August 10, 2012 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) has released the summary of its 2012 Summer Meeting.
August 10, 2012 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) has released the summary of its 2012 Summer Meeting.
August 9, 2012 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
Alexandria, VA – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Atlantic Menhaden Management Board has selected the options to be included in Draft Amendment 2 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden. Among the series of options approved for public comment are a range of harvest reduction options from 0-50% for 2013. Given that substantive changes were made to the document at the meeting, the Board approved the Draft Amendment for Public Comment contingent upon an additional round of review by Board members and final review and approval by a subcommittee of the Board. Release of the document for public comment is slated for early September, followed by an extensive public comment period and state hearings. The Board’s intent is to take final action on the Amendment this year for implementation in 2013.
The Board was also presented the findings of the 2012 stock assessment update, which included the addition of data for 2009 – 2011 to the peer review approved assessment model. The update results contained considerable uncertainty because the model fit the data poorly; however, similar issues were observed in the 2010 benchmark stock assessment that passed peer review. Despite the uncertainty in the update results, the Technical Committee believes the stock is experiencing overfishing, but is not overfished based on the current reference points used to assess the stock. The Technical Committee plans to address the issues with the stock assessment at the next scheduled benchmark assessment.
The final Amendment had been scheduled for approval at the Commission's Annual Meeting in October. Given the Commission’s public comment procedures, which requires the Draft Amendment be released 30 days prior to the first public hearing and must be extended two weeks after the final hearing is conducted, the Board will meet sometime after the Annual Meeting to take final action on the Amendment for 2013 implementation. A subsequent press release will announce the availability of the Draft Amendment for public comment, the state hearing schedule, as well as the timeline for the Amendment’s final approval. For more information, please contact Mike Waine, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at mwaine@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.
Alexandria, VA — August 9, 2012 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Winter Flounder Management Board has initiated the development of Draft Addendum II to Amendment 1 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for the Inshore Stocks of Winter Flounder. The Draft Addendum will propose changes to the commercial and recreational management requirements for the Gulf of Maine (GOM) stock in response to updated stock status information and recent federal action to significantly increase the GOM winter flounder state waters annual catch limit (ACL) subcomponent.
A peer reviewed stock assessment (SAW/SARC 52) of GOM winter flounder was completed in 2011, which changed the stock’s status to not experiencing overfishing, although the overfished status could not be determined. NOAA Fisheries responded to this finding by more than doubling the ACL for the remainder of 2011 fishing year. The ACL was nearly doubled again for the 2012 fishing year. The state waters ACL-subcomponent for 2012 fishing year has increased to 272 mt, a 450% increase from 60 mt in 2010.
The Commission manages winter flounder under Addendum I. Approved in May 2009, the Addendum required an 11% reduction in fishing mortality for the recreational sector and a 250 pound possession limit for non-federally permitted commercial fishermen (estimated 31% reduction in harvest). Recreational reductions were achieved through a combination of possession limits, seasons, or other measures. These actions were taken in response to the results of the 2008 benchmark assessment which determined the GOM stock was likely to be overfished with overfishing likely to be occurring. The Addendum's provisions were also intended to complement federal management measures on groundfish stocks, including winter flounder, in offshore waters (3 – 200 miles).
Given the significant increase in state waters ACL-subcomponent for the 2012 fishing year, the Draft Addendum will consider modifying Addendum I's GOM winter flounder requirements by increasing the commercial trip limit from 250 pounds to 500 pounds limit and expanding the recreational season to a year-round fishery. The Draft Addendum will include an annual specifications process to allow the Board to respond to changes in stock condition. The Board tasked the Technical Committee with evaluating the impacts of relaxing the recreational and commercial measures on state water landings. The Board will review the Technical Committee Report prior to action to approve the Draft Addendum for Public Comment in the next few weeks. For more information, please contact Toni Kern, Acting ISFMP Director, at tkerns@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.
August 9, 2012 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
Alexandria, Va. — The Commission’s American Eel Management Board has initiated the development of Draft Addendum III with the goal of reducing mortality and increasing the conservation of American eel stocks across all life stages. The 2012 benchmark stock assessment found the American eel population in U.S. waters is depleted. The stock is at or near historically low levels, due to a combination of including historical overfishing, habitat loss, food web alterations, predation, turbine mortality, environmental changes, toxins and contaminants, and disease.
The Draft Addendum will include a range of options suggested by the American Eel Technical Committee, including possible moratoria on glass (elver) and silver eel harvest, reductions in glass and yellow eel catch and effort, seasonal closures, and future monitoring requirements. The commercial fishery is currently regulated by a six inch size minimum, with the exception of Maine and South Carolina glass eel fisheries, and the recreational fishery is currently regulated by a 50 fish per day creel limit. States and jurisdictions are required to annually report on commercial harvest and monitor juvenile abundance. The Draft Addendum will be developed for preliminary review by the American Eel Management Board in October.
For more information, please contact Kate Taylor, Fishery Management Coordinator, at ktaylor@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — August 8, 2012 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission announced approval of the program on Wednesday. The commission says it was developed following an investigation of illegal fishing in the Chesapeake Bay. The commission says 19 individuals and three corporations were fined more than $1.6 million for taking more than a million pounds of illegally caught fish.
The ASMFC says the program includes increasing penalties for illegally caught fish and improvements over previous tagging programs. States from Maine to Florida participate in the commission, which said all except Massachusetts and North Carolina must adopt the new program for the 2013 commercial fishing season. The two remaining states must implement their programs by the following year.
Read the full story by the Associated Press in the Boston Globe
August 9, 2012 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
Alexandria, VA – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's American Lobster Board has approved Addendum XVIII to Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for American Lobster. The Addendum establishes a consolidation program for lobster conservation management areas (LCMAs) 2 and 3 (Southern New England and offshore waters, respectively) to address latent effort by reducing the overall number of traps allocated. It is estimated that latent effort is 40% and 30% in LCMAs 2 and 3, respectively. Implementation of the Addendum’s measures is contingent upon NOAA Fisheries’ implementation of transferability and trap reduction rules for federal waters.
LCMA 2 trap allocation will be reduced by 25% in year one and then by 5% for the following five years, ultimately reducing total traps allocated by 50%. Trap allocation reductions will be from the initial (2007) permit allocation for state-only permit holders and, for federal permit holders, from the final allocations established by NOAA Fisheries. LCMA 3 trap allocations will be reduced each year by 5% each year for five years, totaling 25%. Trap allocation will be reduced from the current (2012) permit trap allocation. LCMA 3 had previously undergone approximately a 30% reduction in traps allocated since 2003. In addition, any other allocation obtained by the permit holder subsequent to the initial allocation would also be cut for both areas.
The Addendum responds to the depleted condition of the Southern New England (SNE) lobster resource and the Board’s intent to scale the capacity of the SNE fishery to the size the SNE resource, with an initial goal of reducing qualified trap allocation by at least 25% over a five to ten year period. For trap limits to be effective in reducing harvest and rebuilding the stock, latent effort must first be addressed to prevent this effort from coming back into the fishery as the stock grows and catch rates increase. Since the scope of the SNE resource encompasses all or part of six of the seven LCMAs established by Amendment 3, additional addenda will be developed to address effort reductions in the remaining LCMAs.
The Board deferred action on three options that were presented in Draft Addendum for public comment –trap banking, controlled growth, and trap caps for participants in the fishery. The Board will continue to work with industry and NOAA Fisheries to develop a viable transferability program to address industry’s needs for flexibility. The Addendum will be available on the Commission website (www.asmfc.org) under Breaking News or by contacting the Commission at 703.842.0740 by the end of August. For more information, please contact Toni Kerns, Acting ISFMP Director at tkerns@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.
The following is a message from the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center:
Greetings,
The Population Dynamics Branch in the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) will be hosting a workshop to address the potential use of commercial catch per unit effort information in upcoming Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine Atlantic cod stock assessments in December. The purpose of the meeting is to develop a better understanding of Catch per Unit of Effort (CPUE) and Landings per Unit of Effort (LPUE) as measures of relative stock abundance. Analyses of such data are complicated by changes in the distribution of cod, changes in the spatial distribution of fishing effort over time, and the many changes in fishery management measures that have occurred since the mid 1990’s. NEFSC scientists will present an overview of analyses that have been conducted to date. We are soliciting insights from commercial and recreational fisherman to help improve the utility of such information in stock assessments.
This workshop will consider proposals and alternative hypotheses from fishery experts like you. We are expecting that fishermen, fishing industry leaders, state marine fishery biologists, Council members and staff, and NMFS staff will participate in this workshop.
Your contribution is important. Please plan on attending.
We have 'locked-in' the date for this LPUE workshop: Tuesday August 21, 10 am to 4:30 pm, at the Endicott College Campus in Gloucester, MA. Address: 33 Commercial Street, Gloucester, MA. (see directions below. Free parking available)
If you are unable to attend, please send me a list of industry participants that you recommend be invited. We seek industry members from the commercial and recreational fisheries, fisheries science partners, or other interested parties.
Please RSVP (respond to this e-mail using: earl.meredith@noaa.gov) as soon as possible as space may be limited. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions, concerns or suggestions by calling my cell phone: 508 450-5524.
Many thanks,
Earl Meredith
Northeast Fisheries Science Center
Directions to the Endicott College Gloucester Campus:
33 Commercial Street, Gloucester, MA 01930
• I-95 North to Exit 45, Route 128 North. (Note that I-95 splits to the right for NH and ME. Stay straight for Route 128 North.)
• Go to Exit 14; Route 133 Gloucester. (Approximately 20 minutes)
• Go right off of the ramp for Route 133 East.
• Travel approximately 5 minutes until the end of Route 133. Gloucester Harbor is directly in front of you.
• Take a left on Route 127 and travel over the Blynman Bridge and continue on Route 127 for about 2 minutes. You will approach Tally’s Service Station on your right. (Note there are several curves on this road.)
• Take your first right after the service station on Commercial Street. You will immediately see a large mill building marked 33 / Chamber of Commerce. Take a right into the parking lot.
• Enter through the door in the middle of the building. Endicott College is on the first floor, towards the ocean side of the building.
August 7, 2012 — The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) will hold a meeting Tuesday, August 14, 2012 at 5:00 pm at the Courtyard Philadelphia Downtown located at 21 N. Juniper St., Philadelphia, PA 19107. The meeting can also be viewed over this internet at http://www.mafmc.org/. More details on the meeting below:
Part 1: MAFMC Strategic Planning- Purpose, Process, and Expected Outcomes
On Monday, August 13, the Council’s Visioning and Strategic Planning Working Group will convene for the first in a series of meetings to develop a 10-year strategic plan. Since the public has asked a number of questions and expressed an interest in the strategic planning process, Council staff will present a strategic planning overview during the August 14 listening session and will answer some of the most frequently asked questions such as:
Why does the Council need a strategic plan when the legal mandates of the Magnuson-Stevens Act provide very specific guidelines for fisheries management?
What kinds of changes could occur as a result of the strategic plan?
What role will the Stakeholder Input Report play in the planning process, and how will the concerns and interests of stakeholders be taken in to consideration?
Attend the listening session and get the answers to these questions and more!
Part 2: Meet John Bullard, the New NMFS Regional Administrator
John K. Bullard, former mayor of New Bedford, began work August 6 as the new Regional Administrator of NOAA’s Northeast Regional Office. John will spend much of his time over the next several months meeting with stakeholders and asking two key questions:
What are your one or two most important issues?
What would success look like related to fisheries in the Northeast Region?
During this informal listening session, Mr. Bullard will be available to hear your answers to these questions and answer any questions that you may have for him.
You can attend in person in Philadelphia or via the internet. For online webinar access register at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/836113225 or just click this link at the time of the meeting.
Please contact Jason Didden at jdidden@mafmc.org or (302) 526-5254 if you have any questions regarding the listening session process or if you would like to confirm that your computer is set up to access the webinar. The webinar works for most computers, but sometimes there are technical problems with remote voice communication from online participants. In such cases, participants may still use a chat feature in the webinar to submit their comments or questions.
August 3, 2012 — The following is an informal update from N.E. Fishery Management Council Staffer/Groundfish Plan Development Team Chairman Tom Nies. It is a summary of issues addressed and items approved at Council’s Groundfish Committee Meeting, held on August 2, 2012 in Portsmouth, NH.
The Groundfish Committee took the following actions at its meeting August 2, 2012. These recommendations will be brought to the Council in September. This brief summary does not capture the entire discussion and only reports major decisions. Sound files are available (contact joleary@nefmc.org) and the meeting summary will be published in about ten days.
Much of the Committee work focused on responding to preliminary information provided by NMFS that indicates catch quotas for many stocks will probably be drastically reduced in fishing year 2013. That has been the subject of several news articles so I won’t repeat the details. The Committee took the following actions to provide opportunities to mitigate these expected low catch levels. These alternatives will be considered in FW 48 (with one possible exception noted below). A final vote on that action is planned for November and if approved by NMFS measures would be implemented May 1, 2013.
1. Added an option to FW 48 that would reduce minimum sizes to a level expected to reduce most regulatory discards of allocated groundfish. FW 48 already has an option that would eliminate minimum fish sizes for allocated groundfish.
2. Added an option to consider prohibiting possession of GB yellowtail flounder in FY 2013.
3. Added an option that if there is insufficient government funding to cover all at sea monitoring, the required level of coverage defaults to the NEFOP level.
4. Added an option to allow increased access to year round closed areas (while this is intended to be in FW 48, it is possible it may be submitted in a separate action):
a. Open the NLCA year round.
b. Open CAI from May 1 through February 15 for selective fishing gear
c. Open CAII south of 41-50N from May 1 through February 15 for the use of selective fishing gear
d. Open the WGOM closed area, except for an area referred to as Jeffreys Ledge on page 5 of a Habitat PDT memo dated August 15, 2011
e. Open the Cashes Ledge Closed Area year round except for an area around Ammen Rock identified as Habitat Area consistent with the Habitat PDT recommendation #4 on page 3 of the Habitat PDT memo dated August 15, 2011.
f. Items d and e might be modified slightly based on minor changes made by the Habitat PDT to these areas since last August.
g. Selective gear” was clarified to mean Ruhle trawls ,separator trawls, etc., as well as longline gear, but not sink gillnets and in the case of CAI and CAII, not recreational gear.
5. Removed options that considered providing additional ACE to help fund monitoring costs because legal advice is that this cannot be done in a framework (as currently structured).
6. Due to legal and policy guidance from NERO ,decided not to pursue an expanded/enlarged carry-over provision in this action.
7. Directed the PDT to further investigate a SNE/MAB windowpane flounder AM approach that would apply gear restrictions across gear types, regardless of fishery, rather than create sub-ACLs for the fluke, scup, squid, etc. fisheries that are managed by other jursidictions.
The Committee also received a report on the recent TRAC assessments for GB YTF, EGB cod, and EGB haddock and discussed at-sea monitoring issues.
CORRECTION:
August 17, 2012 — The Groundfish Committee took the following actions at its meeting August 2, 2012. These recommendations will be brought to the Council in September. This brief summary does not capture the entire discussion and only reports major decisions. Sound files are available (contact joleary@nefmc.org) and the meeting summary will be published in about ten days. Please contact me if there are errors or questions.
Much of the Committee work focused on responding to preliminary information provided by NMFS that indicates catch quotas for many stocks will probably be drastically reduced in fishing year 2013. That has been the subject of several news articles so I won’t repeat the details. The Committee took the following actions to provide opportunities to mitigate these expected low catch levels. These alternatives will be considered in FW 48 (with one possible exception noted below). A final vote on that action is planned for November and if approved by NMFS measures would be implemented May 1, 2013.
1. Added an option to consider prohibiting possession of GB yellowtail flounder in FY 2013.
This motion FAILED on a show of hands. The summary incorrectly said this motion passed.
August 2, 2012 — The remaining supplemental materials for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's 2012 Summer Meeting have been posted
These include new supplemental materials for the Sturgeon Board and revised supplemental materials for the Spiny Dogfish & Coastal Sharks Management Board. Click on "Supplemental Material" following the relevant board header to access the information. CDs with the full meeting materials (original plus supplemental) will be available at the meeting.
View the supplemental materials here