Council Actions

October 17, 2012 — The NEFMC released an announcement today stating that the Groundfish Oversight Committee will meet on November 5, 2012 at 9 a.m. in Portland, Maine.

View the meeting notice on the NEFMC website

 

 

WASHINGTON – October 18, 2012 – The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) Groundfish Oversight Committee met last Thursday to continue development of Framework Adjustment 48 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan. 

The Committee discussed recreational measures for fishing year 2013, reviewed recommendations from both the Groundfish Advisory Panel (GAP) and the Recreational Advisory Panel (RAP), and worked to develop alternatives to improve at-sea and dockside monitoring programs. Issues related to closed area management and access, as well as the groundfish resource sharing agreement between the United States and Canada prompted  discussion.  

 

Highlights from the committee and public comments follow.

 

Listen to Vito Giacalone, of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, comment on the delicate nature of the U.S. and Canada stock sharing agreement.

Listen to NEFMC Council Chair, Rip Cunningham, discuss the possibility of renegotiating with Canada for a larger share of the groundfish resource in the vicinity of eastern Georges Bank.

Listen to Groundfish Committee Member, David Goethel, discuss the effectiveness of the closed areas, as well as what environmental factors merit a closure.

Listen to Groundfish Advisory Panel Chair, Bill Gerencer, discusses the past, present, and future of the closed areas.

Listen to Maggie Raymond, of Associated Fisheries of Maine, discuss closed area access and the fishery’s need for changes to accountability measures.

Listen to Groundfish Committee Member, David Goethel, express the need for accurate yellowtail stock assessment data.

Listen to Rich Canastra, of Buyers And Sellers Exchange (BASE) New England, take issue with the value of the closed areas.

Listen to Peter Shelley, of the Conservation Law Foundation, stress the importance of recognizing all of the productivity factors present in the closed areas before opening them up.

Listen to Shaun Gehan, an attorney for the Fisheries Survival Fund, discuss the scallop industry’s desire to reduce yellowtail bycatch in the scallop fishery.

Listen to Ron Smolowitz, of the Fisheries Survival Fund, discuss closed area management and the future of the scallop fishery.

 

 

October 16, 2012 –The New England Fishery Management Council has shown a willingness to consider allowing fishermen into areas of the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank that, through conservation efforts and attempts to grow the stocks, have been off limits for many years.

Among those advocating for the opening of closed areas was new NOAA regional administrator John Bullard; he was joined in support by the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, the region’s largest industry group, and the Associated Fisheries of Maine.

Peter Shelley, senior counsel at Conservation Law Foundation, said his organization would sue to prevent the opening of the closed areas. Also registering opposition were the groups Earthjustice and The Nature Conservancy. But the Environmental Defense Fund, which played an important role in the decision to create a catch share system for New England, argued conditionally for the opening of the closed areas, if sought by the sectors.

“While that larger important and significant analysis continues, we support the committee’s motion to conditionally consider exemption requests from individual sectors for access to groundfish closures that do not overlap with current (habitat) closures,” said Emilie Litsinger, New England Fisheries project manager for EDF.

“Whether or not access is granted to any sector should be transparent, temporary, and determined based on clear demonstration of the benefits of access in terms of high (catch per unit effort) for healthy stocks and low CPUE of weak stocks,” she added. “We believe that access should also require 100 percent at-sea monitoring to ensure that we are capturing total catch and accounting for all mortality.

Fishery council member David Goethel, a Hampton, N.H., groundfisherman, said mortality closures have had enough time — 16 years — to prove themselves a wellspring for the stocks.

“We should be overflowing with groundfish; instead we have a disaster,” said Goethel, who said the closed areas should be opened.

“When the Northeast groundfish fishery transitioned to hard total allowable catches,” the Northeast Seafood Coalition said in statement, “it was understood the measures that continued to exist under the old mortality controls would be removed. Sectors are now in the third year of operations and very little has been done to remove the artifacts of the old system, other than removing trip limits. Areas fishermen could gain access to (via the request of sectors) are conservative and will not overlap existing habitat areas or new areas being considered under the larger habitat amendment currently under development.”

The Gloucester-based coalition is the region’s largest industry group, and its subsidiary, the Northeast Sector Network, supports 13 of the region’s 17 sectors including all gear types and boats from all the port states.

“We have supported closures, but we at Associated Fisheries of Maine don’t see that they’ve produced,” said Maggie Raymond, the organization’s executive director. “In some way … we regret supporting it. We have to do something different. The hard TAC (total allowable catch) is the control.

“If not this, then what do we do?” Raymond told the council. “This is an opportunity to bring more fish across the dock.”

Associated Fisheries of Maine is another major trade association of fishing and fishing dependent businesses. Membership includes harvesters, processors, fuel/gear/ice dealers, marine insurers and lenders, and other public and private individuals and businesses with an interest in commercial fishing.

Shelley, representing Conservation Law Foundation, sees otherwise.

“This is a bad idea,” he Shelley. “There is no definition of what the economic emergency is. There is an emergency for some fishing operations, but it’s not everybody.”

Shelley said he was concerned that opening the closed areas without conducting a full environmental impact study was illegal, but he also said he worried that the underlying catch share system insured that, if more fish became accessible, they would end up in the holds of the biggest operators without helping the mom-and-pop fishing boat businesses.

 

Read the full story in the Gloucester Times  

 

 

 

October 16, 2012 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

Dover, DE — Mid-Atlantic Council member Jack Travelstead has been selected to represent the Council on the National Ocean Council’s regional planning body for the Mid-Atlantic region. Travelstead was appointed Commissioner of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission earlier this year after more than three decades of service with the agency.

The nine regional planning bodies, composed of Federal, State, tribal, and other representatives, are expected to play a substantial role in the coastal and marine spatial planning (CMSP) framework described in the National Ocean Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Coasts, and Great Lakes (National Ocean Policy).

The National Ocean Policy is based on the recommendations of an interagency task force that President Obama established in 2009. The policy emphasizes the importance of developing a nationwide system for CMSP and calls for the establishment of regional planning bodies to develop regionally-focused coastal and marine spatial plans.

The nation’s eight Regional Fishery Management Councils (Councils) reacted swiftly to an early draft strategic action plan for CMSP released by the National Ocean Council (NOC) last year that provided for ad-hoc consultation with the Councils but did not include official seats for Council representatives on the regional planning bodies. The chairmen and executive directors of all eight Councils jointly submitted comments regarding the draft CMSP framework and the membership of the regional planning bodies. The letter noted that the most effective consultation mechanism would be to provide each Council with an explicit seat. In early 2012 the NOC announced that full membership would be extended to the Councils.

“Marine spatial planning is an issue of concern for many stakeholders in Mid-Atlantic fisheries because it introduces additional uncertainty about the future,” said Mid-Atlantic Council Chairman Rick Robins. “Emerging uses of the ocean will demand a more proactive, coordinated approach to ocean planning, and the Councils have the experience and expertise needed to ensure that the region’s fisheries are effectively considered throughout the development of a regional ocean plan.”

"The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council welcomes the opportunity to participate in the Regional Planning Body for the Mid-Atlantic,” said Chairman Robins. “Jack Travelstead's experiences with the Council, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission make him one of the most knowledgeable and effective fishery managers in the Mid-Atlantic, and I am pleased to name him as the Council's representative.”

 

 

October 12, 2012 — The New England Fishery Management Council has posted audio files from the 10/11/2012 Groundfish Committee Meeting on its website, www.nefmc.org.

To connect directly to these files, click on Groundfish October 11, 2012 Committee Meeting Audio. For the agenda and meeting materials, click on Groundfish October 11, 2012 Discussion Materials.
 
For now, audio will be posted for meetings held between the first and second Council meetings at which initial and final action is taken on framework adjustments; for example, between the September and November Council meetings this year. The current focus will be on groundfish and scallops, but the same will hold true for other important FMP-related meetings that occur prior to final action by the Council. This is contingent on staff resources and logistics. 

 

View the NEFMC website here

 

 

October 12, 2012 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council took up a new deployment plan for marine observers at its October meeting, asking the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, to conduct further outreach, clarify a few components and plan to review certain items after one year.

The 2013 annual deployment plan uses random sampling of two different pools — a trip-based pool and a vessel pool — to assign observers to fishing vessels. Those selected in the vessel pool are responsible for carrying an observer for 90 days, while those selected from the trip pool would carry the observer for one trip. The observers provide NMFS with data about the fish being caught, and take samples of the catch.

Testimony and action Oct. 6 was in regards to the partial coverage vessels in the two pools with random sampling.

NMFS Fisheries Monitoring and Analysis Division Director Martin Loefflad said that program is meant to provide good data about the fishery.

“We live to try and give you folks, and all of the folks that work with us, unbiased numbers,” Loefflad said.

Council members questioned the high cost of the program per observer day, as well as the need to use such random methods that don’t account for pre-exisiting knowledge about observers or the fisheries.

Council member Cora Campbell, Commissioner of Alaska Department of Fish and Game, noted that the observer data has a variety of uses, including in-season management and stock assessments in future years.

“I’d like you to explain why you chose to develop a deployment plan that ignores all of that and deploys observers across sectors at the same rate,” Campbell asked.

The answer was that everyone was considered equally, particularly as the new observer program seeks to secure baseline data about the fisheries.

Ultimately, the council passed a motion that recommended that NMFS attach a priority to monitoring some vessels over others, change the three-month observation to two months for the vessel selection pool, work with the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Pacific cod catcher vessel trawl fleet to institute 100 percent observer coverage, and conduct outreach so that the industry has a better idea of the program and possible options to make it less difficult.

That trawl fleet relies on near 100 percent coverage for in-season management, and was willing to pay for the coverage. The council also asked that a provision for this be looked into for future deployment plans, so that it’s not a surprise change late in the process.

Trawl vessels in the Gulf of Alaska less than 125 feet in length are required to carry observers 30 percent of the time under the current management.

The changes came after recommendations from the council Advisory Panel, and significant public testimony from conservation groups and industry.

The Alaska Marine Conservation Council made a statement saying it thought the bycatch priority was a positive change.

The program has the potential to monitor more vessels than in the prior deployment plan, but the AMCC and others noted that the amount of coverage for trawl vessels with a high incidence of prohibited species catch, or PSC, would likely be lower than in the old program, which was contrary to conservation goals.

Brent Paine, from United Catcher Boats, testified about the need for coverage in the Bering Sea, where the co-op management relies on observer data to keep bycatch down and the fishery open.

Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association Executive Director Linda Behnken said the council’s action seemed to try to address those concerns, but she didn’t know if it would actually improve the program when it is implemented in 2013.

The longline association represents smaller vessels, and has said that having an observer could prove difficult on the boats due to space constraints and other logistical issues.

Smaller boats between 40 feet and 57.5 feet in length overall, will be part of the vessel selection pool.

The program is funded by NMFS in 2013, and in subsequent years by a 1.25 percent fee on landings, but the cost came in high on the bids to provide observers, so the total observer days is less than hoped for.

The primary funder of the new program will be the halibut and sablefish fleet because its landings are more valuable than the trawl fleet. Trawlers longer than 125 feet are required to carry observers 100 percent of the time and pay for that cost on a per-day basis.

 

Read the full story in the Alaska Journal of Commerce 

 

 

October 11, 2012 —

View the meeting documents on the NEFMC website

 

 

October 10, 2012 — The final agenda and meeting materials for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's 71st Annual Meeting are available.

Please note the following changes have been made to the meeting schedule. The Atlantic Menhaden Management Board will not be meeting on Tuesday. Instead, it will meet on December 14 in Baltimore, Maryland to consider final action on Amendment 2 (a separate announcement with provide more details about this meeting). The Weakfish Management Board, originally scheduled to meet on Thursday, will now meet on Tuesday from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.
 
Some documents may be large, so please be patient downloading. Meeting materials are also available on CD-ROM; to obtain a CD please contact Cindy Robertson at crobertson@asmfc.org. Supplemental materials will be posted next Wednesday, October 17, 2012.

 

View the final agenda on the ASMFC website

View a PDF of the announcement and agenda 

 

 

 

 

October 10, 2012 — The following is a summary actions related to Atlantic Scallops at the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) meeting held September 25 – 27, 2012 in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

In the scallop portion of its agenda, the Council voted to recommend that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) close the Elephant Trunk Area by emergency action, as both the Scallop Advisory Panel and Scallop Committee had recommended. In general, the Council permitted the Scallop Advisory Panel and Committee recommendations to move forward, either by direct action or by letting the Scallop Plan Development Team, Advisory Panel, and Committee keep moving forward with their work on Framework 24, with no substantial alteration. Among other things, the Advisory Panel/Committee motions added an alternative to put some of the 2013 access area trips into the Nantucket Lightship Access Area and to add an option to only close Closed Area II from August 15-November 15.

Additional agenda items were handled on the next day of the Council meeting, as either part of Council priority setting or the habitat discussion. Regarding Council priorities, the Council provided for the work time for Framework 24 to be a one-year framework. This will ensure that (i) new information is used to re-assess fishing levels for 2014, (ii) the timing of Mid-Atlantic access area openings is considered in light of growth detected in the 2013 surveys; and (iii) that a scallop framework be available to add access areas within the current habitat closed areas, assuming the habitat amendment is completed.

Regarding habitat, the Council voted to expedite completion of the Omnibus Habitat Amendment, including potential revisions to or elimination of the habitat closed areas, and to add new scallop access areas in the first available framework.

The Council considered Georges Bank yellowtail flounder allocations for 2013, as well. The U.S.-Canada Transboundary Management Guidance Committee (TMGC) had voted to recommend an overall 500 mt quota for the U.S. and Canada to share for Georges Bank yellowtail, leaving the U.S. share in the low 200’s—an amount considered insufficient by the scallop harvesting industry. In contrast, the New England Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) recommended consideration of an overall quota of 1,150 mt. The Council did not vote to approve the TMGC-recommended level, and will consider the quota level recommended by the SSC as well.

The Council did not move forward with the SSC recommendation that there be no possession of Georges Bank yellowtail.

The Council also considered options for the 2013 scallop sub-Annual Catch Limits for Georges Bank yellowtail as a part of the next Groundfish Framework 48. The Groundfish Committee had forwarded two options: (i) providing a sub-Annual Catch Limit to the scallop fishery according to its need (as is done now), or (ii) instead allocating only 8% of the Georges Bank yellowtail quota to the scallop fishery.

The 8% allocation is based on a calculation that 8% of the quota represents the scallopers’ share of the quota over time. The credibility of that calculation is questioned by the scallop harvesting industry.  An 8% allocation could leave leave the scallop fishery with under 20 mt of yellowtail for 2013. The Council voted to add an alternative that the scallop sub-Annual Catch Limit be set at 16% as well. The industry maintains that any sub-Annual Catch Limit must be based on an assessment of scallopers’ actual need for yellowtail to prosecute the fishery in 2013.

There has been no action on Monkfish. 

 

Meetings are continuing this week, and an updated summary will be released when they are completed.

 

 

 

 

October 5, 2012 —

NEFMC Council Report from their most recent meeting held September 25 – 27 in Plymouth, MA is now available.
 
Please contact Pat Fiorelli at (978) 465-0492 ext. 106 or pfiorelli@nefmc.org with any further questions.

 

View the NEFMC Council Report here