DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY DIVISION OF ALASKA WILDLIFE TROOPERS REPORT TO THE INTERNATIONAL PACIFIC HALIBUT COMMISSION

Transcription

1 DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY DIVISION OF ALASKA WILDLIFE TROOPERS REPORT TO THE INTERNATIONAL PACIFIC HALIBUT COMMISSION January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013 Division of Alaska Wildlife Troopers 5700 E. Tudor Road Anchorage, AK 99507

2 Background: The Department of Public Safety, Division of Alaska Wildlife Troopers (AWT) is the primary state fish and wildlife resource enforcement agency in the state of Alaska. AWT is the only state enforcement agency with jurisdiction of state and federal lands as well as state waters. AWT also has a Joint Enforcement Agreement (JEA) with NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement (NOAA/OLE). AWT has 97 sworn positions stationed throughout Alaska broken into 4 regions. The southeastern panhandle region is headquartered in Juneau; south central Alaska, including the Kenai Peninsula, Prince William Sound and the northeastern and the northwestern Gulf of Alaska coast is headquartered in Palmer; western Alaska, including the Aleutian chain, Bering Sea and Bristol Bay is headquartered in Kodiak. Interior Alaska is still managed from our office in Fairbanks. Over the last two years the JEA with NOAA/OLE went under some significant changes. Historically AWT supplemented commissioned trooper patrols with 14 civilian Public Safety Technicians (PST). These positions were primarily funded by the JEA. Currently the JEA now only funds 3 PST positions. The primary function of these PSTs is still conducting dockside monitoring and inspection of commercial fish off-loads. PSTs monitor for both state and federal regulatory requirements, but are not commissioned to take any law enforcement action; they simply report the documented violations to the appropriate agency. The PSTs focus is not limited to IFQ halibut; they also monitor other fisheries including rockfish, sablefish, pollock, cod and crab fisheries. Halibut Enforcement: AWT actively enforces commercial, sport and subsistence halibut fisheries through vessel patrols, dockside monitoring and other investigative processes. AWT conducts boardings at sea for all three halibut fisheries; mostly checking for proper licenses, registrations, logbooks, size and limit restrictions. Dockside monitoring focuses on license and registration verification, size requirements, logbooks and accuracy of catch reports. PSTs are the primary resource used to monitor commercial fish off-loads. With the restructuring of the JEA an increased effort was made to monitor sport fish off-loads using AWT troopers. Enforcement Activity: With the changes in how the JEA is administered AWT better tracks sport/charter/subsistence halibut enforcement efforts, particularly dockside monitoring. These numbers include both dockside checks and at-sea boardings using smaller day skiffs. Patrols using our larger, longer distance platforms are not fishery or species specific so halibut enforcement efforts cannot be extrapolated from the data.

3 DOCKSIDE/NEARSHORE AND MEDIUM CLASS VESSEL PATROLS JEA Sport/Charter/Subsistence o Southeast Alaska Trooper Hours 845 Contacts 1,250 Warnings 50 Citations 36 Refer to NMFS 1 o Kenai Peninsula/North Gulf Coast Trooper Hours 850 Contacts 3,247 Warnings 39 Citations 47 Refer to NMFS 2 o Western Alaska Trooper Hours 373 Contacts 390 Warnings 2 Citations 4 o TOTALS Trooper Hours 2,068 Contacts 4,887 Warnings 91 Citations 87 Refer to NMFS 3 Violations Noted (State): Sport fish guide assist client in violation 12 Sport fish guide log violation 16 Sport fish guide misc. 7 Over limit - 26 Boating Safety 6 No license/permit 45 No SHARC Card in possession 4 False statement on license/permit 4 Sport fish with more than 1 line 14 Unlawful gear 1 Illegal possession of Ling Cod 2 Failure to have permit 1 Misc. Halibut violations 28 Misc. Boating 6 Mutilate/Disfigure Halibut fillets 4 Use of Sport caught fish for bait 2

4 Violations Noted (Federal): Subsistence halibut fish with sportfish halibut 2 Subsistence halibut residency violation 1 JEA COMMERCIAL IFQ Halibut and Sablefish (statewide) o Boarding/offloads 247 o Contacts 933 o State violations noted 4 o Federal violations noted - 22 IFQ Violations (State) 4 Failure to have vessel ID - 1 No Crewmember license in possession 2 Employ unlicensed crew 1 IFQ Violations (Federal) 22 Permit holder not present 1 Permit issues 6 Undersized halibut 6 Overage of halibut 2 Failure to correctly report PNOL 1 VMS issues 1 Failure to careful release of halibut 1 No Observer onboard 1 Record keeping and Log book issues 2 Assist NMFS with retrieval of log books 1 Significant Case: On 08/08/13 trp. Jeremy Baum departed Ketchikan onboard the patrol vessel Pacific Skiff to the Southeast corner of Prince of Wales Island to begin a two-day surveillance operation of a sport fishing lodge, from a concealed location on the beach. The remote sport fishing lodge offered guided and unguided sport fishing trips. During the operation, Trp. Baum documented three sport fishing clients retain 6 halibut over their limit. The violations took place during a one day guided sport fishing trip with a lodge guide. He also observed nonresident anglers take an over limit of shrimp, fail to record King Salmon, and fail to record Yellow Rockfish. Further, lodge employees were observed feeding black bears on the shore near the lodge. On 08/10/13 Sgt. Garcia and Trp. Baum returned to the area and contacted the suspect charter vessel and another of the lodge s charter vessel, while they were engaged in charter halibut fishing. Investigation revealed one of the guides was allowing his clients to use the edible meat of a sport caught Coho salmon as bait. While the other guide onboard the second vessel, had allowed his crew member to retain a halibut during a charter fishing trip. Further investigation of the lodge revealed the following: two guides at the lodge had falsified the catch information on their charter logbooks; the lodge was feeding their clients sport caught

5 halibut, salmon, and shrimp, which had been taken from the previous clients catch, or caught by lodge employees. During the contacts at the lodge one guide was cited for two counts of aiding a client in violations, and one count of falsifying a charter log book. A non-resident lodge employee was cited for taking an over limit of shrimp. A non-resident client was cited for failing to record the landing of a King Salmon. The following additional charges were also filed with this case: four counts of chartered angler taking over limit of halibut, three counts of chartered angler making a false statement in a charter logbook, one count of sport fish guide provide false information in charter logbook, multiple counts sport fish guide/operator aid client in violation, multiple counts of feeding halibut and shrimp to clients, and multiple counts of feeding game.

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