Management & Regulation

January 26, 2015 — A public hearing was held Jan. 15 in Dover about the proposed summer flounder regulations for 2015. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has the responsibility of setting the recreational size and bag limits as well as the seasons for summer flounder.

Kirby Rootes-Murdy, the ASMFC flounder management plan coordinator, presented the program.

The reason for this hearing was to give the public a chance to have input before the ASMFC announced the 2015 flounder regulations. In 2014, ASMFC placed Delaware in the Southern Region along with Maryland and Virginia. All three states were given a 16-inch minimum size and a four-fish bag limit with no closed season.

New Jersey cried bloody murder because they were put in a region with New York and Connecticut, where each state had an 18-inch size limit, a five-fish bag limit and a 128-day season. They raised such a stink that ASMFC developed several options that would put all or part of New Jersey in the Southern Region.

Read the full story at The Cape Gazette

 

January 23, 2015 — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton and four other members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation want NOAA Fisheries to "revise and improve" the federal interim action that has blacked out cod fishing and severely restricted fishing for other species in the Gulf of Maine.

Describing the interim emergency measures as "a major step backwards" and a potential death-knell for the inshore groundfish fleet, Moulton and his colleagues want NOAA to strike a better balance between cod conservation goals and the economic needs of the communities dependent on a viable fishery.

"The closures resulting from the November 2014 Interim Action fail to achieve this balance and as importantly have a minimal impact on protecting the [Gulf of Maine] cod stocks from further decline," the congressmen stated in a letter sent Thursday to NOAA Regional Administrator John K. Bullard.

Last November, NOAA announced sweeping emergency measures it deemed necessary to protect the region's endangered and withering cod stock.

Those measures ended all cod fishing in the gulf for at least six months and instituted a rolling set of area and spawning closures designed to help bring the cod back from what the federal agency described as a highly imperiled state.

NOAA Fisheries instituted those measures after its unscheduled and highly controversial cod stock assessment last summer showed the gulf's cod to be in the worst state in the half-century it has monitored the stock.

The results of that assessment  _ and its unpublicized scheduling _ infuriated fishermen and fishing advocates, leading them to hotly question the secretive nature of the survey and the science used to produce its dire conclusions.

The congressmen, in their letter to Bullard, also took aim at the science NOAA uses in its stock assessments. 

"The extensive time-area closures set forth in the Interim Action will effectively terminate the inshore groundfish fishery," the congressmen stated, adding that the decision to enforce those closures is based on "insufficient scientific documentation of spawning activity" that is redundant to the current system in which hard catch limits are used to control cod mortality.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times

January 22, 2015 — With many fishermen complaining about the scourge of seals for decades and the recent phenomenon of great white sharks arriving to nosh on the blubbery – and protected – pinnipeds, Chatham officials had plenty to say when asked to comment on ways to deter “nuisance” animals.

 “They really aren’t endangered. I can’t see how 200,000 or more of them sitting on our shores can be (endangered),” said Selectman Chairman Florence Seldin last week, adding that they were so many in one of the Martha’s Vineyard harbors last year that boat traffic stopped.
 
 Selectmen sent out a letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Protected Resources that was highly supportive of ways to control seals.
 
 The office is the process of soliciting comments for upcoming guidelines under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The comments focus on non-lethal and non-injurious deterrents.
 
 “Right now there are no guidelines. So right now you can’t do anything basically and that is a concern for us obviously for
gray seals,” said Robert Duncanson, the town’s director of natural resources.

Read the full story at WickedLocal

 

January 21, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Thinking of becoming a shellfish farmer? The Interagency Working Group on Aquaculture, led by NOAA Fisheries, released a new guide that provides information to help shellfish growers navigate the permit process in the United States.
 
This guide is one of several tools being developed by federal agencies to support more efficient permitting processes for shellfish aquaculture and to bolster wild and cultured shellfish populations in coastal waters.
 
Shellfish aquaculture is an important and growing industry in the United States. It provides a source of domestic seafood, creates jobs, helps to restore habitats and depleted wild populations, and provides ecosystem services such as improvement of water quality. In addition to this guide, multiple federal initiatives are addressing Administration priorities relating to shellfish aquaculture. This includes NOAA's National Shellfish Initiative, which aims to increase shellfish populations in our nation's coastal waters through sustainable commercial production and restoration activities, and related state shellfish initiatives in which we participate.

January 20, 2015 — Federal regulators are considering changing new rules on lobstering equipment to allow single lobster pots within three miles of shore, easing the total ban on such traps scheduled for June 1.

Federal regulators are considering changing new rules on lobster fishing equipment to allow single lobster pots within 3 miles of shore, easing the total ban on such traps scheduled for June 1.

New regulations set by the National Marine Fisheries Service ban the use of lobstering equipment from Feb. 1 to April 30 off the Massachusetts coast. The goal is to reduce the chances of whales becoming entangled in the gear.

The regulations also ban single pots – or one trap per buoy line – outright starting June 1. Lobstermen would therefore have to tether multiple pots along a single line.

But the state Division of Marine Fisheries is challenging the federal rules to allow single pots close to shore in three areas. It requested a 3-mile buffer on the outer Cape, which includes the South Shore.

Among other exemptions the state is seeking, it has asked the federal agency to allow lines and buoys to be attached to both ends – rather than just one end – of trawls joining four and five lobster traps.

Read the full story from The Patriot Ledger

 

HOUSTON, Tx. — January 20, 2015 — The following was released by Omega Protein:

Omega Protein Corporation (NYSE: OME), a nutritional product company and a leading integrated provider of specialty oils, essential fatty acids and specialty protein products, is pleased to report that after more than a year of thorough analysis, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) has released its 2014 Atlantic Menhaden Stock Assessment. The assessment indicates that the status of the Atlantic menhaden population is not overfished; nor is overfishing occurring.

"Omega Protein is satisfied that the stock assessment results reflect what so many fishermen, spotter pilots and even environmentalists have witnessed, which is that Atlantic menhaden are quite abundant on the East Coast," said Omega Protein President and CEO Bret Scholtes.   "The Company has long been an ardent supporter of cooperative menhaden research and using the best available science to drive fisheries management decisions, rather than political considerations. This assessment should provide confidence to ASMFC Commissioners about the health the Atlantic menhaden stock."

The official status of the stock had been uncertain since 2013, following the failed 2012 stock assessment which produced unreliable results and greatly contributed to the ASMFC's 2012 decision to reduce harvest of Atlantic menhaden by 20 percent. The ASMFC harvest reductions first went into place in the 2013 fishing season and have continued through the 2014 fishing season. The results of this new assessment prove that the stock is currently, and has been, robust for the past decade or longer and was not in decline as many special interest groups had claimed.

The next stage of the regulatory process for Atlantic menhaden is the responsibility of the ASMFC Menhaden Management Board. The Menhaden Management Board will review a number of key issues, such as whether to adjust to the current harvest quota, the appropriateness of the current reference points and the allocation of the quota to the ASMFC member states. The Company expects that the Menhaden Management Board will continue to review these issues throughout 2015 and that any changes to menhaden harvest quota would take effect in time for the 2016 fishing season.

View the full 2014 Atlantic menhaden stock assessment here and for additional information, contact publicaffairs@omegaprotein.com.

HOUSTON, Tx. — January 20, 2015 — The following was released by Omega Protein:

Omega Protein Corporation (NYSE: OME), a nutritional product company and a leading integrated provider of specialty oils, essential fatty acids and specialty protein products, is pleased to report that after more than a year of thorough analysis, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) has released its 2014 Atlantic Menhaden Stock Assessment. The assessment indicates that the status of the Atlantic menhaden population is not overfished; nor is overfishing occurring.

"Omega Protein is satisfied that the stock assessment results reflect what so many fishermen, spotter pilots and even environmentalists have witnessed, which is that Atlantic menhaden are quite abundant on the East Coast," said Omega Protein President and CEO Bret Scholtes.   "The Company has long been an ardent supporter of cooperative menhaden research and using the best available science to drive fisheries management decisions, rather than political considerations. This assessment should provide confidence to ASMFC Commissioners about the health the Atlantic menhaden stock."

The official status of the stock had been uncertain since 2013, following the failed 2012 stock assessment which produced unreliable results and greatly contributed to the ASMFC's 2012 decision to reduce harvest of Atlantic menhaden by 20 percent. The ASMFC harvest reductions first went into place in the 2013 fishing season and have continued through the 2014 fishing season. The results of this new assessment prove that the stock is currently, and has been, robust for the past decade or longer and was not in decline as many special interest groups had claimed.

The next stage of the regulatory process for Atlantic menhaden is the responsibility of the ASMFC Menhaden Management Board. The Menhaden Management Board will review a number of key issues, such as whether to adjust to the current harvest quota, the appropriateness of the current reference points and the allocation of the quota to the ASMFC member states. The Company expects that the Menhaden Management Board will continue to review these issues throughout 2015 and that any changes to menhaden harvest quota would take effect in time for the 2016 fishing season.

View the full 2014 Atlantic menhaden stock assessment here and for additional information, contact publicaffairs@omegaprotein.com.

January 20, 2015 — Now a draft of a new benchmark assessment that incorporates more comprehensive data from coastal states stretching back to the 1950s, as well as alternative model scenarios, appears to indicate menhaden might not be in such bad shape after all.

Environmentalists and commercial fishermen have clashed for years over Atlantic menhaden and whether there are still plenty of the little fish left in the sea.

The science seems to have backed the environmentalists, culminating in a 2012 interim stock assessment that so alarmed the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that it imposed the first-ever 20 percent reduction in coast-wide commercial catch, including in the Chesapeake Bay.

Now a draft of a new benchmark assessment that incorporates more comprehensive data from coastal states stretching back to the 1950s, as well as alternative model scenarios, appears to indicate menhaden might not be in such bad shape after all.

"Based on the current adopted benchmarks," the draft states, "the Atlantic menhaden stock status is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring."

The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition said the findings confirm what they've been saying all along.

Read the full story from the Daily Press

January 20, 2015 — Now a draft of a new benchmark assessment that incorporates more comprehensive data from coastal states stretching back to the 1950s, as well as alternative model scenarios, appears to indicate menhaden might not be in such bad shape after all.

Environmentalists and commercial fishermen have clashed for years over Atlantic menhaden and whether there are still plenty of the little fish left in the sea.

The science seems to have backed the environmentalists, culminating in a 2012 interim stock assessment that so alarmed the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that it imposed the first-ever 20 percent reduction in coast-wide commercial catch, including in the Chesapeake Bay.

Now a draft of a new benchmark assessment that incorporates more comprehensive data from coastal states stretching back to the 1950s, as well as alternative model scenarios, appears to indicate menhaden might not be in such bad shape after all.

"Based on the current adopted benchmarks," the draft states, "the Atlantic menhaden stock status is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring."

The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition said the findings confirm what they've been saying all along.

Read the full story from the Daily Press

January 17, 2015 — Two years ago, a small fish created big trouble between Chesapeake Bay environmentalists and commercial fishermen.

Environmentalists backed by scientific data said Atlantic menhaden were being over-fished. Commercial fishermen disagreed. New data collected by scientists show the fishermen were probably right.

A draft of the latest bench assessment using new data says, “Based on the current adopted benchmarks, the Atlantic menhaden stock status is not over-fished and over-fishing is not occurring.”

“It’s really what Omega Protein and others in the fishing community have said for a long time,” said Ben Landry, a spokesman for the Houston-based company. “Previous stock assessments did not accurately reflect what the population looked like in the water.”

Menhaden is eaten by fish and birds, used as bait by watermen and anglers, and rendered by Omega Protein to make fish-oil supplements. Traveling in large schools, the fish move up and down the coast and in and out of bays, making them difficult for biologists to ensure they're not being over-fished.

Read the full story from the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star