Researchers and fishery managers in the Bering Sea who teamed up over the summer to test new methods in the trawl surveys used to determine opilio crab numbers seem to have discovered that previous methods have been significantly under-counting the crab population.

Last July, the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, a division of NOAA Fisheries, collaborated with the Bering Sea Fisheries Research Foundation to conduct a cooperative trawl experiment in the eastern Bering Sea to estimate the catching efficiency, or how many crab in the trawl path are actually captured, of the standard National Marine Fisheries Service survey trawl for opilio, or snow crab.

The experiment used three different trawls: the standard NMFS survey trawl, a NMFS survey trawl modified to be more efficient and a BSFRF trawl designed for the European Norway lobster fishery. The BSFRF trawl was much more efficient than the other two, with researchers using it as a control assuming 100 percent capture to determine the efficiency of the survey trawl.

According to the AFSC report, "preliminary results show that more escapement of snow crab under the footrope of the ... survey trawl occurs than previously estimated. Specifically, only 35 percent of the large males, 27 percent of the pre-recruit males, 13 percent of the small males, 25 percent of the large females, and just 3 percent of the small female snow crab in the path of the survey trawl are captured."

As trawl surveys are one of the main methods used to determine crab populations and therefore catch limits, it remains to be seen what effect this report may have on quotas, but it seems to indicate that there are more snow crab in the eastern Bering Sea than fishery managers had previously thought.

As the Obama administration and NOAA Fisheries press forward with catch shares as a method of solving over-fishing in U.S. fisheries, at least one researcher is saying they won't inevitably improve fishery health.

University of Washington researcher Dr. Tim Essington released a study showing that while catch shares do result in more consistent and predictable fisheries, they do not necessarily improve ecological conditions.

"Many proponents of catch share programs presume that they improve the health of fisheries, but our research indicates a much different expectation: They work very well to avoid erratic swings. They generally do not lead to more fish to catch," Essington said.

Essington studied 15 catch share programs in the United States and Canada and looked at a range of measurements for each fishery, including population status, catch landings and fishing rate. He compared fisheries with catch shares to fisheries without them and also evaluated fisheries before and after the implementation of a catch share program. The research analyzed both the average value and the year-to-year variability of the measurements.

Essington cited the stewardship incentive as one reason that catch shares are thought to be a path to resource conservation: If someone has an individual stake in a fishery, they'll do more to ensure the health of the fishery. Studies that support that theory generally only looked at landings.

Essington said he tried to use as many ecologically relevant indicators as he could find data on, including habitat-destroying efforts used in fisheries, whether quotas were exceeded and wasteful discarding of non-target species. He also looked at whether catch shares changed the production capacity of the fisheries.

"Because of this breadth, this is one of the more comprehensive analysis to date, because we looked at a variety of different indicators instead of just a single one," he said.

"Over all the indicators we looked at, there was no change in the average levels following catch share implementation," he added, something he said came as a surprise.

The study concludes that the primary benefit of catch shares in the 15 North American fisheries he looked at was to make the fisheries more stable and more consistent from year to year, and that catch shares did not lead to widespread improvement in the ecological status.

The conclusion that catch share programs do not necessarily lead to more fish to catch is supported by the Alaska halibut fishery, which is anticipating a seventh year of reduced quotas after 15 years of the IFQ program.

Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands may soon receive the "sustainable fishery" eco-label from the London-based Marine Stewardship Council.

The MSC label is considered the industry gold standard for determining which fisheries are sustainable for eco-minded consumers.

The cod fishery has gone through the 30-day comment period, and the certification body, Moody Marine Ltd., has recommended that the fishery be awarded the label.

It now goes through a 15-working-day period in which parties may lodge a statement of intent to object.

Carrying the MSC sustainable fisheries label is a boon to marketing the product. A recent study by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute shows that 76 percent of consumers care if the seafood they buy is sustainable. That same percentage prefers wild, ocean-caught fish.

Cristy Fry has commercial fished in Homer since 1978. She also designs and builds gear for the industry. She currently longlines for halibut and gillnets salmon in upper Cook Inlet aboard the F/V Realist. She can be reached at realist468@gmail.com.