Comment period opens on a Bering Sea halibut donation permit for SeaShare

A Bering Sea catcher/processor wants permission to keep dead halibut for hunger relief instead of throwing them over. National Marine Fisheries Service published a notice Oct. 1, 2026, that SeaShare, Inc. and Glacier Fish Co. applied for an exempted fishing permit. If issued, one trawl catcher/processor in the Bering Sea trawl limited-access yellowfin sole fishery could retain up to 5,000 net pounds of headed-and-gutted Pacific halibut — 3.0 metric tons round weight — after deck sorting and after a fisheries observer samples the fish, then donate that fish through the Prohibited Species Donation Program.

The permit would not raise halibut prohibited-species caps and would not change deck-sorting rules. It would waive the ban on retaining prohibited species and the rule that currently keeps catcher/processors out of the halibut donation program. If granted, the experiment would run May 1, 2027, through Dec. 31, 2028. Hannah Lindoff of SeaShare and Glenn Merrill of Glacier Fish submitted the application; the Alaska Fisheries Science Center signed off on the scientific design.

Comments are due to NMFS by Oct. 16, 2026, under docket NOAA-NMFS-2026-2641. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will also take the application up at its Oct. 5–13 meeting in Anchorage. Contact Maggie Chan at (907) 243-0669 or Maggie.chan@noaa.gov.

This is a The Gillnet news desk summary, not a reprint.

Source: Federal Register — Application for an exempted fishing permit, SeaShare and Glacier Fish (Oct. 1, 2026; comments through Oct. 16, 2026).