Management & Regulation

March 1, 2015 — The confluence of the Eastern Gulf of Maine (GOM) Habitat Area closure to groundfish gear, the emergency action on GOM cod and the claims around cod bycatch in lobster traps in recent months has made it all a front-burner issue for a lot of lobstermen. Lobstermen know cod bycatch is minimal and the cod, when they do come up in a trap, go back overboard. So where did this tempest in a teapot over cod bycatch come from?

Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said the Marine Stewardship Council’s review of the Maine lobster fishery’s sustainability certification released data they were given and that became the source of the bycatch issue picked up at the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) meeting in October.

The Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2 is part of a lengthy plan to meet habitat requirements of the Magnuson Stevens Act. The emergency action on Gulf of Maine cod is rooted in a recalibration of a previously accepted stock assessment in September 2014. That recalibration came up with a lower figure on cod than the original assessment. The original went through the conventional required third-party peer review process. The recalibration was given an in-house Northeast Fishery Science Center (NEFSC) review. NEFSC does the stock assessments for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Read the full story from Fishermen's Voice

BOSTON, Mass. — March 3, 2015 — The big windows at the University of Massachusetts Club, 33 floors up into the Boston skyline, filled like bright blue boxes of a cloudless sky that descended into Boston Harbor. It felt like the world had turned a corner and a long winter was finally drawing to a close.

The fishermen, scientists, fishery regulators and environmentalists who slogged through slushy streets and half-cleared sidewalks below could only wish that the summit they were attending Monday had a similar sunny prospect. But this was not a meeting to announce some dramatic turnaround for the beleaguered New England fishing industry. This was a rallying of the troops in advance of a new fishing year in May that promised deeper gloom than the one just past.

For the 2015 fishing year, for instance, the Gulf of Maine cod quota has been reduced from 1,550 metric tons to just 386 metric tons. In 1991, fishermen caught more than 17,000 metric tons.

The summit was hosted by the Marine Fisheries Institute, a collaboration between the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School of Marine Science and Technology and the state Division of Marine Fisheries. The fisheries institute was formed with the idea that bringing scientists and fishermen together might lead to some scientifically based innovations. The hope was that cooperation, not infighting, would turn around the nation’s oldest fishery, even as it is beset with increasingly dramatic impacts of global warming and brutal fishing restrictions in the face of the stubborn chronic collapse of iconic species such as cod and flounder.

“If we are going to advance, then we are all in this together,” U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., told the audience. “The myth we have to break down is that this is an industry that doesn’t appreciate the science. They live it, they see it, and they could be more important partners.

“As discouraging as it can be that we’re not making progress as quickly as we can, if we weren’t here working together, it would be so much worse,” Keating added.

A big part of the problem is cod and some flounder species are nowhere near the population levels predicted by scientists and federal fishery managers despite various tactics employed to reduce the impact fishermen were having on stocks, such as slashing daily limits, overall quotas and fishing days to the bone over the past two decades.

Read the full story from the Cape Cod Times

February 26, 2015 — "If you relish independence, if you want to live by your wits, there's something magical about the ocean," Bullard said on a recent evening in a hotel lobby, his tall frame folded into an upholstered chair.

Bullard now spends more time in Holiday Inns and Radissons than he does on the water. As an NMFS regional administrator, it's his job to frequent nondescript conference rooms, listening to fishermen who are wary of federal data and environmentalists who want tighter fishing regulations.

That debate has escalated in recent months, after NMFS released an unexpected midseason stock assessment on Gulf of Maine cod. The assessment — which showed alarmingly low population numbers — triggered emergency action, with NMFS closing off large swaths of the gulf to cod fishing through mid-May (Greenwire, Nov. 10, 2014).

Bullard angered many fishermen by initially declining to consider industry alternatives to the temporary closures, but he reversed course last week. That concession will not stem the debate, though; after the interim rule expires, fishery managers are expected to all but ban cod harvests.

Once heralded as the key to mending NMFS's strained relationship with Northeast fishermen, Bullard now embodies one of the most unpopular restrictions in years.

"This is what I signed up for. Difficult decisions have to be made," Bullard wrote in an email. "I don't want them to be faceless, anonymous or impersonal. I want everyone to know there is a real human being with a history they are very familiar with who is responsible."

Read the full story here

February 26, 2015 — The period for public comment ends Monday on the fishing sectors' proposal to trade cod allocation for the elimination of some restrictive elements of the emergency cod measures NOAA Fisheries instituted last November in the Gulf of Maine.

So, barring comment that will sway NOAA to a different conclusion, a coalition of industry stakeholders and sector managers seem to have done something extraordinary: convince the federal fisheries management regulator to reconsider a policy deemed by fishermen to be overly restrictive, dangerous and economically unfair.

Both sides conceded the ultimate compromise on the emergency cod measures represents a departure from the way they usually interact and the oft-abrasive tenor their color their discussions.

"They deserve credit for reconsidering the measures and putting it back out there for comment," Vito Giacalone, executive director of the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund, said of NOAA's decision to revisit the emergency measures it instituted in the belief that the Gulf of Maine cod stock required immediate and sweeping protections. "Hopefully, this will help open their eyes and see what the sectors can do to help solve some of these problems."

Bullard was asked if he could recall another specific and significant instance where fishing industry stakeholders and his agency managed to find common ground after first starting at two widely spaced ends of the policy spectrum.

"In the two-and-a-half years that I've been here, it's always been a difficult situation," Bullard said. "I've always had to make difficult decisions. But we've always tried to keep the lines of communication open."

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

February 26, 2015 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Scup Northeast Regional Data and Stock Assessment Workshop will be conducted April 20-24, 2015 at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The assessment will evaluate the health of the scup population and inform the management of this species. The Workshop is open to the public, with the exception of discussions of confidential data, when the public will be asked to leave the room.
 
For data sets, alternative analyses, and models to be considered at the workshops, the data must be sent in with accompanying methods description to Mark Terceiro (mark.terceiro@noaa.gov) by March 20, 2015.  For more information on requirements for submission and presentation of materials at the Data and Assessment Workshop, please contact Mark Terceiro
(mark.terceiro@noaa.gov), NOAA Research Fisheries Biologist. All available data and analyses will be reviewed and vetted by members of the Scup Working Group for possible use in the assessment.          
 
The benchmark stock assessment will be peer reviewed by the Northeast Regional Stock Assessment Review Committee (SARC) in June 2015 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. For more information or details on attending the workshop, please visit http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/nefsc/saw/ or contact Kirby Rootes-Murdy, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at krootes-murdy@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

 

 

February 23, 2015 — Just two years after fishery managers slashed menhaden harvests to prevent overfishing, a new review of the menhaden stock has concluded that the population of the small, oily fish has actually been in good shape in recent years, and hasn’t been overfished in decades.

This upbeat assessment, which was formally adopted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Feb. 3, has commercial fishermen hoping that the commission will grant them higher catch limits at its May meeting.
 
It presents a strikingly different picture of the menhaden stock than what was presented in the 2012 assessment, which had concluded that menhaden were suffering from overfishing, and abundance was near a historic low. Based on that information, the commission, which regulates catches along the East Coast, in December 2012 imposed a 20 percent coastwide harvest reduction.
 
The most recent assessment now paints an entirely different picture of the stock. It found that the coastwide menhaden biomass – an estimate of the weight of the entire population – was near or above the long-term average during much of the past decade. And, it found no evidence of overfishing since the 1950s.
 
Fishing industry representatives said the new assessment validates their objections to the 2012 cuts, and said it should boost the prospect for increased catch limits. The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition, an industry group, said "this new assessment reveals that the previous 2012 assessment was far too pessimistic and the subsequent cuts perhaps unnecessary."

Read the full story at the Chesapeake Bay Journal

February 20, 2015 — The fishing sector-based proposal to remove some of the most restrictive emergency cod measures in the Gulf of Maine, initially rejected by NOAA Fisheries, is back in play.

Responding to a Jan. 22 letter written by U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton and co-signed by four other members of the Bay State's congressional delegation, NOAA Fisheries now says the alternative cod management proposal developed by the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund and Northeast Fishing Sector 4 "warrants further consideration."

NOAA informed Moulton on Wednesday night that it will revisit the alternative cod management proposal put forth by the fishing sectors and other fishing advocates.

"Fishermen, environmentalists and others share a commitment to ensuring a sustainable fishery for future generations," Moulton said today in a statement. "I am grateful that NOAA will revisit how we go about accomplishing that goal."

In the Jan. 22 letter, the first-term congressman and his colleagues went to bat for the plan largely developed by GFCPF Executive Director Vito Giacalone and widely endorsed by sectors and other fishing advocates and stakeholders.

That plan proposed fishing sectors would surrender up to 60 metric tons of their annual cod catch entitlement if NOAA would relax or eliminate some of the emergency cod measures it instituted last November after a surprise and unscheduled stock assessment last summer showed the Gulf of Maine cod stock to be highly imperiled.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times

 

February 19, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA:

On February 9, 2015, we received an exemption request from several sectors proposing to withhold 30 metric tons of Gulf of Maine (GOM) cod annual catch entitlement in return for regulatory exemptions from the current 200-lb GOM cod trip limit and the GOM broad stock area restrictions.
 
A notice will publish in the Federal Register on Monday, February 23, 2015, seeking public comment on this new sector exemption through Monday, March 2, 2015. We intend to make a final decision soon after the public comment period closes.
 
Read more about the sector exemption application.
 
Send your comments via email to William Whitmore. Include in the subject line: "Comments on Gulf of Maine Cod Sector Exemption Request."
 
Questions? Email Jennifer Goebel, Regional Office, or call her at 978-281-9175.

February 19, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Small Entity Compliance Guide for the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery is now available. It is important for planning your scallop fishing operations for the upcoming fishing year. This summary is not a substitute for the actual regulations, and we encourage you to review the full text of the regulations, available at:

Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Regulations
 
IMPORTANT: You need to be aware of upcoming measures that we expect to implement in May 2015. The New England Fishery Management Council voted on final Framework Adjustment 26 measures on November 20, 2015, and, if we approve the action, we will likely implement the measures in May. There are several important changes proposed in Framework 26 that, if approved and implemented, will directly affect the management measures in fishing year 2015. We have noted the Framework 26 measures that we urge you to consider when planning your fishing activity between March 1 and the implementation of Framework 26.

For questions, contact Travis Ford, Sustainable Fisheries Division, at travis.ford@noaa.gov or 978-281-9233.

 

February 14, 2015 — Last week’s meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission went very well for Delaware. At this point, it appears we will retain the same flounder and black sea bass regulations we had in 2014 for 2015.

On the flounder front, New Jersey introduced a motion that would have given it a smaller size limit in Delaware Bay, but would have raised the size limit in states to the north of it. As I understand the situation, New Jersey was crushed when no one would even second the motion. Exactly why they thought other states would be willing to restrict their catch so New Jersey anglers could catch more fish is something I really don’t understand.

There had been some concern that black sea bass would see a cut in recreational landings, but it seems what overfishing is occurring is to our north, so our regulations should remain unchanged. It has been my experience that there are plenty of sea bass in local waters; the problem is they have moved farther offshore. If you are willing to run 20 miles or more, catching black sea bass is a simple drop-and-crank process. Try fishing for them at the Old Grounds or over the inshore wrecks and you will be disappointed.

This is another example of how the sea is warming. Sea bass like cooler water and now must stay farther off in deeper areas to find the temperature they like. Fish we never saw before, like triggerfish and spadefish, have expanded their range north as the water has warmed. Last year we saw many more summer flounder at the Old Grounds than in any year past, while the warmer Delaware Bay saw fewer flounder than in previous years. I have no idea at this point if the warmer water is the cause of rockfish staying off the beach, but it is a subject that requires more study.

Read the full story at the Cape Gazette