Management & Regulation

April 8, 2015 (Fishermen's Voice) — Gulf of Maine cod is in trouble. But it’s not on the verge of extinction.

“We want cod to be around forever. That’s fine, but I would contend that is not a problem,” said Steve Cadrin, a professor of fisheries oceanography at the UMass School for Marine Science and Technology. “When we look at marine bony fish, fishing has never forced any species to go extinct. Cod has one of the highest egg counts of any bony fish, so if there is any fish that is resilient to extinction, it’s cod."

View the full PDF of "Cod Extinction Unlikely" here

April 8, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service have worked together to calculate the initial observer set-aside compensation rate for fishing year 2015. The effective date for these rates in March 1, 2015.

We will revisit these rates in May if Framework Adjustment 26 is approved and implemented to see if any mid-year adjustments are necessary.

The compensation rate for open areas for limited access vessels fishing under days-at-sea (DAS) is 0.08 DAS per DAS fished (the vessel is charged 0.92 DAS for each DAS fished with an observer onboard). This rate allows the fishery to achieve the needed observer days for the Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology requirements. The current rate is a slight increase in the compensation rate from last year but is equivalent to the compensation rate in fishing years 2012 and 2013.

Read the complete Bulletin online, or get more information about the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery on our website.

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel, Regional Office, at 978-281-9175 or email Jennifer.Goebel@noaa.gov.

 

April 8, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

We are proposing to implement the New England Fishery Management Council's recommended catch limits for northern red hake, southern red hake, northern silver hake, and southern whiting.
 
We are considering a reduction to the northern red hake possession limit from 5,000 lb to 3,000 lb at the start of the season, and then dropping to 1,500 lb when the fishery reaches 45% of total allowable landings. This was recommended by the Council and the Council's Advisory Panel.
 
We are also proposing two corrections in this rule:
 – Correct the northern red hake in-season possession limit trigger from 45% to 62.5% of the total annual catch limit to account for an underestimate of the 2012-2014 ABC. Due to that underestimate, 2012 catch rates were only 27.5% over the annual catch limit rather than the 45% that was originally announced.
 – Clarify that possession limits and modifications to the in-season accountability measure trigger can be modified in a specifications package.

Read the complete proposed rule as published in the Federal Register and review the supporting documents on our website. NOAA Fisheries will be accepting public comment on this proposed rule through April 23, 2015, which you can submit online through the Federal e-rulemaking portal or by mail to:

John K. Bullard, Regional Administrator
NMFS, Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office
55 Great Republic Drive
Gloucester, MA 01930.
 
Please mark the outside of the envelope: "Comments on Whiting Specifications."
 
Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel, Regional Office, at 978-281-9175 or email Jennifer.Goebel@noaa.gov.

 

April 6, 2015 — Lawmakers took initial steps Monday to close what Maine officials described as the last major loophole in monitoring an elver fishery that included as much as $20 million in black market sales of baby eels in 2012.

Under a proposal unanimously endorsed by a legislative committee, Maine would begin licensing the companies or individuals exporting elvers – also known as glass eels – which can fetch hundreds or thousands of dollars a pound. The exporters would be required to use the same real-time monitoring and reporting system that has been widely credited with curtailing illegal activity among elver fishermen and dealers.

“What we are really talking about is creating a bulletproof chain of custody” for elvers caught in Maine and shipped overseas, said Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources, which requested the legislation.

The 2012 elver fishing season was a boom for Maine’s legitimate elver fishermen, and for poachers. The catch reported by the Department of Marine Resources was estimated at $40 million, with a pound of the translucent baby eels averaging more than $1,600. But Keliher told members of the Marine Resources Committee that the actual value of the fishery, accounting for black market sales, could have been as much as $60 million, based on investigations by state and federal agencies.

“There was a lot of illegal activity that year,” Keliher said afterward.

Since then, Maine has implemented a first-in-the-nation reporting system that allows the state to monitor each fisherman’s catch and each dealer’s purchases practically in real time. But exporters, who ship elvers to aquaculture operations in Asia, are not required to participate in that monitoring system.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

April 6, 2015 — The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition is touting recent media reports of multiple sightings by fishermen of vast schools of menhaden from Florida to the Gulf of Maine.

"They have been spotted coast-wide in numbers and in places that are far beyond the mid-Atlantic-based menhaden fishery," the group said Wednesday. "This is consistent with what fishermen have been saying for years."

In February, a regional fisheries commission reversed course and announced Atlantic menhaden were neither being overfished nor experiencing overfishing — an important finding for Virginia, which has the only menhaden rendering plant left on the East Coast.

Next month, the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board will meet in Northern Virginia to decide if that new benchmark assessment is convincing enough to lift a controversial 20 percent coast-wide reduction in the commercial fishery imposed in 2013.

As that May 5 meeting approaches, both sides in the long-running dispute are staking out their positions.

The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition is touting recent media reports of multiple sightings by fishermen of vast schools of menhaden from Florida to the Gulf of Maine.

"They have been spotted coast-wide in numbers and in places that are far beyond the mid-Atlantic-based menhaden fishery," the group said Wednesday. "This is consistent with what fishermen have been saying for years."

The coalition is comprised of menhaden fishermen and associated businesses and industries.

Read the full story from the Daily Press

April 6, 2015 — The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition is touting recent media reports of multiple sightings by fishermen of vast schools of menhaden from Florida to the Gulf of Maine.

"They have been spotted coast-wide in numbers and in places that are far beyond the mid-Atlantic-based menhaden fishery," the group said Wednesday. "This is consistent with what fishermen have been saying for years."

In February, a regional fisheries commission reversed course and announced Atlantic menhaden were neither being overfished nor experiencing overfishing — an important finding for Virginia, which has the only menhaden rendering plant left on the East Coast.

Next month, the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board will meet in Northern Virginia to decide if that new benchmark assessment is convincing enough to lift a controversial 20 percent coast-wide reduction in the commercial fishery imposed in 2013.

As that May 5 meeting approaches, both sides in the long-running dispute are staking out their positions.

The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition is touting recent media reports of multiple sightings by fishermen of vast schools of menhaden from Florida to the Gulf of Maine.

"They have been spotted coast-wide in numbers and in places that are far beyond the mid-Atlantic-based menhaden fishery," the group said Wednesday. "This is consistent with what fishermen have been saying for years."

The coalition is comprised of menhaden fishermen and associated businesses and industries.

Read the full story from the Daily Press

April 4, 2015 — West Coast fisheries managers will likely shut down sardine fishing this year as numbers decline, echoing a previous collapse that decimated a thriving industry and increasing worries that other species might be withheld from the commercial market.

Fishermen are resigned to not being able to get sardines, but they hope the Pacific Fishery Management Council will not be so concerned that it sets the level for incidental catch of sardines at zero, shutting down other fisheries, such as mackerel, anchovies and market squid, which often swim with sardines.

Sardines were a thriving fishery on the West Coast from World War I through World War II, and the cannery-lined waterfront in Monterey, California, became the backdrop for John Steinbeck's 1945 novel, "Cannery Row." The fishery industry crashed in the 1940s, and riding the book's popularity, Cannery Row became a tourist destination, with restaurants and hotels replacing the canneries.

The industry revived in the 1990s, when fisheries developed in Oregon and Washington waters. Today, there are about 100 boats with permits to fish for sardines on the West Coast, about half the number during the heyday. Much of the catch, landed from Mexico to British Columbia, is exported to Asia and Europe, where some is canned, and the rest goes for bait. West Coast landings have risen from a value of $1.4 million in 1991 to a peak of $21 million in 2012, but are again declining.

 Read the full story from The San Diego Union-Tribune

April 3, 2015 — The Seafood Harvesters of America object to a recent proposal from the Gulf State's fish and wildlife managers that would take control of red snapper fishery management from federal authorities.

The Harvester group says the scheme sets a "dangerous precedent that could unravel the responsible management of America’s fisheries under the landmark Magnuson-Stevens Act".

According to the Gulf plan — agreed upon by fish managers in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida — the proposal would:

– Extend state jurisdiction out to 200 miles for red snapper, taking precedence over Magnuson Stevens Act and the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council

– Give states a free hand to change or eliminate commercial snapper management after a three year period

– Require the National Marine Fisheries service (NMFS) to continue to pay for survey and enforcement for red snapper, despite removing authority over the fishery from NMFS

“If this scheme becomes law, it could soon become difficult or impossible to legally buy American red snapper. Retailers, restaurants and grocery stores will be simply unable to provide consumers with the genuine American red snapper that is increasingly popular across the country," said the harvesters' president Chris Brown.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

April 2, 2015 — Even as members of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council discuss the mind-numbing minutiae of red snapper management at a meeting this week in Biloxi, other talks a thousand miles away may determine its real long-term future.

Alabama Marine Resources Director Chris Blankenship said he has made three trips to Washington D.C. since December, accompanied by Conservation Commissioner Gunter Guy once, to convince lawmakers that Gulf states can better manage the popular game fish to the greatest benefit of the species and all user groups that rely on it for commercial and recreational purposes.

If successful, their efforts will take the Gulf Council out of the red-snapper management process.

Blankenship said the confusing ad often frustrating result of federal management is made yet again clear this year when a 3.3 million pound Gulfwide quota increase may translate into but two days more than the nine recreational anglers had to catch red snapper in 2014.

He said the quota increase is negated as it relates to more fishing days for several reasons.

Firstly, the commercial sector takes 51 percent of the increase off the top.

Secondly, National Marine Fisheries Service estimates suggest the catch rate per day in the eastern Gulf is increasing more than expected.

Finally, with the recreational sector potentially being split into for-hire and private components through sector separation, increases in quota will also be split with the private component receiving roughly 60 percent of the total.

Read the full story from AL.com 

 

April 1, 2015 — Maine fishermen will weigh in on a state legislator's plan to limit the amount of scallops they can harvest per day.

Representative Robert Alley of Beals wants to limit scallopers to 90 pounds per person, per day. The plan is the subject of a Wednesday hearing. It is unpopular with some fishermen who say the cap will make it more difficult for them to make money.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WGME