Fisheries Survival Fund says issues raised a year ago have gone "essentially unaddressed, despite a series of reassurances"
[Editor's note: The scallop industry is concerned about yellowtail flounder because yellowtail often inhabit the sea bottom in the same areas as scallops. If scallopers' yellowtail flounder allocations are reduced to low levels, it will act as a choke species, preventing fisherman from harvesting abundant scallops. The scallop fishery is among America's most profitable, and is largely the reason why New Bedford, Massachusetts has consistently been ranked as the highest-value fishing port in the nation. It is widely viewed as a successful model of fishery management, the result of cooperation between the industry, the fishery management council, the academic research community, and government scientists.]
The following was released by the Fisheries Survival Fund:
WASHINGTON — August 20, 2013 — Today, the Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF) wrote to NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) Director Dr. Bill Karp, calling the agency's latest 2013 stock assessment for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder "deeply flawed" and "not viable for use as a basis for catch advice." Their letter contends that NOAA Fisheries will be in violation of both federal law and agency guidelines if the agency accepts the Transboundary Resources Assessment Committee's (TRAC) recommendations, despite substantial evidence of flawed methodology and chronically inaccurate findings. The TRAC's conclusions allege that Georges Bank yellowtail is dwindling in numbers, and if taken as a guide for future management decisions, could result in steep harvest cuts for fishermen.
FSF is asking Dr. Karp's office to reject those conclusions when setting catch limits on the species.
This is the second time in 13 months that FSF has written to NOAA to point out serious issues with this assessment and to seek improvements in stock assessment science and methodology.
The Survival Fund is asking four things of Dr. Karp:
To acknowledge that the current assessment is not suitable for catch advice,
to provide "an objective set of criteria" for judging the validity of the yellowtail
assessment,
to set interim catch levels based on survey and catch indices, and
to develop a research program for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder.
Each is required, their letter states, in order to "create a defensible process that leads to a result that all stake holders can believe in."
The persistent appearance of a "retrospective pattern" within the assessments is of particular concern to FSF. A retrospective pattern is a type of statistical bias that occurs in a stock assessment when the model used consistently yields incorrect estimates for key factors such as population and fishing mortality. Retrospective patterns can generate inaccurate findings and their presence can indicate underlying flaws in a stock assessment model. In the case of Georges Bank yellowtail flounder, that pattern has plagued assessments since 2005. According to NMFS guidelines, "a strong retrospective pattern is grounds to reject the assessment model as an indication of stock status or the basis for management advice." To that end, FSF argues that, "at this point in the model's life, the uncertainty is so high as to make any results it produces an arbitrary product."
If used to guide future management decisions, these findings may also violate federal law. National Standard 2 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act sets the guidelines for what can be considered the best available scientific data in US fisheries science. FSF points out that accepting the 2013 yellowtail assessment violated National Standard 2 in three ways:
By not addressing "alternative scientific points of view,"
By having scientists who worked on the assessment also work on the assessment's
peer review for the TRAC, and
By not subjecting to higher scrutiny the TRAC's method of fixing the
retrospective patterns. The assessments were adjusted using Mohn's rho, a value measuring the size of an assessment's retrospective pattern. Correcting a retrospective pattern in this fashion is an emerging scientific technique that is subject to continued research and debate. According to National Standard 2, "emergent science should be considered more thoroughly" than more established scientific methods.
FSF concludes that its requests are necessary to restore faith in the agency and maintain a working relationship with fishing communities, writing that "NMFS cannot ask the fishing industry to bear yet another dramatic cut in catch based upon a process that does not follow its own recommendations."
The Fisheries Survival Fund is an industry group representing the majority of full-time, limited-access Atlantic scallop permit holders.
CONTACT:
David E. Frulla
Kelley Drye & Warren LLP
3050 K Street, N.W., Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20007
Telephone: (202) 342-8648
Facsimile: (202) 342-8451
Email: dfrulla@kelleydrye.com www.kelleydrye.com
Download a PDF of the FSF press release on their letter Dr. Karp
Read the FSF letter to NEFSC Director Dr. Bill Karp
Read the FSF letter written a year ago on the same subject