Bycatch Archives - Page 23 of 29

Feds to Analyze Environmental Impacts of Western Pacific Longline Fisheries for Bigeye and Tuna

February 17, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — HONOLULU — The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced on Monday that it will prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) on the U.S. Pacific Island deep-set tuna longline fisheries, which target bigeye tuna.

The PEIS will analyze the environmental impacts of management of deep-set tuna longliners, which operate out of Hawaii, American Samoa, and the U.S. West Coast. The need for the proposed action is to manage deep-set tuna longline fisheries under an adaptive management framework that allows for timely management responses to changing environmental conditions, consistent with domestic and international conservation and management measures.

The PEIS will be developed in coordination with the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council based in Honolulu.

Tuna longline fisheries use two distinct gear types: shallow-set vessels target swordfish near the surface and deep-set vessels target tunas deeper than 100 meters.

The deep-set tuna longline fisheries have greater levels of vessel participation, fishing effort, catch, and revenue than the shallow-set fishery. NOAA Fisheries previously evaluated the effects of the shallow-set fishery, so it will not be included in this PEIS.

The primary deep-set tuna longline fisheries are the Hawaii and American Samoa longline fisheries. Access to the Hawaii longline fisheries is limited to 164 vessel permits, of which about 140 vessels are active. Of these active vessels, about 20 may also shallow-set during any given year. Most vessels in the Hawaii deep-set tuna longline fleet homeport in Hawaii and about 10 operate from ports on the U.S. west coast. These vessels target bigeye tuna.

Access to the American Samoa deep-set tuna fishery is limited to 60 permits. Historically, a few deep-set tuna longline vessels operated out of Guam and the CNMI, but these fisheries have been inactive since 2011.

“The PEIS is a proactive step in the management of deep-set tuna longline fisheries,” said Council Executive Director Kitty M. Simonds. “It streamlines environmental review for future management decisions and facilitates the ability of fisheries to adaptively respond to changing conditions.”

Management tools used for deep-set tuna longline fisheries include limited assess programs, vessel size limits, area constraints, observers, satellite-based vessel monitoring systems, gear configuration and specific handling and releasing bycatch methods.

Potential management issues include territorial bigeye tuna specifications and transfers, changes to permitting programs, and new gear requirements to further reduce bycatch.

Potential environmental, social and economic issues include the catch of target tuna and non-target (such as sharks) species, interactions with protected species, gear conflicts, and impacts on the ecosystem.

Public comments may be made at the scoping meetings listed below, sent electronically via the agency, or by mail to Michael D. Tosatto, Regional Administrator, NMFS Pacific Islands Region (PIR), 1845 Wasp Blvd., Bldg. 176, Honolulu, HI 96818.

Public scoping meetings on the PEIS will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. on Feb. 21 in Hilo and Feb. 23 in Honolulu, Hawaii; Feb. 28 in Utulei, March 1 in Tafuna and March 2 in Pago Pago, American Samoa; March 7 in Susupe, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI); and March 9 in Mangilao, Guam.

All comments must be received by April 14, 2017.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Fisheries commission OKs shrimping limits

February 17, 2017 — The N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission Thursday approved a petition for rulemaking that could ultimately limit how shrimpers operate up and down the North Carolina coast.

At the close of the four-hour hearing at the Hilton Wilmington Riverside, the commission voted to approve the N.C. Wildlife Federation’s petition 5-3, with one member abstaining.

Federation officials explained earlier in the meeting the proposed rules are designed to protect juvenile fish that depend on the estuaries and near-shore waters to mature from being caught up in shrimp trawlers’ bycatch.

Read the full story at JDNews.com

NORTH CAROLINA: Trawling Restrictions OK’d in 5-3 Vote

February 16, 2017 — The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission approved in a split vote on Thursday a contentious resolution restricting shrimp trawling in state waters.

The vote was 5-3, with Commissioner Joe Shute abstaining. Commissioners Mark Gorges, Chuck Laughridge, Brad Koury, Rick Smith and Mike Wicker voted for the measure. Opposed were Sammy Corbett, the commission’s chairman, Janet Rose and Alison Willis.

All three commissioners voting “no” represent the commercial fishing industry.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online

North Carolina Marine Fisheries to consider contentious shrimping proposal

February 16, 2017 — For centuries, shrimping has been central to North Carolina’s coastal economy, a practice two conservation groups are asking the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission to curb in order to protect vulnerable juvenile fish that are often collected along with shrimp.

The commission is expected to vote Thursday on the petition, which would limit how, when and where shrimpers could operate. Brought by the N.C. Wildlife Federation and the Southern Environmental Law Center, the petition includes particularly contentious provisions such as limiting the time a trawl can stay in the water to 45 minutes and reducing the days shrimpers can operate to three per week on inner waterways, including the Intracoastal Waterway and the state’s extensive sounds.

“The amount of finfish bycatch in the North Carolina shrimp trawl fishery is unsustainably high, and the negative impact of shrimp trawl bycatch is felt coast wide,” N.C. Wildlife Federation CEO Tim Gestwicki wrote in his petition to the commission.

Read the full story at Star News Online

JESS H. HAWKINS III AND ALLYN POWELL: NO: Shrimping hasn’t reduced fish stocks

February 15, 2017 — The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission will be voting on a petition submitted by the North Carolina Wildlife Federation on Feb. 16 in Wilmington that will significantly impact our state’s shrimping industry, negatively affect our seafood restaurants and consumers and eliminate jobs.

The petition claims that shrimping has resulted in declines of populations of at least three types of fish, spot, Atlantic croaker and weakfish, that current fishing practices are unsustainable and proposes many unnecessary rules on shrimp trawling, the main manner that shrimp are caught in the United States. Simply and clearly, the petition lacks scientific evidence that attributes shrimp bycatch to declines in spot, croaker and weakfish.

While shrimpers do catch small fish, called bycatch, there is no proof scientifically that shrimp trawl bycatch has an impact on populations of spot, croaker and weakfish. In fact, independent fisheries experts have found that croaker are not in a state of decline, and that fishing is not negatively affecting weakfish populations. Instead natural factors, not fishing mortality, are responsible for coastwide declines in weakfish.

Read the full opinion piece at The News & Observer

Fishing regulators look to reduce tangled turtles

February 15, 2017 — By Aug. 1, Chatham fisherman Jamie Eldredge has pulled the 200 conch pots he has in Nantucket Sound.

He has made the summer switch to fishing for dogfish in the Atlantic Ocean.

In doing so, Eldredge has avoided what has become a major headache for conch fishermen — large leatherback turtles that get tangled up in conch and lobster lines while pursuing jellyfish. In Nantucket Sound, a significant number of those turtles die, three times more than anywhere else in Massachusetts, and state fishery scientists are worried they may be targeted by a lawsuit charging they are not doing enough to protect an endangered species. In a series of public hearings held in coastal and island communities this month, they asked conch fishermen for ideas on how to deal with the problem.

State Division of Marine Fisheries officials think they know the answer: pull all conch pots in August.

“There’s something about that overlap of animals at that time of year, and what’s happening in the fishery, that’s very deadly for them (leatherbacks),” said Erin Burke, a Division of Marine Fisheries aquatic biologist specializing in endangered species.

Read the full story at The New Bedford Standard-Times

50 NGOs critique MSC over bycatch

January 26, 2017 — A group of 50 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has sent a letter to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) expressing their concerns about its certification of fisheries with high levels of bycatch.

The letter was authored by Kate O’Connell of the Animal Welfare Institute and Friederike Kreme-Obrock of Sharkproject Germany and signed by the heads of 50 nonprofits dedicated to environmental conservation, including dozens of groups dedicated to the protection and preservation of sharks, whales and dolphins.

“Many of our organizations have commented on fishery assessments under the MSC process, and over the years we have noted an apparent, and deeply worrying, lack of concern regarding the potential impacts on these species, as well as certain target species,” the letter said. “It is our view that many of the fisheries that have been assessed via the MSC certification process have not been subject to an adequate review of information available on bycatch of non-target species.”

The letter accuses the MSC of being subjective in interpreting evidence and in estimating the effects of a fishery’s impact on non-targeted species. It cites the absence of in-depth stock assessments for some species of bycatch as a problem under MSC Principle 2, which aims to maintain population levels of all species affected by a fishery at biological based limits.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NCFA: Workshop Meets to Address Bycatch in North Carolina Shrimp Trawl Fishery

January 13, 2017 — The following was released by the North Carolina Fisheries Association:

A workgroup formed by the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission in 2015 to investigate ways to further reduce bycatch in shrimp trawls met recently in New Bern. The industry work group is a collaborative effort that consists of staff from the Division of Marine Fisheries, N.C. Sea Grant, fishing vessel owners, net makers and a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The meeting recently held at the Riverfront Convention Center in New Bern follows the second year of a three year project, and is showing some very promising results.

The goal set by the Marine Fisheries Commission for the workgroup was set at 40% reduction in finfish bycatch.

Of the devices that were tested, the device achieving the highest reduction in the previous year was further modified for year two, resulting in a 54.5% reduction of finfish bycatch and a 52.2% reduction in bycatch of all types.

It was noted that none of the sampling for the project was done by extrapolation, but by sampling the entire contents of over 180 tows.

The meeting was held while a Petition for Rulemaking, filed by the North Carolina Wildlife Federation and the Southern Environmental Law Center, is being considered by the Marine Fisheries Commission. If the proposed regulations were enacted as proposed by the petitioners, there would be severe restrictions to shrimping in North Carolina.

“In the many years that I’ve been involved with representing the state’s commercial fishermen, there is no one issue that we’ve spent more time on than reducing bycatch in the shrimp trawl fishery”, said Jerry Schill, President of the North Carolina Fisheries Association. “Further, there is no one issue where we’ve had more success than reducing that bycatch. However, with their goal of eliminating shrimp trawling in our state, the onslaught continues. It will not abate until they’re successful”.

The public meeting to address the petition will be held on Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at the Riverfront Convention Center in New Bern, NC, beginning at 12:30pm.

Fishermen Team Up With Scientists To Make A More Selective Net

December 14th, 2016 — Some New England fishermen are pinning their hopes on a new kind of trawl net being used in the Gulf of Maine, one that scoops up abundant flatfish such as flounder and sole while avoiding species such as cod, which are in severe decline.

For centuries, cod were plentiful and a prime target for the Gulf of Maine fleet. But in recent years, catch quotas have been drastically reduced as the number of cod of reproductive age have dropped perilously low.

For many boats, that turned the formerly prized groundfish into unwanted bycatch. And for fishermen, it can be tough to avoid cod while trying to catch other fish. The stakes are high.

“Say tomorrow I go out, have a 10,000 set of cod and I only have 4,000 pounds of quota, essentially your sector manager — the person that oversees this — would shut me down,” says Jim Ford, whose trawler is based in Newburyport, Mass.

Not only that, Ford would be forced to “lease” cod quota allowances from other fishermen to cover his overage. The cost of such leases, he says, can quickly outweigh the value of the cod that’s inadvertently caught.

“And I would pay a ridiculous price. And then you’re shut down, you can’t even go fishing,” he says.

But instead of joining the growing number of New England fishermen hanging up their nets, Ford has worked to modify the nets themselves. This summer he joined a net-maker and scientists at Portland’s Gulf of Maine Research Institute to design a trawl net that targets profitable species while avoiding cod.

Read the full story from NPR at WLRH

Bula! Pacific Tuna Commission Gets To Work On Fishing Policies

December 6th, 2016 — Honolulu International Airport is a ghost town. It’s 1 a.m. Sunday, hours past the routine blitz of interisland travelers and down to the handful of passengers heading to far-off lands plus a few others sleeping off the disappointment of a canceled flight.

I hand over my passport to the woman working at the Fiji Airways counter, throw my luggage on the conveyer belt and hope it arrives in Nadi, where I’m going to cover the weeklong meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.

The commission — a treaty-based group composed of 26 members including Pacific Island nations, the United States, the big tuna players from Asia, the European Union and others — decides how to manage and conserve highly migratory fish stocks while reducing bycatch and ensuring the overall sustainability of one of the world’s biggest sources of protein.

Over the course of five full days, hundreds of scientists, government officials, nonprofit leaders and others will debate the myriad issues facing the health of tuna populations, the safety of fishing observers, the effects of climate change, the value of marine protected areas and the impact of new policies on local economies and international relations.

I was mulling this over on the plane while waiting to take off when the Boeing 737’s captain interrupted my thoughts with an update on what to expect on our way to Fiji.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat