SEAFOODNEWS.COM by Michael Ramsingh — September 18, 2014 — New England's Groundfish Oversight Committee has proposed a hybrid plan of rolling cod fishing closures and a ban on recreational and charter fishing, among other recommendations as part of a revised management plan for the New England Fishery Council to consider. The proposal is in response to the updated Gulf of Maine cod stock assessment that found inshore cod populations are sharply lower than expectations.
The proposal was adopted yesterday during a Committee meeting in Portland, where several recommendations were chosen from the Groundfish Plan Development Team's (PDT) memo on Framework Adjustment 53.
Of the six options suggested in the PDT report, the Committee recommended that the Council consider options 4 and 6.
Option 4 proposes a "hybrid" plan that "adds additional closures in March and a return to the inshore Gulf of Maine closures that sectors had been exempt from in May, June, and October. This option would also remove closures to the east in areas where spawning is not believed to occur. This would result in fewer areas being closed than if all of the sector exemptions were revoked, but slightly more area than initially suggested by the CATT (Closed Area Technical Team).
Meanwhile, the Comittee also suggested the Council consider prohibiting private recreational and charter/party fishing vessels in inshore spawning closure areas under Option 6 of the PTD's plan.
"Currently, private recreational vessels are exempt from the WGOM closed area and the GOM rolling closure areas. Private and charter party vessels can fish in these areas as well if they acquire a letter of authorization from the Regional Administrator. The PDT noted that, because approximately 34% of the GOM cod quota is allocated to the recreational fisheries, allowing recreational vessels access to inshore spawning closures could be counterproductive to rebuilding efforts for a stock that is overfished and subject to overfishing. Prohibiting recreational fishing in the WGOM closed area and the rolling closures could also increase equity between the commercial and recreational fleets," the proposal reads.
Along with these two options the Committee also wants the Council to consider a few other management strategies which include:
–Reconsidering all existing Sector Exemptions in the GOM to determine whether they remain appropriate in light of new GOM cod stock information;
–Prohibiting commercial groundfish vessels without observers from fishing in other broad stock areas on trips that fish in the GOM west of 70°; and
–Requesting the Council review and summarize all existing information on the patterns, extent and mortality associated with cod bycatch in the lobster fishery in the GOM (state and federal waters), and estimate current cod removals to inform potential management measures upcoming actions.
According to Pat Fiorelli, the Council's Public Affairs liaison, the Committee elected to submit this proposal for the Council's consideration in a 8-2-1 vote.
The proposal will now move to the Council to vote on at their meeting scheduled for September 30 – October 2. For now all existing management regulations will remain in place through May 2015 according to Fiorelli.
However, Fiorelli said should the Council accept the recommendations as is, emergency measures could be taken to enact them ahead of schedule.
"It’s a committee recommendation thus far and will be considered by the full Council at the Sept/Oct. meeting," Fiorelli said. "If approved at that time, the Council would forward an emergency request to NOAA Fisheries, who would determine whether an emergency is warranted, and if so, what measures would apply — taking the Council's recommendations into account."
This latest management development stems from an assessment conducted on GOM cod over the summer that found the spawning stock biomass in the Gulf hit an all-time low – 3 percent to 4 percent of what’s needed for a sustainable fishery. This was a sharp decline from an estimated 13 to 18 percent in 2013 and after a Council mandate to cut the GOM cod quota by 77 percent in May 2013.
According to John Sackton, who recently was discussing cod recoveries in Newfoundland scientists think that in cod fisheries where cod have practically disappeared, it appears more and more likely that they are facing an environmental change that is causing them to move, and in that case, protection of the remenant populatons is essential to allow for a rapid recovery when environmental conditions become more favorable. The fact is that these changes in New England are far beyond anything that could result from fishing, and conversely is not something that will be reversed by fishing restrictions. Nevertheless, the fishing restrictions are important so that when conditions do improve, there is a remant population ready to take advantage, and rebuild.
The failure in the Newfoundland fishery was the inability to understand the rapid decline, as cod moved away, and consequently a failure to protect the remnant population. As a result rebuilding, which is now well underway, was delayed longer than it should have been.
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.