The halibut fishery of the North Pacific — long touted as a model for wise fisheries management and the goodness of privatizing commercial fisheries — is now in such dire straits regulators were Wednesday talking about the possible need to cut harvests to levels not seen since the 1930s.
The problem? Adult flatfish are disappearing from the population at unexplainable rates, the International Pacific Halibut Commission was told Wednesday at a meeting in Seattle.
Adult fish comprise what the scientists who work for the commission call the "exploitable biomass." These are the halibut capable of breeding and reproducing.
These are also the fish targeted by commercial fishermen.
"Seventy percent of the total commercial catch is female," commission lead biologist Steven Hare said. The most common halibut caught by commercial longliners, according to commission studies, are 12-year-old females. Those fish comprise more than 15 percent of the entire commercial catch. If life has gone well for such halibut, and they've grown fast enough, they'll likely get to spawn once before they're killed. Commission studies indicate about 50 percent of females reach sexual maturity by age 12.
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