Management & Regulation

January 24, 2014 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries, in partnership with the National Ocean Service, has extended the public comment period on a draft Marine Mammal Acoustic Guidance document. This Guidance document will serve as a tool for us to better quantify the effects of sound exposure on marine mammals and will be used in our assessments and authorizations of activities under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act. DEADLINE FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS is March 13, 2014.

Click here for more information.

To view a Q&A on what this guidance is and how it is used click here.

To view the guidance document and learn how to provide public comment on it click here.

New Bedford, Mass., — January 23, 2014 — The fledgling Center for Sustainable Fisheries takes its message to Seattle, Wash. in February to stoke discussion of changes in the way commercial fisheries are regulated.

The delegation will be led by Dr. Brian Rothschild, dean emeritus of the UMass School for Marine Science and Technology.

He will be joined by CSF chief operating officer Kate Kramer, who told The Standard-Times on Wednesday, "People on the West Coast have different ideas about the Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization."

That's the law that governs fishing regulation, and especially in the Northeast, NOAA has been accused of diverging from the intent of Congress and short-changing many aspects of what Magnuson requires it to do. High among them are: to use the best science; and, determine and mitigate the economic effects of regulations on fishing communities and economies.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times 

 

NEW BEDFORD, Mass., — January 18, 2014 — A top NOAA fisheries scientist has proposed a dramatic change in the way the agency makes its stock assessments for yellowtail flounder.

Yellowtail assessments in recent years have been dire, prompting sharp quota cutbacks that interfere with fishing for more plentiful species of groundfish.

The proposal by Dr. William Karp, director of the Northeast Regional Science Center, embraces the view of Dr. Brian Rothschild, professor emeritus at UMass Dartmouth. It reduces the reliance on statistical models that have proven unreliable and inadequate, instead calling on NOAA to employ additional data and information that it previously wouldn't consider.

That would include such things as industry-supplied data, facts and figures from the science center's social science division and studies conducted by the UMass School for Marine Science and Technology.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times 

January 17, 2014 — The following was released by the Center for Sustainable Fisheries:

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NFSC) has made a positive step forward by announcing an “empirical assessment” for the Georges Bank Yellowtail Flounder (GBYTF). As is generally known, the current assessments of GBYTF were equivocal and not suitable for management purposes, impeding the rational management of both GBYTF and scallops (GBYTF is bycatch in the scallop fishery).
 
The proposed empirical assessment will examine a wider variety of data from a range of sources and not be constrained by techniques that have not worked. The empirical assessment will use established techniques to obtain a better understanding of the state of the stock and a management regime that is more consistent with observations made by fishermen and scientists.  CSF would like to offer its assistance to NFSC during this empirical assessment.
 
Considerable thanks is owed to Steve Cadrin and Kevin Stokesbury of SMAST for stimulating the empirical assessment through an End-to-End review of New England stock assessments and field surveys of yellowtail abundance using innovative technology.
 
CSF is pleased at the predicted success of this collaborative research.  CSF understands that major constraints in the stock assessments are a shortfall in the theory and a lack of data. To be successful, the data for the empirical approach may not be sufficient. This is why CSF has advocated to the Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker, that she implements an experimental, cooperative fishery to enhance the data needed to improve the assessments of GBYTF. We look forward to working with Secretary Pritzker and NFSC.

View a PDF version of the press release here 

 

SAN DIEGO — January 15, 2014 — Environmental organizations have added the Navy to their lawsuit against the federal government that seeks more measures to protect whales and other marine mammals from the military’s sonar use.

Earthjustice and other organizations announced the addition Wednesday to their lawsuit filed in December against the National Marine Fisheries Service. The lawsuit demands that the service force the Navy to seek alternatives to its five-year plan that will intensify off the California and Hawaii coasts.

Navy officials estimate its activities would have a negligible impact on marine mammal populations.

Read the full story by the Associated Press at The Washington Post

 

January 12, 2014 — Anyone who fishes in saltwater in South Florida likely has been befuddled trying to stay within the law while simply catching dinner.

Nowhere is this problem more vexing than the Keys, where an angler could be subject to four sets of regulations — Atlantic federal and state waters and Gulf federal and state waters — on a single fishing trip. Throw in special regulations in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and Everglades and Biscayne national parks, and it’s enough to make an angler’s head explode.

Said Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council member John Sanchez of Homestead: “Right now, honest to God, you’ve almost got to bring your Philadelphia lawyer with you when you go fishing. Let’s make this a little simpler for the public because some of this is absolutely crazy.”

Simplification is what a joint committee of the Gulf and South Atlantic councils set out to do at a 2 1/2-day meeting last week in Key Largo: identify species suitable for South Florida-specific regulations and cut down on cross-jurisdictional, conflicting rules. A separate ad hoc steering committee was established to tackle the controversial issue of whether to reopen the harvest of Goliath grouper, closed since 1990 after the fishery collapsed. The meeting was the first of several, and any and all recommendations will have to pass muster with both councils and NOAA Fisheries.

Read the full story at The Miami Herald 

January 7, 2014 — New Jersey anglers will have a chance to have their voices heard when the state’s Division of Fish and Wildlife will hold a public hearing on Draft Addendum XXV, which proposes regional management measures for summer flounder for the 2014 season.

The meeting will be held on Monday, Jan. 13 at 7 p.m. at the Ocean County Administration Building, Public Hearing Room 119, 101 Hooper Avenue in Toms River.

The Draft Addendum was initiated to address a growing concern that current summer flounder management measures (as established under the Fishery Management Plan) are not providing recreational fishermen along the coast with equitable harvest opportunities to the resource.

New York has been the major force behind the proposed changes. According to New York’s fishery managers, the current system of conservation equivalency, which allows states to set their own size, season and bag limits, does not provide for an equitable distribution of the resource.

One reason behind the proposal is the change in the fishery itself. The health, size and location of the stock has changed dramatically since since 1998, the year that was set as the basis for individual state targets. The stock is considered recovered, yet New York’s minimum size was 19 inches in 2013 , at least one inch higher than any other state and one and a half inch higher than bordering states.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

January 4, 2014 — The Atlantic coast states of Massachusetts through Virginia have scheduled their hearings to gather public comment on Draft Addendum XXV to the Summer Flounder and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plans.

Summer flounder, or fluke as the species is more commonly known, and black sea bass are both very popular with local anglers. And, like many other recreational species, catch limits and sizes vary from state to state.

Draft Addendum XXV proposes management approaches for the 2014 summer flounder and black sea bass recreational fisheries.

For summer flounder, the Draft Addendum includes options that allow for management measures by region and the sharing of unused quota — both with the intent of providing more equity in recreational harvest opportunities along the coast.

The specific regions being considered are (1) Massachusetts; Rhode Island through New Jersey; Delaware through Virginia; and North Carolina and (2) Massachusetts and Rhode Island; Connecticut through New Jersey; Delaware through Virginia; and North Carolina.

The Draft Addendum was initiated to address a growing concern that current summer flounder management measures (as established under the Fishery Management Plan) are not providing recreational fishermen along the coast with equitable harvest opportunities to the resource.

Read the full story at the Stamford Advocate

BEAUFORT, N.C. — January 5, 2013 — Beaufort County seafood dealers may have to do more paperwork in 2014 due to proposed changes in federal reporting requirements.

The biggest change would require dealers to report their purchases from fishermen every week instead of every two weeks.

While not excited by more red tape, Beaufort County dealers have been largely receptive to the proposed changes, which could help the fish that provide their livelihood.

Such a change would provide more complete and timely purchase information, which in turn would give dealers more accurate assessments of the size and health of certain fisheries. It also helps ensure that species are not being overfished, said Tonya Hudson-Desalve, owner of Benny Hudson Seafood on Hilton Head Island.

Read the full story at The Beaufort Gazette 

 

December 31, 2013 — Regulators recently did just that, closing the 2014 Gulf of Maine shrimping season — which, in a normal year, might have run from December through the spring — to give the supply time to recover. The unusual step has brought some hope to Mr. Cushman and to other fishermen and processors whose livelihoods depend in part on the shrimp’s making a comeback, even as they wonder how to weather this season, and perhaps longer, without it. But others say closing the season completely will deal too heavy a blow to the tiny, specialized market, eroding another part of New England’s imperiled fishing economy.

The shrimp in question are called Northern shrimp or, more locally, Maine shrimp. They are the southernmost appearance of a species, Pandalus borealis, that can also be found in Canadian and Icelandic waters, but the ones caught here in the Gulf of Maine tend to be at the bigger end of the species. They are usually caught in the winter, when females come close to shore to lay their eggs in cold water. They are smaller and typically sweeter than warm-water or farmed shrimp, with delicate, edible shells, and are popular in European and Scandinavian markets, although New England chefs use them, too.

“They’re something that I love to have,” said Michael Leviton, the chef at Area Four and Lumière, two Boston-area restaurants, who said he would use local fish in lieu of the shrimp this year. “My favorite thing to do with them is to basically pan-fry them whole, head and shell on.”

The fishery is among the last in Maine to be open-access, meaning licenses are not limited as they are elsewhere. As a result, some fishermen say, the supply is vulnerable to overfishing when prices are high. It had a peak in the late 1960s and the ’70s before the supply collapsed and regulators imposed the last complete closing, in 1978. In 2011, regulators estimate, about 350 boats — mostly in Maine, with some in Massachusetts and New Hampshire — caught $10.6 million worth of shrimp; last season, about 200 boats caught an estimated $1.2 million worth.

In 2013 researchers towing nets to assess the size of the stock counted an average of 27 shrimp per tow, compared with a historical average of 1,400 per tow.

Read the full story at the New York Times