Management & Regulation

NOAA held a media teleconference on Monday to announce the final version of the Interim Rule. The teleconference included Jane Lubchenco, NOAA administrator, Jim Balsiger, assistant administrator of NOAA’s Fisheries Service and Patricia Kurkul, northeast regional administrator of NOAA’s Fisheries Service. Download teleconference audio (MP4)

Federal regulators issued a new set of commercial fishing regulationson Monday that they say will relieve pressure on fish populations inNew England waters while allowing the fishing industry to survive.

The new rules will mean a 9 percentreduction in total fishing revenue for the region, according to theNational Marine Fisheries Service. That’s less than half the cut thatwould have resulted had a measure proposed in January been approved.

Therules, which go into effect May 1, take into account concerns both fortroubled fish stocks as well as the economic realities of the troubledfishing industry, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationAdministrator Jane Lubchenco.

Read the Associated Press story at The Boston Globe.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service has released the final version of a controversial interim fishing rule that will govern the Northeast’s beleaguered groundfishng fleet for the next year, according to a press release from the agency.

The final rule was amended from the agency’s original January proposal so as to reduce the economic impact on the fishing fleet while still making strides in rebuilding diminished groundfish stocks and reducing overfishing.

Under the final rule, total fishing revenues for the 2009 season are expected to drop 9 percent, compared with a 20 percent reduction under the proposed rule.

Read the complete story at South Coast Today.

The National Marine Fisheries Service today announced a set of New England groundfishery regulations for the next year that are less drastic than a preliminary proposal, though still calculated to cost the industry 9 percent of its revenue.

Dropped from the draft that was published in January for comments — mostly negative — was a virtual ban on commercial fishing within a huge swath of waters along the southern coast from Long Island, N.Y., and off the southern New England coast to deep into Georges Bank.

Also dropped was a proposal that would have more than quadrupled the size of the area in the Gulf of Maine where one day’s fishing is counted as two against fishermen’s permits. NMFS had been put on notice by New England senators and US representatives that implementing its initial package would have triggered a Congressional nullification campaign and driven NMFS’ standing with stakeholders below its current low status. Instead, the Interim Rule which takes effect on May 1 and set in place today by Jane Lubchenco, the new head of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, cuts fishing days at sea on federal permits by 18 percent and charges a day of fishing as two throughout the waters of southern New England. It also mandates no landings of winter flounder, the stock singled out for protection in the earlier proposed closing of the southern waters. But it backs off NMFS’ harder initial lines.

Read the complete story at Gloucester Times.

NOAA today announced the Interim Rule for Groundfish.  The text of the NOAA press release is reproduced below.

 

NOAA Announces Interim Rules to Reduce Overfishing and Rebuild Northeast Groundfish Stocks While Balancing Economic and Conservation Concerns

 

NOAA Exploring Options to Ease Transition for Fishing Communities

 

April 6, 2009

NOAA today announced interim fishing measures that protect the Northeast groundfish stocks most in trouble, while still allowing the fishing industry to target some healthy stocks as the fishery rebuilds. The new rules, which take effect May 1, balance economic and conservation concerns, and are an important step toward ending overfishing by 2010 as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

“This decision balances healthy fishing communities and sustainable fisheries,” Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said. “It builds a solid bridge to a larger, long-term solution for managing the fishery through catch shares, which will help restore the ecosystem and the economic health of the fishing communities. The system will give fishermen more of a stake in how the fishery is managed.”

The new measures will:

– Continue to allow commercial fishermen to target healthy stocks such as haddock on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine. The healthy state of the haddock fishery shows that stocks respond when appropriate management action is taken to reduce catches, if needed.

– For hook gear fishermen, expand the size of the area where they have special access to haddock and lengthen the fishing period in it from three months (October to December) to nine months (May to January).

– Decrease minimum legal size for haddock by one inch, allowing more fish caught to be landed.

– Give businesses more flexibility by allowing roll-over of unused bycatch allocations during the first three quarters of the fishing year, and freer transfer of groundfish permits and leasing of days-at-sea.

– Enlarge the fishing area in southern New England waters where each fishing day-at-sea is counted as two days against an individual vessel’s total days-at-sea allotment to give greater protection to winter flounder, the stock most in need of protection.

– Prohibit vessels from keeping southern New England winter flounder, northern windowpane flounder, and ocean pout.

– Limit witch flounder landings to 1,000 pounds per day-at-sea, or up to 5,000 pounds per trip.

“While the new interim rule is a critical step to restoring depleted fish stocks and ensuring a profitable fishing industry for future generations, I understand it is a difficult one for many fishermen and their families,” said Lubchenco. “That’s why I have directed my staff to conduct a review of NOAA’s budget to see how we can mitigate costs to the industry during this  transition.”

NOAA is expected to complete the review by the end of this week.

According to Patricia Kurkul, northeast regional administrator for NOAA’s Fisheries Service, NOAA took public comments into consideration in formulating the new rules, as well as assurances from the New England Fishery Management Council that it will fully address conservation objectives.

 “Based on the public input and further economic analyses, the final interim measures better balance economic and conservation concerns than NOAA’s January proposal,” Kurkul said. “Today’s final rule starts with the council’s proposal for an interim action and adds important conservation protections for stocks of particular concern.”

NOAA’s January proposal would have resulted in a 20 percent reduction in total fishing revenues. The final interim rule will result in a 9 percent reduction, nearly matching the New England Fishery Management Council’s original 8 percent proposal.

 Also, new recreational fishing measures will help protect cod and southern New England winter flounder. These include limiting anglers on charter/party boats to 10 Georges Bank cod per angler per day, extending by two weeks the current prohibition on keeping Gulf of Maine cod, and prohibition on keeping southern New England winter flounder.

The council and NOAA are working together to develop new groundfish management measures which will include an expanded number of fishing sectors — a group of vessel permit holders who voluntarily agree to fishing restrictions and procedures in exchange for a share of the total catch allocated to the industry. This system based on catch shares will replace the current method of limiting fishing through days at sea for those vessels that join a sector. There are already two groundfish sectors operating in New England and 17 more proposed that could encompass the majority of groundfish boats in the Northeast.

NOAA’s long-term goals for the fishery include establishing fishing capacity at a level consistent with both conservation objectives and a profitable industry. These goals also entail the expansion of cooperative research so the best possible science is used in regulating the fishery, and the improvement of gear technology so fishermen can continue to target healthy stocks.

Rebuilding groundfish stocks and putting in place robust, well-monitored and effective sectors is a top priority for NOAA, and it prompted Lubchenco to hold a series of meetings to listen to the concerns of the region. NOAA’s Fisheries Service also did careful analyses of the likely economic and biological effects of today’s interim measures.

“Each and every day, fishermen and women bring healthy seafood to our tables and provide for their families,” Lubchenco said. “We cannot, and will not, allow this proud and vital industry to disappear. We will be a good partner with fishing communities, keeping the lines of communication open, listening to their concerns and needs.”

The interim measures are in addition to the 18 percent reduction in days-at-sea already slated to go into effect May 1, and retention of the existing area in the Gulf of Maine where every day fished is counted as two days.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.

Frank Thompson was among the scores of unhappy lobstermen who delivered millions of feet of rope to a warehouse in this fishing community.

He said the fishing rope piled high in his pickup truck and trailer was still good, except for one thing: Come Sunday, it will be illegal.

A new federal regulation, years in the works, outlaws the use of floating rope that connects millions of lobster traps on the ocean bottom and sometimes entangles endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Marine scientists and conservationists say using rope that sinks will make the whales less prone to getting snagged as they lumber through the Gulf of Maine each spring and summer.

Read the complete story at Longview News-Journal.

One might think that one year without fishing won’t really hurt. But face reality – members of the fishing industry are feeling the economic crunch too, probably more than most of us can imagine. What once was a flourishing trade is now one that barely pays the bills.

My uncle is the captain of a groundfishing boat. A few years ago, he wasn’t rich, but he did well.

Then Big Brother stepped in and tightened regulations, and now my uncle and aunt are fighting to make ends meet.

I see the worry and frustration on their faces. Sometimes, it’s all my uncle can do to cover the cost of a trip (fuel, food, salaries) – that is, when he can actually make one. He has been limited on how often he can go to work and how much he can catch. Imagine your boss telling you that you can only work, and get paid, for one day a week.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

A decision could come as soon as today limiting fisherman to as few as 20 days at sea in a year.

Federal regulators are about to finalize new commercial fishing restrictions that some fear could be a fatal blow to Maine’s groundfishing fleet.

The National Marine Fisheries Service might decide as soon as today whether to move forward with a January proposal that would effectively give Maine boats as few as 20 days at sea during the fishing year that begins May 1.

The proposal would cut fishing time by about 60 percent — the average boat now has 48 days a year — to relieve pressure on fish populations that have yet to rebound from overfishing.

Read the complete story at Portland Press Herald.

The federal government should regulate the commercial fishing industry, not take another step toward destroying it. And that very basic principle should guide the nation’s new top fishing regulator, Jane Lubchenco, as she makes a key decision in the days ahead.

Lubchenco, recently confirmed as head of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will decide — perhaps as soon as tomorrow, but certainly by April 15 — whether new proposed draconian regulations planned by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service for the coming year beginning May 1 will stand.

If they are not modified and allowed to stand as the Interim Rule pushed by the National Marine Fisheries Service, commercial fishing will suffer a major blow — a reduction of nearly a third of the current fleet and a cut of 20 percent, or $30 million, in gross sales, according to NMFS’ own numbers.

If the Interim Rule stands, it would also deal a harsh blow to the credibility of Lubchenco and acting NOAA fisheries administrator James Balsiger, who have reached out to fishermen industry, sought their input, and expressed a willingness to restore communications and trust with an industry that’s been under NMFS’ heavy-handed thumb for far too long.

Last September, the New England Fishery Management Council voted 15-1 not to go with the now-proposed Interim Rule, but to go with the council’s still tough but at least more reasonable version. NMFS’ Kurkul, the only council member supporting the Interim Rule, ignored the sentiment of her colleagues and still planned to put the Rule in place.

If Lubchenco now rubber-stamps Kurkul’s Rule, it will basically tell the fishing industry the status quo is fine — indeed, it will tell the fishery management council that its input isn’t even needed, and that NMFS’ heavy-handed rule and enforcement under Kurkul is acceptable.

Read the complete story at Gloucester Times. 

Some of our nation’s earliest science on fish stocks depended on a trusting relationship between scientists and fishermen.

When the haddock stocks crashed in the early 1930s, federal fisheries scientists went to fishermen to collect catch information to understand the causes of the crash and to rebuild this staple food for New England.

NOAA’s Fisheries Service today continues to work with fishermen in New England and throughout the nation to study the abundance of fish, where they migrate, where and when they spawn, and how they are affected by fishing, other marine species, ocean currents, changing water temperature and ocean chemistry.

Read the complete story at Gloucester Times.