Saving Seafood

Co-owner: New Bedford fish auction could see periodic closures over next month

May 24, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The fish auction that’s been a daily institution on the city’s waterfront for decades could see periodic closures over the next month or so, as a co-owner said Monday that this year’s significant cut to the cod quota is keeping many boats tied to the docks, rather than bringing in fish.

Richard Canastra, co-owner of the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction since 1994, said Monday morning that in his view, “there won’t be” fish auctions on some days between now and July 4, when he expects commercial fishing activity to pick up again.

“There’s not many fishermen fishing anymore,” Canastra said as he stood outside the auction building on Hassey Street. “A lot of the boats are just tied up — they’re not going to fish. Why would they fish if there’s only so much (allowable) cod?”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in conjunction with the New England Fishery Management Council, instituted a 62-percent reduction in the allowable catch for Georges Bank cod this year, in quotas that took effect May 1.

Former New Bedford Mayor John Bullard, now regional administrator for NOAA fisheries, has said the new regulations create “about a 95 percent cut” since 2012 in catch limits for Georges Bank cod, a key species for New Bedford’s fishing industry.

Government documents detailing the quotas say they’re, “intended to help prevent overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks, achieve optimum yield” and ensure that fishery management is based on the best data available.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Ocean study demands new approach to fishery regulation

February 11, 2016 — Complexity is the confounding principle in the process of fishery regulation. It has led to confusion, acrimony, litigation and fear among the myriad stakeholders in the Northeast Multi-Species Fishery.

A study released last week by NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole tackles complexity in a way that should empower regulators who are trying to balance conservation and economic goals, keeping the fishery profitable and preparing for an uncertain, changing ocean environment.

Regulators — the New England Fishery Management Council in the Northeast fishery — have been spinning their wheels until recently trying to respond to data about fish landings and species biomass without information that accurately depicts the changing environment.

Fish landings and biomass provide irreplaceable data for regulators to include in their decisions, but without scientific measurements on aspects of the broader environment — ocean temperatures, currents, salinity, acidity — it becomes less likely that prescriptions will be effective, and impossible to construct policies with any reach beyond a season or two of fishing. In other words, for fishing regulations to achieve intended goals, regulators cannot ignore the oceanic imbalance that has brought dramatic and rapid changes; their disruption of species’ behavior and biology is far beyond the limits of certainty, beyond the limits of traditional regulation.

Read the full editorial at the New Bedford Standard Times

NOAA Issues Climate Warning for Scallops

February 9, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD — “Sea scallops have a high vulnerability ranking,” reads a Feb. 3 announcement from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, which operates in Woods Hole under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “Negative impacts are estimated for many of the iconic species in the ecosystem including Atlantic sea scallop, Atlantic cod and Atlantic mackerel.”

The NOAA study, formally known as the Northeast Climate Vulnerability Assessment, said Atlantic sea scallops have “limited mobility and high sensitivity to the ocean acidification that will be more pronounced as water temperatures warm.”

Water temperatures in Buzzards Bay have risen 4 degrees over the past two decades, for example, according to a recent study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

Scallops are vital to New Bedford’s fishing industry. NOAA Fisheries announced last October that New Bedford, for the 15th year in a row, was the No. 1 port in the country in terms of dollar value of its catch. Much of that value, which totaled $329 million in 2014, comes from scallops.

The money has big local impacts. Eastern Fisheries captain Christopher Audette, for example, told visitors at an annual buyers’ tour in March 2014 that deck hands on his scallop boat had taken home more than $200,000 in 2013 — and that he had made even more than that.

Harbor Development Commissioner Richard Canastra, who has been instrumental to the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction since 1984, said this week that the scallop industry — and stock — continues to boom in New Bedford.

“The biomass has been increasing over the last 10 years, and there is no sign of it depleting because of the warmer waters,” Canastra said. “They’re talking a few degrees, and that’s not going to make much of a difference in terms of scallop population.”

Chad McGuire, associate professor of environmental policy at UMass Dartmouth, said that while the NOAA findings are not a surprise, they could be another “warning signal” for the industry.

“This study suggests that if you care about one of the largest economic drivers for this region, then you need to care about climate change,” said McGuire, whose work includes fishery management and climate change issues.

“We should be worried that this could greatly affect how many scallops we’re taking in the future,” he added.

Read the full story at New Bedford Standard-Times