Saving Seafood

Regulations

MID-ATLANTIC SCALLOP ACCESS AREA CLOSES AUGUST 4 FOR LIMITED ACCESS GENERAL CATEGORY FLEET

July 31, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

We are closing the Mid-Atlantic Scallop Access Area to the Limited Access General Category Individual Fishing Quota scallop fleet on Tuesday, August 4. The fleet has used its 2015 fishing year allocation of 2,065 trips into the Mid-Atlantic Scallop Access Area.
Under the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan, once this fleet reaches the Mid-Atlantic Access Area trip limit, we are required to close the area to the fleet for the remainder of the 2015  fishing year (through February 29, 2016) to prevent overharvest.
Vessels that complied with the observer notification requirements, declared a trip into the Mid-Atlantic Scallop Access Area using the correct Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) code, and crossed the VMS demarcation line before 12:01 am on August 4, may complete their trip and retain and land scallops caught from the Mid-Atlantic Scallop Access Area.
Read the Federal Register notice as filed on July 31, or get more information from the permit holder bulletin.
Questions about this action? 
Contact Shannah Jaburek, Regional Office, at 978-282-8456 or Shannah.Jaburek@noaa.gov.

Legislation Introduced to Preserve Fishing Access in Biscayne National Park

July 31, 2015 — On the heels of the recent announcement to close over 10,000 acres of Biscayne National Park to fishing, a coalition of recreational fishing and boating organizations praised the introduction of a bipartisan bill, H.R. 3310, that will help stop this and similar unwarranted fishing closures from occurring. Led by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), and 28 other original sponsors, the “Preserving Public Access to Public Waters Act” requires the National Park Service and Office of National Marine Sanctuaries to have approval from state fish and wildlife agencies before closing state waters to recreational or commercial fishing.

“Probably the most concerning aspect of the Biscayne National Park marine reserve decision is the total disregard for the fisheries management expertise of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission,” said Mike Leonard, Ocean Resource Policy director for the American Sportfishing Association. “The states are responsible for nearly all of our nation’s saltwater fisheries management successes. This legislative safeguard will prevent the federal government from ignoring the fisheries management expertise of the states in these types of situations.”

Throughout the development of the General Management Plan for Biscayne National Park, through which the marine reserve is being implemented, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has provided detailed recommendations to improve the condition of the fisheries resources in the park. The Commission has continually expressed its position that the proposed marine reserve is overly restrictive to the public; will not be biologically effective; and that less restrictive management tools can rebuild the park’s fisheries resources and conserve habitat.

 

Read the full story at Florida Sportsman

 

Maryland DNR Creates New Position to Give Seafood Industry More Input

July 29, 2015 — EASTON MD — Former Queen Anne’s County commissioner and waterman George O’Donnell has been brought onto the Department of Natural Resources’ payroll as a seafood industry and fisheries stakeholders liaison, of sorts.

O’Donnell has been in the position since July 8, and according to Maryland Watermen’s Association President Robert T. Brown, he’s already been working with the commercial industry to find solutions to their issues.

“We’ve finally got a friend up there,” Brown said.

O’Donnell’s official title at DNR is the fisheries customer relations manager.

It’s an outreach position to ensure that fisheries stakeholders’ views are communicated to state departments and policymakers for consideration.

“The administration believes that through outreach a better understanding can be reached to benefit the user groups as well as our marine resources,” O’Donnell said.

O’Donnell said that Gov. Larry Hogan, in his quest for the state government to provide better “customer service” to the people of Maryland, wants to make sure that any industry area of the state that feels underserved has a voice in Annapolis.

Read the full story at The Star Democrat

Flashback: Hillary Clinton fired from fish processing job

July 29, 2015 — Hillary Clinton says that cleaning Alaskan salmon helped prepare her for the White House.

In an interview on Thursday with theSkimm, a daily newsletter that focuses on women aged 22-34, Clinton said, “One of the best jobs I had to prepare me to be president was sliming fish in Alaska.”

She described the attire for the job as hip boots, an apron and a spoon. Clinton said the salmon would be brought in and slit open, the caviar would be taken out — and then, it was her time to shine.

“My job was to grab them, and these are big fish, and to take a spoon and clean out the insides … best preparation for being in Washington that you can possibly imagine,” Clinton said.

“They were purple and black and yucky-looking,” she said in a 1992 New York Times article.

What Clinton didn’t mention in theSkimm, though, was that she was fired from the job within a week after asking too many questions, according to the Times. (“I found another job,” she told the paper.)

Read the full story at Politico 

Do Fish Names Encourage Fishy Business?

July 29, 2015 — Order a rockfish at a restaurant in Maryland, and you’ll likely get a striped bass. Place the same order in California, and you could end up with a vermilion rockfish, a Pacific Ocean perch or one of dozens of other fish species on your plate.

This jumble of names is perfectly legal. But it’s confusing to diners — and it can hamper efforts to combat illegal fishing and seafood fraud, says the ocean conservation group Oceana.

Under current Food and Drug Administration rules, a single fish species can go by multiple names from the time it’s caught to the time it ends up on your plate. Conversely, lots of different fish legally can be sold under a single name.

For example, that “grouper” on a menu could be one of 64 different species. It could be a fish known by the common name sand perch (scientific name: Diplectrum formosum), which is plentiful. Or it could be a goliath grouper, a critically endangered species. The FDA says all can be sold under the acceptable market name “grouper.”

Oceana wants the entire supply chain — from boat to plate — to ditch the FDA’s list of “acceptable market names” for seafood. Instead, it wants the FDA to require that a species’ Latin scientific name or common name be used in all cases.

Oceana says more precise labeling of seafood — the kind it calls for in its One Name, One Fish report — will go a long way toward protecting vulnerable or endangered species and deterring illegal fishing. And it says it will help to put a stop to seafood fraud — an issue the nonprofit group has been working on since 2011.

“It’s another tool to help with enforcement,” says Oceana senior campaign director Beth Lowell. “People have a right to know about the food they eat. It shouldn’t be that hard to find out what fish I’m eating without having to do a DNA test or ask the server, who has to ask the manager, who has to ask the distributor.”

Read the full story at NPR

SENATOR MARIA CANTWELL INTRODUCES BIPARTISAN BILL TO ESTABLISH NATIONAL OCEAN ACIDIFICATION MONITORING STRATEGY

July 29, 2015 — WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) introduced a bipartisan bill to enhance ocean monitoring, research and forecasting. The Coordinated Ocean Monitoring and Research Act (S. 1886) would create a national ocean acidification monitoring strategy to prioritize investments in ocean acidification sensors to areas that need it most. The bipartisan bill also directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Science Foundation to make investments in adaptation and mitigation research so we understand how to make our coastal economies more resilient to the threat of ocean acidification.

“Ocean acidification will have a vast impact on commercial and environmental conditions across the nation – and currently threatens jobs in Washington State.  Shellfish in the Pacific Northwest have already been negatively affected, but we don’t know yet what this means for salmon populations and larger coastal ecosystems,” said Cantwell. “This bill ensures that NOAA is making the appropriate investments in research, and monitoring the ongoing impact of this threat to our coastal economies.”

Ocean acidification results from changing ocean chemistry when seawater absorbs increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and it is already negatively impacting coastal economies in Washington state.  A recent study in Nature Climate Change  identifies communities at significant risk for sustained economic losses resulting from ocean acidification’s impact on shellfish fisheries.  Communities at the highest risk were found in these 15 states: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, Washington, Oregon, Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, Maine, Florida, North Carolina, California, Louisiana, Maryland, and Texas.  A July 2014 report published in Progress in Oceanography identified seafood jobs across Alaska that could be impacted by ocean acidification, such as king crab and salmon.

The Coordinated Ocean Monitoring and Research Act would require NOAA to build upon these models and conduct a nationwide economic vulnerability assessment to determine the impact ocean acidification would have on our economy, and our coastal ecosystems. The bill would also require NOAA to develop a strategy for the deployment of new ocean acidification sensors — based on the economic vulnerability assessment.   Access to real-time ocean acidification data has been critical for shellfish farmers in Washington state. Enhanced data collection structures included in this legislation is critical for scientists to close knowledge gaps, and help us understand how ocean acidification could impact our fisheries and ecosystems.

In 2010, Cantwell secured funding to acquire and deploy ocean acidification sensors near major shellfish hatcheries in Washington state. Today, these sensors have been integrated into NOAA’s national ocean observing program—the IOOS program. These sensors allow shellfish growers to monitor ocean acidity in real-time and close off their shellfish rearing tanks when ocean acidity is too high. Cantwell also has previously highlighted why additional research is needed to understand ocean acidification’s potential damage to critical salmon food sources – including small crustaceans.

Cantwell’s bill also would expand the installation of high frequency radar stations, which are part of the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) network. Last year, Cantwell toured the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station in Port Angeles, where she learned how the Coast Guard uses high-frequency radar to assist in finding missing or distressed boaters in the mid-Atlantic. Washington state has the largest high-frequency radar gap on the West Coast – with nearly 80 percent of the state’s coastline lacking high-frequency radar coverage. High-frequency radar also can be used to map oil spills and to monitor harmful algae blooms and track water quality.

Cantwell’s bill would also improve coordination between ocean science and monitoring and the National Weather Service, which is vital in the Pacific Northwest where nearly all of our storms originate offshore.  Lastly, the bill authorizes a program to measure and share marine sound.  Monitoring sound in the marine environment is important so we can understand the impacts on Southern resident orcas and other key species.

Conservationists Making Headway In Rebuilding Oyster Populations in New Jersey Barnegat Bay

July 30, 2015 — BARNEGAT BAY NJ — A team of animal conservationists have begun re-establishing the local colony of oyster in New Jersey by releasing more than a million seedlings of the shellfish, known as spat, off of Barnegat Bay.

Members of the American Littoral Society sent off around 1.5 million oyster spat in Ocean Gate, which were then taken to an artificial reef system located around a quarter-mile off of the township of Berkeley known as Good Luck Point.

The group was joined by several other volunteers on boats in taking the seedlings to the reef, where they released the oysters into Barnegat Bay before returning to shore.

The goal of the Littoral Society with the oyster colony is to improve the quality of the water in the bay through the shellfish’s natural ability to filter out impurities and pollutants in the ocean.

The group also believes that by bolstering the number of oysters found in Barnegat Bay, the creatures can help strengthen the shoreline against the effects of devastating weather occurrences such as Superstorm Sandy. The hard shells of oysters and the raise profile and irregular shape of their beds can considerably reduce the impact of storm surges waves on the bay’s shoreline.

The presence of the oyster colonies also boosts the local boating and recreational fishing industries as it provides habitats for other sea creatures such as crabs and fish.

Read the full story at the Tech Times

 

Hawaii Longline Bigeye Fishery in the Western and Central Pacific Forced to Close

July 30, 2015 — HONOLULU HI — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

HONOLULU (29 July 2015) The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has announced that Hawaii longline vessels fishing in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) will no longer be able to retain and land bigeye tuna between August 5, 2015, and the end of the year. This is because the fishery has reached a bigeye catch limit of 3,502 metric tons (mt), established by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) in 2014.

The United States is a member of the WCPFC, which is an international fisheries organization consisting of over 30 countries charged with managing tuna and other highly migratory fish stocks in the WCPO. The WCPO is the world’s largest tuna fishery, driven by the industrial purse-seine fleets targeting skipjack and yellowfin, with recent annual catches estimated at around 3,000,000 mt.

Longline catch limits are among a suite of measures adopted by the WCPFC for the conservation and management of WCPO bigeye. Overexploitation of bigeye has developed over the past 30 years with increasing catches of juveniles by purse-seine vessels, on top of the catch of adults by longliners. Purse-seine vessels incidentally catch small bigeye while fishing on drifting fish aggregation devices (FADs) when targeting skipjack and yellowfin for canned markets. Longline vessels target adult bigeye for sashimi markets.

No bigeye catch limits are required of the various fleets of tuna purse-seine vessels in the WCPO, which collectively catch more bigeye in total than the longline fleets. Over the past decade, longline fleets throughout the WCPO have reduced their bigeye catches consistent with WCPFC conservation and management measures. Purse-seine bigeye catches, however, continue to rise, reaching record levels in 2013 of 82,000 mt versus a longline catch in the same year of about 63,000 mt.

Although the WCPO will be restricted to Hawaii longline vessels, some will be able to fish for bigeye to the east of the 150 degree line of longitude in the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO), which is under a different international tuna management regime, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. However, Hawaii and other US longline vessels in the EPO are subject to a 500 mt bigeye limit for vessels greater than 24 meters. This limit is expected to be reached sometime in September. Approximately, 23 percent of the Hawaii longline fleet is over 24 meters.

The effects of these closures are going to reduce the supply of Hawaii longline-caught bigeye tuna to the Honolulu fish auction. From an economic perspective, each Hawaii longline vessel can be likened to a “mom and pop store” or similar small business. Not being able to fish is like a store closing for the same amount of time, with disastrous effects on livelihoods.

There is a ray of light on the horizon for Hawaii consumers who prefer locally caught bigeye tuna. Under federal regulations recommended by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (Council), the US Participating Territories to the WCPFC, which include Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands have the ability to transfer bigeye quota to the Hawaii longline fishery.

The Council has managed the Hawaii longline fleet for the past 30 years, and it continues to be a well-managed, highly monitored environmentally responsible fishery. The Hawaii fleet targets bigeye at high latitudes, well outside the tropical and equatorial zones, where 90 percent of bigeye fishing mortality occurs. Scientific research has shown that the operational area of the Hawaii fleet has very little impact on bigeye stock status.

The potential interruption in bigeye catch and the climate of uncertainty will have a negative impact on the seafood industry in Hawaii, especially for those dealers who prize US caught bigeye above foreign imports. There is an increasing demand by local retailers to supply not only locally caught fish, but to know that the supply is also from the environmentally responsible Hawaii longline fleet.

OCEANA AGAIN SUES NOAA OVER BYCATCH MONITORING

July 29, 2015– WASHINGTON — Oceana, the maritime environmental group that successfully sued NOAA Fisheries in 2011 over its bycatch rules, is challenging the federal regulator of the nation’s fisheries over its newest bycatch rule for the Northeast region.

Oceana again sued NOAA Fisheries on Wednesday, claiming the current bycatch reporting rule finalized last month for the region — in part, as a response to Oceana’s earlier legal victory — is underfunded, uniformly inadequate for providing accurate information and in violation of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.

The 43-page lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., claims the new bycatch rule “leaves loopholes that would guarantee that observer coverage will never meet its performance standards, ultimately failing to fix current insufficiently low levels of monitoring in the region,” Oceana said.

The group’s lawsuit said NOAA’s new Statistical Bycatch Reporting Method (SBRM) “fails to address the fundamental legal flaws” identified in its previous lawsuit and “effectively doubles down on the Fisheries Service’s decade-long practice of under-funding and marginalizing its bycatch monitoring systems.”

That under-funding, Oceana said, impedes NOAA Fisheries’ ability to generate statistically reliable data needed to assess the impact of bycatch on individual fisheries.

The lawsuit draws a direct connection between faulty bycatch monitoring and overfishing. It specifically targets NOAA Fisheries’ bycatch monitoring performance in New England and among the Northeast multispecies groundfish fleet.

“New England in particular has been plagued for decades by lax monitoring and overfishing,” said Oceana Assistant General Counsel Eric Bilsky. “The failure to monitor catch and enforce catch limits is in part responsible for the collapse of the New England groundfish fishery, including the historically important Atlantic cod populations of the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

CAMPAIGNERS AIM TO NET ILLEGAL FISHING VESSELS WITH NEW ONLINE DATABASE

July 30, 2015 — Efforts to crackdown on illegal fishing received a boost this week with the launch of a new transparency initiative designed to make it easier to identify vessels guilty of landing catches unlawfully.

Who Fishes Far, which has been developed by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), Oceana and WWF, features a database of more than 15,000 EU vessels which were authorised to fish outside of the EU between 2010 and 2014.

The information was compiled after a successful access-to-information request to the European Commission and users can search the website by vessel, flag state, year and type of agreement issued under the EU’s Fishing Authorising Regulation (FAR).

María José Cormax, fisheries campaign director of Oceana, said that greater transparency is crucial if the fishing industry is to deliver sustainable European fisheries.

Read the full story at BusinessGreen