IPHC REQUESTS TAGGED HALIBUT RECOVERIES IN 1995

The International Pacific Halibut Commission is continuing in 1995 a third year of tagging halibut to improve estimates of halibut bycatch discard mortality rates, and wishes to remind fishermen to retain and return tags. Tagged halibut of any size may be retained from any gear, although undersized halibut may not be sold. Most of the tagged halibut are smaller than the minimum commercial size (32 inches fork length), so fishermen and observers are encouraged to seek out these fish.

The Commission requests the following information from each tagged fish: Date of capture, location of capture (lat. and long., loran, or GPS preferred), depth of capture, vessel name, skipper name, length of halibut, and the otolith (earbone) from the white side. The Halibut Commission has personnel in many Alaskan and Canadian ports who will redeem each tag for a halibut tag reward hat or $5.00. However, if staff are unavailable, fishermen should remove the tag, record whatever information is available, and forward it to the Commission directly or through offices of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game or the National Marine Fisheries Service .

Over 20,000 tags have been or will be released within 50 miles of the town of Kodiak, although these halibut may have dispersed over a larger area. Tagging in 1993 and 1994 occurred aboard the longliner Rebecca B, and was designed to evaluate the survival of halibut released by longliners using the prescribed careful release techniques of careful shaking, gangion cutting, and hook straightening. Tagging survival studies in 1995, scheduled for late April and May aboard the trawler Forum Star, will be supplemented by halibut held in sea-bed cages.

The last tagging studies to estimate discard mortality rates for trawlers were conducted in the early 1970s in Canadian waters, and no discard mortality rate studies have been done for longliners. Fishermen from both gear types have asked the Commission to conduct discard mortality studies for Alaskan waters. The more tags that are returned over the course of the study will improve the quality of the results. The Commission strongly encourages fishermen, observers, and plant personnel to watch for and retain all tagged halibut, and to return the tags with as much information as possible to the Commission.

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