Management & Regulation

PORTSMOUTH — A recent assessment of Gulf of Maine cod stock could have "devastating" implications for independent groundfishermen in New Hampshire.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service has called for a special meeting at 10 a.m. today at the Sheraton Harborside hotel. Industry leaders will meet with scientists to discuss the implications of a 2011 preliminary assessment that shows the cod stock was much smaller in 2008 than initially believed.

Maggie Mooney-Seus, public affairs officer for the NMFS northeast regional office, said the preliminary assessment produced some alarming results. It indicates that, in 2010, cod stock was about 20 percent of its fully rebuilt size and fishing rates were nearly five times the overfishing level.

The 2011 preliminary assessment is vastly different from the 2008 assessment, which suggested the spawning stock biomass — the fish able to reproduce — in 2007 was around 74.9 million pounds and that the stock was overfished, but overfishing was not occurring. It appears from the new assessment that spawning stock biomass is closer to 26.5 million pounds, with a total biomass around 46.3 million pounds, she said.

Read the complete story from The Portsmouth Herald

 

 

 

 

 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service released the Regional Recreational Fishing Plans that looks at improving fishing opportunities, and many other related fishing priorities.

According to NOAA, saltwater recreational fishing is a major economic driver, generating more than $50 billion in sales and supporting more than 326,000 jobs a year.

NOAA released the first regional saltwater recreational fishing action plans designed to help improve fishing opportunities and address recreational fishing priorities in each of the nation's six coastal regions and for the angling community that fishes for tunas and other highly migratory species.

The new action agendas mark the first time NOAA has both national and regional strategies in place to address the priorities of the nation's estimated 11 million saltwater anglers who took approximately 73 million fishing trips in 2010.

Read the complete story from The Seattle Times

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carlos Rafael discusses the bluefin tuna caught by one of his vessels and seized by NOAA. Chris Weiner, of the American Blufin Tuna Association, and Margo Schulze Haugen, head of Highly Migratory Species at NOAA explain the reasons for the existing regulations.

Listen to the interview from The Saving Seafood Hour on WBSM

 

 

 

 

 

DURHAM, N.H. — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's (ASMFC) Atlantic Menhaden Management Board has approved Addendum V to Amendment 1 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden. The Addendum establishes a new interim fishing mortality threshold of 15% and target of 30% (based on maximum spawning potential, or MSP), with the goal of increasing abundance, spawning stock biomass and menhaden availability as a forage species.

To implement the new fishing mortality reference points, the Board has initiated development of an amendment to establish management measures for all fishing sectors and gear types. The percent of harvest reductions associated with the new reference points, as well as an implementation process and timeline, will be identified in the Draft Amendment.

"We believe that, by taking this action, we will see higher abundance of menhaden in the future, providing more food for predators like striped bass, bluefish and tuna, as well as an increased supply of menhaden for use as bait by lobster harvesters and recreational fishermen," said Doug Grout, Chief of Marine Fisheries at the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department and New Hampshire's Administrative Commissioner to ASMFC.

The ASMFC Commissioners representing New Hampshire — Doug Grout, Dennis Abbott, Ritchie White and State Representative David Watters — took a lead in developing the Addendum by making the motion to establish the new overfishing threshold, as well as by voting for Addendum V.

Action was needed because the most recent peer-reviewed stock assessment for menhaden indicated that overfishing was occurring, and the peer review panel recommended implementing more conservative reference points that determine when overfishing is occurring.

The current overfishing reference point equated to a maximum spawning potential (MSP) of 8%. With the Commission's approval of Addendum V, the new overfishing threshold of 15% MSP would result in a near doubling of the current population of menhaden.

To bring the fishery under the new threshold and out of a status of "overfishing," harvest will need to be reduced by 23% over 2010 levels. In establishing a target of 30% MSP, the Board went further and set a goal of reducing harvest by 37% over 2010 levels, thus reducing the chance that overfishing would occur in the future.

The Commission will now undertake development of a new Amendment to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden to reduce the harvest to the target level. The first step in the amendment process will be the development of a Public Information Document (PID), which will contain preliminary discussions of biological, environmental, social and economic information, fishery issues, and potential management options for action.

Read the full article at the Manchester Union Leader.

Analysis: It's important to note that, while overfishing was occuring in the most recent year of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's 2010 assessment, under the current fishing limits the fishery is judged to not be overfished.

 

The bidding starts early at the seafood auction in Gloucester, Mass. Each day about 30 tons of fish—mostly cod, haddock, and flounder—come in by boat on Cape Ann, a fist jutting into the Atlantic Ocean. Fishermen motor up to the concrete docks behind the beige-and-white warehouse, then wait while workers in rubber boots hoist their catches and weigh them out on a stainless-steel digital scale. At 4 a.m. grocery store buyers, restaurant owners, and distributors file in to inspect and bid on the haul.

The traders and graders were wrapping up their business just after 9 a.m. on Dec. 7, 2006, when 16 federal agents in Crown Victorias and Ford Expeditions pulled into the parking lot. They entered the building in pairs. Although most of them worked for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, they wore bulletproof vests and carried Glock pistols, according to interviews with participants and the NOAA investigative report.

They were looking for the auction’s founder and chief executive officer, a mustached man named Larry Ciulla. When they found him in an office off the auction floor, they officially informed him of their search warrant. They suspected he had illegally bought and sold cod, one of the world’s most valuable, most threatened, and closely watched stocks of fish. The agents were there to seize the auction’s last three years of records and had rented a U-Haul for the mountain of evidence they intended to truck away. In raiding the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, the largest fish dealer on the Gulf of Maine, which extends from Cape Cod up to the southern tip of Nova Scotia, they hoped to send a message to the fishermen of Gloucester: Overfishing doesn’t pay.

Within minutes the feds herded everyone—longtime auction employees, Central American dockworkers, and three generations of Ciullas—to the auction floor, a high-ceilinged room with rows of folding desks outfitted with laptops. Drivers loading trucks with frosty cod, haddock, and flounder were told to turn off their engines. Restrooms were off-limits for fear papers would get flushed down toilets. While some agents went looking for records, others stood guard at the docks.

The auction’s curly-haired bookkeeper, Nina Jarvis, was printing invoices from the morning’s sales to Whole Foods Market (WFM) and other buyers when two agents strode in. They asked whether any records were kept offsite. “I’m not saying anything,” she replied, according to the NOAA investigation report. The agents hunted under the stairs and in rooms around the auction floor before discovering that an entire year, 2004, was missing. “We need to see those records,” they demanded of Ciulla. Eventually they found them at a nearby self-storage facility and loaded 38 boxes into their truck.

All day the agents checked in with their boss, Andy Cohen, the man responsible for policing NOAA’s northeastern fisheries. Cohen was at a fish farming conference in Connecticut, but even from a distance he sensed that things might not work out the way he had hoped. Several local politicians had shown up at the auction house. The Ciullas’ friends were bringing the family sandwiches. The Gloucester mayor sent a veteran police detective to watch over the feds. A representative from Democratic U.S. Representative John Tierney’s office had stopped by for half an hour.

Cohen knew that fishing was the business of Gloucester, but the next five years would reveal just how powerful the industry could be. The battle between Cohen and Ciulla had begun many years earlier and would end this past summer with NOAA’s enforcement powers severely compromised and with Cohen out of a job. Starting that day in Gloucester, much would be revealed about the balance between the world’s fisheries and the businesses that harvest them. “I don’t think the fishing industry is ever going to be the same,” says Cohen.

Read the full article at Bloomberg Businessweek.

Analysis: The article overlooks and minimizes many violations and abuses committed by Charles Juliand and the Office of Law Enforcement (OLE). Two independent investigations into the OLE and Juliand found numerous instances of wrongdoing.

An independent examination of OLE activity by Special Master Charles Swartwood, appointed by the Secretary of Commerce, found that both OLE and Juliand subjected the Seafood Display Auction to “selective targeting” and could not produce credible evidence of illegal activity (p. 53). Swartwood found that affidavits submitted by the OLE on the matter contained “an egregious misstatement of the facts,” (p. 55) that the evidence submitted by OLE was misleading, and that allegations against the Auction were unsubstantiated (p. 56).

Similarly, in a 2010 report, NOAA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that there were widespread instances of excessive fines issued by Juliand’s office, including in the cases of the Auction and Larry Yacubian. According to the Inspector General, fines issued by Juliand in his region were more than double those of fines in the second highest region, and five times greater than the remaining four regions (p. 13). Similarly, in the Yacubian case, Swartwood’s investigation found that “credible evidence” existed to indicate that NOAA pursued the case primarily for financial gain (p. 129).

The cases of aggressive, selective enforcement and excessive fines primarily benefited OLE’s Asset Forfeiture Fund (AFF), which used the fines to fund OLE activities. While the article claims that no evidence of corruption was uncovered in the investigations, the OIG did find widespread abuse of the AFF. For example, the OIG found that the AFF was used to purchase a fleet of 200 unmarked vehicles, even though OLE only has 172 employees and agency policy does not allow use of the AFF for the purchase of vehicles (p. 3).

In addition to abuse of the AFF, the investigations revealed other instances of improper conduct. Dale Jones, head of OLE, was found to have been shredding documents during the middle of the OIG investigation, and in violation of Department of Commerce policy. Andy Cohen was found in Swartwood’s report to have improperly intimidated a witness in the investigation (p. 120-121). Juliand was cited by the OIG for “serious lack of judgement” and “conduct unbecoming a federal government attorney.” (p. 9)

The findings against the OLE and Juliand’s office were not politically motivated, as the article implies. The OIG operated free of any local political influence on behalf of the Commerce Department, and Judge Swartwood was chosen to review the allegations against OLE due to his longstanding reputation for fairness and legal knowledge as a former US Magistrate Judge and current Chairman of the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission.

Although the overall abundance of striped bass has declined, striped bass stocks along the Atlantic coast are healthy and overfishing is not occurring, the federal agency responsible for monitoring Atlantic coast fish species said in an annual report.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), a 15-member body responsible for managing species and implementing management plans along the East Coast, provided that rosy assessment at its annual meeting in Boston on November 8. It is nearly identical to one provided at the same meeting in 2008.

It is an assessment many recreational fishermen, including those on Martha's Vineyard, say is incorrect. In tackle shops and on the beach fishermen complain that striped bass fishing is declining both in the quantity and quality of fish.

The closest statistical evidence of that decline is reflected in landings of striped bass during the annual Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby.

Read the complete story from The Martha's Vineyard Times

 

 

 

 

 

The Gulf of Maine Cod stock assessment has been going through peer review this week by a team of independent scientists at the 53rd Stock Assessment Workshop at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole Massachusetts.  It is important that we await final feedback from that peer review process, which we expect in January.  However, given the preliminary results and the implications of the assessment for groundfish fishermen and communities across the region, after consultation with industry leaders, NMFS is taking the extraordinary step of convening a team to explore potential management options for reducing disruption to the fishery while responding to the new assessment.  That team will work with stakeholders across the region to explore the flexibility in the Magnuson-Stevens Act and outline appropriate management responses. Next week, the team will meet with industry leaders and other stakeholders to discuss these potential management responses.

 

 

 

 

 

Fisheries management sometimes involves the best guess about immensely complicated ecosystems.

Scientists, for example, couldn't be absolutely sure that suspending winter crab dredging would help boost the crustacean's population in the Chesapeake Bay. But it seemed like an obvious response to a steady decline.

That ban on an old Virginia industry has worked so far. Crab populations are rebounding. But scientists would have been stuck with only a theory if regulators hadn't actually acted on it.

Another idea is about to be tested. The theory is that the industrial harvest of menhaden in and around the Chesapeake has materially harmed the health of sport fish species and water quality.

On Wednesday, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission adopted a policy that will dramatically reduce the harvest of menhaden.

"Once implemented after another year of study and debate, the measures are expected to reduce harvests by up to 37 percent – cuts that Virginia officials say will be damaging to the menhaden industry centered in the Northern Neck town of Reedville and to watermen who catch and sell the oily fish as bait," reported The Pilot's Scott Harper.

Virginia voted in favor of a 23 percent cut, but that proposal was defeated.

Read the full editorial at the Virginian-Pilot.

Analysis:  The editorial gets a number of facts wrong about the menhaden fishery. First, the menhaden fishery is not currently overfished. The 2010 stock assessment from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission states that the population is currently not overfished, and that overfishing had only occurred once in the last decade. Egg production in the fishery is also currently at its target level.

Secondly, menhaden's ecological role as filter feeders has likely been overstated. Several recent studies have come to the conclusion that menhaden contribute little to improving overall water quality.

 

A national alliance of fishing groups, including the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, and advocates for the nation's farmers, ranchers, builders and miners have urged Congress to negate President Obama's National Ocean Policy, rolled out in 2010 via executive order.

Fishing interests warn that the policy entails a kind of ocean zoning that threatens fishing industry jobs, while the land-based alliance expressed concern about executive overreach that might lead to decisions based on uncertain values and priorities, squelching business along inland waterways.

The White House has denied the policy is akin to ocean zoning, and, in two heated hearings by the House Natural Resources Committee this fall, Congressman Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has scoffed at the worries.

"Opposing ocean planning is like opposing air traffic control," Markey argued at the second hearing on Nov. 7. He described the opposition as engaging in "scare tactics."

But the Republican majority, led by the committee chairman, Congressman Doc Hastings of Washington, agreed with the ocean zoning characterization in sparring with Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, who was representing the president.

Read the complete story by Richard Gaines in The Gloucester Times

 

 

 

 

 

 

There soon will be limits on catching what has been dubbed "the most important fish in the sea."

At a meeting in Boston Wednesday, regulators set targets for the size of the East Coast menhaden population and how much can safely be harvested each year.

That decision will lead to a 37 percent cut in the harvest, primarily affecting one industrial fishing company based on the Chesapeake Bay. The company turns menhaden into fish meal and fish oil.

Menhaden aren't eaten by humans, but are the preferred food for bigger predator fish, including Chesapeake Bay striped bass.

"If striped bass could speak, they'd be hooting and hollering," Chesapeake Bay Foundation President Will Baker said in a statement. "The commission's decision will mean more food for stripers, which have been beset by malnutrition. And bluefish, ospreys, eagles and bay critters that feed on menhaden are celebrating, too."

Yesterday's action was taken by a panel called the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

The commission oversees species that travel among states along the coast. Each state has three members who vote as a bloc on issues.

The decision is a blow to Omega Protein, the last surviving company that catches menhaden and breaks it down so it can be used in animal feed, household products and human health supplements.

Read the full article at The Capital.

Analysis: The article quotes environmental advocates who assert that current health issues with striped bass and other fish are the result of a lack of forage fish such as menhaden. However, such a claim is not universally supported; a more likely explanation is that the malnutrition in bass is the result of environmental factors in the Chesapeake Bay. Currently, run-off in the Bay has created areas of hypoxia, or low oxygen, in the colder waters that bass usually inhabit. This forces them into warmer, shallower waters, which the bass are ill-suited for. The thermal stress causes them to not feed properly, leading to a variety of diseases and health problems.