The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has rejected a request by the Northeast Seafood Coalition (NSC) to alter the boundary and timing of the harbor porpoise closure area in the Gulf of Maine.
The NSC made the request due to the projected economic losses the fishery would incur from the timing and location of the closure, and stated that their proposal, "provides a far greater degree of protection to harbor porpoise while having less of an economic impact to the struggling dayboat gillnet fleet." NMFS originally announced the closure of an area of the Gulf of Maine for the purpose of protecting harbor porpoises in April 2012, as a result of a high number of harbor porpoise takes.
Saving Seafood issued a special report on the harbor porpoise situation last May.
The NSC's request included adjusting the location of the closure area, and adjusting the time of the closure from October to November as currently scheduled to February to March. The closure area is currently set to go into effect in the middle of the fall fishery, which is a critically important season for groundfishermen. A 2012 analysis by Dr. Joshua Weirsma, "Economic Impacts of Potential Harbor Porpoise Consequence Closure," found that the the total economic loss associated with the planned closures was approximately $10 million. Due to the location of the closure areas and their proximity to shore, smaller, inshore day boats would be most affected in the closure areas near New Hampshire, Gloucester, Boston, and the South Shore of Massachusetts.
On September 6, the newly appointed Regional Administrator of NOAA's Northeast Regional Office, John Bullard, responded to the NSC's request, explaining that after their own evaluation, NMFS found that the proposed changes provided, "a negligible conservation gain for harbor porpoises and little economic benefit for the fishermen that would be affected by the closure." Bullard also mentioned low compliance among gillnet fishermen with efforts to reduce porpoise takes as a reason for the closure, stating, "unfortunately, during the past two years, fishermen in the Gulf of Maine did not fully respond to the compliance challenge." He added, "without compelling evidence of improved harbor porpoise conservation or economic relief, we must hold fishermen to the commitment they made to comply" with porpoise conservation measures.
NOAA Fisheries' charge of low compliance rates has been controversial among fishermen. NOAA requires, in specific fishing seasons, an instrument called a "pinger," a small device attached to the top of the gillnet that emits a high frequency "ping" every four seconds. The ping warns the porpoise that something is in the area.NOAA has claimed that the cause of a high porpoise bycatch is the low percentage of fishing boats that are fully compliant with pinger regulations. Fishermen have argued that the pingers are temperamental and that NOAA's calculation of compliance rates is too inflexible. Pingers that run out of battery power, break, or are lost while deployed are considered non-compliant. Fishermen have stated that if they are missing one pinger out of one hundred nets, they are deemed to be in non-compliance.
The NSC's request has been supported by 12 members of Congress, who wrote a letter to Sam Rauch, NOAA's Acting Administrator for Fisheries, urging NMFS to approve the change. The bipartisan group of New England Senators and members of Congress stated that the modifications would "provide significantly greater conservation benefits for the harbor porpoise and reduce the economic impacts on our fishermen."
Additional Resources
Read the Northeast Seafood Coalition's original request to NMFS here
Read Dr. Joshua Weirsma's Economic Impact Study here
Read the letter from John Bullard to the NSC here
Read the letter from Congress to NMFS here
Read the letter from David Bergeron, Chairman of Gloucester Fisheries Commission to NOAA here
Read the letter from Massachussetts' State Senator Bruce Tarr to NOAA here
Read the story from the AP here.