Management & Regulation

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — April 11, 2014 — Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Recreational Saltwater Fishing Summit, in Alexandria, Va., gathered recreational fishing leaders from around the country to discuss ways of improving the science, service and stewardship of America’s saltwater recreational resources. The last summit was held in 2010.

The summit’s agenda included developing an action plan to help the country shape fishing law. The Magnuson-Stevens Act, which governs commercial and recreational fishing, will come before Congress for reauthorization this year.

"There is a lot of positive energy in the room with more than a modest supply of hope and a commitment to follow through on key recreational issues," said Eileen Sobeck, NOAA's top fisheries executive, at the summit. "Resolving issues facing our fisheries today requires partnerships between managers, scientists and people who enjoy the resource. I commit that NOAA fisheries will actively engage the recreational fishing community, and we will do our part to find cooperative solutions.”

Key issues addressed at the summit focused in the areas of angler satisfaction, resource stewardship, science and data — both biological and socio-economic — successful relationships between fish managers and anglers as well as regional engagement and collaboration.

Read the full story from the Providence Journal

April 9, 2014 — A committee assigned with processing a controversial ruling from a federal judge has recommended this year's recreational red snapper season be cut from 40 to 11 days in length. The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council will vote on the measure Thursday.

Randy Pausina, assistant secretary for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, attended the Reef Fish Committee meeting Tuesday and was frustrated with the outcome.

"(The red snapper fishery) is so poorly managed that NOAA keeps getting sued, so the judges are doing all the fisheries management," he said. "That's really what ends up happening."

A federal judge in late March ruled in favor of commercial red snapper fishers in a suit the industry brought last June, stating that NOAA Fisheries, the agency that regulates red snapper harvest, had not sufficiently held the recreational sector accountable for exceeding its quota six of the past seven years.

Federal management of red snapper has been a comedy of errors in recent years as season dates and regulations have changed by wide margins and sometimes after the seasons had already opened.

In December, NOAA Fisheries announced the 2014 recreational red snapper season would stretch 40 days from June 1 through July 10. The sector was set to receive 49 percent of a total allowable catch of 11 million pounds, with the commercial industry receiving the other 51 percent.

Read the full story at the New Orleans Times-Picayune

April 10, 2014 — Last week I attended NOAA's Recreational Saltwater Fishing Summit in Alexandria, VA with Capt. Frank Blount of the Frances Fleet and Capt. Rick Bellavance of Priority Too Charters, Pt. Judith. This was quite a showing for Rhode Island as we were three of the 70 recreational fishermen, charter captains, boat manufacturers and fisheries policy makers attending the Summit.

The Summit gathered recreational fishing leaders from around the country to discuss ways of improving the science, service and stewardship of America's saltwater recreational resources. The last Recreational Summit was held in 2010.

Capt. Bellavance gave a presentation on fishing data collection and the RI Fish for the Future's efforts (a pilot project that ran this summer) in which eight RI charter captains recorded and collected their catch data in real time on computer tablets on their vessels. Capt. Bellavance said, "I guess you might say I'm a data geek… I believe good reliable data is necessary for effective management."

The Summit's agenda included developing an action plan that would help the Country shape fishing law as the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) that governs commercial and recreational fishing will be coming before congress for Reauthorization this year. The hope was that the Summit would not only guide legislation but would also serve as an action plan for NOAA and its ocean work for the coming years.

Eileen Sobeck, assistant administrator for fisheries at NOAA (their top fisheries executive) said, "There is a lot of positive energy in the room with more than a modest supply of hope and a commitment to follow through on key recreational issues." Sobeck, who attended the two day Summit participating in discussion groups and listening sessions, said "Resolving issues facing our fisheries today requires partnerships between managers, scientists and people who enjoy the resource… I commit that NOAA Fisheries will actively engage the recreational fishing community, and we will do our part to find cooperative solutions."

Read the full story at Johnston Sunrise

April 9, 2014 — The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council is expected to consider a proposal Thursday mandating an 11-day red snapper season this summer in federal waters.

The council’s Reef Fish Committee on Tuesday approved an emergency rule setting a shorter recreational snapper season in the wake of a federal court ruling two weeks ago that found that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act regarding red snapper catch quotas.

Commercial fishermen and associated businesses claimed in a lawsuit that regulators failed to stop “persistent overharvesting by the recreational fishing sector” resulting in a decline of red snapper stocks in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a news release issued by the plaintiffs.

A U.S. District Court judge agreed with the commercial fishermen that the National Marine Fisheries Services has consistently failed to implement measures “to ensure that the recreational fishing sector adheres to its annual fishing quota,” the news release said.

Read the full story at the Pensacola News Journal

April 8, 2014 — Madera Beach is home to some of the whitest sand along the Gulf Coast.  It is also home to some of the best fishing, both recreational and commercial, especially Gulf Grouper.

Recreational fishermen enjoy targeting the fish, and customers at restaurant after restaurant along the Florida coast demand it.

“Grouper has become a very popular fish, not only in the state of Florida, but throughout the U.S.,” said 47-year fishing veteran Robert Spaeth, executive director of the Southern Offshore Fishing Association, whose association represents commercial grouper fishermen. “It is a wonderful white, mild tasting fish that consumers love.

The popularity of the fish in both recreational and commercial fishing sectors is leading to a showdown between the two groups, Spaeth fears.

Love for fishing for Spaeth was passed down from his father who came to the U.S. though Ellis Island. “He loved fishing, and took me with him some times. I grew to love it, and it became my passion. I never looked back, except for my time in Vietnam and collage,” he said. “I have a son who has the same passion, I guess it runs in the chromosomes.”

Grouper, which comes in a number of varieties, is mainly caught in the waters of the eastern Gulf.   It can grow as large as 300 pounds, but average catch is between 10 -12 pounds. A majority of the fish is sold along the Gulf Coast states because consumers and chefs are familiar with the great taste and texture, but a large quantity is also sold on the east coast, especially New York.

Read the full story from the Gulf Seafood Institute

April 8, 2014 — Between one-fifth and one-third of all the wild-caught seafood that comes into the United States may be caught by vessels engaging in “pirate” fishing, a new report says. The leading seafood trade association disputes the numbers in the study but says it remains committed to fighting the problem.

Vessels classified as participating in IUU fishing are designated as such because they regularly ignore domestic and international fishing laws, fish in areas closed or restricted to commercial fishing, target endangered and at-risk species, and use illegal gear.

“This study unfortunately confirms what we have long suspected–that seafood from pirate fishing is getting into our markets,” said Beckie Zisser of the environmental group Oceana, which has been documenting issues of fraud and illegal fishing in the seafood industry. “Illegal fishing undercuts honest fishermen and seafood businesses that play by the rules, and the U.S. should not be incentivizing pirate fishers by creating a legal market for their products.”

The best way to rid the market of pirate-caught fish is to institute a system of traceability that tracks each fish from the time it is caught until the time it is sold, she said. “Before seafood crosses our borders and enters our markets, it needs to have documentation that verifies that it was legally caught, and that the fish traveled a transparent path from the fishing vessel to our dinner plates,” Ms. Zisser said.

The National Fisheries Institute, which in 2007 created the Better Seafood Board to combat fish fraud, said while it supports efforts to fight pirate fishing, it has serious doubts about the numbers reported in this study.”We find this report, however, a bit skewed. To begin by proposing that 10% to 20% of domestic seafood comes from IUU fishing suggests the author’s other conclusions may be suspect,” an NFI spokesman said. “Experts who know fisheries management would not accept the suggestion that as much as 20% of the U.S. catch is IUU.”

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal 

April 3, 2014 — After a research review, the National Marine Fisheries Service is prepared to loosen controversial limits on fishing in the western Aleutian Islands.

NMFS closed fishing grounds three years ago to protect an endangered population of Steller sea lions. That triggered several rounds of litigation and a new evaluation of the science behind fishing bans.

Brandee Gerke is a NMFS resource management specialist. She helped the agency write its new biological opinion on whether increased fishing would harm sea lions.

We don’t have any direct scientific evidence that fisheries are causing nutritional stress in Steller sea lions,” Gerke says.

That has cleared NMFS to open more fishing grounds in the western Aleutians, according to a plan that was approved by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Gerke says that biologists still have lingering concerns about how to harvest fish safely in critical habitat areas without disturbing Steller sea lions.

Read the full story and listen to the audio from Alaska Public Media

April 6, 2014 — NOAA Fisheries has announced plans to develop a national recreational fishing policy — something anglers, industry leaders, scientists and conservationists have been urging for years.

The announcement came during Wednesday’s national Saltwater Recreational Fishing Summit in Alexandria, Va. — the second meeting of NOAA Fisheries leaders and more than 100 representatives of the fishing community.

“Resolving issues facing our fisheries today requires partnerships between managers, scientists and people who enjoy the resource,” said Eileen Sobeck, assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries. “I commit that NOAA Fisheries will actively engage the recreational fishing community, and we will do our part to find cooperative solutions.”

NOAA figures show some 11 million people fish recreationally in saltwater throughout the United States, generating tens of billions of dollars in economic impact and representing one of the agency’s largest organized constituencies. But many of those constituents have felt left out of the agency’s decision making process on how to manage fish stocks, and that more weight has been given to the desires of the commercial fishing industry.

Read the full story at the Miami Herald 

 

April 7, 2014 — But climate change and its rapid effect on fisheries are forcing scientists and policymakers to rethink the traditional management approach. Suddenly, every fixed point in the equation has to be reconsidered as a network of moving parts.

Fishery management traditionally has focused on fishing pressure, the removal of animals from a population with nets, lines and traps, as the only statistic worth using in the regulatory equation.

The rationale is simple, at least in theory: If the landings in a fishery drop, it’s assumed that the population has declined.

Everything else that might change a fish stock – all the environmental, ecological or climatic variables that are virtually impossible to quantify with any accuracy – have been addressed as statistical constants in fish-population models.

But climate change and its rapid effect on fisheries are forcing scientists and policymakers to rethink the traditional management approach. Suddenly, every fixed point in the equation has to be reconsidered as a network of moving parts.

Read the full story at the Providence Business News 

 

April 4, 2014 — The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) potentially threw its hat into the sustainability certification ring earlier this week when it announced it was seeking comments on a proposal to establish its own certification program, complete with labeling.

In a prior interview with SeafoodSource, NOAA Fisheries Deputy Administrator Sam Rauch said NOAA is taking comments until 30 April. Right now, the proposed program appears to offer labeling at the buyer level, not for consumers.

American seafood producers already have the option of seeking certification and labeling from a number of private groups, including the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Friend of the Sea and the Alaska-based Responsible Fisheries Management (RFM) program. While many of these groups have reserved comment until NOAA divulges more about what it has in mind, many told SeafoodSource they questioned whether NOAA needed such a program, and whether having one would matter much on the international level.

"It would not be perceived as an independent certification," said Paolo Bray, founder and director of Friend of the Sea.

Bray said he respected NOAA as "one of the best" when it comes to assessing and regulating fisheries, but his organization has certified 400 companies in 50 countries, and few of those countries have actually tried to set up a government-sponsored sustainability program. Two that have — Iceland and Japan — have not been taken very seriously by the international community since they are too closely connected with the seafood's country of origin, Bray said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source