NMFS Put Councils on Notice About Overfishing or Overfished Conditions on Bigeye, Four Other Stocks
April 24, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The National Marine Fisheries Service has notified regional councils that five species are subject to overfishing and/or are overfishing or overfished, requiring measures be put in place to remedy the situations.
Bigeye tuna in the Western and Central Pacific and South Atlantic golden tilefish are subject to overfishing, according to NMFS. South Atlantic blueline tilefish remains subject to overfishing. Pacific Bluefin tuna in the North Pacific Ocean and South Atlantic red snapper are both overfished and also subject to overfishing.
NMFS determined the bigeye tuna stock is subject to overfishing based on a 2014 stock assessment update conducted by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, which was accepted by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, an international body composed of more than 35 member countries, participating territories and cooperating non-members.
Both the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council and the Pacific Fishery Management Council are charged with addressing the international and domestic impacts to bigeye tuna. Actions to address international recommendations must be forwarded to the Secretary of State and Congress.
NMFS acknowledged that overfishing of the bigeye stock is largely due to international fishing pressure. Regardless, Hawaii longliners are concerned that U.S. fleets will bear the brunt of the regulations.
Hawaii Longline Association President Sean Martin said any regulations likely won’t have a short-term effect on the year-round fishery. However, it seems like NMFS was premature in its decision and used an old stock assessment to make the determination, he said.
“I’m not sure why they did that, prior to the new stock assessment,” Martin said.
The SPC currently is working on an updated bigeye tuna stock assessment to present to the Commission in August. The assessment may show the stock in better shape than the 2014 assessment — or it may not.
Regardless, the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council is required to take into account the relative impact of the longline fleet — which is pretty small in the scope of international fishery management, Martin said. “So it complicates the issue because we are so small,” he added.
Hawaii already imports bigeye tuna from other Commission countries as demand for bigeye and poke has increased in restaurants.
Further constraints on the domestic fishery will likely be filled by other countries. The U.S. takes conservation seriously, Martin said, but at the international level, discussions frequently center more around allocation rather than conservation.
“We’re suffering the consequences of others who want access to our markets,” Martin said.
NMFS’ notice about the status of the bluefin tuna in the North Pacific also must be dealt with by both the Western Pacific and Pacific fishery management councils.
The overfishing and overfished condition of Pacific bluefin tuna in the North Pacific Ocean is due largely to excessive international fishing pressure and there are no management measures (or efficiency measures) to end overfishing under an international agreement to which the United States is a party, NMFS said in its notice.
The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council has been notified it must take action immediately to end overfishing of golden tilefish and continue to work with NMFS to end overfishing of blueline tilefish and red snapper and rebuild the red snapper stock.
This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.
NOAA Fisheries Announces Proposed Rule for Unmanaged Forage Fish in the Mid-Atlantic
April 24, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:
NOAA Fisheries announces a proposed rule to protect unmanaged forage fish. Forage fish are small schooling species that serve as prey for larger commercially and recreationally important fish, as well as for marine mammals and sea birds. Anchovies, herring, chub mackerel, and sardines are some common forage fish.
Commercial fisheries occasionally catch forage species, and we know little about the amount of forage species caught in Mid-Atlantic waters. Because of their importance to the food web, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council wants to keep current levels of forage species catch stable while it collects more information on these species. This new information will help inform future scientific assessments and management decisions.
This action would be the first action in the Atlantic to list 14 forage species and species groups as ecosystem component species. This action would set landing and possession limits to prevent the further expansion of commercial fisheries on forage species by federally permitted fishing vessels within Mid-Atlantic federal waters (see map below).
This action is part of an effort to integrate ecosystem-based management components into fishery management plans.
Read the proposed rule as published in the Federal Register, as well as the supplemental documents on our website.
The comment period is open through May 30.
Submit your comments through the e-rulemaking portal or by mailing:
John Bullard, Regional Administrator
Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office
55 Great Republic Drive
Gloucester, MA 01930
NOAA limits permits fisherman can own
April 21, 2017 — NOAA has approved a new rule to limit the number of permits and the amount of groundfish allocation any individual or entity can own in the Northeast multispecies fishery.
The rule is an attempt to create more diversity in the fishery by stemming the tide of consolidation. It prohibits any single ownership entity from acquiring an “excessive share of fishing privileges” or an unfair economic advantage over the groundfish market.
The rule precludes any ownership entity from possessing more than 5 percent of the total of limited access permits in the groundfishery. As of Feb. 21, there were 1,335 active permits in the fishery, which means no individual or entity can own more than 67 permits.
“The most permits held by any entity was 50,” the rule states. “Based on this information, this permit cap is unlikely to immediately restrict any entity.”
The rule, also known as Amendment 18 to the Northeast multispecies fishery management plan, also caps potential sector contributions (PSC). However, it removes several fishing restrictions “to increase operational flexibility for fishermen on limited access handgear vessels.”
“The combination of the PSC limit and 5 percent permit cap raises the difficulty and cost of acquiring enough permits and PSC for any one entity in the groundfish fishery to exert market power over the fishery,” the rule stated.
The rule, published Thursday in the Federal Register and principally effective May 20, has been long in the making.
The New England Fishery Management Council first started work on it in 2011. It approved the measure last August and submitted it to NOAA for public comment and final approval.
Fishery management council OKs lobstering in deep coral
April 20, 2017 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — The New England Fishery Management Council has given preliminary approval to a plan to protect corals in the Gulf of Maine and on the Continental Slope south of Georges Bank from the ravages of commercial fishing but exempted the Maine lobster fishery from a proposed ban on the use of fishing gear that would affect the sea floor.
On Tuesday, April 18, by a reported vote of 14-1, the council adopted a preferred alternative plan under its proposed Omnibus Coral Protection Amendment for the inshore Gulf of Maine that would prohibit both trawls and dredges, but not lobster traps and pots, within both the Schoodic Ridge and Mount Desert Rock areas.
According to a statement released Wednesday afternoon, council members recognized the potentially devastating economic impact of preventing the lobster fishery from working within those inshore areas and acknowledged that shifts in effort to other locations could be problematic.
Judge shoots down New England fishermen’s at-sea monitoring cost challenge
April 20, 2017 — A US federal appeals court judge has ruled against New England groundfish fishermen’s third legal attempt to do away with a law requiring them to bear the cost of at-sea monitors.
New Hampshire groundfish fisherman David Goethel as well as the non-profit XIII Northeast Fisheries Sector believe the law violates existing federal law.
Although Joseph Laplante, chief US district court judge, recommended further consideration of the fishermen’s plea — their second appeal attempt — he ultimately ruled the initial law suit was not filed in time to be legal.
Laplante ruled, on April 14, against fishermen “because we find that Goethel’s suit was not filed within the [Magnuson Stevens Act’s] thirty-day statute of limitations…” This upholds the reasoning of the previous appeal decision, also against the fishermen, dated July 29, 2016.
Goethel had argued that the 30-day salute of limitations embodied in the MSA does not apply to pre-enforcement review, whereas Laplante said it does, and that Goethel cited no authority permitting a waiver of that rule.
Regulators to allow lobster fishing in Gulf of Maine coral canyons
April 19, 2017 — New England regulators have voted to allow lobster fishing in proposed deep-sea coral protection zones, including two heavily fished areas in Down East Maine.
The New England Fisheries Management Council voted 14-1 to ban most fishing in the canyons and plateaus where slow-growing, cold-water coral gardens flourish in the dark waters of the Gulf of Maine.
But pleas from Maine lobster fishermen who say a trap ban in fertile fishing grounds off Mount Desert Rock and Outer Schoodic Ridge would cost them millions helped sway an initially resistant council to grant a lobstering exemption.
Fishermen also said closing these areas would have led to more traps, and fishing lines, being dropped in nearby waters traveled by endangered right whales, which can suffer injuries or die if they become entangled in lobster fishing lines.
Opponents, including environmentalists and some who fish for other species that would not get an exemption in the coral zones, have argued it is not fair to give lobstermen “a pass” because their traps damage coral, too, even if not as bad as trawl nets.
NOAA Fisheries Proposes New Recreational Measures for Summer Flounder; No Changes to Scup
April 19, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:
NOAA Fisheries is seeking comment on proposed recreational fishery management measures for the 2017 summer flounder and scup fisheries.
The 2017 summer flounder recreational harvest limit is 3.77 million lb (1,710 mt), a decrease from the 2016 harvest limit of 5.42 million lb (2,458 mt). Accordingly, more restrictive management measures are necessary in 2017 to reduce landings by approximately 41 percent compared to 2016 landings, to ensure that the landings do not exceed the recreational harvest limit.
We are not proposing any changes to the recreational measures for the 2017 recreational scup fishery. The current measures are expected to keep landings within the 2017 recreational harvest limit.
We are proposing black sea bass recreational management measures in a separate rulemaking action.
Summer Flounder Proposed Measures
For summer flounder, in order to prevent overfishing in 2017, we are proposing stricter management measures than those in place in 2016. These measures would apply to all federally permitted party/charter vessels with applicable summer flounder and scup permits, regardless of where they fish, unless the state in which they land implements measures that are more restrictive.
We propose the Council’s and Commission’s recommended coastwide management measures for summer flounder, which are:
- 19-inch minimum fish size
- Four fish per person possession limit
- Open season from June 1-September 15
We propose to continue the “conservation equivalency” approach, in which states develop state or regional minimum sizes, possession limits, and fishing seasons that will achieve the necessary level of conservation. Both the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission recommended continuing conservation equivalency.
For state waters, the Commission has reviewed measures submitted by the regions and certified that they are, in combination, the conservation equivalent of the Federal coastwide measures that would prevent overfishing.
Read the proposed rule as published in the Federal Register today, and the Supplemental Information Report on our website.
The comment period is open through May 4.
Submit your comments through the e-rulemaking portal or by mailing:
John Bullard, Regional Administrator
Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office
55 Great Republic Drive
Gloucester, MA 01930
Federal regulators move to change scallop fishery rules
April 19, 2017 — Fishing regulators have started changing the way the East Coast scallop fishery is managed, with an eye toward avoiding more conflicts between small- and big-boat fishermen.
The New England Fishery Management Council decided to initiate changes Tuesday. Government fishing regulators use different rules for different classes of boats that work the same areas. Recently, a class mostly made up of smaller boats has been in conflict with bigger boats in the northern Gulf of Maine.
The management council says there is a “critical need to initiate surveys and develop additional tools to better manage the area.” It also says the new rules could include limiting some boats from fishing in the area until the scallop population can be more accurately determined.
Crafting new rules will likely take months, and they might not be finished before next year’s scallop season begins in April.
“The process was started, but now the real work begins,” said Togue Brawn, who runs a scallop business called Downeast Dayboat and has advocated for small-boat fishermen.
Council against Hudson Canyon sanctuary
April 18, 2017 — A Hudson Canyon National Marine Sanctuary proposal got little to no support from the Mid-Atlantic Marine Fisheries Council.
In fact, the council voted 15-4 against it when it met in Avalon last week for its regular scheduled spring meeting.
The Wildlife Conservation Society, operators of the New York Aquarium, nominated the canyon under the marine sanctuary program, run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The aquarium’s goal is to advance marine conservation for the sensitive species and habitats in the canyon, including the permanent restriction oil, gas, and other mineral exploration and extraction.
However, fishermen have not been behind it because of the potential to be shut out of fishing the canyon. Advocates for fishermen said management of the canyon is best left to proven science-based management tools that include fishermen in the future.
They contend protections such as those that safe-guard deep sea corals, and regulations on fish are already in place.
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