Management & Regulation

GLOUCESTER, Mass. — August 2, 2012 — New Bedford’s John Bullard, a recreational sailor with government experience from mayor to the Clinton administration, Monday takes the helm of a shaky ship when he becomes regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries Northeast offices here.

But Bullard arrives with a reputation as a reasonable, personable, political creature.

The industry that’s regulated, administered and governed out of Gloucester stretches from Maine to North Carolina, and is stuck in a spiral of consolidation — spurred by a highly disputed catch share commodification imposed on the groundfishery in 2010 under the gaze of NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, who remains at the agency’s national helm.

Bullard was appointed by Lubchenco on July 2, but she who gave him “no marching orders” whatsoever, Bullard said in an interview Wednesday after meeting with the some 200 members of his regional team who work out of the $13 million Blackburn Industrial Park edifice built for the agency and opened three years ago.

“Nobody told me, ‘Here’s what you’ve got to do,’” he said, adding that Lubchenco and Eric Schwaab, her top assistant, made it clear “they were committed to change.”

 

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.

 

 

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) Aug. 2, 2012 — The New England Fisheries Management Council and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released notes and statements today indicating that "Several important fish stocks are in poor condition and some catch limits for 2013 will be reduced markedly from 2012."  The statements and notes were released at a New England Fishery Management Groundfish Committee meeting.

The notes indicate severe cuts of approximately 70% for cod, haddock and American plaice. Yellowtail flounder stock cuts are predicted to be approximately 50%. Looking back two years, the most severe overall cut is in the Georges Bank stock of yellowtail flounder, which is predicted to have a 2013 allowable catch that is 94% lower than it was in 2011.

The notes continue "These reductions will have impact across all segments of the groundfish fleet. Reductions in yellowtail flounder will also affect the scallop fishery. The reduction in catch limits is largely a result of the need to prevent overfishing. Several stocks have experienced several consecutive years of poor recruitment, while some remain subject to continued overfishing, despite stringent management requirements."

Statements have been released by Samuel Rauch of NOAA Fisheries, and C.M. “Rip” Cunningham Jr. of the New England Fishery Management Council, and also by the Northeast Seafood Coalition, the largest membership organization in the northeast groundfish fishery.

STATEMENT FROM SAMUEL RAUCH, NOAA FISHERIES, AND C.M. “RIP” CUNNINGHAM JR., NEW ENGLAND FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL

As we have been discussing over the past several months, the groundfish fishery in New England will face many challenges in 2013. We are committed to this fishery, to this industry, and to the people in this community; preserving the groundfish industry is of the utmost importance to us and we’ll put forward our unwavering support. Today, we are continuing to engage in a conversation with our regional partners well in advance of the start of the 2013 fishing year. While there is unlikely to be any solution to fully mitigate the challenges in 2013, we plan to continue to work closely with the industry to explore every possible option.

NSC STATEMENT ON FINDING WORKABLE SOLUTIONS FOR FISHING YEAR 2013

The Northeast Seafood Coalition (NSC) is committed to evaluating and pursuing every possible option to mitigate impacts of the dire forecast for 2013 fishing opportunities on our membership and the groundfish fishing industry.

At this point in time, everything has to be on the table—science, management and the law. Year after year, industry has complied with everything the science and management have asked for; but ultimately, the status of several core stocks continues to decline. There are much larger forces at work in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank than just controlling fishing mortality or preventing overfishing on an instantaneous basis. It’s time for NOAA, Managers and Congress to openly acknowledge that low productivity of fish stocks is outside the control of the law or fisheries management and we can no longer continue to destroy fishing communities in an effort to control the uncontrollable. It is not only unfair to hold fishermen fully and exclusively accountable to the natural cycles of complex natural ecosystems, but it is irresponsible to continue in this manner. It is now time to review and understand the larger picture of this ecosystem and develop management strategies that are more reflective of this stark actuality. An overhaul is required, or else there will be no groundfish fishery.

NSC—the largest membership organization in the northeast groundfish fishery, which represents a majority of the active fishermen in the region—looks forward to working with our members, Northeast Fishery Sectors, NOAA, the Council, and our champions in Congress in the coming weeks to find workable solutions that will be the least impactful to this historic industry.

 

Read the notes "Northeast Multispecies: Brainstorming Mitigation Alternatives for Fishing Year 2013" released today.

Read Congressman Barney Frank's Statement here

 

 

 

 

July 30, 2012 — The following is an excerpt from the Victoria, British Columbia radio program Gorilla Radio:

This week: Human industry, and the greed feeding it, has conspired with agencies charged to monitor the health of humble Atlantic menhaden and other wild fish stocks to keep harvest number levels high. Cooked scientific data in fish stock assessments is nothing new to Atlantic Canadians, and others who may recall when cod was king in the Maritimes. Alison Fairbrother is Director of the Washington, D.C.-based Public Trust Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to investigating and exposing the misuse of science by corporations and government to the detriment of human health and the environment. The Public Trust Project instead, quote: "[P]romotes the findings of independent scientists whose work has not been skewed by powerful interests, through op-eds and media communications." Alison Fairbrother in the first half.

Listen to the full interview on Gorilla Radio

Analysis: In an interview with the Victoria, British Columbia radio program Gorilla Radio, Alison Fairbrother, Director of the Public Trust Project, discussed the current state of menhaden management. She repeatedly criticized the alleged influence of the menhaden reduction industry over the scientific process of determining the health of the stock, and questioned the integrity of the upcoming results of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) assessment process. However, during the interview, she never provides evidence that the industry has violated ASMFC protocol. In fact, chief ASMFC administrators have commented publicly to the contrary.

Ms. Fairbrother mentioned several times that the participation of consultants associated with Omega Protein affected confidence in the independence of the assessment, saying that she is, “frankly worried about whether the results will be biased.” She similarly claims, “there are a lot of opportunities for the industry to provide comment and input, even in the scientific process, which of course is supposed to be insulated from influence.”

These statements overestimate the amount of influence that the reduction fishery has over the scientific process. For example, Ms. Fairbrother expressed concern that scientists consulting Omega Protein on stock assessment science were present at ASMFC meetings, and that, “the language and the concepts that have been presented by [Omega Protein’s] consultants have made their way into the recommendations of government scientists.” Ms. Fairbrother failed to mention that such meetings are open to the public, and public comment by outside experts and interested parties is allowed according to ASMFC rules. Such participation by independent scientists is neither uncommon nor unusual in the assessment process.

According to current ASMFC rules, public participation in ASMFC meetings is regulated by the chair of the committee, and whether or not the level of public participation is intrusive is the decision of the chair. An article from the Public Trust Project quotes Technical Committee Chair, Erik Williams, on the subject of the consultant participation as saying, “ultimately, this is a scientific process, so to the degree that they can contribute to the science, that’s great.” Similarly, in an interview, Bob Beal, Acting Executive Director of the ASMFC, did not feel that industry consultants had been overly influential when they had participated in an ASMFC meeting in May of this year. “Their participation was controlled and allowed by the chair of that meeting. It was really up to the chair, and he felt it was a constructive discussion,” he said. “My understanding is that they weren’t inserting themselves beyond what the chair was allowing at the meeting.”

The goal of fishery regulation is to keep the stock healthy, and the management process involves soliciting input from a variety of stakeholders, including members of the industry and environmental organizations. The ASMFC appreciates and encourages scientific contributions from the public in the fishery management process. However, the ASMFC still has the ultimate authority in making management decisions, regardless of input from outside experts. 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON — August 1, 2012 — On July 23, Peter Baker, Director of the Northeast Fisheries Program of the Pew Environment Group, sent an email to supporters urging them to contact the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and take a number of steps related to the regulation of Atlantic menhaden. Unfortunately, Pew Environment is misleading the public though the selective presentation of facts.

– Pew Environment states for dramatic effect that “overfishing has occurred in 32 of the last 54 years”, but they avoid mentioning that 30 of those 32 instances occurred between 1954-1993.  From 1994-2008 (the last 15 years for which there is data) overfishing occurred only twice, most recently in 2008 and only by 0.4%.

– Pew Environment does not mention the work of, among others, Dr. Doug Butterworth of the University of Cape Town, one of the world's leading scientists in the area of mathematical modelling approaches in the assessment of renewable marine resources and Dr. Alexia Morgan, of the University of New England, who is also a consultant with the Ocean Sciences Division at the Pew Charitable Trust, and a contractor with both the New England Aquarium and the Blue Ocean Institute.  Drs. Butterworth and Morgan analyzed the results of a menhaden aerial survey conducted by Dr. James Sulikowski of the University of New England, an expert in the area of composition and spatial/temporal distribution of fish communities, and found that the actual menhaden stock size may be more than twice as large as the stock assessment's estimate.

– Pew Environment, while voicing concern about the health of the menhaden population, fails to mention that in the most recent assessment the number of eggs produced was almost double the number below which menhaden would be considered overfished.

– Pew Environment asks its supporters to demand that menhaden management be based on the 2012 menhaden update stock assessment. They fail to mention that because of issues such as a pattern of contradictory historical population estimates, and incorrect assumptions about the age distribution of fish caught by the fishery, the members of the ASMFC Menhaden Technical Committee have deemed that assessment to be severely flawed and not reliable for management purposes.

 

Analysis in Detail:

In their recent petition, “Protect Atlantic Fish and Fishing – Keep Menhaden Recovery on Track”, the Pew Environment Group misleads the public by selectively quoting the 2010 menhaden stock assessment to give the impression that the status of Atlantic menhaden is significantly more dire than it actually is.

Pew claims, “according to the ASMFC's [Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission] peer-reviewed 2010 stock assessment, overfishing has occurred in 32 of the last 54 years and is still occurring.” In reality, most of that overfishing occurred between the 1950s and the 1970s, and incidences of overfishing are much rarer in the recent history of the fishery. In that same 2010 stock assessment, it can be seen that in the last 15 years for which data is available, from 1993 to 2008, overfishing occurred only twice. The last recorded instance of overfishing was in 2008, when the fishery was just 0.4 percent over the threshold determined by the ASMFC. Because menhaden is a comparatively short-lived species (living from 10-12 years), and the average menhaden produces a high number of eggs during its lifetime, the most recent data is much more relevant in determining the health of the species than older, dated statistics.
 
Pew also fails to make the important distinction that while the 2010 benchmark stock assessment (a peer-reviewed assessment where the assessment methods can be analyzed) determined menhaden were experiencing slight overfishing (meaning that the number of fish caught exceeded the mortality level set by the ASMFC), it concluded that the stock was not overfished (meaning that the population is still producing enough eggs to sustain itself). In fact, the assessment shows that the species abundance, measured by the number of eggs produced, is at a level that is currently considered healthy, and is nearly twice the level needed in order to be considered overfished.

Contrary to what the petition states, the members of the menhaden fishery do not oppose new menhaden management and are not trying to “derail” the management process. Rather, industry participants have always advocated that any decision be based on the best available science. In the past, members of the fishery have supported efforts by members of Congress to improve the management process and stock assessment model through efforts such as the inclusion of new aerial survey data.  The fishery depends on the stability of the stock, and the industry supports any plan to restore the menhaden population that is scientifically justified.

Pew recommends that the 2012 update assessment (an assessment that adds more data to the previous benchmark assessment but does not change the methods) for menhaden, along with the 2010 benchmark assessment, be the sources considered when setting the new annual menhaden quotas. In doing so, Pew goes against the advice of the ASMFC’s Menhaden Technical Committee, which considers the 2012 update assessment to be severely flawed and not a suitable reference for future management decisions. Many of the flaws present in the 2012 update assessment were first noticed in the 2010 benchmark assessment.

At the last Menhaden Technical Committee meeting, the committee noted that the updated assessment revealed a retrospective pattern in the model, meaning that the estimates in previous population assessments contradicted the population estimates in the most recent assessment, and needed to be revised in order to fit the more current data. With the addition of the 2012 update assessment results, it was found that, from 2006 to 2010, the menhaden assessment model showed a pattern of underestimating the population size and overestimating the fishing mortality rate. This indicates that the model being used for menhaden assessments may be too pessimistic, implying that more fish are dying than actually are. The appearance of retrospective patterns in stock assessments is an indication that a particular assessment model may not be working and that the data being produced is not reliable.

A widely acknowledged flaw in the current menhaden assessment process is that very little data from the northern range of the menhaden population, an area that extends from New Jersey to Maine, is included in the assessment. To address this lack of data, Dr. James Sulikowski, of the University of New England, conducted an aerial study in 2011 of the area and determined that significant amounts of menhaden are located there. In reviewing this study, Dr. Doug Butterworth and Dr. Alexia Morgan determined that over two times as many fish may exist than are accounted for in the assessment. Because the assessment draws much of the data used to calculate population estimates from fishery data, these fish are not included. This is reflected in the assessment’s selectivity pattern, the graphical reflection of what kinds of fish are available to be caught by the fishery.

The menhaden assessment model has a “flat-topped” selectivity, which assumes that for the commercial fishery, all adult fish age three and older are equally likely to be caught by the fishery. When this assumption is graphed, the vulnerability to fishing increases until the age of three, at which point the fish are assumed to be caught by the fishery.  Here, the selectivity curve pattern plateaus at maximum selectivity, creating a flat top.

In the 2010 peer review of the assessment, the reviewers suggested that, instead of the flat-top selectivity, a different selectivity might better reflect the fishery’s catch. Menhaden become increasingly vulnerable to being caught as they grow to three years old, and then become increasingly less susceptible to harvest. So, the true selectivity curve for the fishery would take a different shape. Because the fishery only catches a high proportion of the middle age group of one to three year old fish, the likelihood that the fishery will catch these groups is much higher than other age groups. The increasing availability of menhaden up to the age of three, and the decreasing availability beyond that age creates a curve that is bell-shaped. This is known as a “dome-shaped” selectivity curve.

The 2010 peer review recommended that the “dome-shaped” selectivity be used to represent the commercial fishery in southern waters, because they could not access the older, larger fish that were found by the Sulikowski aerial survey to inhabit the northern waters during the fishing season.

These issues have led the Menhaden Technical Committee and Stock Assessment Subcommittee to consider recommending that the ASMFC Menhaden Management Board conduct a new benchmark assessment as soon as possible, rather than using the critically flawed 2012 update for future management purposes.
 
Because the most recent data available is from 2008, the current health of the menhaden population is unknown. The next full benchmark assessment will not be available until 2015 at the earliest. Assessments are conducted in a three-year cycle , with each three year period ending in either an update assessment or a peer-reviewed benchmark assessment. 2011 was the end of a cycle resulting in an update assessment, which was released this year. Pew is suggesting that the ASMFC make severe cuts in the beginning of a new cycle when only a flawed update assessment is available.
 
Enacting regulations based solely on data that is either out of date or scientifically questionable does not serve the goal of good, science-based management, especially when the result will cause definitive economic harm to Virginia’s Northern Neck, home of the Atlantic menhaden reduction industry. A recent economic impact study conducted by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science highlighted the importance of the industry to this rural area of Virginia: the reduction fishery employs almost 300 people directly, and many more indirectly, and contributes more than $80 million in economic output to the Northern Neck. Without the reduction fishery, employment in the region would decrease by 8 percent and economic output by 14 percent. Enacting a new quota now could lead to a bad economic situation, and could be considered bad management with no science-based rationale for setting quotas and no recent, reliable stock assessment as a reference.

 

Citations:

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, “Stock Assessment Report No. 10-02 of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Atlantic Menhaden Stock Assessment and Review Panel Reports ,” 2010

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, “Stock Assessment Report No. 10-02 of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Atlantic Menhaden Stock Assessment and Review Panel Reports – Figure 8.4 Annual Fishing Mortality ,” 2010

Saving Seafood, Areas of Concern in ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Assessment Update , 2012

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, “Menhaden SAS/TC Conference Call 5/29/12 ,” 2012

Kirkley, James E. “An Assessment of the Social and Economic Importance of Menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus)(Latrobe, 1802) In Chesapeake Bay Region ,” 2011

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Menhaden Management Board, “Draft Proceedings of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Menhaden Management Board ,” May 2, 2012

Sulikowski, James; Morgan, Alexia; Carlson, Amy; Butterworth, Doug, “Inferences from aerial surveys on the abundance of Atlantic menhaden from outside the normal fishery range : Implications for improved management of the resource ,” 2012,

NOAA FishWatch, “Overfishing vs. Overfished: The Same Thing? ” 2012

Thorson, James; Prager, Michael, “Better Catch Curves: Incorporating Age-Specific Natural Mortality and Logistic Selectivity ,” Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, 2011

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, “Atlantic Menhaden Stock Assessment Subcommittee Conference Call Summary ,” June 15, 2012

Wittman, Robert; Michaud, Michael, et. al., Letter to John V. O’Shea and Sam Rauch , April 9, 2012

NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, “Menhaden Fact Page ”

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, “Addendum to Amendment I to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden ,” August 2004

 

 

WASHINGTON — July 19, 2012 — Today, NOAA officials briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill and released the official report on the first year of the groundfish catch share program.

Read the report here.

 

 

 

NEW BEDFORD — July 19, 2012 — Scallop fishermen are pleading with government scientists to change course and abandon the models used to determine the yellowtail flounder stock on Georges Bank. The Fisheries Survival Fund, a scallop industry advocacy group, outlined its concerns in a letter to Dr. Bill Karp, director of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole on Friday.

The letter is fair,” said Karp. “But it’s not reasonable to expect these issues to be resolved overnight.”

The important point, he said, is that Georges yellowtail is in poor shape.

“Every signal that we have indicates it is in a declining condition. The argument is how bad is that condition, not whether it’s good or bad.”
Three U.S. surveys and the Canadian survey all bear this out, he said.

The leter asks NOAA to recognize that the current assessment is “not viable for use as a basis for catch advice,” which Karp said was a ”strong statement.” A conservative approach is necessary to maximize the possibility for the stock to recover, he maintained.

“It’s not just the numbers coming out of the assessment. It’s the trends we see in the data,” he said.

Since Georges Bank encompasses both U.S. and Canadian waters, the yellowtail stock there is managed jointly by both countries. “We aren’t free, independently, to change that,” he said.

Karp said that some tough decisions will have to be made by fishery managers in the fall in order to set 2013 quotas.

 

Read the full story in the New Bedford Standard Times

Read more about the letter on Saving Seafood 

 

 

BOSTON—July 19, 2012 — A scallop industry group is calling on fishing regulators to overhaul their method for estimating the troubled yellowtail flounder's population, saying it's arbitrary and indefensible.

The Fisheries Survival Fund made the request in a July 13 letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northeast fisheries science chief, William Karp.

Yellowtail in Georges Bank is managed jointly by the U.S. and Canada. The flagging health of the yellowtail population sparked a massive cut in catch this year — 50 percent overall and 80 percent for fishermen who chase other bottom-dwelling groundfish, such as cod.

Similarly onerous cuts are expected next year, and fishermen worry that will ruin the local groundfishing industry and damage the prosperous scallop fleet.

Scallopers accidentally snare yellowtail in their dredges, so they get a portion of the annual yellowtail allotment. They're affected by the ever-tightening catch restrictions, since they can't exceed their yellowtail limit without serious penalty.

The Fisheries Survival Fund is an influential voice for scallop boat operators and owners, who are primarily based in New Bedford, New Jersey and Virginia. In their letter, the scallopers argue a computer model used in yellowtail population estimates has proven useless by consistently producing inaccurate projections. But it said NOAA has just kept tinkering with the flawed model.

"(The agency) needs to redirect its limited resources away from the computer models and towards field research," they wrote.

"If there are to be cuts in the fishery, so be it, but it must be done in an open and justified manner," the letter said.

In its closing paragraph, the fund wrote, "We cannot and will not sit back passively and accept catch advice that is based upon an indefensible and ultimately arbitrary assessment."

In a statement, Karp said the yellowtail's poor condition over the past decade has frustrated attempts to make confident projections about the species.

He said the uncertainty about the yellowtail has been widely and publicly discussed. But he said the yellowtail assessment is a joint effort, and the U.S. wouldn't try to unilaterally change it.

"Some admittedly tough decisions will have to be made by U.S. and Canadian fishery managers in the fall in order to set 2013 quotas," he said.

 

Read the full story by the Associated Press in the Boston Globe

 

 

Dr. William Karp, science and research director of NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center, issued the following statement in response to the July 13 Fisheries Survival Fund letter sent to him regarding the Georges Bank yellowtail flounder assessment. The assessment was conducted a few weeks ago by the US-Canada Transboundary Resources Assessment Committee: "The poor condition of the stock over the past decade indeed confounds attempts to quantify current condition or make projections with confidence, although trends in some characteristics are strong and consistent.  This uncertainty was widely discussed during the bilateral assessment meeting and will be reflected in the summary and final reports, which the US would not unilaterally revise. How this information will  translate into management advice remains to be seen, but some admittedly tough decisions will have to be made by U.S. and Canadian fishery managers in the Fall in order to set 2013 quotas."

July 18, 2012 — NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service has apologized to the squid fleet for failing to effectively announce the July 9 closing of directed squid fishing, carried out in the waters off Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York — a shutdown that fishermen say needlessly cost them time and money.

Based on projections that 90 percent of the Trimester II quota of 5,366 metric tons was taken, the NMFS’ Northeast Regional Office based in Gloucester’s Blackburn Industrial Park issued the closing order on the afternoon of July 6. But instead of notifying the fleet by email or the electronic vessel monitoring system (VMS) that most boats use to give NMFS the required 72 hours notice of a planned trip, the Gloucester office mailed and faxed the announced closing on July 6 to holders of squid permits. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did not email the announcement until after 8 a.m. July 10 — more than eight hours after the fishery closed.

The inadequate and belated communication of the closing meant wasted time and resources and in some cases lost fishing opportunities for some boats, such as Mark Phillips’ 73-foot Illusion. Phillips said in a telephone interview that he ended a trip after four days of successful fishing about 15 hours from Point Judith, R.I. and 14 hours from Cape May, N.J. and, unaware of the closing, was steaming in to reload with ice and gas for another trip.

Had he known of the closure, Phillips said, he would have remained at sea for a fifth day and maximized his catch. He lives in Greenport, N.Y., but fishes mostly out of New Bedford.

Phillips is a member of Northeast Sector XIII, one of the 13 fishing cooperatives organized by Gloucester’s Northeast Seafood Coalition to participate in the the commodification of the groundfishing industry by NOAA, a system that went into effect in May 2010. Many fishermen, like Phillips, hold permits to fish for other species in addition to groundfish.

“We were all expecting the closure, we just didn’t know when,” Phillips said. “We made business decisions; I would have made a full five-day trip instead of a four-day trip.” He estimated the lost day’s fishing cost him about $10,000 in catch based on the current price of about $1 to $1.10 per pound at the dock for the longfin squid. “It’s the best season we’ve had in a long time,” he added.

“In this day and age of universal, instantaneous communications, it is flat out unacceptable that (NMFS) failed to alert our fishing community about this closure and cause many of them to lose tends of thousands of dollars on a wasted journey,” U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirstin Gillibrand and Congressman Tim Bishop, all of New York, said in a statement Tuesday.

Also Tuesday, Daniel S. Morris, NMFS’ acting regional administrator in Gloucester, issued a statement of his own.

 

Read the full story in the Gloucester Times 

Read Captain Phillips' letter to Daniel S. Morris, NMFS’ acting regional administrator

 

 

WASHINGTON – July 18, 2012 – Last Friday, the Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), an industry group that includes the majority of full-time, limited-access scallop permit holders, wrote to Dr. Bill Karp, the newly appointed Director of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, to address serious concerns regarding NOAA’s most recent assessment of the Georges Bank yellowtail flounder stock.

The following information regarding the letter has been provided to Saving Seafood by the Fisheries Survival Fund:

In their letter, referring to the recent Transboundary Resource Assessment Committee (TRAC) meeting that discussed the yellowtail stock, FSF stated, “Despite all of the hard work of the [Georges Bank] yellowtail stock assessment team, those of us at the meeting were presented with a seriously flawed assessment.”

The scallop industry is concerned about yellowtail flounder because yellowtail can inhabit the sea bottom in the same areas as scallops. If scallopers’ yellowtail flounder allocations are reduced to low levels, it will act as a choke species, preventing fisherman from harvesting scallops.

The letter, which was signed by Fisheries Survival Fund legal counsel Drew Minkiewicz and David Frulla, stated that, “…all too often [the center that Mr. Karp now leads] takes the approach of trying to solve an assessment problem by reworking the existing data and using numerous statistical tools.”

After noting that NOAA’s scientists have not been able to resolve the problems in the model without contradicting NOAA’s own prior public statements on the subject, FSF observed, “If the model is not capable of accounting for the unknown aliases, the answer is not to put one’s head down and go forth into that statistical night; rather, it is to accept the limitations of the model and acknowledge the obvious: we are currently in a place that is beyond the capability of the current model, making the model no longer useful for catch advice.”

FSF told NOAA that NOAA Fisheries, formally known as the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), “…needs to redirect its limited resources away from the computer models and towards field research.” They continued, “What we are asking for, and believe the fishing industry and nation deserve, is a defensible process for setting catch quotas and a partner in moving forward to improve our understanding of this critical stock. “

Last May, a new assessment of the Georges Bank yellowtail flounder stock found that the previous assessment was over-optimistic in its estimates, and that the catch limits produced from that assessment resulted in overfishing of this stock. As a result, the total Georges Bank yellowtail harvest was reduced to 540 metric tons for 2012; half of the 2011 catch level.

FSF further asks that NOAA recognize that the current yellowtail assessment is not viable for use as a basis for catch advice. In addition, FSF encourages the use of alternate catch advice methods to set allocations for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder, and implores NOAA to embark upon an expanded biological research program for yellowtail flounder to help try to identify the causes of the model’s flaws, so they can be resolved in a principled way.

FSF did not request any repeal of pre-existing yellowtail catch quota reductions , and is not pressing for a new benchmark assessment at this time. Rather, FSF asks for more reliable science, a more thorough biological research process, and a better assessment model for the basis of yellowtail management. All these steps need to be taken before NOAA embarks on a comprehensive benchmark assessment, or else the next assessment won’t be any better than the last. FSF wrote, “If there are to be cuts in the fishery, so be it, but it must be done in an open and justified manner."

Failure of the 2005 “split series” correction

In 2005, the yellowtail assessment began to show a retrospective pattern, which is an indicator of inaccuracy within a model. To correct for this, the 2009 assessment team split the time series of yellowtail data, meaning that they applied different catchability rates to data collected after 1995, masking from view any of the unknown and potential causes of the retrospective pattern. However, the disappearance of this retrospective pattern was only temporary. It recently re-emerged, indicating that there are deeper problems within the model.

Upon the retrospective pattern’s return this year, the assessment committee tested several ways to correct their model. The team ran three different trials, adjusting the natural mortality rate, catch rate, and both values, attempting to fit the data to the model, and eliminate the retrospective pattern. But in order to do so, they had to adjust these values by as much as four to five times their original figures. The committee considered these values too great to include them as the possible explanations for the retrospective pattern, leaving the cause still unclear.

Despite the admitted presence of a retrospective pattern in the model, and the unknown cause of that pattern, the assessment continues to be used to provide management and catch advice for the fishery. NOAA Fisheries asserts that their adjustments are adequate to fix the unknown underlying problems, directly in contradiction to their own prior statements. FSF points out that assessments marked with retrospective patterns are not acceptable for use in management decisions, citing NOAA’s Chris Legault in a 2008 Retrospective Working Group meeting: “A strong retrospective pattern is grounds to reject an assessment model as an indication of stock status or the basis for management advice.”

FSF asked, “Does NMFS intend to follow its own advice?”

Not asking for “more fish” but for “defensible, empirical findings”

In summary, NOAA Fisheries is asking the industry to assume responsibility for a 50% reduction in quota, on top of a 50% reduction in quota from the previous year, based on flawed techniques that, even by NOAA’s own statements, should be excluded from consideration.

Despite the abundance of problems within the data, TRAC was reluctant to reject the assessment because no alternative method for giving catch advice was available. FSF requests that, until these problems can be eliminated, that catch advice be based on catch data and surveys, rather than the flawed assessment. To act otherwise would invest the future of both the scallop and groundfish fisheries in unreliable and problematic data. That is not in the best interests of either industry, nor of federal management organizations.

FSF asserts that the focus of research must shift from statistical to biological. As it stands, many concerning trends in the yellowtail population still lack a tangible, biological explanation. Although these issues remain unresolved, the agency continues to move forward with a current assessment model that will strike a catastrophic blow to both the yellowtail and scallop fisheries alike.

According to FSF, the scallop industry is committed to maintaining a sustainable stock size of Georges Bank yellowtail flounder, and has demonstrated that pledge through their continued partnership with The University of Massachusetts School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) bycatch avoidance system. Working together with SMAST, and in cooperation with NOAA Fisheries and the New England Fisheries Management Council via their Scallop Research Set-Aside Program, great opportunity exists to develop better research programs and more sustainable harvesting practices without relying on arbitrary and mutually detrimental data.

Concluding their letter, FSF offers further and final clarification that their motivation to submit written comments to NOAA is not simply to be permitted to catch more fish from the sea, but, instead, to establish an ongoing effort to replace currently flawed data and models with defensible, empirical findings.

They request that NOAA Fisheries acknowledge that the current Georges Bank yellowtail flounder assessment is not suitable for providing catch advice; provide the public with an objective set of criteria to judge the viability of an assessment; as an interim measure, that NOAA Fisheries and the New England Fisheries Management Council provide catch advice using alternative catch advice strategies that rely on survey and catch indices; and that NOAA Fisheries works with FSF and other interested parties in developing and executing a research program for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder with the goal of creating a credible stock assessment.

 

Read the original FSF letter here