Keeping tabs on how many and what kinds of fish are coming over the rails is a key tool in Alaska’s highly successful fishery management programs. For nearly four decades, that has been the job of fishery observers who track everything that is hauled aboard trawlers, crabbers and most other fishing vessels 50 feet and up.
Starting this year and for the first time ever, observers were placed aboard smaller boats as well as Alaska’s hook and line fleet to start getting information about “removals” in that gear group’s fisheries.
The primary finding after eight months can be summed up as: “substa...
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