Fishing Industry Alerts

World Wildlife Fund Canada has launched a controversial video entitled "We Don't Farm Like This" which is currently available on YouTube.

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — September 17, 2013 — World Wildlife Fund Canada has launched a controversial video entitled "We Don't Farm Like This" which is currently available on YouTube. The animated video depicts wild animals being hooked on a line that snakes through a forest, and being caught up in a giant net pulled through the air and across the land.  It also shows a giant land-based version of a fishing trawl destroying everything in its path. The video poses the question: "We don't farm like this, why do we fish like this?"

A number of commenters on the YouTube page have raised objections, including University of Washington professor of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences Trevor A. Branch, who wrote "There is very little comparison between fishing and farming. Farming cattle involves the clear-cutting of forests like the Amazon, with loss of almost all species. Farming crops results in 100% habitat destruction and basically 100% loss of species. Fishing on the other hand leaves almost all species in place, some reduced in numbers. No comparison whatsoever."

The description of the video on YouTube states "Our oceans are in crisis because of unsustainable fishing practices and it's more important than ever to choose products from sustainable sources."  It urges viewers to choose Marine Stewardship Council certified sustainable seafood.

The video was produced by the John Street Agency in Toronto (+1 416-348-0048).  The credits list the creative directors as Angus Tucker (atucker@johnst.com), and Stephen Jurisic (sjurisic@johnst.com).  It is set to the song "Happy Go Lucky Me" by Paul Evans, released by Sony Music Publishing.

Watch the video here

 

A new paper by Dr. Brian Rothschild, Emily Keiley, and Yue Jiao, of SMAST, examines the reasons why overfishing remains an issue in New England, despite a federal management efforts. 

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) September 16, 2013 – A new paper by Dr. Brian Rothschild, Emily Keiley, and Yue Jiao, of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology, published August 4th in the ICES Journal of Marine Science, examines the reasons why overfishing remains an issue in New England fisheries management, despite a federal law requiring an end to overfishing and new catch limits designed to achieve this goal. Today, almost one-third of New England groundfish species are considered overfished. Amongst its findings, the study concludes:

•    Flaws in stock assessment models and methodology are producing overly optimistic stock projections.
•    Catch levels determined by overly optimistic projections allow fishermen to catch more than an accurate assessment would consider healthy.
•    Current assessments rely heavily on inconsistent population data and do not consider ecosystem or fishery interactions.

The paper recommends shifting stock assessments from single-species to multispecies assessment models, balancing the need to prevent overfishing with the need to avoid underfishing, and developing new data collection standards and alternative models to improve management.

The study, “Failure to eliminate overfishing and attain optimum yield in the New England groundfish fishery,” investigates possible sources of error in groundfish science and management. It concludes that several flaws in stock assessment models and methodology are producing overly optimistic stock projections. For example, a series of groundfish population projections in 2008 were found to have overestimated the size of groundfish stocks by as much as 67 percent when those assessments were updated in 2012. Using overly optimistic estimates to set catch levels ultimately allows for fisherman to catch more than an accurate assessment would consider healthy, damaging both the stock and the fishery in the long-term.

The study found that groundfish assessments’ methods for determining appropriate levels of fishing mortality relied heavily on highly variable population statistics, increasing the possibility of error. In addition, estimates of fishing mortality consistently produced a “retrospective pattern,” a type of statistical bias that, when appearing in a stock assessment, indicates that the values produced by the assessment model are inaccurate.

Currently, the way assessments determine appropriate fishing levels do not consider the fact that groundfish species interact and overlap within an ecosystem. Instead, they evaluate each individual stock in the multispecies fishery in isolation, without considering its interaction with other species. Setting catch levels for individual species does not properly account for the multispecies nature of the fishery. Just as species interact and overlap, so too can competing fisheries. If an assessment fails to consider unintended bycatch of a particular species from another fishery, then its findings will necessarily yield inaccurate results. As such, setting catch levels for an individual species – as is currently the case – does not properly account for the multispecies nature of the fishery.

According to the study, these issues are central to why fisheries management in New England has failed to meet its two primary goals: to prevent overfishing and to reach “optimum yield,” a level of harvest that, according to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, “will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation.” Federal fisheries law requires that federally managed fish stocks prevent overfishing through setting an Annual Catch Limit (ACL). But while New England has operated under an ACL since 2010, overfishing persists. In 2011, 11 stocks remained overfished, and 10 were subject to overfishing (30 and 27 percent of all New England stocks, respectively). Despite overfishing, no stock has exceeded its catch limit, and only 37 percent of the total allotted groundfish catch was actually landed. Improperly set catch limits may help explain why stocks can be considered both overfished and “underfished.”

The study’s concluding recommendations include several steps to improve management and curtail overfishing, such as shifting stock assessments from single-species to multispecies assessment models. It also recommends balancing the need to prevent overfishing with the need to avoid underfishing, and suggests that the assessments consider using alternative models that require less data, and develop new data collection standards to improve management.

Read the full study at Oxford Journals 

The link provided may only be distributed for non-commercial purposes. The article should only be viewed from the Oxford Journals site and not hosted by any personal/institutional web site or that of other third parties. Single copies of the article can be printed and distributed to interested colleagues who wish to use the article for personal research/study purposes only. For those wishing to make commercial use of the article, please direct them to journals.permissions@oup.com for permissions information or see the website.

 

September 16, 2013 — The following was released by the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute (MFI):

Dear Colleagues:

We invite you to participate in a Workshop hosted by the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute (MFI) on "Fishery Monitoring and Survey Selectivity" on October 9-11 at Waypoint Event Center in New Bedford.

In collaboration with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, the MFI is coordinating an End-to-End Review of New England Groundfish Stock Assessments, and this workshop topic was identified at a recent scoping meeting in that process (report attached). An executive summary of the first workshop on environmental change is also attached as an example of the expected output from the second workshop. The monitoring workshop is intended to complement  the recent NEFSC review of the data collection programs by reviewing the practical aspects of data collection as well as their use in stock assessments and groundfish sector monitoring, including perspectives from the fishing industry on improving programs. 

The general agenda is:

– Survey gear, sampling design and protocols will be presented by NEFSC scientists and others on Wednesday afternoon October 9.

– Fishery monitoring programs (dealer reporting, logbooks, observers, port sampling) will be presented by NEFSC and NERO scientists and others on Thursday October 10.

– General discussion to form conclusions and recommendations on Friday morning October 11.

The meetings are open to all interested parties who register by contacting Arlene Wilkinson awilkinson@umassd.edu, so please forward this announcement to anyone else in your organization or network who might be interested. Please also contact me if you would like the steering group to consider a presentation of your program or your perspective for the agenda. A more detailed agenda will be distributed to registrants in advance of the meeting.

Thanks,
Steve Cadrin and Brian Rothschild

P.S. The 3rd MFI workshop on reference points and uncertainty buffers is scheduled for November 6-8 – please save the dates

 

Northeast fishermen whose businesses have been gutted by government regulations went to Washington seeking relief.

September 14, 2013 — Fox News Channel's Griff Jenkins spoke with the Northeast Seafood Coalition's Vito Giacalone last week on Capitol Hill for "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren."

Watch the video from Fox News

 

 

Northeast Seafood Coalition thanks Gov. Patrick for issuing the certification GLOUCESTER, Mass., — September 16, 2013 — The following was released by the Northeast Seafood Coalition:  

The Northeast Seafood Coalition (NSC) expresses sincere appreciation to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and the Governor’s office for their leadership in certifying to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) that the Massachusetts groundfish industry has suffered substantial economic injury as a result of a fishery resource failure. The Governor’s certification is an essential step for the SBA to declare a disaster and make the Massachusetts groundfish fishery eligible for SBA disaster assistance programs including Economic Injury Disaster Loans.

Gov. Patrick wrote to the SBA Director Frank Staggs outlining the critical need for assistance to the Northeast groundfish fishery based on a “commercial fishery failure” for the 2013 fishing season. For Fishing Year 2013, catch limits have been dramatically reduced for key groundfish stocks that are the core of the economic engine that runs the fishery and fishing communities in the Northeast. As a result of dramatic instability within the fishery, many fishermen and groundfish-dependent businesses are not only facing the loss of their business and source of income, but they are also facing the loss of their homes that have been mortgaged to support their businesses.

Gov. Patrick wrote in his letter, “Based on the results of this survey, I hereby certify that in accordance with the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 13, Part 123.3, at least five (5) small businesses in the counties of Barnstable, Bristol, Essex, Plymouth, Norfolk, and Suffolk Counties in Massachusetts suffered substantial economic injury as a result of the fishery resource disaster. I hereby certify that the degree of economic injury is so severe that financial assistance at reasonable rates and terms is not otherwise available, thereby creating the necessity for federal involvement…”

NSC initiated this process in March 2013 with a request for assistance from former Massachusetts U.S. Senator William “Mo” Cowan, who was a member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. At Sen. Cowan’s request, Gov. Patrick’s office put the SBA process into full swing. NSC and Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership worked with affected fishermen across coastal counties in Massachusetts to collect the financial impact information required to support the Governor’s certification.

SBA assistance is one source of support NSC is working on to help the Northeast groundfish fishery during this time of crisis. NSC is hopeful that SBA's disaster assistance programs will add an important component to a larger need for direct financial assistance including the Fisheries Disaster Mitigation Fund approved in July by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
NSC is thankful to Gov. Patrick and his office, former Sen. Cowan and his office, MA DMF, MEMA, and the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership for their work to assist in providing the groundfish fishery in Massachusetts with critically needed federal assistance. In the coming days, NSC will continue to work with other Northeast states in which our members reside to help certify economic injury and gain access to SBA assistance.

About the Northeast Seafood Coalition:

The Northeast Seafood Coalition is a non-profit organization representing over 361 commercial fishing entities, which hold over 500 limited access groundfish permits, in the northeast United States on political and policy issues affecting their interests as participants in the groundfish fishery and the Sector program in the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery. NSC members are small, independent, entrepreneurial businesses that fish for—and support fishing for—cod, haddock, flounders, and other groundfish species along the northeast coast. NSC’s fishing business members fish from small and large ports all along the northeast coast. They fish small, medium, and large vessels, and they employ all groundfish gear types.

NSC works for rules that embody real solutions to complex fishery problems.

Read Governor Patrick's letter to SBA Director Frank Skaggs

Read a PDF version of the press release here 

 

 Gloucester fisherman and Policy Director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition Vito Giacalone testified before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources for the hearing on the "Reauthorization of Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act"(MSA).

WASHINGTON — September 11, 2013– The following was released by the Northeast Seafood Coalition:
 
Today, Gloucester fisherman and Policy Director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition Vito Giacalone testified before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources for the hearing on the "Reauthorization of Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act"(MSA). Giacalone testified about the critical need for a stable management regime that reflects the realities of the Northeast groundfish fishery. 
 
Giacalone's testimony came one year after the U.S. Department of Commerce declared the Northeast groundfish fishery a "commercial fishery failure." In Fishing Year 2013, catch limits have been dramatically reduced for key groundfish stocks that are the core of the economic engine that runs the fishery and fishing communities in the Northeast. Today, as a result of dramatic instability within the fishery, many fishermen and groundfish-dependent businesses are not only facing the loss of their business and source of income, but they are also facing the loss of their homes that have been mortgaged to support their businesses. 
 
For nearly a decade, fishermen have adhered to strict rebuilding timeframes and targets set forth in the law, while abiding by a progressive fisheries management style that includes hard Total Allowable Catches (TACs) and a catch share system. Yet, according to Giacalone, with many stock assessments, scientists report that their abundance estimates and fishing mortality rate predictions were incorrect-often substantially incorrectand result in retrospective overfishing. 
 
"The current statute does not work for NE groundfish," Giacalone's written testimony reads. "…The basic management strategy set forth in the statute places demands on science that far exceed its capacity… I believe this is due in part to the inherent and perhaps increasing instability in the physical and biological elements of the ecosystem in which our fishery operates." 
 
In his written testimony, Giacalone references the recently released National Research Council's report "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Fish Stock Rebuilding Plans in the United States," which reflects Giacalone's testimony that there is often a mismatch between policy makers' expectations for scientific precision and the inherent limits of science because of data limitations and complex ecosystem dynamics. 
 
Giacalone said the instability in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank ecosystem is due in part to rapidly changing ecological conditions and factors. He pointed out dramatic environmental changes have been seen before and fish stocks follow cycles that have no correlation to fishing mortality. Rather, he noted biological parameters beyond the control of man-including recruitment, individual growth, and natural mortality ratesplay a far greater role in determining future status of groundfish stocks than regulation of fishing mortality. 
 
With instability comes unpredictability, according to Giacalone's written testimony. "…The current statute is founded on predictability. It depends on the ability of science to predict future levels of recruitment, growth and natural mortality, and worse, to predict exactly when those levels will occur." These realities, Giacalone argues, were not contemplated in MSA or reflected in the National Marine Fisheries Service's interpretations and implementation. 
 
The Northeast groundfish fishery needs flexibility that would allow regional Councils the ability to develop tools that tailor management strategies to reflect the realities of their region and fisheries. Such tools should enable management responses that account for known volatility from scientific stock assessments, and the severe social and economic costs of pretending to know the unknowable. Additionally, Giacalone testified on the need for Congress to provide authority for regional Councils to implement alternative rebuilding strategies to achieve fundamental goals to prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks. He argued, statutory tools should be implemented that can enable managers to protect fish stocks while providing a more stable fishery. 
 
"…Scientific unpredictability and dramatic swings in perceived stock abundance have completely confounded fishery management and every aspect of our fishing industry and community. We are perilously close to losing the oldest fishery in America, which was at the core of our colonial economy four centuries and is still at the core of our communities today," Giacalone's testimony reads. 
 
Giacalone concluded his testimony by emphasizing the immediate reality of the Northeast groundfish fishery: we are in the midst of a crisis that needs immediate attention. Giacalone wrote, all the long term policy improvements in the world will not matter if there are no small fishing businesses left standing when they are implemented. This fishery critically needs disaster funding to survive, as has been relentlessly championed by Senators and Representatives representing the Northeast region. Giacalone plead with members of the Committee and the full House of Representatives to support measures such as those included in the Senate FY 2014 appropriations to provide fisheries disaster assistance funding.
 
 
Read a PDF version of the press release
 
Read Vito Giacalone's testimony before the House Natural Resources Committee

 

At the heart of the problem lies one central question — what to call our fish.

September 3, 2013 — The following is an excerpt from a story originally published by the Huffington Post:

A report published earlier this year by Oceana brought much needed attention to the issue of mislabeled fish in our nation's restaurants and markets. Public health concerns, economic deception, and a possibility of fishery mismanagement were all discussed as ramifications of the level of mislabeling reported in this study. At the heart of the problem lies one central question — what to call our fish.
 
It turns out, the names we use for fish are quite complicated, and depending on who we are and where we are, the names we use can be quite different. Fish on a menu are usually described by their English common names. Tuna, swordfish, and sea bass are menu items we are all used to seeing. The problem is, what is tuna? Are there more than one kind of swordfish? Is sea bass a family?
 
As you'll see in our latest video below, for fish on the coral reef, common names most often are in two parts, a modifier and a reference to the fish's family. The modifier sometimes denotes physical appearance: e.g. the teardrop butterflyfish is a type of butterflyfish that has a distinct marking on its side that resembles a teardrop shape. In other instances the modifier is taken from a behavior commonly observed: e.g. the rockmover wrasse is a wrasse species that is often seen picking up and tossing rocks about in its search for prey. The problem with common names is that there is no standardization in their use. One book or snorkeler fish ID card may denote a fish as a rockmover wrasse, while another book from a different author or in a different part of the world may call that same species a dragon wrasse (still an apt name as the juvenile of this species has a markedly different appearance from the adult form and resembles a dragon as it floats about hiding like a piece of algae).
 
Watch the video and read the full story at the Huffington Post

 

The following is an excerpt from a story that originally appeared at Food Safety News:

A large number of fish imported from China and Vietnam and sold in at least some U.S. supermarkets contain unnatural levels of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, according to tests performed and verified by researchers at a North Carolina chemical engineering firm and North Carolina State University.

Around 25 percent of all the fish purchased from supermarkets by researchers in the Raleigh, N.C., area were found to contain formaldehyde, a toxic chemical compound commonly used as a medical disinfectant or embalming agent. All of the fish found to contain the compound were imported from Asian countries, and it was not found in fish from the U.S. or other regions.

The researchers only collected samples from supermarkets around Raleigh, N.C., and could not comment on whether or not the same results could be applied to fish sold nationwide.

Formaldehyde is illegal in food beyond any naturally occurring trace amounts. But, according to chemical engineer A. James Attar and his colleagues who conducted the tests, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not test any imported fish for formaldehyde contamination, and only 4 percent of imported fish gets tested for any contaminants at all.

"The look on my face when we found this – it was a complete shocker," said Jason Morton, Attar's colleague at N.C.-based Appealing Products, Inc.

Attar, Morton and another colleague at Appealing Products, Matthew Schwartz, came across the alarming revelation when they set out to validate a new formaldehyde test they developed for Bangladeshi clients who needed a cheap way to detect contaminated fish.

To verify the accuracy of their test, the team purchased domestic and imported fish from supermarkets around Raleigh, NC, with the intent of purposefully contaminating them with formaldehyde and then verifying that their test worked.

Instead, they found that about one in four fish was already contaminated with formaldehyde. The commonality between all the contaminated fish? They were imported from Asian countries, predominantly China and Vietnam.

Read the full story at Food Safety News

 

Basing rebuilding on a timeline diminishes consideration for the socioeconomic impacts of the rebuilding plans.

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) September 6, 2013 — A new study from the National Research Council of the National Academies, "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Fish Stock Rebuilding Plans in the United States," examines the ability of US fisheries management to reduce overfishing. Among other conclusions, the study, currently in pre-publication, finds that current stock rebuilding plans, which are based on eliminating overfishing within a specified time period, are not flexible enough to account for uncertainties in scientific data and environmental factors that are outside the control of fishermen and fisheries managers. It concludes that basing rebuilding on a timeline diminishes consideration for the socioeconomic impacts of the rebuilding plans.

The study was originally requested by Senator Olympia Snowe and Congressman Barney Frank in 2010, who wrote to NOAA asking them to fund the National Research Council's work. The following are excerpts taken from pages 179 and 181 of the report:

The tradeoff between flexibility and prescriptiveness within the current legal framework and MFSCMA guidelines for rebuilding underlies many of the issues discussed in this chapter. The present approach may not be flexible or adaptive enough in the face of complex ecosystem and fishery dynamics when data and knowledge are limiting. The high degree of prescriptiveness (and concomitant low flexibility) may create incompatibilities between singlespecies rebuilding plans and EBFM. Fixed rules for rebuilding times can result in inefficiencies and discontinuities of harvest-control rules, put unrealistic demands on models and data for stock assessment and forecasting, cause reduction in yield, especially in mixed-stock situations, and de-emphasize socio-economic factors in the formulation of rebuilding plans. The current approach specifies success of individual rebuilding plans in biological terms. It does not address evaluation of the success in socio-economic terms and at broader regional and national scales, and also does not ensure effective flow of information (communication) across regions. We expand on each of these issues below and discuss ways of increasing efficiency without weakening the rebuilding mandate.

…

The idea of a simple fixed rule for determining the maximum number of years for rebuilding is, in principle, an effective way to ensure rebuilding occurs at a reasonable pace, but also can create inefficiencies in practice. Having a rule for determining the maximum time horizon associated with acceptable rebuilding plans clearly reduces the possibilities for delaying fishing reductions into the future.

However, there are also disadvantages to fixed rules for specifying the maximum time for
rebuilding. First, problems may be associated with the specific formulation of the rule. The 10-year rule presently in place uses TMIN to determine a minimum possible rebuilding time; this is useful as it takes account of initial stock condition and expected productivity. However, the way the rule determines TMAX has a discontinuity at 10 years (see Fig. 4.1), which can lead to discontinuities in target dates for recovery (10 years to many decades) with potentially only small changes in estimates of stock size from assessments.

Second, a fixed maximum time for rebuilding also hinders the consideration of socioeconomic tradeoffs, especially when the range of acceptable rebuilding periods (i.e., from TMIN to TMAX) is narrow. The allotted rebuilding time can lead to substantial increases in rebuilding costs if the incremental additional costs from rebuilding are sensitive to the rebuilding schedule. As described in Chapter 6, it is sometimes possible for modest changes in a rebuilding schedule to have non-trivial effects on net social benefits; such adjustments are often precluded under current requirements. Abrupt changes in management measures can have real economic and social impacts on communities, and influence the perceptions and attitudes of stakeholders and managers.

Finally, a fixed time to rebuilding can also be problematic when rebuilding is faster or
slower than expected, causing over-reaction and misinterpretation of the causes. Rebuilding
faster than expected can lead to pre-mature demands to lessen rebuilding measures and therefore the rate of rebuilding. Delays in rebuilding, on the other hand, can lead to severe reductions in target fishing mortality in an effort to achieve the rebuilding target by the pre-specified date. The reasons for rebuilding occurring slower than expected include unexpectedly low recruitment, an ecosystem change, or failure to reduce fishing mortality due to imprecise or inaccurate science, or to catches exceeding desired levels (fishing mortality is higher than the target level). When recruitment is below expectations (e.g., due to unfavorable environmental conditions), a control rule based on maintaining fishing mortality at some fraction of FMSY may be more efficient than one that forces ever more severe controls to try to keep rebuilding on schedule; such a control rule could be formulated to ensure achievement of the goals of rebuilding as more favorable conditions return.

When discussing the goals and design of rebuilding plans in the future, the benefits and costs of introducing more flexibility in determining the time to rebuild should be considered so that new scientific information and socioeconomic tradeoffs can be more fully accounted for in rebuilding and community mitigation. Determining when and how within the rebuilding process to introduce additional flexibility that properly accommodates biological and socio-economic factors is a challenge. Experience from other countries (Chapter 3) indicates that legal mandates that are similarly strong in demanding reductions in fishing mortality as in place now in the U.S., but that allow greater flexibility in setting the time horizon for rebuilding can be effective. A caveat to the applicability of the international examples is that there are other aspects of the fishery management systems, such as the role of industry interests in decision-making, that differ among countries, which make direct comparisons difficult.

Read the full study from the National Research Council

View an interactive chart from the National Research Council on overfishing over the past 30 years

Read a press release on the study from the National Academies

Read Saving Seafood's coverage of the letter written by Sen. Snowe and Congressman Frank requesting that NOAA fund the National Research Council's study