Management & Regulation

At its November meeting, the Council received a report from its SSC concerning final herring ABC advice, addressed management priorities for next year and made decisions related to fishery management plan measures for Atlantic herring, sea scallops, groundfish, monkfish, red crab and dogfish.

See the entire council report here.

The national debate over fishermen’s catch shares is about to begin in earnest.

A draft policy created by a special task force for Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is scheduled for release and three months of public comment on Dec. 10, NOAA spokeswoman Monica Allen said yesterday.

Lubchenco has made $18.6 million available for the development of catch share fishing cooperatives in New England, but according to Monica Medina, who chairs the task force, no national funding commitment from Congress has been obtained.

The original date for release of the policy was October, but Medina sought and was given an extension by Lubchenco.

Gulf Coast governors recently wrote to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Lubchenco’s boss, objecting to the "direction and rapidity" of the movement to implement catch shares in the Gulf of Mexico.

Pew Environment Group organized two national teleconferences last month to urge the administration to move cautiously toward commodifying the ocean’s stocks.

A peaceful mass protest against the rush to catch shares was mounted in Gloucester — in the parking lot of the regional offices of the National Marine Fisheries Service — in late October. The demonstration drew more than 200 fishermen from as far away as northern Maine and Montauk, Long Island.

Meanwhile, Congressman Barney Frank, who represents New Bedford, has written to Lubchenco with concerns that conservative allocations could undercut the catch share roll out set to begin next May for part of the ground-fishing fleet.

Governors Rick Perry of Texas, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Bob Riley of Alabama wrote "Our concerns center on the potential negative impacts catch share programs could have on our states’ economies, as well as how such programs could restrict citizens’ access to fisheries resources that should be shared by all." The governors cited "negative impacts" from the red snapper catch share system, and said they are "concerned about negative impact from the pending program for Gulf grouper. Creating an exclusive harvesting right for a small group of commercial fishermen inherently marginalizes other users who do not have the same access privileges."

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times. 

Fishermen are projecting that this city’s booming sea scallop industry will take a 25 percent revenue hit in 2010 due to proposed cuts in the scallop harvest.

Regional fisheries regulators recently voted in favor of the cuts, which they argue are necessary to ensure that scallop stocks remain at sustainable levels and do not become subject to overfishing.

The New England Fishery Management Council chose a conservative method for calculating the sustainable level of scallop harvest for the 2010 fishing season, which begins March 1. As a result, fishermen will be allowed to harvest about 16 percent of commercially sized scallops.

With recent surveys showing the scallop stock is in good condition, fishermen say they should be allowed to harvest more of the shellfish.

With recent surveys showing the scallop stock is in good condition, fishermen say they should be allowed to harvest more of the shellfish.

"The council is taking a very, very conservative approach, and we don’t feel that it is justified," said Roy Enoksen, president of Eastern Fisheries Inc., a New Bedford company that operates the largest fleet in the industry with 23 scallopers.

"I think everyone in the industry would go along with this if they thought it was in the least bit necessary to preserve the stock," Enoksen said. "But we have a resource that is completely rebuilt and in very good shape."

The proposed cuts, which need final approval from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service, would do two things. First, they would reduce by one the number of scallop trips allowed into so-called access areas, or areas of the ocean that regulators periodically close to fishing so that scallop stocks can rebuild. In 2009, scallopers were granted five access area trips. The new rules would allow four such trips in 2010.

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today.

How does the mind deceive us! Let me count some of its infinite ways.

It was a painter, Goya, who pinpointed the problem. He saw that "Dreams of reason produce monsters."

And it was my father who gave me the key to unlock some of the related mysteries. He offered this rule: "Every excess is a defect."

Private property is a very good thing. It was Saint Thomas Aquinas who made an exhaustive and convincing list of the benefits of private property. Very little has been added to that list — except an error.

The error consists in believing that the benefits of private property extend without limits, even to cover the privatization of common property.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

Capt. Frank Mirarchi, of the  F/V Barbara L. Peters, in Scituate, Mass. wrote to Seafood News, http://www.seafoodnews.com

It is truly sad and ironic that, at a time when New England standsready to embark on a catch shares management program that has thepotential to unleash the productive potential which once made ourfisheries legends, blind adherence to arbitrary targets and deadlinesthreatens this opportunity with economic catastrophe. Reading your 11/24 news analysis column (NE Council takes firsttentative step to rescue catch share program) provides a glimmer ofhope that reason and long term vision may still exist in theinterstices of our otherwise bureaucratized and myopic managementsystem. It is truly sad and ironic that, at a time when New Englandstands ready to embark on a catch shares management program that hasthe potential to unleash the productive potential which once made ourfisheries legends, blind adherence to arbitrary targets and deadlinesthreatens this opportunity with economic catastrophe.

In 48 years of fishing in the Gulf of Maine, I have personallywitnessed bounteous catches dwindle to a pittance in the early 1990’s;then dramatically rebound as the cumulative effects of days at seareductions, area closures and a myriad of additional input controlsreduced fishing effort to a fraction of recent levels. Concomitantly,regulatory discards surged from nearly insignificant levels to anestimated 50% of our catch even as profits withered under a siege ofefficiency stifling rules.

Fishermen in our communities are astounded by the paradox of abundantcatches while they struggle to maintain their businesses. Untilrecently we looked forward to the advent of fishing sectors as arational way to balance the need for conservation with the opportunityfor more autonomy in business decisions. Then the intractableinflexibility of which you write in the context of scallop managementarrived at our doorstep.

First the NMFS data base of landings history, which serves as the basisfor initial sector allocations, proved to be deeply flawed, riddledwith errors and missing substantial components of individual’shistories. Then, when afforded the opportunity to correct theseomissions, fishermen were told that they would not receive allocationsfrom the corrected histories until 2011, leaving them to subsist for afull year on the results of somebody else’s mistake!

Then, as the Council developed the Annual Catch Limits newly requiredby the 2006 Magnuson Stevens Re authorization Act, the harm done to thestock assessment process by largely unmonitored regulatory discardingbecame manifest. Increasingly assessment models have begun to exhibitretrospective patterns, often indicative of unquantified mortality. Insuch instances, the precautionary principle, a secular analog to the 10Commandments, requires reductions in ABC. Moreover, the new requirementto eliminate overfishing and the inflexible timeline to rebuild stocksprecipitated further reductions in the calculation of TAC, theprecursor to ACL’s. The result, finalized by the November NEFMC meetingwere ACL’s which represented 30% to 60% cuts in 2010 catches versus2008 landings.

The combination of flawed histories and precautionary reductions in ACLhave sapped the optimism which pervaded the initial discussions onsectors/ catch shares. Absent intervention by those of broader vision,these conditions threaten the economic sustainability of large segmentsof the groundfish fishery.

Your comments relative to the GBK yellowtail stock are, in fact, a callto arms for all fisheries. It is ironic and unconscionable that, at thedawn of an era of opportunity provided by catch share management, thedevelopment potential of New England’s fisheries, as well as the livesand businesses of hard working fishermen, are in peril due to a slavishand myopic adherence to arbitrary deadlines. Our CongressionalDelegation should take notice and clarify their intent in draftingMSRA. If they want to restore the economic vitality and foodproductivity of New England’s fishery resources, they must speak out.

Sincerely,

Frank Mirarchi,
F/V Barbara L. Peters,
Scituate, Mass.

PS. I greatly appreciated and benefited from meeting the Alaskanfishermen at the Seafood.com meeting in Gloucester recently. Thank youfor the opportunity.

For nine straight years, the booming scallop catch has made New Bedford the nation’s highest-revenue fishing port. This summer, a survey of a key Northeast fishing area showed the strongest stocks of young scallops in nearly a decade.

So why, scalloper Dan Eilertsen asks, is he looking at 22 percent reduction in the number of days he can fish next year?

"The resource is just so incredibly strong," said Eilertsen, who owns four scallop boats. "It’s just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, and it doesn’t make any sense."

The industry estimates the new rules will mean a loss of $300,000 per boat.

In 2000, New Bedford started its string of nine straight years as the top revenue port in the country, including last year, when it had a total catch worth $241.3 million.

The industry got good news in August when the Northeast Fisheries Science Center on Cape Cod released survey results that showed juvenile scallops on Georges Bank were at their highest level since 2000.

The cuts as the stock flourishes are even more baffling at a time when the jobs are badly needed, Eilertsen said. Scallops are a success story that should be a lot more successful, he said.

"Overall, I don’t know that we’re really managing anywhere near our full potential," he said.

The biggest danger is that the cuts, and the subsequent lower catch, could make a healthy market appear unstable and scare buyers into alternative markets, said Kevin Stokesbury, a leading scallop scientist at the School for Marine Science and Technology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

IN THE bright midday sun, boats idle as fishermen unload the day’s haul. This scene is commonplace in Maine’s small fishing hamlets; but Port Clyde is known not for its lobsters but for its fish. It is home to the last groundfishing fleet between southern Maine and Canada. Of the species caught off its shores, none is more famous than the Atlantic cod, nutritious and easily preserved when dried and salted. Historically its appeal was such that wars were fought over New England’s fisheries.

Cod have suffered from their popularity. Fifteen years ago the stock crashed to under 10% of the level reckoned sustainable for fishing. As the fish disappeared, so did the fishermen. Before the crash, anyone could get a commercial-fishing permit. Since then the government has stopped issuing new permits and has imposed a tangle of ever-increasing restrictions—limiting fishing days, capping daily hauls, regulating gear and closing areas to boats. These make it difficult to stay in business. Roughly 600 boats are active in the New England fleet, half the number of 2001.

Despite the restrictions, Gulf of Maine cod are still at barely half the desired population, and the population at Georges Bank, 60 miles (100km) offshore is at 12% of it. This has prompted another regulatory overhaul. Fishermen are now banding together to form “fishing sectors”, which are given an annual quota from the New England Fishery Management Council, a federal body.

Read the complete story at The Economist.

New England scallopers are wondering why new restrictions have been placed on what has for years been the region’s healthiest fishery.

Rules passed by the New England Fishery Management Council last week reduced the number of fishing days from 37 this year to 29 in 2010. That’s lowered the projected catch by about 11 million pounds, to 41.5 million.

The industry lost another 18,000 pounds per boat because they’re forbidden to take trips to a closed area of Georges Bank to protect yellowtail flounder.

The industry estimates the new rules will mean a loss of $300,000 per boat.

Fairhaven-based scalloper Dan Eilertsen says the regulations don’t make sense.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

Once again the fishing industry and, more particularly, the scallop-harvesting industry is being subjected to extremely conservative rules relating to the ability of the scallopers to harvest product.

The New England Fishery Management Council reduced the number of days that scallopers can operate from 39 to 29 days for the coming fishing year.

For a moment, let’s look at the impact of that kind of reduction in the real world of scallopers involved and scallop processors who distribute product throughout the United States and the world.

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today.

Last week, after a day of contentious argument over how much yellowtail flounder to allocate to the Scallop fleet, Jimmy Odlin made a motion for the New England Fishery Management council to take action to consider changes in the rebuilding strategy for Georges Bank Yellowtail Flounder.  The motion passed 10-7, after Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul said she was opposed the idea of revisiting the Yellowtail rebuilding timetable.

Yellowtail is also a limiting factor for groundfish. In fact, last week the entire area south of 41′ 40 N. latitude was closed to all ground-fishing by Days at Sea vessels unless they used a specially modified separator trawl. The closure was to avoid a situation where the entire ground-fishery would be closed later this winter due to taking the entire yellowtail allocation. NMFS figures show that of the 3.5 million lb. yellowtail quota, 2.8 million has been caught. Yet of the 2.8 million, over 50%, or 1.43 million lbs. has been discarded at sea, and never landed.  This situation is a direct result of one of the worst features of the current system: trip limits that force vessels to throw overboard a huge percentage of their catch. SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton – Lexington, MA – Nov. 24, 2009 -(News Analysis) – Last week, after a day of contentious argument over how much yellowtail flounder to allocate to the Scallop fleet, Jimmy Odlin made a motion for the New England Fishery Management council to take action to consider changes in the rebuilding strategy for Georges Bank Yellowtail Flounder.

The motion passed 10-7, after Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul said she was opposed the idea of revisiting the Yellowtail rebuilding timetable.

Problems with yellowtail flounder are at the heart of the difficulties in implementing catch shares and sectors in 2010, and have the potential to severely impact the scallop fishery as well, the most valuable fishery in New England.

Earlier in the meeting the council was considering yellowtail cuts to the scallop fishery that would cost up to 9% of annual revenue, after already cutting effort in the scallop fishery by about 30% for 2010.

Ron Smollowitz, speaking for the Fisheries Survival Coalition, made a strong point that it was unconscionable for the council to be even considering further reductions on scallop effort due to Yellowtail by-catch considerations, after the industry had already made a great many changes and sacrifices to reduce the by-catch.

The momentum of the meeting seemed to change, and quickly an amendment was adopted to allocate 100% of Yellowtail needed by the scallop fleet in 2010 from the Annual Catch Limit.

But yellowtail is also a limiting factor for groundfish. In fact, last week the entire area south of 41′ 40 N. latitude was closed to all ground-fishing by Days at Sea vessels unless they used a specially modified separator trawl. The closure was to avoid a situation where the entire ground-fishery would be closed later this winter due to taking the entire yellowtail allocation.

NMFS figures show that of the 3.5 million lb. yellowtail quota, 2.8 million has been caught. Yet of the 2.8 million, over 50%, or 1.43 million lbs. has been discarded at sea, and never landed.

This situation is a direct result of one of the worst features of the current system: trip limits that force vessels to throw overboard a huge percentage of their catch.

Because the discards have to be estimated, it increases the uncertainty for the scientists, leading to a vicious downward spiral where greater uncertainty leads to lower quotas due to precaution, lower quotas than necessary lead to draconian trip limits, and low trip limits lead to increasing discards.

The reason the yellowtail situation is so dire is that NMFS chose a seven year rebuilding time-table for the stock, rather than the 10 year time table allowed under Magnuson. As a result, the cutbacks in Yellowtail have been much deeper than necessary for rebuilding.

The Canadians, who jointly manage the Yellowtail stocks with the U.S. reportedly laughed U.S. scientists out of the room when they proposed a draconian limit on yellowtail due to the U.S. rebuilding plan.

The joint US-Canadian Yellowtail stock assessment (TRAC 2009) opens by saying at 28,000 mt at the beginning of 2009, "yellowtail have the highest adult biomass since 1973". The figures are based on both US and Canadian survey data.

Based on these numbers, the TRAC report suggests that fishing can be set at a "level of 5,000 to 7,000 metric tons, with a neutral risk (~50%) that the fishing mortality rate in 2010 will exceed the reference target. This level of fishing is projected to result in a 3% increase in biomass in 2010, and continuing growth in 2011."

The yellowtail situation seems analogous to what faced regulators in the North Pacific and at the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game regarding snow crab.

In that case, after 8 years, snow crab failed to meet its rebuilding target, and even maintaining fishing at the level required for the ten year rebuilding plan for the final two years would not have met the plan. In an attempt to do so, snow crab fishing would have been ratcheted down to as little as 15.7 million lbs., from a previous year’s catch of around 55 million lbs. Such a draconian action would have likely shut the fishery.

In the Alaska region, the NMFS regional director, Robert Mecum, proposed scrapping the current rebuilding plan, and substituting a new five year rebuilding plan that kept the stock on its path of approaching its sustainable biomass (BMST).

He says the stock increased from 146 million pounds to 241 million pounds between 2002 and 2009, but remained at only 74% of BMSY.

Yellowtail, by contrast, has grown from a biomass of 2200 metric tons in 2006 to an estimated 28,000 tons in 2009, the highest level since 1973. The goal of the rebuilding plan is to reach a spawning stock biomass of 43,200 tons, compared to the 17,800 level estimated in 2008.

The fact is that the stock is growing, and the greatest issue in yellowtail are some of the uncertainties in the survey methods.

In Alaska, Mecum sent a letter to the N. Pacific Council and the ADF&G recommended a change in the rebuilding strategy "to balance competing requirements under section 304(e)(4) of the Magnuson- Stevens Act to rebuild the stock in as short a time as possible and to account for the status and biology of the stock and the needs of fishing communities."

In 2010, the New England fishery is embarked on a huge change from a top down effort control system that constantly pitted fishermen’s ingenuity against increasingly draconian regulations to a catch share system where fishermen will be given the freedom to maximize their efficiency in catching an allocated catch share. The first system resulted in the scenario where yellowtail discards were greater than landings, and uncertainty in NMFS models kept increasing. They did not know what was being caught, nor what was in the ocean.

The new system will allow NMFS to know exactly what is being caught. Scallopers will be required to land legal size yellowtail. Catch share fishermen will know exactly the amount of fish their co-op has, and will have to stop fishing or purchase shares from other co-ops if they exceed their limit.

Given the stakes in this transition, and the fact that New England could be on the cusp of an entirely new approach to fisheries management, it is unfathomable that NMFS would not take a more holistic approach by acknowledging the need to adjust some of the rebuilding targets when adherence to the model threatens the implementation of the entire regional fishery management system.

The environmental organizations have a huge stake in this. It is not enough to throw money at the problems in New England and say catches should be cut back. It is also necessary to look responsibly at the major goal: transforming the fishery to a catch share system with hard quotas.

If it is possible to take a major step in that direction with a neutral impact on yellowtail rebuilding, why would NMFS, the environmental community, and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center not immediately embrace this approach.

The New England Fishery Management council has voted to reopen consideration of yellowtail strategies. This is a huge opportunity to improve the chances for success of fishery management in New England, and it should be supported 100%.

John Sackton, Editor And Publisher
Seafood.com News 1-781-861-1441
Email comments to jsackton@seafood.com