April 3, 2013 — Citing widespread evidence of an abundance of important commercial in shore fish stocks and a scientific study that found flaws in the modeling methods used by the government to set catch limits, a contingent of state lawmakers led by Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr and Senate President Therese Murray are urging NOAA’s top fisheries official to allow the fleet reasonable access to stocks while new studies are conducted into the vitality of the Gulf of Maine ecosystem.
Senator Tarr and Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, both of Gloucester, were among the 33 signers of a letter sent Monday and released to the Times this morning addressed to Samuel D. Rauch III, the acting administer of fisheries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The lawmakers emphasized to Rauch that a compelling legal case exists for the government to institute a second year of interim catch limits on Gulf of Maine cod, now in line for a 77 percent cut in landings based on a decision by Regional Administrator John Bullard and supported by a legal brief by the general counsel for NOAA that has been withheld from the public.
A delegation from Congress, the New England Fisheries Regional Council and the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition have all argued to Bullard in writing that the Magnuson-Stevens Act allows a second year of interim measures which would reduce but not eliminate overfishing,
The council is an arm of NOAA, comprised of 17 members. The coalition is the region’s largest industry group, representing about two thirds of the commercial fishing businesses, boats and shore-side.
Behind the letter, the authors wrote, is evidence in data supplied by the NOAA Fisheries Social Science Branch, reported by the Times in recent days, as well as reports by Gloucester’s two major auction houses of a “notable concentrations” of cod on Stellwagen Bank and “plentiful yellowtail flounder” landed by boats from Gloucester’s inshore fleet.
In addition, the state lawmakers cited a report published in January by scientists at the University of Washington that “documented that the current abundance modeling methods used to establish catch limits are ineffective at maximizing sustainable harvests.
“The report indicates that reaching the abundance levels developed by current models fails to effective cause maximum sustainable yield for 82 percent of the stocks examined.”
Murray, Tarr, Ferrante and their colleagues wrote that “in the context of large and growing discrepancies between stock assessments and the abundance reflected in harvester observations and landings and the pervasive inaccuracies documented by the University of Washington, the impending irreparable damage that would be caused by planned reductions in catch limits on species such as Gulf of Maine cod is unwarranted and indefensible.”
The letter asks Rauch to suspend the impending 77 percent cut in landings of in shore cod, implement an interim action to reduce but not end overfishing of cod and haddock from inshore waters, complete an interim stock assessment to reconcile current observations with government assessments and develop new limits on landings based on the scientific observations.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times
Read the letter to NOAA