1999 

 NATIONAL OVERVIEW 



through Canadian waters, and some sockeye and pink sahnon originating in Canada's Fraser 

 River are caught by U.S. fishermen while transiting U.S. watets. The ever contentious 

 allocation of expected catches h'om stocks originating from each country to fishermen of 

 both nations is handled by the U.S. -Canada Pacific Salmon Commission. Some U.S. pol- 

 lock from the Eastern Bering Sea migrate into the Russian zone in the northwestern Bering 

 Sea where they are subject to exploitation by Russian fisheries. While there is scientific 

 exchange on this issue between Russia and the United States, a joint management scheme 

 has not yet been formulated. 



Other stocks migrate over international borders through larval drift. Caribbean spiny 

 lobsters, distributed from Brazil to Bermuda, produce larvae that can live from 4 to 9 

 months in the plankton, thus having the potential to move long distances. As yet, there is 

 no international mechanism for the routine analysis and compilation of data that would 

 facilitate Caribbean-wide management schemes for lobsters. A similar situation results in 

 the need for international plans to manage pelagic armorhead fisheries off seamounts in the 

 Western Pacific Region. 



Bycatch 



Bycatch, the incidental take of nontarget species or sizes in fishing opetations, is a 

 worldwide problem that results in 17,900,000-39,500,000 t of the world's commercial 

 fish catch being discarded (Alverson et al., 1994). Bycatch not only creates waste but also 

 makes it nearly impossible to meet management objectives simultaneously for the mix of 

 species caught and, in many cases, bycatch results in the overutilization of stocks. 



Bycatch is a ubiquitous problem, as can be appreciated from many units in Part 2 of 

 this report. In all regions, bycatch results in overutilization or underutilization of resources, 

 conflicts of allocation between competing user groups, or unwanted interactions with pro- 

 tected resources like marine mammals, birds, and sea turtles. Groundfish fisheries have 

 notoriously visible bycatch problems. The fisheries, whethet conducted with trawl gear, 

 longlines, or pot gear, catch and discard large volumes of animals that are of the wrong size, 

 wrong species, wrong maturity stage, or are otherwise unwanted. For instance, as much as 

 60-80% of the rock sole caught in tecent years in the Eastern Bering Sea were discarded 

 because they are not the valuable roe-bearing female fish. Several Alaska groundfish stocks 

 arc underutilized because their fisheries also catch other depleted stocks or stocks that are 



