April 16, 2012 – The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) has made available the discussion documents for the April 18 meeting of the groundfish committee.
Are the Gulf of Maine’s cod — and cod fishermen — really doomed?
April, 2012 – It’s been a terrible time for fishermen, but in recent years, those who have survived have had reason for optimism. Austerity — in the form of various restrictions on fishing — have allowed some damaged fish populations to be fully rehabilitated, including dogfish, Gulf of Maine pollock, and the haddock and scallops on Georges Bank, the vast fishing shoals southeast of Cape Cod to which the biggest Maine vessels still venture.
The federal regulators — the fisheries service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — is legally required to end overfishing of all stocks in the country by 2014, and by the middle of last year it reported it had done so for twenty-one of New England’s thirty-six monitored stocks. Gulf of Maine cod, NOAA fisheries determined in 2008, was rapidly rebuilding.
Which is why NOAA’s new assessment of the cod fishery caused such shock and dismay when it was first surfaced just before Thanksgiving. Since 2008, fisheries scientists reported, the Gulf of Maine cod population has not expanded as expected, and is now only about a fifth the size it needs to be to be considered rebuilt. To restore the stock by 2014 would require fishermen’s catch quotas to be slashed by as much as 90 percent, making it difficult or impossible to fish for other bottom-dwelling fish like pollock, haddock, and flounder that swim among the cod. After a period of cautious optimism, shell-shocked fishermen from Cape Cod to East Quoddy Head saw an artillery shell falling on one of their last remaining positions.
“Having such a big divergence from the previous assessment is a big surprise and leaves many, many questions,” says Jim Odlin, owner of a small Portland-based fleet of trawlers and a member of the New England Fishery Management Council, which makes many of the decisions about how to implement NOAA recommendations. “If we accept the new assessment, how do we move forward and still maintain some segments of the industry?”
That’s the question fishermen and fisheries regulators have been grappling with ever since, and the stakes are high for Maine fishermen. While big offshore boats like Odlin’s can travel farther afield for redfish, Georges Bank groundfish, and other species, smaller vessels have fewer options. “Day boats in southern Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts are by far the most economically dependent on Gulf of Maine cod, in some cases accounting for up to 90 percent of the catch,” says Peter Shelley, senior counsel of the Conservation Law Foundation, the organization whose 1991 law suit forced the federal government to take measures to stop overfishing and rebuild depleted stocks. “They have no other options, whereas the big trip boats have lots of options.”
“The remaining groundfishermen are having a hard enough time making ends meet,” says former Maine marine resources commissioner Robin Alden, executive director of the Stonington-based Penobscot East Resource Center. “This could be a very serious blow.”
Read the full article at DownEast magazine.
SOUTH AFRICA: Fishing rights under fire
April 13, 2012 – Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson reportedly plans to eliminate the fishing rights of South Africa’s “Big Five” fishing firms when they come up for review in 2013.
She shared her news in secret, but it leaked to Feike Chief Executive Shaheen Moolla, a former adviser to previous ministers, Independent Online reports.
The “white” fishing companies that controlled the industry and that benefitted from generous quotas must cede these rights to community fishers, Joemat-Pettersson reportedly affirmed. She said the Industrial Development Corporation would be approached to buy fishing vessels so small players can enter the industry.
Moolla said he had received input from staff present at the meeting and that taking away fishing licences would mean a form of “nationalisation” of the industry.”
FishSA chairman Tim Redell, whose group represents commercial fishing companies, acknowledged that the Big Five – Oceana, I&J, Sea Harvest, FoodCorp and Viking – probably controlled about 60 per cent of the sector and their share was growing considerably.
Redell, who is a director of Viking, said it was pointless to bring in additional vessels into the deep-sea fishing industry given that there were too many vessels already.
He added that the long-term licences granted in 2005 for hake deep-sea trawl quotas were valid until 2020.
The 2013 allocation round – which lasts eight years – was for the total allowance catch in species located closer to the coast, such as tuna and West Coast rock lobster, which involved 3,000 companies.
Moolla noted that the big companies were all black-empowered and have at least 30 per cent black ownership.
CCA-VA Menhaden Update
April 13, 2012 – The Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission is proposing to create Addendum II to the Atlantic Menhaden Fishery Management Plan, which would create new, more conservative reference points for management of this important forage fish. This is the Public Information Document (PID) phase, which is the start of the process. The ASMFC will use the information generated here to create the Draft Addendum sometime this summer.
A sample letter is available for your convenience that you may use to send your comments to ASMFC.
Subject line: PID Menhaden Management
I believe that restoring the menhaden resource to historic levels of abundance must be the primary management objective of the Amendment. Fisheries that can operate without depleting the overall abundance of the menhaden resource or fishing on immature fish, and which avoid concentrating effort in relatively small, ecologically important areas such as the Chesapeake Bay, must be governed by adequate monitoring and enforcement measures. Fisheries which cannot meet such basic criteria should be prohibited.
Menhaden management is at a critical juncture – overfishing is occurring, even under the old reference points, and must be addressed immediately. Menhaden abundance is at the lowest level in the 50-plus year time series, which, in my view, is a serious management problem.
I believe management measures must be put in place to reach the current fishing mortality threshold and end overfishing in 2013, and that management measures must be in place to meet the current fishing mortality target no later than 3 years later, in 2016, with a 75 percent probability of success.
Putting in place these basic fishery management measures, which are common to virtually all managed stocks, will, at the very least halt, the decline in menhaden abundance and increase spawning stock biomass.
I support putting in place the full suite of commercial management measures, with the exception of limited entry, but question the need for recreational management measures, which comprises less than 1 percent of the harvest.
I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to comment on proposed menhaden management measures.
Analysis: The petition says that "overfishing [of menhaden] is occurring, even under the old reference points, and must be addressed immediately."
According to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's (ASMFC) 2010 stock assessment, overfishing did occur in 2008, the last year covered in the assessment. However, this was the only year in the last ten years that overfishing had occurred. And while the stock had experienced overfishing (meaning that the number of fish caught exceeded the level set by the ASMFC), the stock was not overfished (meaning that the population is still producing enough eggs to replace itself).
The petition also does not account for the fact that environmental factors, rather than fishing, are the biggest determinant of the size of the menhaden population. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Chesapeake Bay Office stating on its website, “menhaden recruitment appears to be independent of fishing mortality and spawning stock biomass, indicating environmental factors may be the defining factor in the production of good year classes.”
NOAA plans to use fishermen in cod trawl study
April 13, 2012 – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced an effort to expand a commercial trawler working in tandem with the new government research vessel Bigelow to help determine if the trawl catch jibes with the industry's.
Alan Risenhoover, NOAA's acting assistant administrator for fisheries, described various initiatives for cross-checking and improving stock assessments during a national teleconference to announce the interim or transitional total allowable catch of Gulf of Maine cod for the 2012 fishing cycle beginning May 1.
"We are designing experiments for commercial trawlers and it may involve parallel towing," he said.
Industry has been suspicious of government trawl surveys since "Trawlgate," the discovery early in the previous decade that the trawling by the Albatross was being done with poor technique and misuse of the technology, leading to excessively dire findings.
Risenhoover said that, in addition to cooperative research experiments to improve assessments, the government will attempt to decide whether cod is two distinct stocks, Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, or one super stock whose population moves between the two.
Another focus will be replacing the 100 percent mortality assumption made about discards by the recreational and commercial sectors, and integrating a more accurate estimate of recreational landings.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.
New Bedford & Gloucester fishing suit says NOAA ignoring law
April 13, 2012 – Fishing industry plaintiffs have formally urged the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston to overturn last June's lower court and invalidate the two-year-old catch share system used to manage the New England groundfishery.
In searing language, the 31-page "reply brief" — filed with the court late Wednesday — will be the final written word before oral arguments later this year, projected as soon as June, but if not, by next fall.
"In the defendants' world," wrote the plaintiffs' New Bedford-based legal team — representing that city, Gloucester, and fishermen and organizations along more than 1,000 miles of coastline — "the rule of law is whatever the government says next." It is an approach that treats the law as a "moving target," plaintiffs said.
Not all Northeast fishing interests wanted to fight the government and overturn the system. More than 100 fishermen last fall urged stability over reform last fall in a letter crafted at least in part by leaders of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, the region's largest industry group.
Litigants, however, read the letter as the act of a minority of winners in an industry hemorrhaging jobs and consolidating since before the catch share system was imposed — without giving affected permit holders the opportunity to vote in the radical regimen.
Whether NOAA was obligated to win a two-thirds vote among fishery stakeholders before converting to the catch share system and its leasing, buying and selling of quota is a central point of dispute.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.
Agricultural groups ask Congress to block funding for National Ocean Policy
WASHINGTON, April 12 – Eighty-one groups submitted a letter to U.S. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (KY), as well as the Chairperson of each House Appropriations Subcommittee, asking that language be included in all Fiscal Year 2013 appropriations bills that would prohibit the use of funds to implement the new National Ocean Policy (NOP). The request was made as part of an effort to achieve a pause in policy implementation that would provide more time for oversight and examination of potential impacts.
The NOP, created through an Executive Order issued by President Obama in 2010, “has the potential to unnecessarily harm terrestrial and marine economic values by affecting sectors such as agriculture, commercial and recreational fishing, construction, manufacturing, marine commerce, mining, oil, gas and renewable energy, recreational boating, and waterborne transportation, among others,” the groups wrote, noting that “These sectors support tens of millions of jobs and contribute trillions of dollars to the U.S. economy.”
The letter's signatories represent a wide array of commercial and recreational interests and reflect the breadth of concern that citizens and businesses across the United States continue to have about the National Ocean Policy as developed thus far.
“During this time of constrained public resources, it is concerning to many in the regulated community that federal agencies have been ‘instructed to prioritize’ the National Ocean Policy in their
Fiscal Year 2013 budgets, and asked how their ‘existing resources [can] be repurposed’ in furtherance of this new initiative,” the letter stated.
Rep. Frank Pallone: NOAA has yet to explain Sandy Hook marine lab moving costs
April 13, 2012, Sandy Hook, NJ — Nearly two months after revealing a plan to close the James J. Howard Marine Laboratory, top officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have yet to explain how much it would cost to relocate scientists and their projects to other sites in Connecticut and Maryland, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., said Wednesday.
NOAA leaders say much of that work can be done elsewhere, but Pallone said NOAA admits it will give up some assets at the Howard lab — including its signature 32,000-gallon saltwater tank, an aquarium used to study fish behavior and the largest of its kind on the East Coast.
The saltwater tank was a centerpiece of the design when NOAA and New Jersey collaborated to rebuild the lab after a devastating 1985 fire. New Jersey still owns the lab building that opened in 1993, and the 20-year building bond will be paid off in 2013.
New Jersey rents the lab to NOAA and closing it would save the agency $2.8 million in rent, at a time when NOAA is scrambling to find more money for its satellite programs, agency managers have said..
But lab supporters point out the rent includes $1.18 million to pay back the 1993 construction bond — in effect, a mortgage that will be paid off next year. New Jersey paid to build the state-of-the-art lab building in a joint venture with NOAA and supporters say the state can re-negotiate a more favorable lease next year.
Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press.
Longfin Squid Trimester 1 Closure in Effect on April 17
April 13, 2012 – NOAA announced that effective 001 hours on April 17, the Trimester 1 Directed Longfin Squid Fishery will be closed. Projections indicate that the longfin squid fishery has reached 80 percent of the butterfish mortality cap.
Vessels issued Federal longfin squid permits may not fish for, catch, possess or land more than 2,500 lb of longfin beginning April 17, 2012, per trip or calendar day through the start of Trimester 2 on May 1, 2012.
Federally permitted dealers may not purchase more than 2,500 lb of longfin squid per vessel beginning at 0001 hours, April 17, 2012, per trip or calendar day until the start of Trimester 2 on May 1, 2012.
Read the full release from NOAA.
NOAA sets annual top priorities for fisheries enforcement
April 13, 2012 – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced its priorities for enforcing the nation's fishery laws in the coming year.
In the Northeast region, top priority is assigned to monitoring fish landings, enforcing reporting requirements and preventing harassment of fishery observers.
The document outlining the priorities was released this week. It is the culmination of a process that began with a National Enforcement Summit held in August 2010 in an effort to improve its enforcement program, according to NOAA.
"We have conducted a number of outreach and education events in order to help industry better understand regulations and to ensure we understand the issues they are facing and concerns they have," said Logan Gregory, a NOAA special agent, in an email to The Standard-Times.
NOAA's Office of Law Enforcement was criticized in an audit conducted by Commerce Department Inspector General Todd Zinser in January 2010.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times.