SFOS professor to chair fishery council scientific committee

Submitted by Doug Schneider
Phone: 907-474-7449
02/14/05

Juneau, Alaska-Gordon H. Kruse has been elected chair of the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

The SSC is the body of scientists who advise the Council on scientific and technical issues involving federal management of fisheries off Alaska.

Dr. Kruse is a professor of fisheries oceanography at the SFOS Fisheries Division in Juneau. He also is the University of Alaska President’s Professor of Fisheries.

Kruse was a member of the SSC from 1990-1992 and again has served since 2002. He served as vice chair from 2003-2004 before being elected chair in 2005.

Other UAF members of the SSC include Drs. Terry Quinn, Fisheries Division, Sue Hills, Institute of Marine Science, and Mark Herrmann from the School of Management.

Fishery Management Councils were established in 1976 by the federal Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Their purpose is to involve stakeholders in the management of fisheries resources. Presently there are eight regional fishery management councils in the United States.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has the distinction of never having exceeded acceptable biological catches recommended by its SSC. At its recent February meeting, held in Seattle, the Council voted to ban bottom trawling in a huge area of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, roughly nine times the state of Washington. Advice from scientists, including the SSC, played a major role in this landmark decision.

SFOS News Release: www.sfos.uaf.edu/news/story/?ni=114