"Sablefish"

Pound for pound, sablefish is one of the highest valued finfish in Alaska’s commercial fisheries.

The Gulf of Alaska seamounts are a group of undersea mountains of volcanic origin rising from the ocean floor at depths of 3,200–4,000 m to within 400–800 m of the surface.

Sablefish movements reveal behavioral patterns.

The National Standard Guidelines for Fishery Management Plans published by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) require that a stock assessment and fishery evaluation (SAFE) report be prepared and reviewed annually for each fishery management plan (FMP). The SAFE reports are intended to summarize the best available scientific information concerning the past, present, and possible future condition of the stocks and fisheries under federal management. The FMPs for the groundfish fisheries managed by the Council require that drafts of the SAFE reports be produced each year in time for the December North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) meetings.

The Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) report summarizes the best available scientific information concerning the past, present, and possible future condition of the stocks, marine ecosystems, and fisheries that are managed under Federal regulation. It provides information to the Councils for determining annual harvest levels from each stock, documenting significant trends or changes in the resource, marine ecosystems, and fishery over time, and assessing the relative success of existing state and Federal fishery management programs. For the FMP for the Groundfish Fishery of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) Area, the SAFE report is published in three sections: a “Stock Assessment” section, which comprises the bulk of this document, and “Economic Status of Groundfish Fisheries off Alaska” (i.e., the “Economic SAFE report”) and “Ecosystem Considerations” sections, which are bound separately.

Population health may lead to increased economic opportunity for the fishing industry.

Sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) are a commercially important fish species in the northeast Pacific Ocean. Found along the upper continental slope, in Alaska they are caught primarily by longlines. Catches in the Alaskan EEZ have averaged 15,000 mt in recent years with an annual value of about $100 million.

Sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) inhabit the northeastern Pacific Ocean from northern Mexico to the Gulf of Alaska (GOA), westward to the Aleutian Islands (AI), and into the Bering Sea (BS) (Wolotira et al. 1993). Adult sablefish occur along the continental slope, shelf gullies, and in deep fjords, generally at depths greater than 200 m. Sablefish observed from a manned submersible were found on or within 1 m of the bottom (Krieger 1997). In contrast to the adult distribution, juvenile sablefish spend their first two to three years on the continental shelf of the GOA, and occasionally on the shelf of the southeast BS. The BS shelf is utilized significantly in some years and seldom used during other years (Shotwell et al. 2014). 

New data included in the assessment model were relative abundance and length data from the 2016 longline survey, relative abundance and length data from the 2015 longline fishery, length data from the 2015 trawl fisheries, age data from the 2015 longline survey and 2015 fixed gear fishery, updated catch for 2015, and projected 2016 -2018 catches.

Fishing industry helps orchestrate donation of surveyed fish to local food bank.