems to drive all the decisions and there is very little input otherwise.” Lean clarified for the Council that use of the model for decision making is not aligned with

Alaska Department of Fish and Game policies on King and Tanner crab management, and furthermore said that “there seems to be a disconnect between the biometrics and the biology.”

Karla Bush, Federal Fisheries Coordinator at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, clarified the roles and responsibilities of federal and state management. “The Council’s crab fishery management plan outlines the responsibilities for both the Council and the state for managing the crab fishery whereby the Council sets the status determination criteria, the OFL and ABC, and then delegates to the state setting the guideline harvest level and/or closing the fishery.”

Council member John Jensen recommended the Northern Norton Sound Fish and Game Advisory Committee make a request to the Alaska Board of Fish for an emergency meeting to close the fishery for 2021.

In 2017, the ex-vessel value of red king crab to fishermen totaled roughly $3 million in the Norton Sound region, dropping to $2 million in 2018, and $500,000 in 2019 according to ex-vessel values provided by the Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation.

Improving engagement with Alaska Native communities

Tribes in Alaska have long sought a tribal seat on the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council. On Feb. 8, the NPFMC took action to improve its engagement with rural communities by adopting a motion to establish Alaska Native cultural awareness training for Council members and Council staff, and “assign Council staff to serve as a point of contact for rural communities and tribes to navigate the Council process”, according to the motion made by Council member Nicole Kimball. The motion was built from a Community Engagement Committee report by Steve MacLean, Council staff. Council member Bill Tweit took issue with the recommendation on the establishment of a tribal liaison and recommended that rather than having one tribal liaison, that every staff member be able to fill that role.

The motion directs the Community Engagement Committee to solicit nine members of the public to serve on the Committee representing “small rural fishing communities and/or the Alaska Native or Tribal entities associated with those communities in the Bering Sea/Aleutian

Islands and Gulf of Alaska.” Council staff will also be responsible for providing outreach to communities on Council actions and to “facilitate presentations from rural and/or Alaska Native communities or Tribal organizations to the Council-on-Council issues.”

The motion also urges the early coordination of tribal consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service in the NPFMC process, as well as how to incorporate traditional knowledge into the Council’s decision making processes.

Incorporating climate science into management

The Council heard updates for the Bering Sea Fishery Ecosystem Plan, a working plan by Council staff to incorporate ecosystem-based management for Bering Sea fisheries as well as associated research priorities. Diana Evans and Kerim Aydin, Council staff and co-chairs of the Bering Sea Fishery Ecosystem Plan Team, provided updates from two task forces established by the Council in June 2019, the Climate Change Task Force and the Local Knowledge, Traditional Knowledge and Subsistence Task Force.

The top research priorities, presented by Evans, support the development of necessary science to support ecosystem-based management and include data collection for local knowledge and traditional knowledge, developing predictive (climate change) tools to inform management options, and conduct an assessment of the Council’s Bering Sea management with respect to ecosystem-based fishery management.

“We have provided this to the SSC [Science and Statistical Committee], and we will see how the SSC pulls together the final list for April,”

Evans said.

Ecosystem Health Report Card

A team at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center is conducting a literature review in order to provide recommendations for hundreds of indicators to be included in an Ecosystem Health Report Card that will shed light on the impacts of a warming Bering Sea.

“The goal here is to pull strategic and long-term indicators of change into a new style or report.” said Aydin. “Our review of best practices of fishery ecosystem plans highlighted the fact that no FEPs in the past have really tracked the success of their ecosystem projects holistically and strategically.”

A warming Bering Sea

The Climate Change Task Force was established to gather climate research, evaluate climate resiliency of the fisheries, and provide relevant information to the Council. Diana Stram and Kristin Holsman serve as co-chairs of the Task Force and presented for the first time to the Council, a draft work plan.

“The goal of the climate change module is to facilitate the Council’s work towards climate-ready fisheries management that helps ensure both short- and long-term resilience for the Bering Sea,” Stram said.

Co-Chair Holsman said the impetus for this report is to monitor the trend of increasing ocean surface temperatures that are “indicative of larger scale ecosystem changes that are associated with climate driven changes both to the circulation, the temperature and the chemistry of our marine environment.” Holsman explained to the Council that the work of the Climate Change Task Force will help the Council understand future changes to the Bering Sea and allow for decision making in an era of relative uncertainty to help sustain the fishery, communities and coastal economies.

Many new management terms were introduced to Council members in the work plan, which creates “social-ecological” system considerations. Holsman said the term embodies a conceptual framework for the system, when considering climate impacts that the natural environment and societal impacts are tightly intertwined. As part of the Bering Sea Fishery Ecosystem Plan, the technical team will support the capacity of the Council to “incorporate climate change information, from various sources into the decisionmaking process” and “implement management measures that can help preserve livelihoods, economies and health” Holsman said.

The goals of the Local Knowledge, Traditional Knowledge and Subsistence Task Force are to incorporate traditional knowledge systems into Council decision making processes in ecosystem-based fishery management and incorporate subsistence information into decision-making. The task force will aim for a final recommendation to the Council by April 2023 for the adoption of protocols for engagement with traditional knowledge holders and the incorporation of traditional knowledge into analysis.

Kate Haapala, co-chair of the task force, said they are discussing a Norton Sound Red King Crab case study that will aim to “better understand how to include local and traditional knowledge into the council process” and will “ground truth protocols to incorporate local and traditional knowledge.”