Saving Seafood

MELISSA WATERMAN: Marine Matters: A Feeling of Relief Down East

April 27, 2017 — Well, they did it. At its April 17 meeting in Connecticut the New England Fisheries Management Council reaffirmed the economically vital place that lobster fishing has in this state by exempting lobstermen from restrictions that may flow from the council’s Omnibus Deep Sea Coral Amendment.

The decision qualifies as a Big Deal. The council has been considering ways to protect deep-sea corals found within the Gulf of Maine and along the continental shelf for several years. Protecting a living creature that is not a fish is new ground for the council, which draws its regulatory authority from the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act. But revisions to the act in 2006 gave the council “discretionary authority” to protect deep-sea corals in New England. Thus, creation of the Omnibus Amendment, the provisions of which will be applied to all of the council’s 28 fisheries management plans.

The amendment identifies four coral areas in the Gulf of Maine as well as several canyons south of Georges Bank for protection. Two Gulf of Maine sites are places where Maine lobstermen set their traps — Outer Schoodic Ridge and Mt. Desert Rock.

You and I would look at the two locations and say, “Hmmmmm. Water.” Lobstermen, on the other hand, look at the water and envision what lies beneath it, the rocky seabed on which lots of lobsters live in their individual burrows.

So, when the council stated last year that it was considering closing those two areas to all bottom-tending gear, Down East lobstermen took notice. Such closures would mean no fishing for lobster or red crab, another commercially valuable species. In January, the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) asked the council to specifically exempt lobster fishing from possible closed-area restrictions. The council replied that it was too early in the amendment process to exempt any fishery. It asked, instead, for more information about the economic value of these two areas.

Read the full opinion piece at The Free Press

NEFMC April 18-20, 2017 meeting, live streaming information

April 11, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

Dear Interested Parties,

The New England Fishery Management Council will hold a three-day meeting from Tuesday, April 18 through Thursday, April 20, 2017.  The public is invited to listen-in via webinar or telephone.  Here are the details.

MEETING LOCATION:  Hilton Mystic, 20 Coogan Blvd., Mystic, CT 06355   

START TIME:  The webinar will be activated at 8:00 a.m. each day.  The meeting is scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, and 8:30 a.m. on Thursday.  The webinar will end at approximately 6:00 p.m. EST or shortly after the Council adjourns each day.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION:  Online access to the meeting is available at:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4690805057496684291

There is no charge to access the meeting through this webinar.

CALL-IN OPTION:  To listen by telephone, dial +1 (562) 247-8321.  

The access code is 443-302-304.  

Please be aware that if you dial in, your regular phone charges will apply.

AGENDA:  The agenda and all meeting materials are available on the Council’s website at:

http://www.nefmc.org/calendar/april-2017-council-meeting

THREE MEETING OUTLOOK:  A copy of the New England Council’s Three Meeting Outlook is available here.

QUESTIONS:  If you have questions prior to or during the meeting, call or email Janice Plante at (607) 592-4817, jplante@nefmc.org.

CONNECTICUT: Fishermen hope bumper sticker gets Trump’s attention

March 29, 2017 — STONINGTON, Conn. — For struggling Town Dock fishermen, President Trump’s promise to eliminate regulations and spur the economy means they might finally have success in their long fight to rescind the catch restrictions they say are not only unfair and based on bad science but are putting them out of business.

So in an effort to attract Trump’s attention and help spread their message in Washington, they have printed up a bumper sticker that will be appearing on vehicles here in coming days.

The sticker features a picture of Trump giving a thumbs-up next to a fishing boat with the slogan “Make Commercial Fishing Great Again,” a spin on Trump’s popular campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”

“He’s sat down and talked to coal miners and truck drivers. We’d like to be able to get the seafood industry to sit down and talk to him,” said Mike Gambardella, who runs his family’s fish wholesale business at the Town Dock. “It’s a matter of him understanding the problem.”

Gambardella said if fishermen just had the chance to explain the long-standing problem to Trump, “his head would spin.”

Read the full story at The Day

Groundfisherman fear more federal regulations

March 23, 2017 — STONINGTON, Conn. — Groundfishermen at the Fishing Fleet in Stonington, those who catch flounder and a dozen other bottom feeding fish, fear federal regulators are trying to sink their livelihood by mandating more regulations.

“We don’t need somebody on our back every day to watch what we do. Now they want to put cameras on the boat,” said Bob Guzzo, of Southern New England Fisherman & Lobsterman’s Association.

Guzzo has been fishing the region for nearly four decades.

He said the New England Fishery Management Council wants to increase at-sea monitoring of groundfish, in order to verify what they catch and release.

Guzzo said the added cost of paying someone to monitor what happens on the boat, or even watch remotely by camera, doesn’t help them or the industry but only increases the cost of doing business.

Read the full story WFSB

Proposals Aim To Restore Lobsters To Long Island Sound

March 20, 2017 — A new interstate plan is being considered to try and halt the dramatic decline in lobster populations in Long Island Sound and southern New England waters, but experts warn none of these proposals may work in the face of global warming.

The draft plan by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission includes possible changes in the size of lobsters allowed to be kept, reductions in the number of lobster traps allowed in the region, and additional lobster season closures.

But a former president of the Connecticut Commercial Lobstermen’s Association, Nick Crismale of Branford, doubts the once-thriving lobster population in the Sound will ever recover. “It will never come back,” Crismale said. “The industry is basically gone; the resource is basically gone.”

Mark Alexander, head of Connecticut’s marine fisheries unit, acknowledges that bringing the lobsters back to the Sound won’t be easy in the face of ongoing climate change. “But we have to give it a shot,” he said this week.

Connecticut public hearings on the commission’s draft proposal are scheduled for March 21 in Old Lyme and March 27 in Derby.

Read the full story at the Hartford Courant

CONNECTICUT: Hearings Planned to Discuss Saving Southern New England Lobsters

February 17, 2017 — Interstate fishing managers have scheduled two of seven hearings on a plan to try to save southern New England lobsters in Connecticut.

Lobster fishing in places like Connecticut and Rhode Island dates back centuries, but the stock has dwindled as water temperature has warmed. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is working on a plan to slow decline.

The commission’s plan includes strategies such as changing the legal harvesting size limit for lobsters, reducing the number of traps allowed in the water and enforcing new seasonal closures.

Read the full story at NBC Connecticut 

CONNECTICUT: State’s fishing fleet facing potentially ‘disastrous’ quota cuts for fluke

January 19, 2017 — Reductions that took effect Jan. 1 in federal quotas for the commercial fluke catch could have a “disastrous” effect on the Connecticut’s small remaining fishing fleet, unless action being advocated to undo the cut is taken, the state’s congressional delegation wrote in a letter to the U.S. secretary of commerce.

“It’s going to put us out of business,” Stonington fisherman Robert Guzzo, vice president of the Southern New England Fishermen and Lobstermen’s Association, said Wednesday. “I’ve never seen so many fish in the ocean. The fish are out there, but the science and the regulators haven’t caught up with what’s actually out there.”

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., pressed commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross to use his authority to change how quotas for fish species including fluke — also called summer flounder — are allocated among states from the mid-Atlantic to New England.

Species such as fluke have been migrating into New England waters in greater numbers in recent years, Blumenthal and fishermen contend. But the regulatory system used by the National Marine Fisheries Service uses an outdated system that favors the mid-Atlantic states at New England’s expense, they say.

“The system is broken … from an environmental and economic standpoint, and it’s costing jobs, and it is preventing the United States from using its fish stocks and instead has resulted in importing, which destroys livelihoods and economic well-being in the New England states,” Blumenthal told Ross during the confirmation hearing. He urged Ross to use his emergency powers to reform the system.

In response, Ross said he is interested in helping the fisheries and ensuring quotas are allocated properly. The Department of Commerce includes the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full story at The Day

New rules for New England shrimp fishing might go to public

January 17, 2017 — The public might soon have a chance to comment on potential new fishing rules that could help bring New England’s shrimp back into markets.

Northern shrimp were once a popular seafood, but the commercial fishing industry for them has been shut down since the stock collapsed in 2013.

Interstate regulators are working on new rules about how to manage the fishery if it does eventually reopen.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission says options include state-by-state allocations and the mandatory use of certain kinds of gear to prevent harvest of young shrimp.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

REVISED: States Seek Input on 2017 Recreational Summer Flounder Fishery Management

December 27, 2016 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Arlington, VA – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Management Board announces the availability of Draft Addendum XXVIII for public comment. The document, which was approved by the Board in early December, presents a suite of management approaches, including regional options, to achieve the 2017 recreational harvest limit (RHL). The Atlantic coastal states of Massachusetts through North Carolina have scheduled public hearings to gather public comment.  The details of those scheduled hearings follow:

Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries

January 11, 2017 at 6 PM

Bourne Community Center, Room # 1

239 Main Street

Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts

Contact: Nichola Meserve at 617.626.1531

Rhode Island Division of Fish and Wildlife

January 12, 2017; 6:00 PM
University of Rhode Island Bay Campus

Corliss Auditorium South Ferry Road

Narragansett, Rhode Island
Contact: Robert Ballou at 401.222.4700 ext. 4420

Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection

January 10, 2017 at 7 PM

CT DEEP Boating Education Center

333 Ferry Road

Old Lyme, Connecticut

Contact: David Simpson at 860.434.6043

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

January 9, 2017 at 6:30 PM

Bureau of Marine Resources

205 North Belle Mead Road, Suite 1

East Setauket, New York

Contact: Steve Heins at 631.444.0435

New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife

January 5, 2017 at 6:30 PM

Galloway Township Branch Library

306 East Jimmie Leeds Rd

Galloway, New Jersey

Contact: Tom Baum at 609.748.2020

Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control

January 17, 2017 at 6 PM

DNREC Auditorium

89 Kings Highway

Dover, Delaware

Contact: John Clark at 302.739.9914

Maryland Department of Natural Resources

January 3, 2017 at 6 PM

Ocean Pines Library

11107 Cathell Road

Berlin, Maryland

Contact: Steve Doctor at 410.213.1531

Virginia Marine Resources Commission

January 12, 2017 at 6 PM
2600 Washington Avenue, 4th Floor

Newport News, Virginia
Contact:  Robert O’Reilly at 757.247.2247

North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries

January, 9, 2017 at 6 PM
NC Marine Fisheries, Central District Office

5285 US Highway 70 West

Morehead City, North Carolina
Contact: Chris Batsavage at 252 808-8009

 

Draft Addendum XXVIII was initiated to consider alternative management approaches for the 2017 recreational summer flounder fisheries, while also seeking to address needed reductions due to a decrease in the coastwide RHL in 2017. In August, the Board and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council approved a 30% reduction in the 2017 coastwide RHL relative to 2016. This action was taken in response to the 2016 Stock Assessment Update which found fishing mortality was higher in recent years and population estimates were lower than previously projected.

Changes in summer flounder distribution, abundance and availability have created problems under the static state-by-state allocations, with overages often occurring. In response, states would implement regulations to reduce harvest, resulting in differing regulations between neighboring states. In 2014, the Board shifted away from traditional state-by-state allocations to a regional approach for managing summer flounder recreational fisheries.  A benefit of the regional approach is it provides the states the flexibility to share allocations. The intent is to set regulations that account for shifting distribution, abundance and availability while providing stability and greater regulatory consistency among neighboring states, and enabling the states to meet but not exceed the coastwide RHL.

Anglers and interested stakeholders are encouraged to provide input on Draft Addendum XXVIII either by attending state public hearings or providing written comment. The Draft Addendum can be obtained here or via the Commission’s website, www.asmfc.org, under Public Input. Public comment will be accepted until 5 PM (EST) on January 19, 2017 and should be forwarded to Kirby Rootes-Murdy, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, 1050 N. Highland St, Suite A-N, Arlington, VA 22201; 703.842.0741 (FAX) or at krootes-murdy@asmfc.org (Subject line: Summer Flounder Draft Addendum XXVIII).

The Board will review submitted public comment and consider final action on the Draft Addendum at the Commission’s Winter Meeting in February 2017.  For more information, please contact Kirby Rootes-Murdy at krootes-murdy@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

See the full Draft Addendum at the ASMFC 

Atlantic Ocean Area The Size Of Virginia Protected From Deep-Water Fishing

December 19, 2016 — Coral in an area in the Atlantic Ocean stretching from Connecticut to Virginia has been protected from deep-sea commercial fishing gear, by a new rule issued this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The protected area covers some 38,000 square miles of federal waters, NOAA says, which is about the size of Virginia. It’s the “largest area in the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico protected from a range of destructive fishing gear,” according to the NRDC, an environmental advocacy group.

The new regulations prohibit the use of bottom-tending fishing gear at depths below 1,470 feet. Boats are allowed to cross the protected area as long as they bring the banned heavy gear on board while they do so, according to the text of the rule. It is set to go into effect on Jan. 13.

It’s named the Frank R. Lautenberg Deep Sea Coral Protection Area, in honor the former New Jersey senator who was an advocate for marine conservation.

Coral grows extremely slowly and is vulnerable to damage from this kind of heavy equipment that drags along the sea floor. As the NRDC put it: “One pass of a weighted fishing trawl net can destroy coral colonies as old as the California redwoods in seconds.”

“They’ve lived a long time but they live in an environment that is cold, with huge pressure, without light,” Joseph Gordon, Pew Charitable Trust’s manager of U.S. northeast oceans, told Delaware Public Media. “And so fishing technology could damage them in a way that could take centuries to recover from.”

The area is also home to many other animals, the NRDC adds, “including the endangered sperm whale, as well as sea birds, sea turtles, tunas, sharks, billfish, and countless other species.”

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council began to look into setting up a protected area here in 2013, and NOAA issued a proposed federal rule in September 2016. It was finalized on Wednesday.

John Bullard, Regional Administrator for the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, hailed this rule as a “great story of regional collaboration among the fishing industry, the Mid-Atlantic Council, the research community, and environmental organizations to protect what we all agree is a valuable ecological resource.”

And Bob Vanasse, the executive director of Saving Seafood, which represents the commercial fishing industry, told Virginia’s Daily Press that he thinks this is “the right way to protect these resources.”

Read the full story at NPR