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
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