WASHINGTON — July 19, 2012 — Today, NOAA officials briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill and released the official report on the first year of the groundfish catch share program.
EU Commission Makes History with Proposal to Phase Out Bottom Trawling for Deep-Sea Species
July 19, 2012 – In a move that will help protect one of the most biodiverse areas on Earth, the European Commission today proposed phasing out destructive bottom trawling and bottom gillnetting among deep sea fishing fleets in the Northeast Atlantic. The Pew Environment Group praised EC Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Maria Damanaki, for the bold proposal to finally put an end to these unsustainable and destructive deep-sea fishing methods. Marine scientists have roundly concluded that deep-sea bottom trawling is the most direct and widespread threat to fragile deep-sea ecosystems. These ecosystems harbor a diversity of life – much of it as yet unidentified – that may exceed the biodiversity found in the Amazon rainforest.
We congratulate Commissioner Damanaki on her leadership today in proposing a thorough overhaul of the management of deep-sea fisheries and taking the first step towards phasing out one of the most destructive fishing practices in use today,” commented Matthew Gianni, policy advisor to the Pew Environment Group and the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition. “It is now up to EU fisheries ministers and the European Parliament to show similar resolve by adopting legislation to implement the Commissioner's proposal and put an end to destructive deep-sea fishing practices.”
The European Union’s (EU) deep-sea fishing fleet is one of the largest in the world. In the heavily exploited Northeast Atlantic the EU is responsible for 75 percent of the total catch of deep-sea species. “If the Commission proposal is adopted, it would transform the EU into a global defender of deep-sea marine life by protecting vulnerable deep-sea species and ecosystems from the harmful impacts of destructive bottom fishing,” continued Gianni.
Out of the Abyss, a policy analysis issued earlier this year by the Pew Environment Group, suggested ways that the EU could reform its deep-sea fishing regulations in line with a series of United Nations General Assembly resolutions on protecting vulnerable deep-sea life. The phase out of destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling for deep-sea species is one of Pew’s key recommendations.
Pew supports the Commission proposal but urges the European Parliament and EU member states to strengthen it further by: requiring impact assessments for all deep-sea fisheries, not just new fisheries; requiring closure of deep-sea areas to fishing where vulnerable marine species are known or likely to occur unless these areas can be managed to prevent significant adverse impacts; and requiring that all catch, including bycatch, be sustainable; and that all bycatch be landed unless there is adequate justification (e.g. high survival potential) for throwing catch back.
Read the full story at the Pew Environment Group.
Scallopers urge feds to rework yellowtail survey
NEW BEDFORD — July 19, 2012 — Scallop fishermen are pleading with government scientists to change course and abandon the models used to determine the yellowtail flounder stock on Georges Bank. The Fisheries Survival Fund, a scallop industry advocacy group, outlined its concerns in a letter to Dr. Bill Karp, director of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole on Friday.
The letter is fair,” said Karp. “But it’s not reasonable to expect these issues to be resolved overnight.”
The important point, he said, is that Georges yellowtail is in poor shape.
“Every signal that we have indicates it is in a declining condition. The argument is how bad is that condition, not whether it’s good or bad.”
Three U.S. surveys and the Canadian survey all bear this out, he said.
The leter asks NOAA to recognize that the current assessment is “not viable for use as a basis for catch advice,” which Karp said was a ”strong statement.” A conservative approach is necessary to maximize the possibility for the stock to recover, he maintained.
“It’s not just the numbers coming out of the assessment. It’s the trends we see in the data,” he said.
Since Georges Bank encompasses both U.S. and Canadian waters, the yellowtail stock there is managed jointly by both countries. “We aren’t free, independently, to change that,” he said.
Karp said that some tough decisions will have to be made by fishery managers in the fall in order to set 2013 quotas.
Read the full story in the New Bedford Standard Times
Read more about the letter on Saving Seafood
Glut Check: Lobster industry examined as prices plummet
July 18, 2012 — With lobstermen complaining about their earnings, markups by dealers and retailers are getting more attention.
By the time that lobster gets to your plate, several people have already taken a nibble.
Lobstermen, wholesale dealers and retailers all get a cut of the final price as the state's iconic seafood moves from a trap at the bottom of the Gulf of Maine to the dock and then into a retailer's lobster tank.
With lobstermen complaining that what they're being paid doesn't even cover their costs, these markups are getting attention
Retail prices over the past few weeks have generally reflected a regional glut of soft-shell lobsters — the cheapest kind because they tend to have less meat than hard-shell lobsters. Calls to several Greater Portland lobster retailers revealed a range of prices, from $3.99 a pound at Fishermen's Net in Portland to $8.98 a pound at Walmart in Scarborough.
But lobstermen say they're getting as little as $2 a pound dockside, although Robert Bayer, the head of the University of Maine's Lobster Institute, said it's probably more like $2.50 to $2.75 a pound.
Dane Somers, executive director of the Maine Lobster Promotion Council, said moving lobster from the ocean to the dinner table is pretty straightforward locally. The lobstermen sell to a wholesale dealer, who sometimes sells to a second dealer, who sells to a retailer.
People in the industry are reluctant to talk about anything other than retail prices. Wholesale dealers say they get a pretty standard cut that doesn't change as retail prices rise and fall. Retailers say they only charge what the market will bear.
Bayer said that each dealer typically adds 50 cents a pound. The retailer's markup is usually an additional 50 cents to $1 a pound, he said, although the prices being charged by some retailers suggest they have been adding more recently.
Given the market glut, those margins are probably less now, Bayer said.
"There's always wiggle room if you've got product you want to move," he said, especially if the product can only last a few days in a tank before it's worthless.
Read the full story in the Portland Press Herald
Scallopers: Feds must rework yellowtail assessment
BOSTON—July 19, 2012 — A scallop industry group is calling on fishing regulators to overhaul their method for estimating the troubled yellowtail flounder's population, saying it's arbitrary and indefensible.
The Fisheries Survival Fund made the request in a July 13 letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northeast fisheries science chief, William Karp.
Yellowtail in Georges Bank is managed jointly by the U.S. and Canada. The flagging health of the yellowtail population sparked a massive cut in catch this year — 50 percent overall and 80 percent for fishermen who chase other bottom-dwelling groundfish, such as cod.
Similarly onerous cuts are expected next year, and fishermen worry that will ruin the local groundfishing industry and damage the prosperous scallop fleet.
Scallopers accidentally snare yellowtail in their dredges, so they get a portion of the annual yellowtail allotment. They're affected by the ever-tightening catch restrictions, since they can't exceed their yellowtail limit without serious penalty.
The Fisheries Survival Fund is an influential voice for scallop boat operators and owners, who are primarily based in New Bedford, New Jersey and Virginia. In their letter, the scallopers argue a computer model used in yellowtail population estimates has proven useless by consistently producing inaccurate projections. But it said NOAA has just kept tinkering with the flawed model.
"(The agency) needs to redirect its limited resources away from the computer models and towards field research," they wrote.
"If there are to be cuts in the fishery, so be it, but it must be done in an open and justified manner," the letter said.
In its closing paragraph, the fund wrote, "We cannot and will not sit back passively and accept catch advice that is based upon an indefensible and ultimately arbitrary assessment."
In a statement, Karp said the yellowtail's poor condition over the past decade has frustrated attempts to make confident projections about the species.
He said the uncertainty about the yellowtail has been widely and publicly discussed. But he said the yellowtail assessment is a joint effort, and the U.S. wouldn't try to unilaterally change it.
"Some admittedly tough decisions will have to be made by U.S. and Canadian fishery managers in the fall in order to set 2013 quotas," he said.
Read the full story by the Associated Press in the Boston Globe
NOAA Northeast Science Center chief responds to Scallop Industry criticism of Georges Bank yellowtail flounder assessment
Dr. William Karp, science and research director of NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center, issued the following statement in response to the July 13 Fisheries Survival Fund letter sent to him regarding the Georges Bank yellowtail flounder assessment. The assessment was conducted a few weeks ago by the US-Canada Transboundary Resources Assessment Committee: "The poor condition of the stock over the past decade indeed confounds attempts to quantify current condition or make projections with confidence, although trends in some characteristics are strong and consistent. This uncertainty was widely discussed during the bilateral assessment meeting and will be reflected in the summary and final reports, which the US would not unilaterally revise. How this information will translate into management advice remains to be seen, but some admittedly tough decisions will have to be made by U.S. and Canadian fishery managers in the Fall in order to set 2013 quotas."
Maryland Crab supply flip-flops to shortage
July 18, 2012 — While crabs are typically plentiful during the preseason, a cold spell followed by hot temperatures and more wind than she has seen in her 30 years in the business have made the crustacean scarce, said Mary Ellen Ball, co-owner of Tom and Terry's Seafood Market.
Spring's crab glut has quickly become summer's crab shortage. And with crab consumption a summer ritual on Delmarva, crustacean connoisseurs could be in for some disappointment.
Despite a spring of plentiful crabs, various takeout seafood shops in the area have been struggling to obtain a full supply for the summer.
"It's flip-flopped from the spring," said Dave Long, manager at Ocean View Seafood.
While crabs are typically plentiful during the preseason, a cold spell followed by hot temperatures and more wind than she has seen in her 30 years in the business have made the crustacean scarce, said Mary Ellen Ball, co-owner of Tom and Terry's Seafood Market.
"It shows you how much nature can turn," she said. "It's Mother Nature."
Combine that with a typical summer increase in demand, and there's one outcome.
"It's the perfect storm for a shortage," she said. "Right now you can barely get crabs because of the weather problem," she said.
What there are plenty of, Long said, are juvenile crabs, but those won't do the trick as they take about a year or two to develop.
And Ball's not seeing enough large and jumbo crabs, she said.
"They're, like, nonexistent," she said.
Brenda Davis, blue crab program manager at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said during a winter dredge survey — the only baywide fishery independent effort to estimate the number of blue crabs living in the Chesapeake Bay — the state recorded the highest recruit abundance in the history of the survey, which was first conducted in 1988.
Of the 764 million crabs recorded this year — an increase from 461 million in last year's study — 587 million of them fell into the recruit category. Recruits are considered to be crabs with a carapace — the distance point to point across the back — of 2.25 inches and smaller.
Davis is hearing from commercial crabbers that in the upper bay, things are slow, but down the bay, crabs are being caught.
"The season is starting slow," she said.
Crabs hit the soft-shell market once they have a carapace of 3.25 inches, while the minimum size for the hard-shell crab market is 5 inches, Davis said. Those two figures each increase by .25 inches after July 15.
Lobster still at $2 as brief tie-up ends
July 18, 2012 — Early shedding led to a glut of soft-shells and a 'situation that hasn't happened in the history of commercial lobstering.' Lobstermen who tied up their boats for a few days, hoping to drive up prices for their catch, apparently went back to sea Tuesday, without signs of much change in prices.
"You've got to tend your traps," said Brian McLain, a lobsterman from New Harbor who is on the Maine Lobstermen's Association board.
Lobstermen said the tie-up wasn't a concerted effort, because that would violate federal anti-trust laws. So there's no way to tell how many sat out for a few days.
Arnold Gamage, a lobsterman in South Bristol, said he kept fishing, as did most others in his area, despite prices of about $2 per pound — near record lows — from lobster dealers.
Gamage said he has had to throw fewer lobsters overboard this year than in the past, because not as many are smaller than legal size, over the legal size or females bearing eggs.
"I'm not even seeing as many soft ones this year as we do in other years," Gamage said. "I never imagined that the problem we would have is too many good lobsters."
The biggest problem for most lobstermen seems to be a glut of soft-shells — lobsters that have recently shed hard shells and started growing into larger, softer ones.
After they shed, lobsters hide from predators until their new shells harden some, then emerge hungry and head for baited traps.
Prime time for soft-shell lobsters typically comes in July. But this year, many lobsters had shed, hidden and emerged by early June.
"You're dealing with an unprecedented situation that hasn't happened in the history of commercial lobstering," said Matt McAleney, a dealer with New Meadows Lobster.
McAleney said prices are low, but "it's never a good price from the fisherman's standpoint."
Retail prices are about $4 a pound and up, he said, though prices are often volatile in the summer.
An unusual combination of factors is making this a good year for catching lobsters and not a particularly good one for selling them, said Robert Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine's Lobster Institute.
He said Canadian lobstermen fared well during their peak seasons, which are typically fall and winter, producing an abundance of lobsters for Canadian processors.
The processors didn't need as many lobsters from American fishermen to fill orders, Bayer said, and many of the processors shut down for much of the early summer.
Read the full story in the Portland Press Herald
Head of federal agency hears fishermen’s turbine concerns
NEW BEDFORD — July 18, 2012 — Local fishermen aired their concerns Tuesday over the proposed development of offshore wind projects in waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island to the director of the federal Bureau of Offshore Energy Management.
"There is broad consensus in favor of clean energy in the abstract sense. But it's not that simple," BOEM director Tommy Beaudreau told a fisheries working group meeting at City Hall. His agency recognizes that there are "well-established and abundant uses" of the area under consideration, he said. "We need to be respectful and protective of the fishing industry. That's our responsibility."
The bureau has already removed a fish spawning area, known as Cox's Ledge, from the proposed area, Beaudreau said.
However, fishermen are looking for additional safeguards.
Fishery consultant Jim Kendall said that excluding Cox's Ledge was a positive move but questioned whether enough data had been gathered on the environmental impact of the turbines.
"That's a prime monkfish area," he said. "If fishing productivity declines or access is restricted, we need an economic assessment of the effects on fishermen."
Scalloper Eric Hansen said the assessment focused too much on bottom dwelling species. "You have shad, stripers, herring, tuna and whales migrating through there," he said.
The designated area encompasses 165,000 acres in waters southwest of Martha's Vineyard, known as the Area of Mutual Interest after Gov. Deval Patrick and Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri signed a memorandum of understanding in 2010 to collaborate in developing offshore wind.
An environmental assessment of the area was released by BOEM last month and a public comment period ends on Aug. 2.
Professor Kevin Stokesbury, a scallop researcher at UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science and Technology, said he wonders how placing hundreds of turbines in the water might affect ocean currents and the distribution of larval scallops.
"It might be detrimental or it could create a bloom. We don't know," he said.
The fishing industry currently sets aside money every year to fund ongoing research and wind developers should be required to do the same, fishermen said.
Read the full story in the New Bedford Standard Times
NOAA apologizes for squid shutdown foulup
July 18, 2012 — NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service has apologized to the squid fleet for failing to effectively announce the July 9 closing of directed squid fishing, carried out in the waters off Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York — a shutdown that fishermen say needlessly cost them time and money.
Based on projections that 90 percent of the Trimester II quota of 5,366 metric tons was taken, the NMFS’ Northeast Regional Office based in Gloucester’s Blackburn Industrial Park issued the closing order on the afternoon of July 6. But instead of notifying the fleet by email or the electronic vessel monitoring system (VMS) that most boats use to give NMFS the required 72 hours notice of a planned trip, the Gloucester office mailed and faxed the announced closing on July 6 to holders of squid permits. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did not email the announcement until after 8 a.m. July 10 — more than eight hours after the fishery closed.
The inadequate and belated communication of the closing meant wasted time and resources and in some cases lost fishing opportunities for some boats, such as Mark Phillips’ 73-foot Illusion. Phillips said in a telephone interview that he ended a trip after four days of successful fishing about 15 hours from Point Judith, R.I. and 14 hours from Cape May, N.J. and, unaware of the closing, was steaming in to reload with ice and gas for another trip.
Had he known of the closure, Phillips said, he would have remained at sea for a fifth day and maximized his catch. He lives in Greenport, N.Y., but fishes mostly out of New Bedford.
Phillips is a member of Northeast Sector XIII, one of the 13 fishing cooperatives organized by Gloucester’s Northeast Seafood Coalition to participate in the the commodification of the groundfishing industry by NOAA, a system that went into effect in May 2010. Many fishermen, like Phillips, hold permits to fish for other species in addition to groundfish.
“We were all expecting the closure, we just didn’t know when,” Phillips said. “We made business decisions; I would have made a full five-day trip instead of a four-day trip.” He estimated the lost day’s fishing cost him about $10,000 in catch based on the current price of about $1 to $1.10 per pound at the dock for the longfin squid. “It’s the best season we’ve had in a long time,” he added.
“In this day and age of universal, instantaneous communications, it is flat out unacceptable that (NMFS) failed to alert our fishing community about this closure and cause many of them to lose tends of thousands of dollars on a wasted journey,” U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirstin Gillibrand and Congressman Tim Bishop, all of New York, said in a statement Tuesday.
Also Tuesday, Daniel S. Morris, NMFS’ acting regional administrator in Gloucester, issued a statement of his own.
Read the full story in the Gloucester Times
Read Captain Phillips' letter to Daniel S. Morris, NMFS’ acting regional administrator