Management & Regulation

NOAA recently announced the temporary closure of the black sea bass recreational fishery in federal waters north of Cape Hatteras, N.C., for 180 days, now in effect. The closure comes in response to recent landings data that showed recreational fishermen may catch more than double their annual quota by the end of the year.  An independent body of federal and university scientists recently determined that the black sea bass stock has been rebuilt. However, both the scientists and the Science and Statistical Committee of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council have cautioned against increasing fishing of this stock for several reasons, including the complex and poorly understood reproductive cycle, and limited information on life span and important habitats for this species.

According to NOAA, landings data and scientific analyses show recreational fishermen have reached their quota and could exceed their 1.14 million pound harvest limit by as much as 84 to 225 percent if the recreational fishery is not closed.

The closure of recreational sea bass fishing in federal waters is forcing recreational anglers into legal action, with the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) is assembling a legal team to file suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service to overturn the closure.

The RFA claims the closure is based on survey data that’s been described as "fatally flawed" by the National Academy of Sciences. According to the scientists’ data, black sea bass is a healthy stock — they are not overfished, no overfishing is occurring, and the most recent stock assessment places the spawning stock biomass (SSB) at 103 percent of their target. The SSB has been at or above this level for the past decade. Yet, despite this scientific information, the recreational angling community is being denied access to this vitally important fishery due to "fatally flawed" information coming from the Marine Recreational Fishing Statistical Survey, or MRFSS, the RFA says. For more information, visit joinrfa.org.

Marc Folco is the outdoor writer for The Standard-Times. Contact him at openseason1988@aol.com

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today.

Cutting the region’s herring catch in half would significantly harm the state’s lobster fishery. At the same time, the fishery cannot continue to be managed with spotty oversight and catches that are so large the whole herring fishery could be hurt. To resolve this, stricter management of herring fishing must be accompanied by help for lobstermen to diversify their bait supply.

Regional fisheries managers recommended that the herring catch limit be cut by more than half next year. They said this was necessary because of uncertainty as to the number of herring in the region. They initially proposed that the catch limit be dropped to 90,000 metric tons. This year, the limit is 194,000 tons.

After hearing from lobstermen last week, a committee of members from the New England Fisheries Management Council and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission decided on a smaller reduction in the allowable catch — 145,000 metric tons. The full New England Fisheries Manage-ment Council is expected to take up the issue next month.

Read the complete story at Bangor Daily News.

You’ve got to hand it to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While so many federal agencies seem to get nowhere fast, NOAA is working overtime to kill fishing as we know it. It is gutting the livelihoods of the nation’s coastal communities in the process.

NOAA’s activity is a juggling act, really, with four or more balls in the air at one time. There’s Amendment 17A, Amendment 17B and an interim red snapper closure. Amendment 16 just passed, along with establishment of Marine Protected Areas off our coast.

While the specifics of these regulatory spasms are too complicated to reiterate here, suffice to say that they will conspire to end commercial and recreational bottom-fishing in the United States.

But simply closing down most of the fishing apparently isn’t enough.

Now the NOAA wants to control what’s left – and who gets it.

Read the complete story at The Florida Times-Union.

New regulations limiting the herring catch have Maine lobstermen concerned about where they will find bait for the 2010 season.

Zone D lobstermen, those fishing in waters between Cape Rosier and Pemaquid Point, met Oct. 8 to discuss an agenda that included the election of Zone Council officers and a review of a study on trap density. The existing slate of officers was reelected. Those officers are Michael Dawson of Bristol, chairman; Daniel Staples of Cushing, vice chairman; Kevin Glover, secretary; and Gerald Cushman of Port Clyde, Lobster Advisory Council representative. Wayne Canning of Belfast will continue to represent Zone D on the Zone C council and Ernest Wallace of Friendship was nominated to serve in that role at Zone E meetings.

Maine Lobstermen’s Association President David Cousens of South Thomaston reported on a recent recommendation by the Science and Statistical Committee of the New England Fishery Management Council to cut the acceptable biological catch for herring by 53 percent from the 2009 limit.

Read the complete story at the Village Soup.

Please note, this article, published October 14 by an independent media center in San Francisco, is about the second Ocean Policy Task Force Public Meeting held on September 17.
“Why do we have most sustainable fleet, the fleet that provides the most fishing jobs, the fleet that gets the highest price per pound, the fleet with the lowest carbon foot print, the fleet that drives the most visited tourist attraction in the U.S. – Fisherman’s Wharf – why do we have that fleet tied to the dock going broke,” he stated. “The answer to that question is surprisingly simple – bad management.” –Larry Collins, president of the Crab Boat Owners Association of San Francisco

Larry Collins, president of the Crab Boat Owners Association of San Francisco, blasted bad federal and state fishery management for leading to the failure of the salmon and crab fisheries during the Obama Administration’s second Ocean Policy Task Force Public Meeting in San Francisco, California on September 17. 

He also slammed the Individual Fishing Quotas (IFQ) program that Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the former Environmental Defense Board Vice Chair, is promoting. 

“Even as information from all over the world is pouring in that Catch Shares merely consolidate our fish resources into fewer and bigger pockets and kill our traditional small boat fleets and communities, our federal managers forge ahead blindly,” he emphasized. “This may be the easiest way for the government to manage fish and it may make the Environmental Mafia happy enough to stop suing NMFS, but it is disastrous to the traditional fleet, our coastal communities and the people’s resources.” 

The meeting drew over 400 people including recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, seaweed harvesters, environmentalists and elected officials who gave ranging input ranging on an array of ocean issues.

Read the complete story at San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center.

The New England Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, newly empowered to establish catch limits, has conceded making a mistake in calculating the proposed total catch reduction in skates, a high volume food fish.

The mistake, as described in a memo from the committee Chairman, Dr. Steve Cadrin, to council executive director Paul Howard, was in plugging a "0" into an equation where a "—" for missing or blank should have gone.

The result of the data entry error was an unjustified cut of 6,817 metric tons of skate off the acceptable biological catch recommendation for the 2010-11 fishing season.

The original, erroneous calculation of the acceptable biological catch of skate was 23,826 metric tons, a volume that was 57 percent of the catch in 2007, the control year.

After the mistake was rectified, the committee recalculated and set the acceptable biological catch at 30,643 metric tons, which meant that the reduction in skate volume would be only 26 percent.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

See also: "Correction to the 2010-2011 Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC) recommendation for the skate complex"

Maine U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe deserves credit for her challenge last week to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco regarding the absurd pending catch limits on New England’s herring fishing industry.

Indeed, Snowe’s letter to Lubchenco, citing the "woefully" outdated scientific data used to justify a 40 percent cut in the allowable herring catch, has touched on the rhetorical "gorilla in the room" for all of the debate surrounding NOAA’s and its National Marine Fisheries Service regulatory schemes. That’s the fact that, for all of the heavy-handed enforcement, all the tight-fisted regulatory tactics and all of the unjust, unilateral mandates imposed on Gloucester’s, New England’s and America’s fishermen, there is a single glaring problem at the root of all others:

The admissions among scientists that science and data used as a basis for all of these regulations just can’t be trusted as a basis for anything — let alone to effectively deny American fishermen the chance to make a living. That’s an issue on which all of our legislative leaders — from U.S. Sen. John Kerry and appointed Sen. Paul Kirk, to Congressman John Tierney and local state lawmakers Bruce Tarr and Ann-Margaret Ferrante — must demand accountability and correction before NOAA and NMFS take any more economic bites out of this time-honored industry.

Read the complete story at Newbury Port News.

On September 23, 2009 the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) of the New England Fishery Management Council issued a correction to the 2010-2011 Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC) recommendation for the skate complex.  As a result of a mistake whereby unavailable data was wrongly included in the calculations as "zero" rather than "missing", the revised recommendation increases the ABC by 28.6%, from  23,826 mt. to 30,643 mt.

The Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) was asked to review a correction to the skate complex ABC, using the same basis for determining the ABC, approved by the SSC February 6, 2009.  The PDT’s calculation of the most recent 3-year average of the multi-species skate survey index inadvertently excluded the 2007 spring survey catch of little skates.  The original calculation erroneously included a zero value in places where the value was actually missing thereby falsely lowering the multispecies skate index.

The original recommendation based upon the erroneous calculation was for an ABC of 57% (23,826 mt. ) of the estimated catch in 2007 and a total catch reduction (the sum of landings and discards) of at least 43%.  After the correction the revised ABC is increased to 74% (30,643 mt. ) of the estimated catch in 2007 and the total catch reduction (the sum of landings and dead discards) is lowered to 26%."

Read the memo from Paul Howard to Dr. Steve Cadrin of the SSC.

(10-6-09) David Cousins,  president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, says he’s concerned by the findings of a recent scientific study that calls for drastic cutbacks in catch limits for herring – the main source of lobster bait. These cutbacks, he says, will mean the indusrtry will run out of bait by August next year.

"If that’s the case we’re going to be crippled because most of our landings come in after the middle of August," Cousins said.

He says the industry is facing at least a 50 percent cut in lobster bait caught in the gulf of Maine. By next year, he adds, the amount of herring available to the lobster industry would be barely a third of what it was in 2007.

"Last year we were allowed 44 thousand metric tons, which was down from 60 thousand metric ton 2 years ago, so we’ve already taken a third and now we’re being asked to cut it in half again," said Cousins.

Read the complete story at MPBN.

10-6-09

The Herring Committee of the New England Fishery Management Council yesterday approved a motion aimed at delaying a radical cutback in the size of future herring catches, pending a benchmark assessment of the strength of the fishery which is considered strong and stable.

But the data on the fishery show a "retrospective pattern" — a term that means the presence of worrisome trends as ever-more current data is fed into the model.

Lobster fishing interests said a major cutback in herring catches could leave traps without bait, and do deep damage to the lobster industry.

"In the 20 years I’ve been involved in lobstering," said an official of the Corea Lobster Co., "I’ve never seen a greater threat to the fishery."

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.