Pacific Cod Trawl Cooperative Program
The Pacific Cod Trawl Cooperative Program allocates harvest quota to qualifying groundfish License Limitation Program license holders and qualifying processors with a history of Pacific cod legal landings.
Pacific cod is one of the most abundant and valuable groundfish species harvested in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area (BSAI). Vessels harvest Pacific cod using trawl and non-trawl gear. Non-trawl gear includes hook-and-line, jig, and pot gear. Vessels harvesting BSAI Pacific cod operate as catcher vessels (CVs) that harvest and deliver the fish for processing or as catcher/processors (C/Ps) that harvest and process the catch on board.
The PCTC Program assigns quota share (QS) to qualifying groundfish License Limitation Program (LLP) license holders and qualifying processors with a history of Pacific cod legal landings in 2009 to 2019, with the additional years of 2004 through 2009 for LLP licenses with transferable AI endorsements.
Participation
QS holders are required to join a cooperative, and the aggregate QS of cooperative members and associated processors yields an exclusive harvest privilege for PCTC Program cooperatives, which NMFS will issue as cooperative quota (CQ) each year. Halibut and crab Prohibited Species Catch limits are also allocated annually based on the percentage of total BSAI Pacific cod CQ allocated to their cooperative.
Pacific cod trawl harvest is apportioned by seasons: January 20-April 1 (A season), April 1-June 10 (B season), and June 10-November 1 (C season). The PCTC Program allocates only A and B season trawl CV sector apportionments to cooperatives as CQ. The C season apportionment remains a limited access fishery open to all trawl CVs with LLP license endorsements to harvest Pacific cod in the BS and/or AI with trawl gear.
PCTC Participants are subject to certain sideboard limitations, which prevent holders of QS from expanding their fishing effort in GOA fisheries while still allowing cooperative members to catch up to the historical percentage of species they harvested in non-rationalized GOA groundfish fisheries.
Fishery Resources
- Applications and Forms
- Reports
- Federal Fisheries Permits (FFP)/Federal Processor Permits (FPP)
- License Limitation Program (LLP)
- Cooperatives, Quota and Licenses Issued
- Allocations and Sideboards: 2024 (CSV)
- Monitoring and Reporting
- Catch Weighing and Monitoring in Alaska
- Recordkeeping and Reporting
- Cost Recovery and Fee Programs
- Small Entity Compliance Guide
Regulations and Management Actions
- Information Bulletins
- Groundfish Harvest Specifications
- Amendment 122 to the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area (BSAI)
- 50 CFR Part 679 Subpart L: PCTC Program
- Regulations, Acts, Treaties, and Agreements
- Figures, Maps, Boundaries, Regulatory Areas, and Zones
- Analyses
Contact Information
For more information about the PCTC Program, contact the Alaska Regional Office’s, Restricted Access Management Division at (800) 304-4846 (option #2) or RAM.Alaska@noaa.gov.
More Information