A one-day workshop on determining and incorporating the impacts of halibut bycatch mortality in non-target fisheries and mortality of sublegal fish in halibut fisheries in the assessment and management of halibut stocks was held in Seattle, WA on Tuesday, September 29, 2009. Among the topics covered at the workshop were:

IPHC Bycatch Workshop Background Material

Presentations (Preliminary)

Bycatch Workshop Outline (pdf) - Bruce M. Leaman

Bycatch History and Status (pdf) - Gregg H. Williams

Accounting for Bycatch Impacts (pdf) - Steven R. Hare, Juan L. Valero, Ray A. Webster, Gregg H. Williams, Bruce M. Leaman, IPHC staff

Effect of Migration on Impacts (pdf) - Juan L. Valero, Steven R. Hare

Bycatch Policy Matters (pdf) - revised 11/23/09 - Bruce M. Leaman, Gregg H. Williams

The International Pacific Halibut Commission adopted a coastwide stock assessment methodology at its 2008 Annual Meeting. This methodology accommodates movement of halibut at all ages and determines a single coastwide estimate of exploitable biomass. This single coastwide estimate is then apportioned into IPHC regulatory area estimates using data from the fishery-independent IPHC setline stock assessment survey and estimates of bottom area from each regulatory area. This apportionment resulted in a different distribution of the exploitable biomass than had been estimated with the previous closed-area stock assessments.