Management & Regulation

 Identified as a 2011 priority by the New England Fisheries Management Council, a workshop on catch share programs is in the planning stage for Oct. 18-19.

Former Department of Marine Resources Commissioner George Lapointe is heading up the steering committee that is planning the workshop. Lapointe presented the plans, to date, to the NEFMC at their April 26-28 meeting.

In his presentation, Lapointe said that the goal of the workshop is to develop comprehensive guidance for the development and implementation of catch share programs in New England fisheries.

Read the complete story from Fishermen's Voice.

 

 

 

 

 

BELMAR — New Jersey’s local lobsters are an open secret for seafood lovers, who know the freshest crustaceans come not in boxes from the Gulf of Maine but little docks tucked into the Shark and Manasquan rivers.

Now, that small but flourishing fishery is in danger of extreme cutbacks — as much as 50 percent to 75 percent of the catch — because regulators are proposing to extend severe measures that deal with a lobster collapse in southern New England waters.

“Originally, they were talking about a five-year moratorium, a total shutdown,” said Ed Davis, a fisherman based at the lobster docks at Shark River Hills in Neptune. “There are some areas that are bad, but the New Jersey fishery is as healthy as it’s ever been.”

Read the complete story from The Daily Record.

 

 

 

 

 

While the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) is continuing to pressure federal legislators to help fix a fatally flawed federal fisheries law, coastal fishermen in every state have been taking to message boards, club meetings and newspaper columns to blast away at fisheries managers for not listening to the angling community with regard to flawed science.

“There’s a huge disconnect between what fishermen see on the water each day and what the federal fisheries service folks are actually telling us is out there,” said RFA Executive Director, Jim Donofrio.

“They say our observations are purely anecdotal, while their information allegedly comes from the best available science. Our regional council members end up as the messengers of doom, the troopers on an open highway writing court mandated tickets for exceeding a far too conservative speed limit.”

Donofrio said appointed members of the eight regional fisheries management councils in the United States today are essentially enforcing the very laws given to them by legislators. “Even the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is saying the same thing, they’re simply fulfilling the requirements set by the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which is why we need to get the U.S. Senate and Congress to intervene on behalf of our coastal fishing communities by fixing this broken law,” Donofrio said.

In a recent opinion piece run in the Panama City News Herald, Capt. Bob Zales, II said the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council Science & Statistical Committee (SSC) was recently presented information to consider adding the 1 million pounds of recreational red snapper quota not harvested in 2010 to the 2011 quota in order to provide some relief for fishermen this season. However, Zales said that because of the way the request was framed by NMFS and because the presentation was not provided in a timely fashion, the SSC recommended that this season’s allowable catch not be changed until future 2012 assessments are conducted.

“In private discussions with most of the current members of the SSC members, I can tell you they are all extremely frustrated with the process. They have been delegated much responsibility by the recent reauthorized Magnuson-Stevens Act, yet they have no real data to consider to be able to make responsible recommendations,” Capt. Zales said.

A charter fishing captain from Panama City, FL and president of the National Association of Charterboat Operators (NACO), Zales is also a member of the RFA’s national board of directors and was recently nominated to serve on the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council. In his opinion piece, Zales said current data shows that there could be up to 2 million pounds added to the annual catch limits for red snapper in 2011 without impacting the rebuilding plan, yet the SSC made a much more conservative recommendation which will only lead to more economic pain for the Gulf fishing community.

“Some of our concerns when the Magnuson-Stevens Act was up for reauthorization prior to 2007 are now being realized. We expressed these concerns to our legislators, yet the SSC was given the power to set ABCs. We knew the data was not adequate and we knew that the process of providing data was flawed,” Zales noted in the News Herald.

From the Gulf around the southernmost tip of Florida and up the coast to Georgia and South Carolina, fishermen are growing increasingly frustrated by closures stemming from lack of management flexibility within the fisheries management process. According to Capt. Mark Brown, a charter captain and RFA Board member in South Carolina, it’s not just a red snapper problem either.

“One other thing I am experiencing here in Charleston, SC and hearing from other fishermen up and down the east coast in the South Atlantic region is that the black sea bass this year are so large and abundant that they can't get a bait down to the bottom through them to try and catch a grouper or for that matter any other species,” Brown said recently. “The black sea bass have become a nuisance.”

Capt. Brown noted that on one particular trip in May in search of grouper, the charter had to manage their way through 250 black sea bass ranging from 2 to 4 pounds apiece, along with three dozen 8- to 15-pound red snapper. “It has gotten to the point it’s ridiculous. I am documenting these releases and taking pictures of them,” he said. Brown referenced a video shot (http://youtu.be/VmAo1K26PEY) by diver Rod Harding as a perfect example of the lapse between onwater observations and statistical analysis.

“Fishery management needs to work with fishermen not against them,” Brown added.

When the Magnuson Act was reauthorized by Congress back in 2006 with strict new statutory definitions, RFA began lobbying extensively to fix some of the faulty language. “In those first few months of 2007, there were only a handful of federal legislators who were willing to get back in and open up that law for further review, but that tide seems to have turned,” said Donofrio. “When Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) first introduced the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act, most thought there some small fishing problem in New Jersey and New York. Now legislators are realizing it’s a huge problem impacting nearly all of our coastal fisheries, and jobs are being lost because of it.”

Donofrio said the House version boasted support by 33 bipartisan coastal cosponsors at the end of the last congressional session, while the Senate bill has been reintroduced (S632) with new support. “We’re happy to see that Scott Brown (R-MA) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have also joined the fight for Magnuson reform in the Senate,” Donofrio said, while also praising senate cosponsors Richard Burr (RNC), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Kay Hagan (R-NC).

Donofrio added that Congressman Jon Runyan (R-NJ) quickly entered the fisheries fray as freshman member of the House Natural Resources Committee, introducing another Magnuson reform bill (HR1646) which also boasts the co-sponsored support of representatives Walter Jones (R-NC), Billy Long (R-MO) and John Mica (R-FL).

“Yes, the science needs to be improved, but the Magnuson Act must be reformed in this session or our fishermen are going to be kept at the dock while more of our coastal businesses are shuttered forever,” Donofrio said.

Added Zales in the Panama City News Herald: “Too many people and communities are being adversely affected and jobs are being lost simply because the law is too inflexible to allow the system to compensate for inadequate data.”

See this press release from the RFA.

 

 

 

 

 

Each week on WBSM in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Bob Vanasse of Saving Seafood joins host Phil Paleologos to discuss issues related to the fisheries with news-making guests.

Dr. Sam Pooley, acting NOAA Fisheries director of scientific programs and chief science advisor, shares his insights on the science, management and economics of fisheries.

[listen to this latest episode at Saving Seafood Radio]

 

 

 

Each week on WBSM in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Bob Vanasse of Saving Seafood joins host Phil Paleologos to discuss issues related to the fisheries with news-making guests.

Mayor Scott Lang of New Bedford and Mayor Carolyn Kirk of Gloucester have thoroughly reviewed the 236-page Swartwood report — a special master investigation that detailed enforcement wrongdoing by NOAA fisheries.  In this interview conducted by Gloucester Daily Times reporter Richard Gaines, the mayors share their conclusions.

[listen to this latest episode at Saving Seafood Radio]

 

 

 

The Gulf of Maine, bounded on its seaward edge by Browns and Georges banks, is comprised of a rocky inner shelf, offshore ledges and deep muddy basins. These diverse habitats are nourished by a giant counter-clockwise ocean gyre, first described by Henry Bigelow almost a century ago. The eastern half of the Gulf of Maine is nourished by the upwelling Eastern Maine Coastal Current that circles around Jordan Basin, while the western gulf is fed by the large rivers that drive a coastal current. And finally, Georges Bank has its own distinct currents that cycle nutrients (and larvae) around this legendarily productive fishing ground.

Marine ecosystem science in America was born on the edges of these waters, but the complexity of this sea within a sea has defied efforts to manage its fisheries as part of an interconnected ecosystem. But that is about to change.

NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass., has launched an ambitious plan to shift fisheries management in the region from a focus on individual species (or species complexes) to a place-based approach that addresses harvesting of all federally managed species within a designated area along with other impacts on fish stocks, such as pollution and habitat loss.

Read the complete story from The Working Waterfront.

 

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – May 20, 2011 – U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), Ranking Member of the Senate subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard, today discussed concerns over federal regulations affecting Maine’s tuna fishery with Portland fishermen.  In a meeting with three members of the American Bluefin Tuna Association, Senator Snowe reiterated her concern over federal policies inhibiting the ability of tuna fishermen to maximize their catch.

“U.S. fishermen have led the world in efforts to conserve highly migratory fish stocks.  No one disputes that the bluefin tuna is overfished, but it would be inappropriate and counter-productive for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to penalize our fishermen for their efforts to rebuild this resource by listing bluefin tuna as endangered,” said Snowe.

“We must allow science to dictate management measures, and in this case, the data is clear: the International Commission on Conservation of Atlantic Tunas [ICCAT] process will rebuild stocks if catch limits are enforced in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean as they are in the U.S.  For far too long, the hard-working, responsible fishermen of Maine have borne the cost for other countries’ over-exploitation of this global species, and imposing further sanctions on our fishermen even when the science would dictate otherwise serves as a disincentive for other nations to agree to make similar sacrifices.”

Senator Snowe has been leading the effort to ensure that this species is managed effectively at the international level and not through the Endangered Species Act.  In March, Senator Snowe sent a letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, urging NOAA to continue to manage this species through the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) and not list the species as endangered and subject to the Endangered Species Act.  NOAA is expected to announce its determination in the next week.  A copy of the letter is attached.

Read the letter Senator Snowe wrote to Dr. Lubchenco.

 

 

 

 

 

The region's largest industry group, the Northeast Seafood Coalition is warning against a pending NOAA plan to create a federal fisheries banking system for New England linked to state permit banks with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revenues.

Such a system — somewhat analogous to the Federal Reserve System — would shift influence over policy from the New England Fishery Management Council to the central "banker" — NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco, the coalition's executive director Jackie Odell, said Thursday in a telephone interview.

Odell said she is concerned that the system would allow NOAA to leverage the power of the purse into unfettered influence over the coastal states, perhaps to reshape the industry according to the central banker's values.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.

Read the Northeast Seafood Coalition's comments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Larry Yacubian, a former New Bedford scalloper — and Larry Ciulla, president of the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction —will be  reimbursed by the U.S. Government to compensate them, at least in part, for past wrongdoing committed by NOAA Fisheries Enforcement. As Commerce Secretary Gary Locke described it in a recent press conference, they also received letters "to offer our sincere apology for the enforcement actions that the special master found to be unfair and unjust." Messrs. Yacubian and Ciulla were prominently featured by Dan Rather on his HDNet investigative news program, Dan Rather Reports. Saving Seafood presents promotional excerpts from this award-winning show as it explores the abuses of fishery enforcement. The entire video of Rather's broadcast is available here for a $1.99 purchase on iTunes — Season 6, episode 18 — "The New Tech Landscape" — May 17, 2011.

Stream or download the video.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each week on WBSM in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Bob Vanasse of Saving Seafood joins host Phil Paleologos to discuss issues related to the fisheries with news-making guests.

Larry Yacubian, a former New Bedford scalloper — and Larry Ciulla, president of the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction — will be reimbursed by the U.S. Government to compensate them, at least in part, for past wrongdoing committed by NOAA Fisheries. As Commerce Secretary Gary Locke described it in a recent press conference, they also received letters "to offer our sincere apology for the enforcement actions that the special master found to be unfair and unjust."  Messrs. Yacubian and Ciulla joined hosts Phil Paleologos and Bob Vanasse on May 19, 2011 on WBSM's Saving Seafood program.

[listen to this latest episode at Saving Seafood Radio]