State and Local

April 2012- The Alaska scallop fishery is based upon the weathervane scallop, also called the giant Pacific scallop, Patinopecten caurinus. Scallops are not only tasty, but quite an interesting and unusual bivalve species as well. Unlike most bivalves (clams and mussels), scallops cannot burrow to escape predation, but instead they detect predators with primitive ‘eyes’ and have limited ability to swim away by rapid opening and closing of their shells. Scallops require a very large adductor, ‘hinge’ muscle, to maintain this ability. This muscle is what we think of as a “scallop,” although it is only one part of the animal.

Life History
Scallops are dioecious (have two sexes), are broadcast spawners, and reproduce by assembling and releasing clouds of gametes (eggs and sperm) which are fertilized in the water column. The signal for scallops to assemble and spawn is thought to be increasing water temperature and in Alaska spawning occurs in May and early June. Fertilized eggs settle to the bottom where they develop after a few days into a tiny transparent-shelled veliger larvae. The veliger larvae swims into the water column where it feeds on microplankton (small free-floating plants) for a period of about three weeks before settling to the bottom to begin its life as a benthic (bottom-dwelling) filter feeder.

Weathervane scallops begin reproducing at three or four years of age at a shell height of about three inches, and are commercially harvestable at about four inches shell height and six to eight years of age. Scallops can live about 28 years in Alaska. Like other bivalve mollusks, scallops are aged by counting the rings on their shell, which are formed by alternating periods of slow and fast growth associated with seasonal changes in temperature and food availability. The two valves of scallop shells are not identical, and the scallop body lies on the bottom valve, which is more rounded in shape, while the top valve is flatter. Adult scallops assemble in dense ‘beds’; these have a characteristic oblong shape, with the longer axis parallel with the direction of the prevailing current.

Fishery
Weathervane scallop beds in Alaska are located on mud, clay, sand or gravel substrate at depths of 120 to 390 feet in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea. Scallops are captured using standard New Bedford style scallop dredges that are on average 15 feet wide and weigh about 2,600 pounds. The frame provides a rigid, fixed dredge opening to which a steel ring bag (consisting of 4-inch rings linked together) is attached to collect the scallops as the dredge is towed. In response to an influx of vessels from the east coast, a vessel moratorium was implemented in state waters in 1997; eight vessels currently hold vessel-based entry permits. In a further effort to increase economic efficiency, permit holders created a scallop fishing cooperative in 2000. Some cooperative members opted to remove their boats from the fishery and arranged for their shares to be caught by other members of the cooperative, providing the remaining vessels with additional fishing opportunity. In recent seasons, only four vessels on average have participated in the fishery. This fleet of 70 to 120-ft vessels each has a crew of eight to twelve, who shuck and freeze the scallops onboard the vessels. Most of the scallops produced are marketed directly by the cooperative. Except in the Cook Inlet area, all commercial scallop fishing vessels are required to carry trained observers.

Read the full article at Alaska Fish and Wildlife News.

 

 

To preserve what remains of the giant Atlantic sturgeon, the federal government placed the fish on the endangered species list Friday. That leaves state officials waiting for the other shoe to drop.

North Carolina, as did some of the other states affected by the listing, opposed federal protection, though the sturgeon’s population in state waters is at historic lows.

State officials aren’t so much worried about fishermen being fined for catching sturgeon since the state has banned possession of the fish since 1991. The numbers are so low that few hook-and-line fishermen have ever seen a sturgeon.

The state based its objections primarily on restrictions likely to be included in a plan that the federal government must devise to restore the sturgeon’s habitat. It could include restrictions on commercial fishing gear and inlet dredging.

Read the complete article on The Outer Banks Voice

 

 

 

 

 

ELLSWORTH, Maine — New restrictions on Maine’s scallop fishery are expected for next winter’s fishing season, and this past week state officials took their proposal on the road to see what kind of reception it would receive.

By all accounts, legal-size scallops were scarce this season, which ended a week ago, and more so than in the past two years. Declining numbers of scallops prompted the Maine Department of Marine Resources in 2009 to close down a dozen areas along the coast to scallop harvesting for three years.

Because those closures are scheduled to expire this year, state and industry officials have been floating ideas for new measures aimed at rebuilding scallop stocks and keeping the fishery sustainable.

The Scallop Advisory Council, a panel of industry officials appointed by DMR to advise the department on the fishery, last month came up with a list of recommendations that would place tighter restrictions on the industry. The council’s recommendations include that:

• The season be shortened from 70 days to 43 days.
• The daily catch limit per license be reduced from 200 pounds to 135 pounds (which already is the limit in Cobscook Bay).
• Fishermen can fish in only two reopened areas and have to tell DMR which two before the next season starts.

Read the complete article from Bangor Daily News

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 2, 2012 – Prohibition on the Taking of Alewife and Blueback Herring from Connecticut Waters Extended for another Year

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) today announced that the prohibition on the taking of alewives and blueback herring from most inland and marine waters of the State of Connecticut has been extended for another year. This action was initially taken in April of 2002, and has been extended each successive year after DEEP monitoring showed no improvement in population size during the past year. The current action by DEEP Commissioner Daniel C. Esty extends the prohibition through March 31, 2013.

“East Coast states have all experienced dramatic declines in river herring populations.  Since Connecticut took the first step to close river herring fisheries to protect the stocks, other states have followed.  The best available data from this past year indicates that the closure of these fisheries must remain in place,” said Commissioner Esty.

River herring is a term used to collectively refer to alewife and blueback herring. Both species are anadromous, which means they hatch in freshwater, migrate to the ocean to grow, then return to freshwater to spawn. Historically, millions of river herring returned to Connecticut rivers and streams each year. In 1985, over 630,000 blueback herring were passed over the Holyoke Dam on the Connecticut River. By 2006, only 21 passed the Holyoke Dam (Massachusetts), the lowest number in the history of the Holyoke Fishlift. Last year that number had crept up to 138. While river herring are not typically consumed by humans, they are important food to many species of freshwater and marine gamefish, as well as osprey, bald eagle, harbor seals, porpoise, egrets, kingfishers and river otter.

Read the full story here.

 

 

April 1, 2012 – Not a single shipment of shark fins moved through the Port of Baltimore last year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But Maryland still may ban the sale and trade of the Asian delicacy, much to the ire of some fishermen and restaurant owners.

Moves to restrict the shark fin trade — which is now illegal in four states and has prompted legislation in at least six others — has stirred a noisy public debate about how best to protect a top ocean predator whose numbers are shrinking. While the United States boasts some of the world’s toughest restrictions on shark fishing, requiring sharks be brought in with their fins attached, proponents of the measure argue that more needs to be done to stem the decline of sharks.

 

“This is everyone’s problem,” said Maryland Del. Eric Luedtke (D-Montgomery), who wrote the House bill partly out of his concern for the Chesapeake Bay. He noted that the number of large sharks off the East Coast has declined by 90 percent compared with historic levels, which led to an explosion in the Bay’s cownose ray population, and that in turn wiped out some oyster beds. “The reality is sharks don’t recognize state boundaries; they don’t recognize international boundaries. What’s bad for oceans elsewhere is bad for oceans here.”

But some Asian American businesses that serve shark’s fin soup, as well as fishing operators who catch sharks legally, oppose the bans, which went into effect in Hawaii in 2010 and in California, Washington and Oregon last year after receiving wide bipartisan support.

A group representing Asian American shark fin dealers, restaurateurs and grocers will argue in the California Superior Court in San Francisco next month that the ban is unconstitutional because the federal government has ultimate authority over interstate commerce and the state is not compensating them for the economic loss.

The fin trade is the top intentional driver of shark deaths worldwide — killing between 26 million and 73 million sharks annually — because their cartilage is used to make noodles for a soup served at weddings and business meals. Millions of sharks also die each year when they are caught accidentally in gear targeting other species.

Read the full article at the Washington Post.

 

AUGUSTA, Maine— March 29, 2012 – Maine Gov. Paul LePage has signed emergency legislation that increases fines for elver fishing violations.

The new law carries $2,000 fines for fishing without a license, tampering with elver fishing gear or using untagged gear, and it includes license suspensions for second offenses.

Read the complete story by the AP at The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 30, 2012 – The state's deputy director of marine fisheries has urged NOAA's cod crisis response team to crack down on inshore gillnetting and schemes used by offshore trawlers to get at the stocks in Stellwagen Bank and other nearby waters.

David Pierce, who first made public a series of chronic private complaints by dayboat fishermen of cod-poaching off-shore trawlers working schools on Stellwagen, noted those reports in a letter a month later, dated Feb. 29.

The letter was obtained by the Times earlier this week.

Pierce expressed skepticism at the freedom from government oversight granted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to sectors, or fishermen's cooperatives, as incentives to join in the trading of catch shares and quota under the fishery's now 2-year-old management system.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 23, 2012 – Striped bass will still be an option for restaurant patrons in Massachusetts since lawmakers put off legislation that would have banned commercial striped bass fishing and sales in the Bay State.

The Joint Committee on Environment Natural Resources and Agriculture announced Tuesday that the proposed ban would be sent for study, eliminating further consideration this year.

State Sen. Dan Wolf, D-Harwich, a committee member, said the striped bass population should be monitored, but a ban on commercial fishing is the wrong method.

Read the complete story from The Cape Cod Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Richard Gaines

Nearly two years into the nation's most ambitious experiment in catch share fisheries management, the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition has urged the governors of New England's coastal states and New York and New Jersey to issue a joint request for a federal "fisheries failure" declaration.

Such a finding would make federal financial aid available for assessing and mitigating economic and social dislocations.

The joint declaration would cover the Northeast groundfishery, which drew adventuresome European fishermen into the Northwest Atlantic before the onset of colonization and has been the lifeblood of Atlantic ports for more than 300 years.

The Obama administration has still not responded to a solo filing for a "disaster" declaration last November by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, now a co-chairman of the president's re-election campaign.

In 2010, the Obama administration sped up the implementation of a catch share format that brought 19 stocks into a system based on hard catch limits and 10-year stock rebuilding deadlines fused with a system of buying, selling or trading shares of the fishermen's "catch," or allotted quota among their own cooperatives, called sectors, or to outside investors.

The result was as NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco said she desired — the elimination of "a sizeable fraction of the fleet" and accelerated consolidation of the industry into the hands of larger boats and businesses, with a number of small owner-operated businesses fading from the fleet. The first year of catch shares in New England brought a loss of some 21 of 96 Gloucester boats groundfishing then alone, according to NOAA figures.

The triggering event of the "disaster" now being cited by the Seafood Coalition, the region's dominant industry organization, was a 2011 scientific assessment of Gulf of Maine cod that found the stock was not rebuilding nearly as quickly as a highly optimistic benchmark assessment had shown in 2008.

So divergent were the two assessments that confidence in NOAA science was shaken across the industry, the fishing ports of the Northeast, Congress and state and local government offices, leaving the agency with a unsteady foundation for setting catch limits for 2012 that will constrict fishing for inshore cod by no less than 22 percent, according to NOAA's Sam Rauch, the acting administrator for fisheries.

That "interim" measure, the only flexibility allowed by the Magnuson-Stevens Act, would lead into years of virtual non-fishing for inshore cod, experts say. And with that stock — the signature and most essential fish of the region — off limits, the entire mix of species found on the bottom of New England waters in close proximity would also become virtually untouchable, since cod could be accidentally hauled up as bycatch in pursuing other stocks.

The coalition, founded here in 2003 as a counterweight to the alliance of foundation funded, green non-government organizations and the NOAA bureaucracy, wrote to Govs. Patrick, Paul LePage of Maine, John Lynch of New Hampshire, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Dan Malloy of Maine, Andrew Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey on Monday.

"It appears certain now," wrote Jackie Odell, executive director of the coalition, "that the catch level for fishing year 2012 beginning on May 1, 2012, will result in the collapse of many small business fishing operations. This holds true for all vessel sizes and fishing gears throughout the region. This is truly a regional crisis."

The coalition, which organized 12 of the 17 Northeast groundfishing sectors, says its membership includes more than 300 trawl, gillnet and hook gear vessels out of the roughly 450 active in the seven-state region. In addition, the coalition represents shoreside services.

The legality of the entire catch share system in New England has been challenged in a federal lawsuit now before the First District U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston, while the Commerce Department inspector general is investigating whether corporately-backed nonprofit and other non-government groups wielded improper influence on the writing of Amendment 16, which includes the catch share regulatory package.

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 28, 2012 – The issue that recently brought everybody together was a recent proposal by the Southampton Town Trustees to severely limit the harvesting of razor clams, a thin clam species that resembles a barber’s straight razor. The clams are little known to most East End residents but are hugely popular fare on the dinner tables of Asian families in New York City and have become one of the baymen’s most valuable harvests.

The fishermen said the closure of the razor clam harvest for the better part of eight months would rob them of their most important markets. They pleaded with the Trustees to take a different tack if they want to rein in the harvest of the clams, saying a shorter closure and strict limits on the number of razor clams that a bayman could harvest in a day would be preferable. They also blasted the Trustees for having adopted the closure without consulting them first.

“In the past, when decisions were made, the Trustees would call a meeting—that didn’t happen here,” said Sam Rispoli, president of the Southampton Town Baymen’s Association. The Hampton Bays bayman said that the members of the organization had agreed that some closure of the razor clam harvest was warranted, but that the one the Trustees have imposed is too long.

Read the complete story from The Southampton News.