NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — January 23, 2013 — UMass and the state Division of Marine Fisheries will take up the dispute over fishery stock assessments as a counterbalance to NOAA's own survey of the problem, it was announced Tuesday.
The Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute, which is a partnership between the state and UMass Dartmouth, met early this month and approved the idea of an "end-to-end" review of the groundfish assessment system in the Northeast.
Concerns about the assessments are emerging among industry members, academics and scientific experts. NOAA fisheries managers are under fire for the wide swath of uncertainty in the population estimates that in turn drive regulations, especially catch limits.
The statement by the Marine Fisheries Institute quoted an unnamed participant in the meeting as saying "Crisis management has become the norm in New England, which has a negative impact on the fishing industry as well as the scientific and management process."
The Northeast Seafood Coalition said in a statement: "At some point everyone in the groundfish community — the scientists, managers and policy-makers — need to accept the reality that the current process is just not working. We need to step back out of the weeds and look at the bigger picture."
The need for a review of groundfish stock assessments was identified by U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., whose district includes the port of New Bedford.
The three workshops, starting later this winter, will examine issues that hinder groundfish assessments. The first session will discuss the task of including climate change as a factor in determining the health of fish stocks.
Read the full story in the New Bedford Standard Times