January 27, 2010: [click here to listen to the MP3 audio file]
A day after hotly disputed cuts to the Atlantic scallop catch were revoked, the head of the council that made the decision said reform is urgently needed to remove any hint that its actions are tainted by politics.
New England Fishery Management Council chairman John Pappalardo said Thursday that the council must provide a way to protest its decisions, so that the heavy political pressure applied in the scallop case isn't the only option for people who disagree.
Some environmentalists said the council chose politics over science Wednesday when it restored a 22 percent cut in scallopers' fishing days.
Pappalardo denied that, but said, "If we don't do our work to set up a process if there's a grievance … we do run the risk of being challenged again on this."
A fishing council in New Hampshire that regulates scallop harvests from Maine to North Carolina on Wednesday, January 27, reversed a decision it made in November to reduce scallop harvests by nearly 25 percent, a call that pleased New Jersey’s commercial scallopers.
The scallopers said the cuts would have hurt them economically; environmentalists said the ruling set back efforts to conserve other species affected by the scallop dredges.
Scallopers made their case for about six hours Wednesday at a meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council in New Hampshire. The council listened, and then reversed its earlier decision.
Panama City Beach News raises questions about catch shares.
Have you ever been deep sea fishing? Until last summer, I hadn’t. Which is rather surprising, since I grew up here on the Gulf Coast and spent most of my impressionable days on the deck of one boat or another. It was a warm day in late May. The first few catches were decent B-liners (Vermillion Snapper). The next week Red Snapper season opened and I’m still not sure who was more hooked, me or the fish. The fight at the bottom of the line made dinner taste that much better. I’m not alone. Offshore fishing is big business.
Recreational fishing affects every facet of our tourist driven economy. The marketing committee of the TDC understands this. In a recent meeting there were several references to fishing. “People come here for the fishing.” The TDC wants to make sure that potential visitors know that there is great fishing from the new County Pier. Sure fishing is fun… after the beach, after the water park, after the golf… Let’s go fishing! But for some it is more than something to check off the list of things to do, it is the main reason they come to Panama City Beach.
Read the complete story at Panama City Beach News and Information.
The new decision will allow scallop fishermen to catch about seven million more pounds of scallops a year than what the November decision called for – a catch ultimately worth an estimated $250 million to New Bedford, according to Mayor Scott Lang.
"The council was a little too cautious back in November,'' Lang said in a telephone interview from the New Hampshire meeting. 'What they did today is have a full debate and went with a more moderate option. It won't result in overfishing, it won't go toward an edge, its merely the middle ground."
Some environmental groups however, decried the decision, saying the council put short-term profits ahead of the long-term health of the scallop fishery.
"Politics clearly triumphed over sound science today," said Dave Allison, senior campaign director at Oceana. "This is a perfect example of how politics can interfere with the Council’s responsibility and authority as an ‘advisor to NOAA’ to manage fishery resources."
In a rare reversal of what was to have been a final decision, the New England Fishery Management Council on Wednesday rescinded its November decision and restored fishing days to the scallop fleet in the Northeast.
The contentious, 10-5 vote with two abstentions was made in a hotel ballroom packed with about 200 people, mostly fishermen from New Jersey to Maine and their supporters. Environmentalists on the council and from the audience derided the entire process, the media and politicians.
Council fishing analyst Dierdre Boelke made a lengthy PowerPoint presentation about the scientific basis for the staff's recommendations and defending the more conservative limits, but by mid-morning there was little doubt in the room about the outcome.
Read the complete story at The South Coast Today [subscription]
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The New England Fishery Management Council has released the following statement on the Council's unprecedented decision to reverse its November decision on scallop rules.
PORTSMOUTH, NH – January 27, 2010 – Following almost six hours of presentations and discussions, the New England Fishery Management Council in an unprecedented action reversed a November 2009 decision about rules for harvesting sea scallops in 2010. The Council’s action will give the east coast scallopers nine more “open area” days-at-sea, along with the four “access area” trips that were also included in the November action. The new action was approved in a 10-5 vote, with two abstentions.
The Council was swayed by elected officials and the testimony of fishermen who presented compelling economic arguments about the importance of profits to their businesses and communities during the next year, in view of the impacts of a serious recession, versus the long-term benefits that are expected to accrue after 2010.
The Council’s choice of a 0.20 fishing mortality target in November for 2010 was heavily influenced by the high fishing mortality rates that were estimated to have occurred over the last two years. (Fishing mortality rates represent the percentage of a stock removed by fishing each year.)
Of importance is that a target of 0.20 was also set during 2008-2009, but preliminary Scallop Plan Development Team analyses indicate fishing was occurring at higher rates which are projected to be at or just above the overfishing threshold of 0.29. If the fishing mortality rate is higher than the threshold, overfishing is occurring – an outcome the Council is required to prevent to be consistent with the current federal statute that governs fishing activities.
Council members this month agreed that the risk of overfishing, while higher with the choice approved today, was acceptable in terms of the economic costs associated with the alternative approved in late fall. Both choices were supported scientifically by the Council’s Scallop Plan Development Team, a group that provides technical advice to the Council on management actions that address rules that have and will apply to one of the region’s most lucrative fishery.
The New England Fishery Management Council, one of eight regional councils established by federal legislation in 1976, is charged with conserving and managing fishery resources from three to 200 miles off the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Scallopers all along the New England and Middle Atlantic coasts achieved a landmark victory yesterday when the federal regional fishery managers reversed an earlier vote and approved a new 2010 catch plan that can yield an estimated $41 million at the dock and multiples of that to port economies.
"The key thing was the groundfishermen said they would work with the scallopers to make this happen," said Rich Canastra, an owner of the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction.
"We don't want yellowtail to trip a $40 million loss in scallops," Vito Giacalone, the Gloucester industry analyst and informal spokesman for the groundfishing fleet, told the council.
In the hours before the final vote, groundfishing interests from Maine and around to the southern New England coast centered Point Judith, R.I., let the councilors know they were good with the concession to the scallopers.
The decision by Pappalardo to allow the council to vote on redoing their November action on scallops was induced by a degree and style of pressure that stuck uncomfortably in the craw of a number of members, and left others to ponder how and where trust was lost.
Northeast fisheries regulators on Wednesday rolled back sharp scallop catch cuts after heavy political pressure and fishing industry protests drove them to reconsider.
The New England Fishery Management Council voted 10-5 to adopt more lenient rules that restore a 22 percent cut in the number of fishing days, which scallopers said could have cost them hundred of thousands of dollars per boat.
The council initially refused to reconsider, but that changed after Gov. Deval Patrick intervened with the council chair earlier this month.
Members who voted for the change Wednesday said they were correcting a mistake that would have caused a healthy industry major short-term pain for minimal gain. Council member David Pierce said the best science indicates scallopers wouldn't come close to overfishing the stock under more the lenient rules, but the council initially misunderstood it.
The New England Fisheries Management Council has voted to reverse its controversial Novermber decision on Scallop regulations, selecting instead the less restrictive "F=0.24" option. The NEFMC took this action after considering opinions expressed by Gov. Deval Patrick, Congressman Barney Frank, New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang, Mass. State Senator Bruce Tarr, Mass. State Rep. William Strauss, Mass. State Rep. John Quinn, Mass. Sec'y of Energy and Environment Ian Bowles, Mass. Director of Fisheries Paul Diodati, 15 other Members of Congress, and over 1000 industry members and others.