New England Archives - Page 782 of 785

NOAA Fisheries Announces Common Pool Area Closure in Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic

July 28, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA:

We are closing the Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder Trimester TAC Area to common pool vessels using trawl and sink gillnet gear for the remainder of Trimester 1, through August 31.

The area will reopen at the start of Trimester 2 on September 1.

We are required to close this area because the common pool fishery has caught over 90 percent of its Trimester 1 Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for Southern New England/ Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder.

Read the permit holder bulletin.

Questions? Contact Allison Ferreira, Regional Office, at 978-281-9103 or allison.ferreira@noaa.gov.

Deadline to apply to NEFMC’s Trawl Survey Advisory Panel Friday, July 31

July 27, 2015 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The deadline is this week, Friday, July 31, 2015 at 5:00 p.m. if you would like to apply for a New England Fishery Management Council seat on the new Trawl Survey AP.

In addition to addressing the objectives identified for this group, panel members may discuss concerns about trawl survey performance and data collection, methods to address or mitigate these concerns, and assist in promoting a better understanding of the results. The panel will include members of both the Mid-Atlantic and New England Fishery Management Councils, the Atlantic States Fisheries Commission, and fishing industry experts, as well as non-federal and Northeast Fisheries Science Center scientists.

Please see www.nefmc.org/news/nefmc-seeks-applicants-for-trawl-survey-advisory-panel for more details, including the full announcement, an application, and instructions about returning a completed application. If you have any questions please contact Pat Fiorelli at pfiorelli@nefmc.org.

NOAA begins fence-mending with Northeast fishermen

July 23, 2015 — NOAA Fisheries this week undertook an effort to build trust and cooperation from the New England fishing industry by including the industry in upcoming groundfish stock assessments.

NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, based in Woods Hole, conducted meetings at five sites Wednesday, with web meeting access provided for several more sites up and down the New England coast.

The NOAA scientists made a presentation of the assessment process and some of the options that the New England Fishery Management Council’s Science Committee has for action on assessments.

According to the NOAA web site, those options range from the status quo to a complete review and rebuild of all the methods and computer models being used by the science center to guide NOAA’s annual quota decisions on 20 different groundfish stocks.

With very few fishermen fishing for groundfish, few were among the 20 or so participants, according to Don Cuddy, spokesman for the New Bedford-based Center for Sustainable Fisheries.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Last Groundfish Permit Stays on Martha’s Vineyard, Though Days Are Numbered

July 23, 2015 — The Nature Conservancy, working with the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, has purchased the Island’s last historic groundfish permit, marking a major milestone in the trust’s efforts to develop a permit bank to support Island fishermen.

The federal New England multi-species permit, also known as a groundfish permit, was held by Greg Mayhew, owner of the Unicorn, a legendary 75-foot dragger out of Menemsha.

“We wanted our fishing permit to stay on Martha’s Vineyard and not go to some corporation or conglomerate,” Mr. Mayhew said in a statement issued Thursday by the conservancy.

Among other challenges facing local fishermen, the decline in groundfish populations in recent years has led to smaller quotas, leaving many businesses unable to compete. Since regrouping last year, the fishermen’s preservation trust has concentrated on developing a permit bank that would allow Vineyard fishermen to lease quota at an affordable rate.

Christopher McGuire, marine program director for The Nature Conservancy, said the Unicorn permit might only support one or two Island fishermen, since the quota is limited.

“There is only so much fish to lease out,” he said. But he added that there are relatively few groundfishermen on the Island, so competition for the quota might be light.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

Fishing group meets to discuss New England catch limits

July 23, 2015 — It’s simple: If fishermen can’t catch it, we can’t eat it. On Wednesday, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center met with fishermen across New England to discuss the state of groundfish like cod.

The federal government had to close down all commercial and recreational cod fishing late last year because the population was at an all-time low. This restriction allows them to repopulate off the coast of Maine and Massachusetts.

22News spoke with Schermerhorn’s Seafood Owner Michael Fitzgerald as he was getting updated from his suppliers. Cod is still largely off limits, but there is a popular alternative you can buy.

Read the full story and watch the video at WWLP

Maine taps new lead biologist for lobster monitoring program

July 23, 2015 — Maine is promoting the coordinator of its lobster monitoring programs to the role of lead lobster biologist for the state.

Kathleen Reardon has coordinated the state Department of Marine Resources’ lobster monitoring programs for the past 10 years. She is succeeding Carl Wilson as lead lobster biologist. Wilson became director of the Marine Resource Department’s science bureau in February.

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

New England Fishery Management Council and NOAA Fisheries Seek Comments on Amendment 18 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan

July 17, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA:

The New England Fishery Management Council has been developing Amendment 18 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan for several years.

The notice of availability of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Amendment 18 published today in the Federal Register. The DEIS is open for comments through August 31. More information, including dates and times of public meetings, is available on our website and on the Council’s website.

Amendment 18 provides a range of alternatives that could address the following issues:

Accumulation limits for Northeast multispecies permit holders;
A sub-allocation and other management measures for Handgear A permit holders;
Data confidentiality with regards to leasing of groundfish allocations;
An inshore/offshore boundary within the Gulf of Maine and potential associated management measures for Gulf of Maine cod; and,
Establishing a Redfish Exemption Area for vessels to target redfish.

The Council is expected to take final action on Amendment 18 at its September 2015 meeting.

Send your comments to:

Email: nmfs.gar.amendment18@noaa.gov

Mail: John K. Bullard

Regional Administrator

Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office

55 Great Republic Drive

Gloucester, MA 01930

Fax: 978-281-9315

Please include “Amendment 18” in the subject line or on the outside of the envelope.

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel, Regional Office, at 978-281-6175 or Jennifer.Goebel@noaa.gov.

‘Wicked Tuna’ star steps up for charter fleet

July 17, 2015 — Say what you want for the potential for over-exposure after four years chasing large fish on the small screen, but the “Wicked Tuna” brand still holds a certain cache.

Just ask Tom Orrell of Gloucester-based Yankee Fleet.

On Wednesday, for the second consecutive year, Orrell ran a special Yankee Fleet charter fishing trip featuring “Wicked Tuna” mainstay and Beverly native Dave Marciano. And for the second year in a row, it was a raging success.

“It really went wonderfully,” Orrell said Thursday. “Everybody caught a lot of fish and everybody came home ecstatic. We’ve already booked it for next year.”

Orrell said he had about 50 fishermen aboard the 100-foot long Yankee Freedom and they spent much of the day catching haddock and redfish. They even got up close and personal with a porbeagle shark.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

DON CUDDY: Spreading misinformation about our fisheries

July 15, 2015 — Anyone knowledgeable about the commercial fisheries of the United States will find nothing original in the op-ed piece recently submitted to the New York Times by the environmental organization Oceana.

Even its title ‘A Knockout Blow for American Fish Stocks’ is misleading. American fish stocks are healthy. NOAA’S annual report to Congress, submitted at the end of 2014 showed that only twenty-six of the three hundred and eight fish stocks assessed were subject to overfishing.

‘Overfishing’ occurs when too many fish are removed from a population to produce maximum sustainable yield. As a scientific term it is quite misleading, carrying, as it does, the clear implication that low stock assessments result solely from fishing pressure; whereas ‘overfishing’ can result from a number of other factors, such as changes in water temperature or salinity, degraded habitat and increased predation.

NOAA also maintains an ‘overfished’ list; comprising any stock whose biomass is such that its capacity to produce its maximum sustainable yield is in jeopardy. Only thirty-seven of two hundred and twenty eight stocks found themselves on that list. Hardly a knockout. No new stocks were added to the list in 2014. In fact, three were removed from the previous year, according to the NOAA report.

The Oceana piece also asserts that recent estimates determined that New England cod stocks were at three to seven percent of target levels. As fishermen in the Gulf of Maine can attest, most of that bottom is now taken over by lobster gear and neither the fishermen nor the NOAA survey vessel can tow through that. So nobody can determine with any certainty how much cod might be out there; not to mention the fact that if a fisherman sees cod in the water he goes someplace else. Why? Because the introduction of fishing sectors and catch shares in New England have made cod a commodity, like pork bellies. The result is best illustrated by New Hampshire fisherman Dave Goethel’s plight. He has a photo showing 2000 pounds of cod that his 40-foot boat caught, after a one-hour tow on a research trip last December. If sold, the cash value at the dock would have brought him $3,000. But to lease those 2,000 pounds of cod would have cost him $4500. That’s what you call a knockout. In a multispecies fishery you need some cod quota, even if you are targeting haddock or other groundfish species and so the lease price keeps going up. That is one reason why the percentage of fishing quota actually caught in the New England groundfishery in 2013-2014 was only 33 percent of the allowable catch limit. Because of regulatory constraints fishermen are now avoiding fish that allegedly are not there.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

New England boaters beware: Leatherback sea turtles are huge but hard to see

July 9, 2015 — It should be easy to spot leatherback sea turtles. They can weigh up to 850 pounds and grow up to 8 feet long.

But at sea their slick, black soft shell camouflages them, making them difficult for boaters and fishermen to see.

Each year as many as two dozen of the endangered species wash up along the Massachusetts coast, including a 560-pound, 5-foot-4-inch female adolescent leatherback found recently in Barnstable.

The turtle, which had signs of scarring from entanglement wounds around its hind flippers and evidence of a recent, more severe entanglement around its neck and left front flipper, was taken to the aquarium’s sea turtle hospital in Quincy.

Boat strikes and marine ropes are the most common human causes of leatherback deaths. Moorings and lobster trap lines are also dangerous.

“We want boaters to be aware,” said New England Aquarium spokesman Tony LaCasse.

During July and August, these majestic giants travel up the coast past Cape Cod Bay and the South Shore to the Gulf of Maine.

Read the full story at the Swansea Herald News

News for the New England Region