SPECIAL REPORT |

This story was supported by grants from the Pulitzer Center and the Alaska Center for Excellence in Journalism, in partnership with the Anchorage Daily News and the Northern Journal.

Fish biologist Juan Valero went to work for the International Pacific Halibut Commission in 2008, and soon emerged as a dissident voice inside this organization that sets harvest levels for the U.S. and Canada.

Valero was convinced the commission models used to assess halibut had serious flaws that overestimated the size of the resource. He warned that this risked overfishing a halibut population that was already in cyclical decline.

Senior commission staff had a far more optimistic view. They were charged with presenting scientific research to six commissioners — three from the United Sta

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