The IPHC Annual meeting ended this morning with the announcement of Catch Limits and regulatory actions

For comparison purposes, the adopted commercial fishery catch limit adopted for 2008 for 2C was 3.57 and 3A was 7.35
The IPHC Commissioners also adopted as FISHERY LIMITS the following statements:
a. A coastwide target SPR of 47{011364765f66369e3b18bfb4bff139a9c8654494d05ca41b290c33562211a86b} for 2019
b. a share based allocation for IPHC Regulatory Area 2B. The share will be defined based on a weighted average that assigns 30{011364765f66369e3b18bfb4bff139a9c8654494d05ca41b290c33562211a86b} weight to the current management procedures;s target TCEY distribution and 70{011364765f66369e3b18bfb4bff139a9c8654494d05ca41b290c33562211a86b} on 2B’s recent historical average share of 20{011364765f66369e3b18bfb4bff139a9c8654494d05ca41b290c33562211a86b}. This formula for defining 2B’s annual allocation will apply for a period of 2019 to 2022. For 2019, this equates to a share of 17.7{011364765f66369e3b18bfb4bff139a9c8654494d05ca41b290c33562211a86b}; and
c. a fixed TCEY for IPHC Regulatory Area 2A of 1.65 mlb for a period from 2019-2022, subject to any substantive conservation concerns
The SEASON DATES adopted for commercial fishing in ALASKA and Canada is they may not begin earlier than March 15 and must cease on November 14. (it was noted that due to the Government shutdown and potential additional shutdown US may have trouble getting the date implemented on time)
Three other motions made by the commission – I did not catch all the language exactly on the first of the three:
The intent is that Contracting Party to the Treaty would be responsible for counting it’s U26 mortalities against its collective TCEY. This change would be intended to take effect for TCEY’s established at the 2020 annual Meeting.
The Commission RECOMMENDED that the IPHC Secretariat expand upon the analysis completed in IPHC-2019-AM095-INFO8 “Treatment and effects of Pacific halibut discard mortality (bycatch) in non-directed fisheries projected for 2019” to be reviewed by the SRB at its next meeting. The objective of this work is to estimate lost yield from bycatch of Pacific halibut in non-directed fisheries for the years of 1991-2018.
The Commission AGREED to continue the development of a workplan to explore methods for 1.) improvement of monitoring requirements in directed and non-directed fisheries, and 2.) examining options in each IPHC Regulatory Area for mitigating the impact of bycatch in one IPHC Regulatory Area on available harvest in other IPHC Regulatory Areas.