Unalaska, AK – The National Marine Fisheries Service has released its draft assessment of the eastern Bering Sea walleye pollock stock. Abundance of the fish has increased, with the acceptable biological catch being placed at approximately 1.3 million metric tons.
The acceptable biological catch and the total allowable catch that can be harvested by fishermen are often one and the same: Last year, both were set at 813,000 tons. Jim Ianelli is a research biologist with NMFS, and he headed the work on the draft assessment.

"Things are looking better than we saw last year. We saw record numbers of two-year-olds in one survey, and a very large number of four-year-olds in another survey," says Ianelli. "And when those two year classes move into the population, things should be back above the target stock size that we want to have for a stable fishery."

The projected allowable catch for 2012 is 1.6 million tons, or double the allowable biological catch for 2010. Last year, the projected allowable biological catch for 2011 was about 1.1 million tons.

The total allowable catch for 2011 will be set at next month's meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in Anchorage.