Emergency Groundfish Rule Keeps Fleet Fishing as Species Prove More Abundant

The West Coast groundfish fleet will benefit from a new emergency rule increasing catch limits for three key species that have proved more abundant than previously thought. West Coast groundfish make up the largest fishery by volume on the West Coast. The decision provides greater opportunity for the fishery, supplying more domestic seafood for the country.

The rule change improves the competitiveness of the groundfish fleet by increasing catch limits for each of the three species by about 10 percent. The fishery has rebounded from a collapse about 25 years ago to reclaim their place in the nation's seafood counters.

NOAA Fisheries issued the emergency rule issued this week. It raises the catch limits for shortspine thornyhead , canary rockfish , and petrale sole to reflect updated projections showing that larger volumes of the species are available. The higher limits will give the fleet greater flexibility to continue fishing for these and other important species such as Pacific hake, or whiting, while ensuring the catch remains sustainable.

"We are undertaking this emergency action to change our regulations based on this new information," said Ryan Wulff, assistant regional administrator in NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region. "We looked at the science and it told us the picture had changed, so we are acting as quickly as possible to provide more opportunities for our fleet."

The Magnuson-Stevens Act , which governs U.S. fisheries, allows for rule changes to address fishery emergencies. The changes must meet three criteria:

• Results from recent but unforeseen events or new circumstances
• Presents serious conservation and management problems for a fishery
• Can be addressed by an emergency rule with immediate value greater than the value of going through the full deliberations of the normal rule making process

NOAA Fisheries can issue emergency rules to prevent economic loss or preserve economic opportunity. In early 2025 fishing industry representatives from the trawl sector told the Pacific Fishery Management Council that reduced catch limits for shortspine thornyhead, canary rockfish, and petrale sole were crashing the fleet's fishing opportunity.

Reduced Quotas Challenged the Fishing Industry

Based on stock assessments in 2023, the Council had reduced 2025 fishing limits for shortspine thornyhead by 60 percent, canary rockfish by 56 percent, and petrale sole by 28 percent. That had a greater impact on the fleet than the Council had anticipated. Industry representatives told the Council many vessels and their crews were avoiding fishing because of the risk of exceeding the catch limits.

The limits also apply when vessels inadvertently catch species they are not fishing for. Vessels in the groundfish trawl fishery must own a share or "quota" of species they catch. For example, vessels fishing for the larger volumes of hake cannot catch shortspine thornyhead unless they have quota for that species, too. The catch for all three constraining species was so limited, however, that almost no quota was available.

Vessels without it had to stop fishing, even if they had quota for a different species.

In late 2024, vessels fishing for hake began catching more shortspine thornyhead than ever before, forcing many to stop fishing. The toll was especially severe for independent vessels with smaller profit margins that could not afford extra costs. Similar circumstances surrounded canary rockfish and petrale sole. Midwater vessels in early 2025 bypassed a large school of Pacific whiting off the Washington coast because of the risk of catching canary rockfish.

"Facing a drastic cut for one critical species would be challenging enough, but facing drastic cuts for multiple critical species at once further reduces our options for fishing strategies, and will leave vast amounts of our target species uncaught," more than 100 fishermen, charter boat owners, seafood processors, and fishing organizations wrote in a joint letter to Council Chair Brad Pettinger in April 2025.

The Council had asked scientists for new catch-only projections for the species for 2026 based on catches through 2024. It showed greater biomass of the three species available to catch than estimated in the earlier stock assessments. This was not especially surprising because fisheries typically do not catch their full limit, leaving more fish in the ocean to spawn and reproduce than predicted.

New Estimates Offer Relief

In September 2025, the Council adopted the new catch-only projections as the best scientific information available. That provided a foundation for an emergency rule to address the new abundance information and the problems the fleet had faced in trying to fish.

At its November 2025 meeting, the Council meeting recommended NOAA Fisheries adopt an emergency rule raising the catch limits in 2026 for the three species to give the fleet more flexibility to continue fishing. NOAA Fisheries then developed the emergency rule increasing catch limits for each of the three species by about 10 percent, which will help keep the fleet fishing.

"It's unfortunate that the fleet faced the hardships that it did from the lower catch limits in 2025, but this should provide meaningful relief," said Keeley Kent, groundfish branch chief in NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region.

"Affected vessels are expected to have increased access to target stocks and their co-occurring species, while continuing to protect constraining stocks from overfishing," stated the emergency rule issued this week.