According to Alaska media reports, the International Pacific Halibut Commission, meeting in Anchorage, has confirmed an over all cut in Pacific halibut harvest quota of 18 per cent, or 7.5 million pounds for 2012.
KMXT, an NPR station in Kodiak, Alaska reports
Area 3A, the Gulf of Alaska will experience a 17-percent reduction from last year. That results in a 11.9-million pound catch limit, down 2.4-million pounds.
Area 3B along the Alaska Peninsula southwest of Kodiak Island, the reduction is the same 2.4-million pounds, but the percentage reduction is 32 percent, down to just over 5-million pounds. In Area 4A, the eastern Aleutians, the cut is 35 percent.
The only areas that did not get reductions were off the Washington coast in Area 2A, which will get a 9-percent increase, and Area 2C in Southeast Alaska, which will get a 13 percent bump, up almost 300,000 pounds.
There are no figures in the Alaska reports for British Columbia and no news on the International Pacific Halibut Commission website.
More to come
Related: Recreational halibut quota buy-in program had “limited success:” DFO report to IPHC