August 16, 2012 — The discussion documents for the August 24th NEFMC committee meeting are now avaliable on the NEFMC website:
View the meeting documents on the NEFMC website
South Florida scallop count expected to steadily increase
August 16, 2012 — After nearly a decade, it looks like efforts to restore the population of Southwest Florida's scallop are paying off. Researchers will count scallops in Pine Island Sound Saturday and anticipate finding even more than last year.
Some say the taste of a Southwest Florida bay scallop is unforgettable.
"When you bite into it, whether it's prepared with panko, steamed in garlic, I mean that is heaven, that is heaven," said Captain Cathy Eagle.
Eagle remembers a time when fishermen found plenty of scallops in Pine Island Sound. That was before overfishing wiped them out and regulators made it illegal to harvest them.
"You want to make sure that we don't ever have this problem again," said Captain Rich Russell.
Russell hopes to one day lead recreational scallop fishing tours.
"They're an important part of the ecosystem and they've been here historically so we want to bring them back," said Eric Milbrandt, Director of the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation's Marine Lab at Tarpon Bay.
In the past nine years, his group has led efforts to restore the scallop population.
"They could be an important fishery locally if we could get the population back," said Milbrandt.
One way researchers have been increasing the population is by putting scallops from Tampa inside cages and into the water at Tarpon Bay where they're protected from predators.
The numbers show it's working.
A graph provided by the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation shows spikes in scallop growth in the years following major efforts to cage them.
Read the full story from WZVN.
Scituate, Massachusetts fishermen: What’s the catch?
August 16, 2012 — Fishermen and fishing communities such as Scituate may be in for difficult times based on the preliminary report by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) on fishing stocks in New England.
Per the report, as well as federal regulations, there may be a decline in the amount of fish that may be taken commercially from the ocean.
“Fishermen, including myself, are very distraught that we will have less to be able to catch,” said Scituate fisherman Frank Mirarchi. “There’s no question about it, people could be losing their livelihood.”
Mirarchi explained that the annual stock assessment done by the NMFS helps to set a limit for every managed fish stock in the country.
“The numbers go up, and the numbers go down,” he said. “In New England, all the numbers went down.”
Mirarchi said there are several reasons the numbers for fish stock in New England appear to be going down; everything from an explosion of the seal population – that feed on the fish – to a shift in water temperature.
And in the past few years, he said there have been several changes to how the fish stock is counted, including the switch to a sector management system, which counts the actual pounds of fish caught rather than estimating how much is caught based on days out at sea.
Within the past five years, he said the NMFS has acquired a new boat that allows for a net to be cast out in a particular area and the count is based on the catch.
“But ever since the new boat, the numbers have been going haywire,” he said. “Some people are saying that the net is not catching enough quantity as have been previously caught. All these factors have confounded the stock assessment.”
According to Mirarchi, fishermen could be required, in some cases, to cut back their catch by 80 percent.
Disease strikes striped bass
GLOUCESTER, Mass. — August 16, 2012 — A bacteria that infects and causes lesions in striped bass apparently has not spread to fish caught in the waters off Cape Ann and the North Shore. There have been no reports of the infected fish being caught locally, according to the state director of marine fisheries and local bait and tackle shops.
The bacterial disease is mycobacteriosis, and causes a kind of tuberculosis in fish; it is believed to trace to Chesapeake Bay.
Some fish with the lesions have been landed in waters around Cape Cod, but according to Paul Diodati, the state director of marine fisheries, “it is not something we are concerned about. We’ve known about this for some time.”
Spokesmen for Winchester Fishing Co. and Three Lantern Marine and Fishing Co., both in Gloucester, said they had not heard from fishermen of stripers with lesions.
Al Williams, a commercial striper fisherman, said, “I have not seen any, but from what you hear there are a few around.”
Diodati said state marine scientists have taken samples from stripers with the lesions and sent them to a pathologist specializing in mycobacteriosis. His report will determine “for sure” what it is, Diodati said.
The state Division of Marine Fisheries reported in mid-July that about 5 percent of stripers coastwide have the lesions, but the percentage of infection is higher in fish from southern Massachusetts, primarily Buzzards Bay and the Cape Cod Canal.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.
Lawmakers go to Obama for fish aid
August 16, 2012 — In the fourth year of the Obama presidency, bipartisan congressional frustration with administration fisheries policy in Massachusetts — gone from simmer to boil — Wednesday finally reached the White House.
It arrived in the form a “Dr. Mr. President” letter, signed by Sens. Scott Brown and John Kerry and three Democratic representatives asking Obama to direct the Department of Commerce to do what it has refused to do for nearly two years — to issue a disaster declaration that would mean emergency financial relief for fishermen, who are facing increasingly hard times not of their own making, the authors make clear.
“We are concerned that recent efforts by your administration to provide disaster relief for agricultural producers, including catfish farmers, affected by drought … did not include assistance for the hardworking fishermen and fishing communities in New England,” the letter began.
Signing along with Brown and Kerry were Congressmen John Tierney, whose district includes Cape Ann; Barney Frank, who represents New Bedford; and William Keating who represents the ports along Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod.
Brown is a Republican; Kerry the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee who has been among President Obama’s closest Senate allies and is considered a possible secretary of state in a second Obama administration.
Kerry and Brown have formed the linchpin of a bipartisan, fishing port coalition in Massachusetts with allied bipartisan delegations all along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
New Hampshire and Maine have also filed requests for disaster declarations for their fishing communities. New York is said to be ready to take similar action.
“The fact that this issue has risen to the level of the president of the United States is appalling for the lack of response it represents and at the same time a testament to the importance of the fishing industry in America,” said Mayor Carolyn Kirk.
“The proposed catch allocations represent a dagger pointed at the heart of the New England groundfish fleet,” said New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell. “I applaud the efforts of our federal delegation to elevate what can fairly be called a crisis to the president’s desk.”
The federal lawmakers’ letter was sent a day after Gov. Deval Patrick, co-chairsman of the Obama reelection campaign committee, released the text of a letter of his own to the acting commerce secretary. Patrick’s letter asked for a response to his official request for a disaster declaration. That request, submitted last November, included new scientific studies measuring the decline of the industry by different metrics.
The commercial fishing industry has consolidated at an accelerating pace, with higher landings and gross revenues for fewer boats and a lesser number of crew members.
Read the full story in the Gloucester Times
Congressional delegation again pleads for fishing relief
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — August 16, 2012 — Massachusetts' two senators and three of its congressmen want to know why President Barack Obama is ignoring their pleas to help fishermen beaten down by federal regulations even as the White House this week announced millions of dollars in aid for the drought-stricken agriculture industry.
In a sharply worded letter sent to the president Wednesday, Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown and Congressmen Barney Frank, William Keating and John Tierney said: "We urge you to intervene with the Department of Commerce and NOAA to provide disaster relief for the New England fishery. After two years, now is not the time for more delay."
"Sen. Kerry is obviously deeply frustrated that this hasn't happened yet, but he doesn't give up and he's determined to bring relief to our fishermen," spokeswoman Maura Hogan said. "Every day he's finding a new way to make the case until the job's done. He will keep ringing the alarm bell on this issue until this is resolved and we get our fishermen what they need."
On Monday, Obama kicked off a three-day bus tour across Iowa by announcing the federal government would buy up to $170 million worth of meat, poultry and farmed catfish to aid farmers and ranchers struggling with a devastating drought.
"We are concerned that recent efforts by your administration to provide disaster relief for agricultural producers, including catfish farmers, affected by drought … did not include assistance for the hard-working fishermen and fishing communities in New England," the delegation's letter said.
The letter called the situation faced by fishermen a "deepening disaster" that has been ignored by federal officials for two years. In particular, the letter mentions an October 2011 congressional hearing in which National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco promised to put Gov. Deval Patrick's disaster declaration request on the fast track, but nothing has happened.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times.
Groundfish Closed Area Ad-hoc Working Group Conference Call
August 15, 2012 — The call will take place on Tuesday, September 4, 2012 from 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Agenda:
As an organizational meeting, the Council will hold a computer-assisted conference call for the new Working Group to discuss the issues, timelines, analytical approaches, work assignments, and related matters.
The public may listen to the live meeting proceedings either on their computer or on the phone by notifying the Council (email aapplegate@nefmc.org) of your intent to listen at least one hour before the meeting start. Connection details will be emailed about 30 minutes before the start of the meeting to Working Group members and to people who have notified the Council.
Read the NEFMC announcement for the conference call here
Lawmakers take appeal for fishing relief straight to Obama
August 15, 2012 — U.S. Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown and three representatives, including John Tierney, today asked President Obama to intervene to bring about a fisheries disaster declaration and emergency aid for Massachusetts fishermen which has been "stalled" in the Commerce Department for almost two years.
The letter comes one day after Gov. Deval Patrick released a similar letter mailed to Acting Commerce Secretary Roberta Blank.
Along with Tierney, whose district includes Cape Ann, the representatives who signed the letter were Barney Frank, who represents New Bedford, and William Keating, who represents the ports of Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod.
The congressional delegation has become increasingly frustrated by the lack of any response to calls and letters since the governor filed his most recent formal request for a fisheries failure declaration last November. About that time, NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco, appearing at a U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing in Boston, promised to put the application on a fast track and get the state a rapid response.
The letter by Kerry, Brown and the congressmen marked the first time an appeal for aid was directed to the president himself, and it draws him into a fierce struggle over policies for fisheries management that he set into motion with the nomination of Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Lubchenco made privatizing of the fisheries a national policy and said she wanted to see a "sizable fraction of the fleet removed," which has occurred, helping to bring about the crisis that led to the unanswered appeals for federal disaster relief.
The governor and the lawmakers each noted that the administration has been responsive to the needs of the farming industry during the drought
"We are concerned that recent efforts by your administration to provide disaster relief for agricultural producers, including catfish farmers, affected by drought throughout the United States did not include assistance for the hardworking fishermen and fishing communities in New England," the federal lawmakers from Massachusetts wrote.
"In light of the deepening disaster faced by Massachusetts fishing communities, we write today to again express our support for a disaster declaration and federal assistance for New England fishermen," they continued.
The congressional campaign has remained bi-partisan, and with co-signers Kerry, a Democrat, and Brown, a Republican, the renewed effort has no partisan element to it.
"Over the past two years, federal fishing regulators have stalled similar disaster declaration requests from New England states," they wrote to the president. It was at an October 2011 congressional hearing that Lubchenco promised to put Patrick’s disaster declaration request on the "fast track." Since then other New England states have filed similar requests.
Read the full story in the Gloucester Times
Read the original letter to the President here
Read the Saving Seafood alert on the letter here
Spain spends €1.5m on bluefin tuna projects
August 15, 2012 — Funded with EUR 1.51 million (USD 1.86 million), Basque-based researchers AZTI-Tecnalia will oversee two bluefin tuna projects to provide independent estimates of stock numbers and mortality rates.
A key 2012 initiative 80 percent co-funded by the European Union, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) selected AZTI-Tecnalia to lead the projects formed by international consortia of 23 institutions and research centers including from Algeria, Canada, China, Croatia, Japan, Morocco, Norway, Tunisia, Turkey, the United States and Chinese Taipei.
The first project, valued at EUR 1.08 million (USD 1.33 million), will tag and release 11,750 bluefin with conventional tags. Of those, 40 percent will feature a double tag, at least 50 tuna will feature internal electronic tags and 40 will incorporate external electronic pop-up tags.
This project will focus on important biological and ecological aspects, and provide independent estimates of bluefin abundance and mortality rates in the Bay of Biscay, Straits of Gibraltar, Bay of León and Ionian Sea-Central Mediterranean.
The second project, valued at EUR 430,000 (USD 530,000), will biologically and genetically sample bluefin to provide valuable insights into population structure, migration patterns, mixing rates and growth and reproduction levels.
Both projects aim to facilitate better understanding of the species through basic data collection, improved assessment models, scientific advice on stock status and make publicly available bluefin population structures.
In a meeting with Murcia fishermen, Carlos Domínguez, Spain’s secretary general of fishing, highlighted the value of scientific research in the captive breeding of bluefin as an “example for the whole Mediterranean,” describing fattening and exploitation processes as “so insulted at times, and when carried out rigorously has no risk and contributes to restoring its population.”
Read the full story at SeafoodSource.com
Infection hits Southern New England’s striped bass
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — August 15, 2012 — Warming water temperatures may be causing an increase in the number of striped bass that have lesions from a viral or bacterial infection, the state Division of Marine Fisheries said.
While the number of infected fish is estimated at less than 5 percent of those landed along the entire Massachusetts coastline, the infection rate is higher in fish caught in the Cape Cod Canal and Buzzards Bay, according to a state advisory issued last month.
So far, there is no evidence of the bacterial disease mycobacteriosis that has become prolific among striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay, according to the fisheries division, but the agency urged caution in handling fish because the disease can be transferred to humans through contact.
Those reporting issues in Massachusetts have described small red spots on the white underbelly of fish. Any fish with large open lesions or darkened patches of meat should be discarded.
Visual tests have not discovered any mycobacteriosis in striped bass landed in Massachusetts yet but samples are getting more intensive tests at the University of Connecticut, Paul Diodati, director of the Division of Marine Fisheries said Tuesday.
Lou MacKeil, vice-president of environmental affairs for the Cape Cod Salties Sportfishing Club, who fishes every day for bass, said at least one fellow fisherman caught bass with spots, took photos and submitted them to the state. But MacKeil said he has no personal experience with the bacteria.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times.