Fishing Industry Alerts

Restoring access can be done sustainably while still preserving much-needed jobs and fishing revenue.

Editor's Note: As the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) convenes this morning to begin a two-day meeting at which they'll discuss and decide matters affecting the future of New England's fishing industry, public concerns for the fate of areas currently closed to fishing in Georges Bank continue to mount. The following is an excerpt of an opinion piece that ran overnight in the Portland Press Herald, by Tim Healy of O'Hara Corp. in support of modifications to these closures, which would allow greater access to the scallop resource.

ROCKLAND, Maine — February 25, 2014 — In a region where years of harsh, inflexible regulations have led to a dwindling fishing fleet and shrinking dockside revenues, the scallop fishery stands out as one of the few success stories, producing one of the most valuable and sought-after seafood products in the country.

But in order to stay viable in the face of harvest cuts expected to go into effect next year, the fishery needs more flexibility from fisheries managers. One way to do this is to restore access to historic scalloping grounds from which the industry has long been excluded.

Since the early 1990s, sections of Georges Bank off the coast of New England have been closed to scallopers and groundfishermen, part of an effort intended to limit overfishing and protect habitats. In the process, these closures cut off access to some of the best scallop grounds in the region.

Georges Bank, particularly a section known as the Northern Edge, has long been important to the scallop fishery. The area may be home to as much as 10 percent of the region's scallops, and one closed section of the Northern Edge alone was recently estimated to contain around 20 million pounds of scallops.

In the 20 years that the Georges Bank closures have been in effect, serious questions have emerged over whether they have provided any benefit at all. The New England Fishery Management Council is finally set to re-evaluate, and possibly reverse, these closures. The council's Omnibus Habitat Amendment, and several of the currently included proposals, would finally grant the scallop fleet access to much of the closed areas.

Opening these areas will have many immediate benefits. The scallop beds that are now off-limits could contain millions of dollars' worth of harvestable scallops, and would help preserve badly needed waterfront jobs and fishing revenue for our struggling port communities.

Access would give the scallop fleet additional flexibility to harvest an abundant and sustainable resource. Access would allow for a more consistent supply of scallops to maintain the market that the fleet has built up and that has made scallops one of our nation's most in-demand seafood products. Most importantly, access can prevent a series of ultimately unnecessary harvest cuts that are expected for the next fishing year's scallop catch.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Healy is chief financial officer of the O'Hara Corp. in Rockland, Maine.

Read the full opinion piece at the Portland Press Herald

The recommendations developed by New England stock assessment scientists and habitat experts agree that the current closures are not meeting the NEFMC's goals for habitat protection.

WASHINGTON — February 24, 2014 — The following was released by Andrew E. Minkiewicz and Anne Hawkins of the Fisheries Survival Fund :

Last week, the lawyers at the Conservation Law Foundation used a posting on their Talking Fish blog ("Industry Lawyers Wrong on Closed Areas Science: An Open and Shut Case," February 18, 2014) to attack our "Washington Lookout" column ("Wishing doesn't make it so," National Fisherman, March 2014). They accused us of "sending the council … misinformation regarding the science in an attempt to weaken the habitat plan." In line with previous Talking Fish articles, the CLF lawyers provided little insight into the issues at hand when they attacked the position of the Fisheries Survival Fund on the Georges Bank area closures.
 
The reality remains: The peer-reviewed scientific recommendations developed over 10 years by New England fishery stock assessment scientists and habitat experts agree that the current closures are not meeting the goals that the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) has set for groundfish habitat protection.
 
CLF claims to stand with science, but continues to misrepresent the facts guiding important processes to update fisheries management according to comprehensive scientific evaluations.
 
1)   A huge majority of the areas under review were never closed to protect habitat — they were restricted 20 years ago to prevent fish mortality under a system of management that is no longer in use. In 2010, most groundfish stocks in New England switched to a catch-shares system that limits mortality by capping the number of fish that can be landed.
2)   Changes to these closures are part of an overdue process to incorporate the most up-to-date science in order to enable better, more effective fisheries management
3)   There is no evidence that the massive year-round Georges Bank closure has helped the recovery of vulnerable groundfish populations like cod and yellowtail flounder.
4)   Under the catch-shares system, the current closures are counterproductive to the Council's habitat goals. These large closed areas increase fishing pressure on unrestricted New England habitats by displacing fishing from high-yield areas. This ultimately increases contact between fishing gear and ocean habitat. The NEFMC Habitat Committee stated in an analysis: "We find that for nearly all area and gear type combinations, opening existing closed areas to fishing is predicted to decrease aggregate adverse effects."
5)   Areas that have been identified by current models as important habitat for groundfish stocks and spawning behavior will remain restricted. This includes the unique kelp habitat in the Gulf of Maine closureas well as the Whaleback area, which is the only closure that has been identified by the NEFMC as containing a cod spawning site
 
On Tuesday, the NEFMC will meet to determine preferred alternatives to the current closures.
 
The research cited by CLF does not support the organization's recommendation to maintain the status quo.

– The 2005 study by Murawski et al. that is highlighted in the Talking Fish article concludes, "These findings emphasize that year-round closures did not have universal positive impacts on the abundance and spill-over potential of all groundfish stocks."
– The referenced 2012 study by Dean et al. looks at the behavior of six tagged cod fish in association with gill nets, though gillnet gear is currently allowed in many areas of the current closures.
– CLF conflates unique habitat in the Gulf of Maine closure with the closures in Georges Bank. These habitats have various area-specific features and the Council has recognized the importance of analyzing each closure separately.

When the current closed areas were designated over 20 years ago, scant information was available to determine where important fish habitat was located. Today, with the help and support of the scallop industry, scientists are working with a peer-reviewed Swept Area Seabed Impact (SASI) model to both locate areas that are vital to groundfish spawning and stock health and offer solutions that minimize potential adverse impacts from fishing. In the NEFMC's SASI analysis, large portions of the current closures were not identified as meriting protection. The models also indicate that many areas previously considered "Essential Fish Habitat" are not ideally located for habitat protection. Adjusting the present closures according to up-to-date and comprehensive analyses will best protect important fish habitat while eliminating the unnecessary and ecologically harmful restrictions that are currently in place.

In his highly selective and misleading portrayal of the current state of fisheries management, Mr. Sielen gets several key facts wrong, and recirculates ideas that are either highly disputed or have been thoroughly refuted by the marine science community.

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — February 24, 2014 — Writing in an essay originally published in Foreign Affairs, (“The Devolution of the Seas,” November/December 2013) Alan Sielen, a Senior Fellow for International Environmental Policy at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, paints a dire picture of the state of the world’s oceans, claiming that “humanity has come perilously close to reversing the almost miraculous biological abundance of the deep.”  But in his highly selective and misleading portrayal of the current state of fisheries management, Mr. Sielen gets several key facts wrong, and recirculates ideas that are either highly disputed or have been thoroughly refuted by the marine science community. 

One of Mr. Sielen’s central arguments is that commercial fishing is continuing unchecked, with disastrous results for the future of marine life. Mr. Sielen supports this contention largely by citing a 2003 study by Dr. Boris Worm and Dr. Ransom Myers, which concluded that “large fish” such as tuna and swordfish have seen their numbers decline by 90 percent since 1950. But Mr. Sielen brushes aside the widespread and significant criticisms of that study within the fisheries science community, downplaying the controversy over the study to the point of being deceptive.

Prominent experts on tuna science and management, such as Dr. Victor Restrepo, who previously worked with the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), have criticized the methodology behind Drs. Myers and Worm’s 2003 study. Writing in a July 2013 article published on the website of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, Dr. Restrepo called the estimate “totally wrong.” In the same article, he quotes a colleague who called it “one of the most rebutted fisheries papers of all time.” Dr. Restrepo detailed his criticisms of the study in a 2013 Saving Seafood Radio interview.

Among other issues, the Myers and Worm study derived its tuna population data almost entirely from longline tuna fisheries. This skewed the data, as longline fisheries exclusively target larger fish, and thus the sample used in the study was not representative of the tuna population as a whole. Several peer-reviewed studies published after Drs. Myers and Worm’s concluded that the estimate of a 90 percent decline in large species like tuna is highly inaccurate. While the studies did record declines in tuna populations, the numbers were nowhere near 90 percent. By not presenting these details, Mr. Sielen leaves readers with the incorrect impression that there is a general agreement over the figure he cites. The opposite is in fact the case: it has been thoroughly refuted.

While Mr. Sielen’s essay paints a picture of the world’s fisheries as being in steady decline, he ignores success stories, and fails to mention the bright spots. The United States, for example, boasts some of the best-managed fisheries in the world. By law, US fisheries are required to have management plans in place that end overfishing, and US fishermen abide by some of the strictest management standards in the world. The Marine Stewardship Council, an independent organization that reviews and highlights sustainable fishing practices, has certified several fisheries in the US, including North Atlantic swordfish, sea scallops, and spiny dogfish, as sustainable.

And while many international fisheries remain poorly managed, there are signs that, at least in parts of the world, fisheries management is improving. In a 2006 study, “Rebuilding Global Fisheries,” published in Science, Dr. Ray Hilborn and Dr. Worm concluded that, in several of the ecosystems surveyed, fishing pressure had actually decreased, due to “increasing efforts to restore marine ecosystems and rebuild fisheries.” Many areas of the world still suffer from either poor or nonexistent fisheries management, but the overall picture is much more complex than Mr. Sielen indicates.

There is plenty to criticize about the state of the world’s marine resources. Too many global fish stocks remain overexploited, and an unacceptable number of international fisheries need stronger management. But by highlighting old, refuted statistics and ignoring positive developments like the strong track record of US fisheries, Mr. Sielen leaves readers with a distorted and incomplete picture, and fails entirely to note how well fisheries in the United States are managed.

Read the full essay republished in The Nation

Listen to Dr. Victor Restrepo discuss the current state of global tuna populations with Saving Seafood Radio

 

Peter Hughes argues that the New England Fishery Management Council should vote this week to accept scientifically-backed proposals for updating area closures off the coast of Massachusetts.

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) February 23, 2014 — Fisheries Survival Fund member Peter Hughes, the Director of Sustainability at Atlantic Capes Fisheries, Inc. in Cape May, N.J. argues that the New England Fishery Management Council should vote this week to accept scientifically-backed proposals for updating area closures off the coast of Massachusetts. These closed areas have been off-limits to fishermen for almost 20 years, and a recent survey of one of those areas, known as the "Northern Edge" found that the closure contains almost 20 million pounds of scallops, possibly as much as much as ten percent of Georges Bank's entire scallop population.

According to Mr. Hughes, this is a huge lost opportunity for the scallop industry industry, which has a reputation for sustainable management that is time-tested. He argues that the Northern Edge closure can be modified with limited affect on the area's habitat, noting that research from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) compared the Northern Edge to recently fished areas on Georges Bank and found no significant differences in habitat between the two.

* * * * * * *

Like Texas without barbeque, New England wouldn't be the same without its seafood.

To provide the region its local favorites today and for future generations, those of us in the fishing industry know the importance of responsible resource management.

Regulations need to dually support a thriving fishery and sustain a healthy ocean habitat. On Tuesday, regulators have the opportunity to do just that with proposed updates to outdated fishing restrictions.

The New England Fishery Management Council has before it several scientifically-backed proposals for updating area closures off the coast of Massachusetts. These closures have been off-limits to fishermen for almost 20 years, but updated science indicates they may not be best suited for balancing the needs of industry and conservation.

One area in particular, the Northern Edge of the Georges Bank closure, has been under diligent review by scientists, conservationists and industry members.

The Northern Edge is an historic scallop ground known among fishermen for housing some of the largest and densest concentrations of scallops in the region. But since the early 1990s, millions of pounds of scallops have been off-limits.

A recent survey of the Northern Edge found that this closure contains almost 20 million pounds of scallops. This area alone may be home to as much as ten percent of Georges Bank's entire scallop population. This is a huge lost opportunity for our industry, one whose reputation for sustainable management is time-tested.

For years regulators and environmental groups have looked to scallopers as a model for effective cooperative research and responsible practice. At the same time, our industry recognizes that certain protective measures may be important for the rebuilding of some groundfish stocks. The same features of the Northern Edge ecosystem that benefit scallop populations may also prove valuable to the life cycles of other species, particularly cod.

But multiple studies have indicated that the Northern Edge closure can be modified with limited affect on the area's habitat. Research from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology – or SMAST – compared the Northern Edge to recently fished areas on Georges Bank and found no significant differences in habitat between the two.

With this in mind, our industry supports efforts by the NEFMC to responsibly open the closures to scallopers while balancing necessary environmental protections for vulnerable groundfish species.

This is a crucial opportunity for regulators to meet the needs of both the industry and the environment, while helping to ensure New England's vital fisheries are managed responsibly.

Read the opinion piece in the Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA Fisheries announced today that, based on recommendations from the New England Fishery Management Council, it will pay the costs for observers and at-sea monitors for groundfish vessels operating in Northeast sectors.

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) February 21, 2014 — Current regulations mandate that observers be present on a percentage of groundfish vessels to verify that the catch is accurately recorded and that fishermen are not exceeding their yearly allocations. According to NOAA, the agency's goal is to have observer coverage on 26 percent of groundfish trips.
 
However, the requirement is set up as an unfunded mandate, which means without action from NOAA, the industry itself would be required to pay for the costs of the Federally-mandated monitoring. NOAA has funded the previous costs of at-sea monitoring, and announced to Congress today that it will likely be able to pay the monitoring costs for 2014, if current estimates on fishing effort hold true.

The Massachusetts Congressional delegation praised the decision. Senator Elizabeth Warren called it "good news for Massachusetts' hardworking fishermen," adding that "our fishing families are already facing tough times, and they should not be forced to bear the additional burden of at-sea monitoring costs." Senator Ed Markey called at-sea monitoring "a critical component of ensuring healthy fish stocks and maximizing the fish that our fishermen can harvest," and stated that the NOAA funding "means we can learn more about what's happening in the ocean without imposing extra burdens on our struggling fishermen."

Congressman John Tierney hailed the decision as "welcomed and positive news," noting, "now is certainly not the time for our fishermen to absorb the financial burden of paying for at-sea monitoring," while Congressman Joseph Kennedy declared that it will "strengthen and sustain the communities that rely upon the groundfish industry as a major source of income and vitality."

Congressman Bill Keating called the decision "one step toward providing much-needed relief to fishing communities who have expressed concern that they will be unable to meet these standards directly due to their cost," and Congressman Stephen Lynch labeled the announcement "an important one for Massachusetts fishermen who have long been in need of relief."

The delegation had strongly urged the agency to cover the industry's monitoring costs. They had previously been instrumental in securing $75 million in relief funding for the economic disaster declarations issued for several US fisheries by the Commerce Department.

The Northeast Seafood Coalition (NSC), which represents many of the groundfishermen in the Northeast, had similar praise for both the announcement and for the members of Congress who helped secure funding.

"NSC is extremely grateful to Chairwoman Mikulski and all the Members of the northeast Congressional delegations for including in the FY 2014 appropriations a directive for the agency to fully fund the at-sea monitoring program, and for rejecting the agency's initial consideration to use fisheries disaster funding for this purpose," said the organization in a statement. "To state the obvious, northeast groundfish fishermen are in a state of severe disaster and are in no position to assume these costs at this time. Once again, our friends in Congress really came through for us."
 
However, in its notification to Congress, the agency warned that it is uncertain whether it will able to pay for future costs, raising the possibility that these costs many be passed on to the industry. The agency may reevaluate the funding situation pending the passage of the   Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology Omnibus Amendment.

The full announcement from NOAA is included below:

Today, NOAA Fisheries announced that the agency will cover observer and at-sea monitoring costs for groundfish sectors in 2014 to meet the requirements developed and recommended by the New England Fishery Management Council under its groundfish plan.

This year, the monitoring target is 26 percent of the fishing trips by groundfish vessels. The fishery management plan requires at-sea monitoring for groundfish sectors to ensure that all catch, including discards, is accounted for and ultimately that quotas are not exceeded, and also requires the industry to pay for their costs of this monitoring.

Since implementation, NOAA Fisheries has paid for all at-sea monitoring costs. Based on anticipated effort in the groundfishery for the coming fishing year, which begins on May 1, the agency expects to be able to continue to cover the groundfish industry's portion of these costs for fishing year 2014, which runs May 1, 2014 through April 30, 2015. 

 

"Collaboratively [NOAA] can be much more effective in addressing our assessment and science problems than we can working independently."

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood)– February 10, 2014 — On Friday, NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center released details and data from a flatfish pilot survey conducted last August designed cooperatively by scientists, fishermen, and gear manufacturers. This survey is part of a larger effort by NOAA to include contemporary, non-traditional information in their data collection for the region, and particularly for the critical yellowtail flounder assessment. Tomorrow, NOAA scientists will meet with industry representatives and fisheries scientists at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) in New Bedford, Mass. to present their findings and discuss ways in which the data can be incorporated into current evaluations.

Saving Seafood's Bob Vanasse recently sat down with Dr. Bill Karp, Director of NOAA's Northeast Regional Science Center, to discuss NOAA's increased focus on cooperative research. Read the summary below:

In this installment of Saving Seafood Radio, Dr. Bill Karp, Director of NOAA’s Northeast Regional Science Center, discusses NOAA’s recently announced decision to incorporate information not previously considered in federal assessments for the upcoming Georges Bank yellowtail flounder stock assessment. This new data will include information from the fishing industry; facts and figures collected by the Science Center's Social Sciences Branch, which reviews the economic impacts of management decisions; and studies conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST).

According to Dr. Karp, the Georges Bank yellowtail flounder population has been particularly difficult for NOAA to assess due to uncertainty surrounding the cause of a decade-long decline in the stock’s productivity. In July 2012, one of the largest industry associations, the Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), wrote to NOAA voicing concerns about the methodology used to conduct these assessments. NOAA agreed to make changes to the survey, but maintained its previous approach for the next assessment that took place in 2013. This caused backlash last August when the Transboundary Resources Assessment Committee (TRAC), a cooperative scientific committee that provides advice for jointly managed stocks between the U.S. and Canada, used the unchanged assessment model to recommend drastically reduced catch limits for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder. Following the report, FSF again spoke out against the “deeply flawed” survey. Their criticism was shared by multiple fisheries scientists, including the president of the American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists, Dr. Steve Cadrin, who wrote to the New England Fishery Management Council saying that the TRAC assessment provides an “insufficient basis” for fishery management. The Council’s Scientific and Statistical Team agreed and recommended a re-examination due to the TRAC model’s “troubling diagnostics.” Much of the criticism surrounds the assessment’s “retrospective pattern,” a term used to describe a systematic under or over-estimation of spawning stock biomass or fishing mortality.

In our interview with Dr. Karp, he explains that “the criticisms to address this retrospective pattern are very real and we [NOAA] have the same concerns.” Conventional methods of dealing with assessment uncertainty require NOAA to look at alternative models — which he says the Agency tried. Last summer, NOAA worked with international scientific groups to discuss different assessment methods using the yellowtail stock as an example. But according to Dr. Karp, the workshop did not shed any new light on its assessment issues. “The challenge we have in this assessment is not being able to find data to help us understand what is going on in a contemporary situation,” said Dr. Karp.

Now, the Northeast Regional Science Center is jumpstarting a new effort to address its uncertainties with historical data and the retrospective pattern by examining information from modern, though non-traditional, sources. These sources will include SMAST surveys and independent research, NOAA pilot surveys, industry data, and facts and figures collected by the Science Center's Social Sciences Branch, along with other relevant scientific findings. This is a new direction for NOAA, which despite opposition, has maintained the status quo in past yellowtail assessments.

Dr. Karp addresses NOAA's changed stance, stating, "We [NOAA] have some very important decisions to be made about how we need to focus our science to be more responsive to the needs of the 21st century." He concludes, "There's always more to learn by listening to fishermen and members of the broader community."

Other future goals and challenges for NOAA that Dr. Karp discusses include:

– Striving to increase transparency with the stock assessment process – Encouraging more participation from outside perspectives – Strengthening ties with industry and scientific partners, including SMAST – Moving to an ecosystem-based approach by incorporating how climate change and environmental conditions affect fisheries, and how different fisheries interact with each other

The new, integrative yellowtail assessment, dubbed a "diagnostic benchmark" by the Science Center, appears to be a first step for Dr. Karp and his team in enacting these changes. Starting in April, another leg of the assessment process, which includes public meetings and workshops, will begin. With New England fisheries in a precarious economic state, more informative science and management cannot come soon enough. Dr. Karp is hopeful that the results of the assessment will be used in management measures at the start of Fishing Year 2015.

Listen to the full interview with NOAA Northeast Regional Science Director Dr. Bill Karp

Saving Seafood has previously covered stories concerning yellowtail flounder assessments. For more information on this topic please see:

NOAA Proposes New Georges Bank Yellowtail Assessment that will Allow Consideration of Non-Traditional Information

NMFS Announcement Puts TMGC Yellowtail Quota at 400 Metric Tons Despite Advice that Would Have Allowed More

Scallop Industry: There has been "no progress" in Yellowtail Flounder Assessments

Scientists, Industry Leaders Question Validity of Yellowtail Flounder Assessments 

 

On February 22 the Northeast Seafood Coalition (NSC) will host a fundraiser, including a raffle and auction, with the proceeds going to benefit the work of the NSC in advocating on behalf of the region's struggling groundfishermen.

Contact: 
Christine Sherman
Northeast Seafood Coalition
978-269-4555
 
GLOUCESTER, Mass. — February 3, 2014 — On Saturday, February 22, the Northeast Seafood Coalition (NSC) will host a fundraiser, including a raffle and auction, with the proceeds going to benefit the work of the NSC in advocating on behalf of the region's struggling groundfishermen. The event will take place from 6-11 pm at The Gloucester House, located at 63 Rogers Street in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Admission to the event includes dinner and live music from the band Just Like Newman. The NSC will also be hosting an auction and a 50/50 raffle, awarding $18,500 in prize money. The winner of the raffle will take home $10,000, with $5000 awarded to the runner-up. Third prize wins $2,000, with $1,000 and $500 going to fourth and fifth place. Tickets to the event are $100, and will go directly to helping NSC continue to work for our fishermen and fishing communities.

To purchase tickets or to find out more information, contact Christine Sherman of the Northeast Seafood Coalition at 978-269-4555.

View the flyer for the event here

*PLEASE NOTE: The phone number provided in the linked flyer (978-269-3555) is incorrect. To contact Christine Sherman, please use the number provided above.

 

Landings are off by 24%, and revenues are off by 22.9% and concentrated in highest-earning vessels.

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — January 23, 2014 — NOAA Fisheries today released the third annual report on the economic performance of the vessels active in the Northeast groundfish fishery. The report covers fishing year 2012.

As a consequence of quota reductions for a number of groundfish stocks, landings and revenues were lower in 2012 than in 2011. Landings fell by 5.4 percent and revenues by 7.7 percent. For groundfish these figures are at four-year lows with landings off by 24 percent and revenues by 22.9 percent. There were fewer active vessels, fewer and slightly longer trips, and a continued concentration of revenues onto the highest-earning vessels. 

As was also the case in the prior year reported, 2011, more than half of the available quota was not harvested. While some in the regulatory and environmental communities have blamed a lack of fish for the inability of fishermen to catch their quotas, industry members cite conflicting or badly-designed regulations and "choke stocks," also known as choke species, that cause fishing to cease on other species when the choke stock's quota is reached.

In home port states Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island, all indicators of crew employment were at four year lows in 2012.

Read the full report at NOAA Fisheries

 

The secured funds will help countless fishing families, businesses, and communities that are struggling under the fishery disasters declared by the Secretary of Commerce in 2012 and 2013.

The following was released by the Northeast Seafood Coalition:

GLOUCESTER, Mass. – January 17, 2014 — The Northeast Seafood Coalition (NSC) released three letters today thanking 25 members of Congress for their successful efforts to secure $75 million for fishery disaster relief funds included in the Fiscal Year 2014 budget. The letters, addressed to the Chairwoman and the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, 14 Senators representing Northeastern states, and nine Members of Congress representing Massachusetts, respectively, praised the bipartisan groups of lawmakers for their leadership and perseverance. The secured funds will help countless fishing families, businesses, and communities that are struggling under the fishery disasters declared by the Secretary of Commerce in 2012 and 2013.

NSC's letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman, Senator Barbara Mikulski, and the Ranking Minority Member, Senator Richard Shelby, thanks them for their work in bringing together a coalition of lawmakers to secure the disaster relief funds. The letter praises their, "astonishing feat in achieving what had seemed impossible under the current political and budgetary climate in Washington." The letter further emphasizes the importance of the aid, stating, "The funds you fought for represented our final hope for a real bridge to the future. This is no small thing for a centuries-old fishery on which our Nation's colonial economy was founded. The sense of appreciation and relief in our region is very deep."

In a second letter to 14 Senators representing Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, NSC thanks the lawmakers and their staff for supporting both the appropriation of disaster relief aid and the previous reallocation of the Saltonstall-Kennedy Fund to be used towards fisheries research. The letter also stresses the importance of ensuring that the funds are used wisely. It states, "we feel it is absolutely critical that the benefits of this assistance accrue directly to our fishermen and shoreshide businesses that are at the center of the disaster. It is their survival that has been and must continue to be our priority."

The third letter addresses nine House Members from Massachusetts who represent some of the communities hit hardest by the fishery disaster. The letter thanks the lawmakers for writing directly to the House Appropriations Committee leadership on January 7, 2014 in support of disaster assistance funding. NSC writes, "Given these challenging times, there is no doubt that this letter made a crucial contribution to the success of what was truly an extraordinary bicameral and bipartisan effort in the region to come to the assistance of fishermen."

Read the full letter from the Northeast Seafood Coalition to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman, Senator Barbara Mikulski, and Ranking Minority Member, Senator Richard Shelby

Read the full letter from the Northeast Seafood Coalition to 14 Senators

Read the full letter from the Northeast Seafood Coalition to nine Massachusetts House Representatives

 

Social Science Industry Data and SMAST Studies to be Included

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood)– January 16, 2014 — NOAA's Northeast Regional Science Center has proposed an "empirical approach for estimating abundance of yellowtail flounder" that will allow the center to consider additional data and information not previously considered in assessments including information collected by the Center from industry, facts and figures collected by the Center's social science division, and studies conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology.

According to a letter from Science Center Director Bill Karp to the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC), "the proposed [Transboundary Resource Assessment Committee (TRAC)] benchmark would depart from the conventional understanding of benchmarks."

The Center is using the term "diagnostic benchmark" to describe the approach. According to Dr. Karp's letter, the term "diagnostic" is used to highlight the need to focus on the underlying data and lack of model fit, and "benchmark" is used to express the thoroughness and rigor of the review.

Dr. Karp expressed confidence that the proposal "addresses many of the concerns expressed by the Council regarding the Georges Bank yellowtail flounder."

For some time, the assessments have demonstrated severe problems known as a "retrospective pattern." In addition to the NEFMC, industry groups, members of Congress, state and local elected officials and non-government scientists have expressed grave concerns about the accuracy of existing assessments.

According to the letter the approach "is somewhat unconventional with respect to the basis for catch advice and certainly unconventional with respect to normal process for TRAC." But Dr. Karp states that it will provide "sufficient scientific basis for crafting catch advice that meets regulatory requirements to end overfishing."

Paul Rago of the Science Center will attend the New England Fishery Management Council meeting on January 29 to present an overview of the approach and answer any questions.

A meeting will be held with fishermen before the April benchmark to discuss the various data sources to be used in the empirical approach.

The problem with the existing assessments is described in the Science Center's proposal as follows:

"The stock assessment for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder suffers from a severe retrospective pattern. Likely causes of the retrospective pattern include misreporting of landings, underestimation of discards, or increases in natural mortality. Unfortunately neither the model nor ancillary evidence is sufficient to distinguish among these competing hypotheses. In the absence of unequivocal evidence, there is no expectation that an update of the current assessment approach will alleviate any of the concerns raised about this assessment. Independent reviews and tests of alternative models by stock assessment scientists at the recent ICES World Conference on Stock Assessment Methods failed to find acceptable alternatives. All of the models suggested that a change in the underlying data or assumed magnitude of natural mortality had occurred, although none of the models could identify a proximate cause. Given the continuing need for stock assessment advice and the likely futility of identifying the perfect model, we propose a new approach that relies heavily on contemporary information. In pursuing this new path, it must be recognized that some of the desirable features of stock assessment models, such as biomass reference points, rebuilding strategies, and forecasting, will be given up. Instead, the approach will focus on a more narrowly defined question of 'What is the appropriate level of harvest in the upcoming fishing year?'"

View the letter to NEFMC Executive Director Tom Nies from NOAA Science and Research Director Dr. Bill Karp 
 
Read the final proposal for the yellowtail flounder assessment