Management & Regulation

Greg Mayhew, captain of the 75-foot dragger Unicorn out of Menemsha, is the last Vineyard fisherman still groundfishing on Georges Bank. And this year might be his last on the legendary fishing ground.

“I don’t know if I’m going to even go next year because it might be better just to lease the days out and get half price for them,” he said.

Mr. Mayhew’s story is familiar to small owner-operated fishing outfits throughout New England, who under the new catch shares fisheries management system have found themselves saddled with small catch allocations and burdened by new regulations intended to bring accountability to the capture of fish species in federal waters that have been pushed to the brink of extinction in recent decades.

The catch shares system was enacted this year.

“It’s a free market right now for permits and the only way you can increase your allocation is by buying another permit that has catch history associated with it, and that catch history is expensive,” he said in a telephone interview. “So you’re stuck in a Catch 22: if there weren’t any fish to catch during the qualifying years and then you don’t get an allocation to be able to catch the fish, even as they come back, you won’t have the rights to catch them.”

Read the complete article from The Vineyard Gazette

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON – October 5, 2011 – Today on Saving Seafood radio, Bob Vanasse spoke with Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Congressmen Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and discussed their reactions on Monday's Boston Field Hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee Oceans Subcommittee.  Following the Senator and Congressman, NOAA Fisheries Northeast Administrator Pat Kurkul, New England Fisheries Management Council Chairman Rip Cunningham, and NOAA Northeast Science Center Director Frank Almeida discussed their various organizations' responses to the Preston Pate / Touchstone report which was critical of fisheries management in the Northeast.

 

Listen to the show

Lewes — Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission officials and fishermen agree: Menhaden have been overfished for 32 of the last 54 years, and their current population is at the lowest level on record.

Stakeholders are trying to determine the best methods, rules and regulations to adopt that would give menhaden a chance to bounce back.

Speaking at a Sept. 26 public meeting, Eidman said menhaden, a forage fish, play an important role in feeding larger game fish such as striped bass, tuna, weakfish, marine mammals and several bird species.

He said recreational fishing businesses and the businesses they support are already being adversely affected because there are fewer menhaden.
Fishermen and others concerned about fish conservation say menhaden are the most important fish in the world and their ever-decreasing numbers are causing a negative ripple throughout the region.

Menhaden Defenders, Coalition to Protect Fisheries and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which held the meeting to hear comments about proposed regulations, agree about many things, chief among them is that the menhaden population has declined by 88 percent in the last three decades.

Read the complete article from The Cape Gazette

Analysis: According to the ASFMC's most recent stock assessment, the menhaden population has not been overfished in the past ten years, except for 2008. The article also calls for limits to be set at 15% MSP. Menhaden are currently fished at levels around 8% MSP, and in the past 55 years, the population has rarely exceeded 10% MSP. 

The article is also incorrect in blaming poor health in striped bass on the level of menhaden in the Bay. As part of their ongoing ChesMMAP study, VIMS has analyzed the diets of several species of fish, and menhaden only make up a small percentage of the diet of many species. For example, they have been found to make up as little as 9.6% of striped bass diet, even though the exact number will fluctuate given location of the bass or prevalence of other feed species.

Management of menhaden is changing, which is the best news for that fishery in many years.

That's what Richen Brame, the Coastal Conservation Association's representative to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) told the CCA Maryland Executive Board at its August meeting.
Brame reported that now is the first time in his lifetime there is a chance to manage the menhaden fishery correctly. His assessment was based on the ASMFC adopting Draft Addendum V in August, which proposes new reference points for managing the stock. Menhaden, which are filter feeders and an important source of food for larger fish, are at an all-time low in abundance, creating problems throughout our coastal ecosystems.
According to a letter from the Maryland Saltwater Sportfishermen's Association, one of the options the ASMFC is considering would mean little change to the overall management of menhaden. The MSSA is recommending a 15 percent threshold on the fish's spawning potential and a 40 percent target, as well as a hard cap coast-wide, including the EEZ, as the best management options.
The ASFMC is hosting a number of public hearings to receive comments on Draft Addendum V to the Interstate Fishery Management for Atlantic Menhaden. The Maryland hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 12, at 7 p.m. in DNR's Tawes State Office Building in Annapolis.

Read the full article at the Star Democrat.

Analysis: The article asserts that the current menhaden management plan has resulted in a fishery that is not "managed correctly." However, the ASMFC's stock assessment does not show signs of the fishery being overexploited or undermanaged. There was slight overfishing in 2008, only a few tenths of a percentage above the mortality rate. However, the stock abundance is at target levels and the fishery was judged to not be overfished. 2008 is unusual in that it is the only year in the last ten years where overfishing was judged to have occured.

 

 

Bering Sea crab crewmen scored a victory this morning in Dutch Harbor as the North Pacific council will analyze the benefits of collecting both contracts and settlement sheets.

Over industry objections and a majority of the Advisory Panel, the council voted 7-4 to advance the analysis in both alternatives under consideration within its broader revisions to the Economic Data Reporting program.

The AP recommendation was to completely strip requirements for reporting deductions charged to crew.

The council decision is an analysis, not a final action, and the council is not obliged to eventually collect the contracts and settlement sheets.

However, this is the first time the council has recognized the longstanding demand from crew advocates to consider collecting contracts and settlement sheets that would verify whether the EDR data on crew compensation is accurate.

Crew advocates have also cited lay share law as a binding requirement to collect contracts and settlement sheets, another topic that was broached — though not explicitly — by Sam Cotten of Eagle River during the council discussion.

Read the complete story from The Alaska Journal of Commerce

 

 

 

 

 

 

Columns on a giant mammal and a small fish generated significant interest the past year or so. Both subjects are worth updating.

Politics of menhaden

As I wrote in a February column, menhaden are an oily prey species that filter seawater as they feed and form a crucial link in the coastal marine food chain. Striped bass, bluefish, sea birds and mammals gorge on menhaden as they migrate from New England to the Chesapeake Bay and beyond.

But menhaden also are a political prisoner, held hostage by Virginia's General Assembly. The GA allows the Virginia Marine Resources Commission to manage every other saltwater species but menhaden.

A company called Omega Protein, the only player in the menhaden "reduction" industry, contributes handsomely to Virginia politicians, who reward the company by keeping "management" of the fish firmly in the hands of the GA, not the VMRC. Houston-based Omega has a processing plant in Reedville, uses giant boats and spotter planes to suck up huge quantities of menhaden and turns them into products, including fish oil supplements.

But there are storm clouds on the horizon for Omega and the GA. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), which has jurisdiction over the coastal menhaden stock, has determined overfishing is occurring. In fact, menhaden numbers are at a historic low. The spawning potential of the existing stock is only 8 percent of an unfished stock.

In order to rebuild the stock, the ASMFC has proposed establishing a spawning potential threshold of 15 percent, and is considering a range of possible spawning potential targets: 20, 30 or 40 percent. The ASMFC will convene in November to select the target number, and to achieve it, it likely will have to set harvest limits, impacting Omega Protein and the smaller bait industry.

And even though Virginia's GA manages menhaden in state waters, John Bull of the VMRC said "Virginia would have to comply, or the Feds could order a moratorium and shut down the entire fishery. They have that authority and they've used that threat before."

For years, our GA has played politics with a small but very important fish. Depending on what happens in November, those days could be numbered.

Read the full article at the Richmond Times Dispatch.

Analysis: The article is correct in stating that as of 2008, the last year of the most recent stock assessment, the maximum spawning potential (MSP) of the menhaden population was around 8%. However, the article implies that the MSP level is so low that it is jeopardizing the stock. This is technically not true; the MSP level for menhaden over the entire 55 year time series of data has rarely been over 10%.  Even when recruitment was at very high levels in the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, MSP levels fluctuated between 5% and 8%, showing definitively that menhaden fecundity (egg producing capability) is strong enough to replace the population and more at an MSP level of 8%.  While the assessment found slight overfishing in 2008 (.4% above the threshold), the population is not overfished, meaning that the assessment concludes that menhaden egg production is high enough (198% above the threshold) to replenish the stock.

Anglers with an opinion on the way menhaden stocks are being managed have an opportunity to speak up at a public comment meeting Thursday in Toms River.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) is holding a series of hearings on Draft Addendum V to the Atlantic Menhaden Fishery Management Plan and New Jersey’s is scheduled for 7 p.m. at 33 Washington St. in Toms River. The meeting will be held in the L.M. Hirschblond Room.

Draft Addendum V outlines a number of measures intended to increase menhaden abundance by reducing the annual harvest. Labeled the “most important fish in the sea” due to its value as a forage fish for many species and the vital role it plays in the manufacturing of a host of products from animal feed to vitamins, bunker stocks have been declining for years. Fishery managers, almost universally, agree a new management plan is overdue.

Just what the plan will look like is open to discussion. Those interested in joining the discussion can attend Thursday’s meeing or provide written comments to the ASMFC. The deadline for those comments is 5 p.m. on Nov. 2, and they should be forwarded to: Toni Kerns, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator for Management, 1050 N. Highland St., Suite 200 A-N, Arlington, VA 22201. Comments also can be faxed to Toni at 703-842-0741 or e-mailed to tkerns@asmfc.org with Menhaden Draft Addendum V in the subject line.

Read the full article at the Asbury Park Press.

Analysis: The article's claim that "bunker [menhaden] stocks have been declining for years" is misleading. While the menhaden poipulation fluctuates due to a variety of factors, the most recent ASMFC stock assessment concludes that the population is not overfished, meaning that the article's implication that the current management plan is responsible for any decline in menhaden is likely overstated.

 

 

The New England Fishery Management Council on Wednesday took a first step toward limiting the quota that larger-scale boat owners can acquire when members met in Danvers and voted to approve what is known as a scoping document.

Describing it as a "pipe dream," New Bedford boat owner Carlos Rafael laughed when asked for his reaction to any suggestion that he might have to give up some quota if accumulation limits were enacted.

"How much are they going to give me for it?" he asked. "Or would they like me to give it for free to them for being a nice guy? Is the government going to buy it? Because the ones that need it can't buy it, and the banks won't give them any money."

According to a Northeast Fisheries Science Center report published last week, 20 percent of New England vessels accounted for 65 percent of the fishing industry's revenue in 2010. The fishing fleet is also shrinking. In New Bedford, for example, the number of active vessels declined from 91 in 2008 to 87 in 2009 to 71 in 2010, according to the report.

Whether the council envisions setting limits on future accumulation or will actually attempt to "divest" larger stakeholders of a portion of their current holdings is not clear. New Bedford's Rodney Avila, a council member, said he could not imagine how the council could take quota from those who have already acquired it.

The next step in this process will be to schedule a series of public hearings, according to Pat Fiorelli, the council's public affairs officer. "We'll go up and down the coast to cover the whole range of the groundfish species," she said, with eight or nine meetings likely. After gathering input from the public meetings, a groundfish committee will present its recommendations to the full council, which may then determine how to implement the ruling.

Read the complete story from The Standard-Times

 

 

 

 

NOAA today approved mechanisms for specifying annual catch limits and accountability measures to prevent overfishing in the Atlantic deep-sea red crab fishery under Amendment 3 to the Atlantic Deep-Sea Red Crab Fishery. We also approved New England Fishery Management Council recommendations for total allowable landings for the fishery for the 2011-2013 fishing years. To read more about this click here.

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources.

Read the release from NOAA's Northeast Regional Office

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOAA today finalized an Omnibus Amendment which establishes procedures for setting annual catch limits and accountability measures to prevent overfishing for 10 federally managed fish stocks managed by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

Now that the amendment is approved, the Mid-Atlantic Council will be on its way to establishing catch limits and accountability measures for all its required fisheries. According to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, all federally managed fisheries must be managed with those tools by the end of 2011. The amendment also includes measures to prevent fishermen from exceeding the catch limits, and addresses how any overages that occur would be handled.

The fish species in the Mid-Atlantic affected by this action include Atlantic mackerel, butterfish, Atlantic bluefish, spiny dogfish, summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, tilefish, Atlantic surfclam, and ocean quahog. Actual catch limits and accountability measures for each fish stock will be set within the respective fishery management plans for these stocks. However, the amendment formalizes the process for how scientific advice from the council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee will be integrated in fishery management plans.

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources.

Read the release from NOAA's Northeast Regional Office