NEFMC Pollock Assessment Working Papers Available
The working papers for next week’s assessment of pollock are available online by clicking here.
Scallop and monkfish assessment papers are at the same link. Please note these papers have no official status until (and unless) approved by the peer reviewers.
The draft meeting agenda is available online by clicking here.
Local fishermen fear that dramatic changes to management of groundfish species in the New England fishery could soon be reflected in a decline of their fleet and they are fighting back, alongside local legislators, to save their jobs.
Earlier this month, the National Marine Fisheries Service, in conjunction with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s New England Fishery Management Council, switched from a days-at-sea management approach to catch-share management – or sectors – that tabulate fishermen’s annual catch limits based on fishing history of specific stocks.
Tina Jackson, president to the Point Judith-based American Alliance of Fishermen and their Communities, said fishermen are guaranteed rights to a sustainable fishery management plan under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Management and Conservation Act. Although she recognized measures need to be taken to protect fisheries, she said the Department of Commerce and NOAA should work with fishing communities to establish regulations that work with the industry, not against it in these tough economic times.
Read the complete story at The South County Independent.
Less than a month into the fishing year, the federal government Tuesday announced a tightening of catch limits for the minority of New England groundfishing boats that did not choose to work under the new catch share system, the policy preference of the Obama administration.
The action was published in the Federal Register, and attributed to the "regional administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service," according to a letter to the so-called common pool fishermen that said the tightened limits were required to halt accelerated landings by the common poolers.
But Patricia Kurkul, the Gloucester-based regional administrator, did not put her name on the order tightening catch limits order.
Transforming the industry into a two-tiered system — with some fishermen fishing in cooperative "sectors" working with catch shares, and common pool fishermen working under the old days-at-sea system — Kurkul was given special power to alter catch limits in mid-season despite warnings by the Northeast Seafood Coalition.
Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.
NOAA has issued the following notice:
Effective 0001 hours local May 27, 2010 in order to slow the catch of some New England multispecies stocks to maximize the availability of fish throughout the course of the fishing year, we will be adjusting trip limits for common pool vessels for some stocks. NOAA Fisheries Service is authorized to make changes to the trip limits in the common pool to prevent over- and under-harvesting the common pool catch allocations.
This in-season action will implement the following possession limits:
1,000 lb/trip for GOM haddock;
10,000 lb/trip for GB haddock;
250 lb/trip for GOM winter flounder;
1,000 lb/trip for GB winter flounder, and
1,000 Ib/trip for GB yellowtail flounder.
View the final rule by clicking on this link.
Read the permit holder letter.
The New England Fisheries Management Council has issued a fact sheet to clarify the status of most New England groundfish stocks. The Council thought it might help have the correct information out there for public consumption. A summary of the findings is listed below, and the complete fact sheet is available at the link below.
Recent Information
– Redfish, American plaice, and both Georges Bank haddock and Gulf of Maine haddock are not overfished, nor is overfishing occurring.
– The Gulf of Maine cod spawning stock biomass is at least as high, or higher, than it has been in 30 years; and while overfishing is still occurring, this stock is no longer overfished.
– Cape Cod/Gulf of Maine yellowtail flounder has shown some rebounding in the last several years. The Georges Bank yellowtail stock is at the highest level seen in 30 years. (Increase not shown on chart.)
– The GARM III report confirmed that Southern New England/Mid‐Atlantic yellowtail flounder and Southern New England/Mid‐Atlantic winter flounder are at very low biomass levels.
– The condition of the Gulf of Maine winter flounder stock is uncertain; all of the winter flounder stocks will be assessed in 2011.
– While southern windowpane flounder has experienced increases, the status of northern windowpane and witch flounder, as well as ocean pout, has deteriorated.
– Pollock will be the subject of a new stock assessment in June 2010 .
The Tally
– Four stocks were classified as not overfished and not experiencing overfishing. Thirteen stocks were overfished and six were not. Eleven groundfish stocks were both overfished and experiencing overfishing.
Definitions
– An overfished stock or stock complex is one whose size is sufficiently small that a change in management
rules is required in order to achieve an appropriate level and rate of rebuilding. The Magnuson‐Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act currently mandates that overfished stocks be rebuilt as soon as possible and within a timeframe not longer than 10 years.
– Overfishing relates to the rate at which a stock of fish is harvested and occurs when that rate exceeds an acceptable level, eventually resulting in the stock becoming overfished.
Read "Groundfish Facts" from the New England Fishery Management Council.
Ecotrust, a nonprofit organization known for its cautious opinion about catch shares as a fishery management system, is today announcing plans to undertake its own national research study of the controversial Obama administration policy that took effect in New England on May 1.
Typically, catch share conversions create hyper-consolidation for the fishing industry, and the system is expected to squeeze at least half the practicing fishing boat businesses out of operation in New England.
The New England groundfishery, the first industry of the colonists that took root in Gloucester and has sustained coastal cultures for nearly 400 years, is now three weeks into the new regulatory format after being converted amid widespread protests and a lawsuit.
The national rally of fishing interests at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., last February was motivated in part by fear and anger at the administration's catch share policy.
Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.
In an interview on May 25, 2010 on the Saving Seafood Hour on WBSM, Congressman Barney Frank discussed next steps in pursuing changes to Obama Administration policy with regard to New England's more restrictive catch limits imposed on May 1.
The Congressman said: "The next step is to get back to the White House. When I talked to the Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, I said… ‘You will be hearing from me this week’. Senator Kerry and I in particular, because as Democrats [the Congressional majority party and the party of the President] we have the responsibility to take the lead, although Senator Brown is very supportive on this. We will be talking to the White House within the next few days to insist that they take a step. … we want an answer from the Secretary of Commerce and if it’s not the answer we want, we are going to go to the White House."
Mayor Lang stated "The reason that we are attracting more and more plaintiffs, and the reason that we have the strong support of the Congressman [Frank] and I know many other Congressmen that we will bring on board as well as Senators, is because we are right on the merits. This is an example of the government running afoul of the law and being extremely doctrinaire, arbitrary, in some cases being punitive in their implementation of the act. I think that when we go to court it's because we've reached which end as far as trying to work out any kind of appropriate settlement of the differences between the parties.
[click here and listen to the audio now]
The opening of the 2010 groundfishing season on May 1 was a historic moment for the fleet and a breath of fresh air for at least one fisherman.
It has been more than 15 years since groundfish have been caught and landed in commercial numbers in the eastern Gulf of Maine. But on May 1, the Northeast Coastal Communities Sector started operation as sector member Jason Joyce, a Swans Island fisherman, headed out to harvest groundfish.
The Northeast Coastal Communities Sector was formed by the Stonington-based Penobscot East Resource Center, which also started a permit bank in the summer of 2009.
Read the complete story at The Bar Harbor Times.
About 50 recreational fishermen attended a public hearing Tuesday night to ask questions and speak out against a proposed federal regulation that could ban fishing for black sea bass, scup (porgies) and summer flounder after Sept. 1, a measure that would halt fishing on Labor Day weekend.
The hearing, held at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, is the last of four held by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.
The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act, signed into law in 2007, calls for setting limits on the number of fish of each species that can be caught each year to prevent overfishing, Jessica Coakley of the MFMC told the fishermen during a two-hour presentation on the proposed rules. Catch limits will be based on scientific estimates of the population of each species of fish and the degree of certainty of those estimates.
Read the complete story at The Press of Atlantic City.
So, here's my report on the first week's rat race under catch shares.
Made six trips, had two boardings, two onboard observers, and five dockside monitors.
Fishing only 20 nets of 7-inch gear (we are allowed 60 and 6.5-inch gear as minimum mesh size) we landed roughly 31 percent of our full annual allocation of codfish, and that was trying to stay away from the fish!
Even more lethal than that is the status of one of my own personal "choke species" — Gulf of Maine winter flounder. Out of the whopping allocation of 250 pounds, we landed 177 — which represents 71 percent.
Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.