Policy and environmental constraints on the profitability of the U.S. albacore surface fleet

North Pacific albacore spawn in tropical waters in the Western Pacific and a portion of the juveniles make their way to the Eastern Pacific to feed, entering U.S. waters and supporting a lucrative hook and line fleet. Landings from the U.S. surface fleet comprise about 20% of total North Pacific albacore landings. As albacore habitat crosses national boundaries and includes open ocean areas outside of any national jurisdiction, regional fishery management organizations (RFMOs) whose membership includes multiple nations fishing on the North Pacific albacore stock, are tasked with their management and conservation. Any management recommendation made by the RFMOs has to then be implemented via national management measures and has local socioeconomic repercussions. North Pacific albacore is currently one of the few reaming open access fisheries in the U.S.. However, recent interest in obtaining and maintaining Marine Stewardship Council labeling from both U.S. and international albacore fleets has encouraged the adoption of formal harvest guidelines by the RFMOs. A management strategy evaluation for the North Pacific albacore testing a range of harvest guidelines has been completed. While conservation objectives rely on aggregated measures of overall stock biomass, stakeholders have expressed interest in tailoring socio-economic performance metrics to nationally relevant variables. For U.S. management, there is a need to assess how shifts in distribution may affect port-level profits under current and future climate conditions and a range of harvest guidelines and input and output controls. Here we present a methodology to link output from the North Pacific albacore population MSE operating model to port level socio-economic metrics under current and future albacore distribution scenarios. Vulnerable biomass to the Eastern Pacific surface fleet from the large-scale model is spatially disaggregated using an environmentally informed, high-resolution spatial distribution model and linked to port-level landings via an effort model.