Management & Regulation

Shawn Dochtermann has largely waged the fight on behalf of crew compensation on his own for the last six years, but a study for the U.S. Department of Commerce released in March shows that he's not alone.

An ethnographic study based on interviews with 134 current and former participants in the Bering Sea Aleutian Islands crab fishery revealed widespread discontent about how crew compensation has evolved under the rationalized program that awarded harvest shares to vessel owners, processers, Western Alaska communities and captains.

Skippers received 3 percent of the harvest share under the program. Rank-and-file crew received none. The top-end range of original proposals considered in 2002 were for captains and crew to receive either 20 percent or their historical split of about 35 percent of the harvest shares.

Dochtermann, executive director of the Bering Sea Aleutian Islands Crewman's Association, has fiercely protested the share allocations determined by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in 2002 and the negative effects on crew since 2005 caused by lost jobs and diminished pay as a percentage of the harvest.

The Crewman's Association represents 170 skippers and crew, with between 65 and 80 active in the crab fisheries and more than 2,500 years combined experience. The crew impact study, authored by researchers from University of Washington, the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle and the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, largely backs up Dochtermann's complaints on behalf of crew.

Read the complete story from The Alaska Journal of Commerce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new season of "Deadliest Catch" premiered last week while another long-running crab drama is still in reruns.

The cast of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has changed in the six years since the Bering Sea crab fishery was rationalized, but the plot remains the same as industry continues to write the script when it comes to addressing inequalities in crew pay caused by high lease rates under the program.

Since April 2006, the council has expressed concerns about the negative impacts on crew jobs, wages and Alaska's coastal communities after the rapid consolidation of the fleet under rationalization and the exorbitant lease rates now charged by absentee harvest shareholders also known as "mailbox fishermen."

In episode after episode, however, the council has chosen deference to the wishes of crab vessel owners, shareholders and processers defending and preserving their lucrative take of the Alaska crab harvest.

Council member Duncan Fields wrote in an email that the council record should not be interpreted as inaction and that multiple ideas regarding crew pay considered over the years have proved "difficult or impossible for the council to implement."

Read the complete story from The Alaska Journal of Commerce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(SitNews) WASHINGTON – April 13, 2011 – On the 35th anniversary of the passage of the nation’s primary fisheries law, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), the Marine Fish Conservation Network issued a report showing that U.S. fishery managers are making significant progress toward the goal of ending overfishing through the adoption of annual catch limits and accountability measures. However, overfishing continued on one out of five fish stocks assessed in 2010, underscoring the need for cautious optimism.

According to the report, significant progress has been made at reducing the number of fish stocks subject to overfishing and rebuilding overfished stocks in those regions, such as New England, that are implementing and enforcing hard catch limits for the first time. In Alaska, where catch limits have been employed for years and where accountability measures are in place to halt overfishing promptly if it should occur, chronic overfishing has not been a problem and fisheries are thriving.

"The report is testimony to the potent effect of uniting stakeholders to address overfishing and to champion sustainable fisheries,” said Linda Behnken of the Alaska Longline Fisherman’s Association.  “Continued progress depends on basing management decisions on sound science, dedicating adequate resources to stock assessment and catch accounting, and working together to protect the health and productivity of the ocean."

Read the complete story SitNews.

 

 

 

 

 

MAYOR LANG: On Thursday, April 14, 2011, at 10am in Room 314 of City Hall, New Bedford, we invite you to a meeting to discuss the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and EnforcementRFI on Offshore Renewable Energy.  Hosted by the Commonwealth’s Office of Environment and Energy Affairs, a fisheries working group has convened on three occasions to discuss crafting a written comment to (BOEMRE).  The comment period ends this Friday, April 15, 2011.   This meeting is being held to share with you the dialogue this working group has had with the State and current efforts to put forth a comment to BOEMRE.  We hope you can join us.

Scarborough fisherman Rob Odlin is among many fishermen who say they are struggling under the new regulations that went into effect on May 1. At the time, critics predicted half of New England's 1,480 groundfishing vessels would be put out of business and groundfishing would screech to a halt by summer.

A year later, neither prediction has come true, but fishermen are divided about how well the new system works. The ports of New Bedford and Gloucester, Mass., and various fishing interests filed a lawsuit against Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, claiming the regulations violate federal law. Under the new regulations, fishermen are encouraged to join cooperative-like groups, called sectors, which are allocated a portion of the annual quota for each species based on the total of members' previous catches. Each member's individual quota is also based on that member's fishing history.

The government also set stiff new quotas for haddock, cod, yellowtail flounder and other groundfish species. Once a sector exceeds its quota for any of the 19 species, intentionally or not, the entire sector must stop fishing for any species. Sectors and members are allowed to lease part of their quota to other fishermen within the sector and between sectors.

Read the complete story from The Kennebec Journal.

 

 

 

 

 

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.

New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang and Dr. Brian Rothschild — and several other leading members of the Oceans and Fisheries Council — will take their case straight to our nation's capital on April 5, 2011.  In this week's interview, both men share their anticipation of this important Washington event that will expose the damage caused by excessive regulation to a national audience.

[click here and listen now]

 

 

 

WASHINGTON – March 29, 2011 – On March 26, all seven Southern Fishery Management Area Monkfish Advisors wrote to Richard B. Robins, Jr., chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council to raise their concerns about the "decisions made at the last Monkfish Advisory Panel meeting – primarily those concerning the imposition of catch shares in the fishery – and the manner in which those decisions were reached"

The text of their letter follows:

March 26, 2011

Richard B. Robins, Jr.
Chairman, Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council
800 North State Street, Suite 210
Dover, DE 19901-3910

Dear Chairman Robins:

As members of the Monkfish Advisory Panel who attended the last AP meeting, we thought it critical to bring to your and the full Mid-Atlantic Council’s attention our collective evaluation of the decisions made at the meeting – primarily those concerning the imposition of catch shares in the fishery – and the manner in which those decisions were reached.

It appeared to us as if the various motions had been prepared beforehand and were very hard to follow, particularly in a Southern Fishery Management Area (SFMA) context. This was a definite departure from the AP meetings we have become used to, as was the announcement at the start of the meeting that the chairman of the New England Council had requested that votes be recorded for all motions. Up until now the Advisory Panel has operated on a strictly consensus basis. If consensus has not been reached on an issue, the issue has been passed over.

The vote that is most troubling to us was the one that recommended the examination for both management areas of a full range of options including catch shares and sectors. It was particularly troubling because the vote on it was tied and the tie was broken by the Chairperson, who is from Maine and is committed to catch shares and sectors.*

Another issue that is critical to the participants in the monkfish fishery in the SFMA is definite and continuing separation of all aspects of the Northern and Southern components of the fishery. Since the plan first went into effect, fishermen in the SFMA have had fewer DAS and lesser trip limits than those in the Northern area. Hence, we all have catch histories that are much smaller than those of our Northern colleagues who were allowed to fish for monkfish with far fewer encumbrances than we accepted. This has been and continues to be acceptable to us because it has been instrumental in maintaining the character and the stability of the fishery and has obviously contributed heavily to the better condition of our fishery. If, regardless of what form of management regime is adopted, catch histories and the attendant division of the harvest among the participants do not remain in the area in which they were earned, the Mid-Atlantic industry could lose a significant part of the monkfish harvest to the boats, the docks and the processors/exporters from up North.

We are sure that no one involved in monkfish management would wish to add us to the ranks of fishermen who were penalized for accepting reasonable conservation measures, but such a penalty could easily be an unintended consequence of future management actions.

This all reinforces our resolve to work with the Mid-Atlantic Council through its visioning process on a management program for the SFMA that is totally separate from that put in place in the North. That is the only way that we can foresee that will allow the Mid-Atlantic Council to optimize the fishery for the fishermen, the docks, the processors/exporters and the economy of the Mid-Atlantic states without being dragged inextricably into the New England groundfish sector morass that we have had nothing to do with.

On a related note, it has been brought to our attention that in 2010 the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association received over half a million dollars from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation “to provide expertise and support to ensure appropriate and durable implementation of sectors for groundfish, expansion of catch shares into other bottom-dwelling fisheries, and regulations and design elements for sectors that address sustainable fishing communities” and that the Environmental Defense Fund received 2.2 million dollars from Moore to, among other things, implement “good catch shares for monkfish through an exemplary and inclusive design process.” AP member Thomas Dempsey is employed by the CCCHFA and AP member Ted Platz is a consultant for Environmental Defense Fund, which has spent tens of millions of foundation dollars in its efforts to force catch shares on U.S. fishermen. At the last AP meeting Ted and Tom were the most outspoken AP members promoting catch shares in the monkfish fishery. We feel that it is extremely important that these connections be made public. Without such disclosure, it is too easy to assume that they are speaking for or acting solely for themselves or for the fishermen they represent. Obviously, that may not be the case.

Thank you,

SFMA Monkfish advisors

Timothy Froelich   
Rick Mears
Chris Hickman   
Chris Walker
Michael Johnson   
Kevin Wark
Dan Mears

cc MAFMC Staff, MAFMC Members, John Pappalardo
__________________________________
*From Ms. Raymond’s statement on behalf of Associated Fisheries of Maine (AFM) on Monkfish Amendment 6 –
"However, the current management plan could be improved to address the economic needs of businesses and communities historically dependent on the resource, to promote efficiency, to align with groundfish management, to address the discard issues inherent in trip limit management, and to decrease impacts on habitat and protected species" and "AFM strongly supports allocations based on landings history only, as this best addresses the economic needs of those businesses and communities most dependent on the resource" (emphasis added).

The proposed amendments to the spiny dogfish FMP are interesting as a demonstration of just how complicated things can get when you’re managing a fishery on a coast-wide level.

The brochure describing the proposed changes can be found here.  These changes are entirely concerned with how the Atlantic stock of spiny dogfish is divided up amongst the esat coast states that make up the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC).  The amendments have nothing really to do with conservation, and the fact that they concern dogfish is virtually irrelevant too: these amendments could concern basically any species with a season north-south migration.  This is just who gets to fish for dogfish (on a state level) and how much they get to take.

When spiny dogfish first began as a managed fishery, the annual quote was set for the entire east coast, covering their entire range from Maine to North Carolina.  What this lead to was the quota being hit before spiny dogfish even entered North Carolina waters in the winter, essentially cutting North Carolina out of the fishery.  Commission members from North Carolina successfully argued for a separate section of the quota for the state so that NC fishermen could have a fair crack at the fishery.  As a result, North Carolina currently has a fixed 16% of the spiny dogfish quota all to itself, and all the other states in the fishery are allocated based on landings.

Now other states want in on the action, notably Delaware and Connecticut, who have been largely absent from the spiny dogfish fishery (it was brought up at the meeting that the spiny dogfish fleet in Delaware consists of two vessels).

Read the complete article from The Southern Fried Science Network.

 

 

 

 

 

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted on Monday to delay until July of 2012 regulations that threatened an end to the Long Island and southern New England lobster fishery. Local squid fishermen have also gotten a reprieve from rules that would have greatly curtailed their catch if implemented.

A year ago, fishery managers said that a dramatic drop-off in the lobster population from southern New England to the Carolinas called for either an outright moratorium on lobster fishing or a catch reduction of up to 75 percent.

Montauk lobstermen said at the time that either scenario would spell the death of their industry. And, they strongly disagreed with stock assessments that seemed blind to what was going on offshore, especially in regard to the relatively robust lobster population in the eastern part of Long Island Sound and beyond.

Read the complete story from The East Hampton Star.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board has initiated development of Draft Addendum III with the goals of reducing striped bass fishing mortality up to 40 percent and further protecting spawning stock when it is concentrated and vulnerable.

Provisions of the addendum, if passed, could be implemented prior to the start of the 2012 fishing year.

The Board's action responds to recent trends in the fishery and resource, including a 66 percent decline in estimated recreational catch from 2006 to 2009; a 25 percent decline in estimated striped bass abundance from 2004 to 2008; and lowered recruitment in recent years.

Additionally, states in the northern extent of the fishery have expressed concern over decreased availability of striped bass as a result of the diminished water quality in the Chesapeake Bay during the summer months that may also contribute to increased prevalence of mycobacteriosis in striped bass.

Read the complete story from The Asbury Park Press.