Management & Regulation

This is the first installment of a six-part video series on the fisheries, courtesy of the Environmental Defense Fund.

[click here and view now]

 

 

 

 

 

Northeast commercial fishermen and industry observers have expressed concern that recent limit increases in skate, and possible increases in pollock may not be enough to help the fleet, and underscore failed scientific understanding on the part of regulators. Emotions range from angst to gratitude.

To try to understand these concerns, Saving Seafood spoke with fishermen from Maine to Rhode Island, NOAA industry leaders from New Bedford, and the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association. 

by JONATHAN HEMMERDINGER
Special to Saving Seafood

WASHINGTON – July 14, 2010 – Northeast commercial fishermen and industry observers had mixed reactions to recent skate trip limit changes and indications that regulators may soon increase catch limits for pollock, a critical New England groundfish.

            In mid-June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced revised annual catch limits for skate and cut the skate wing possession limit to 5,000 pounds per trip. The new regulations, which result from new stock information and take effect July 16, altered an earlier proposal to cut the daily trip limit to just 1,900 pounds.

            And when 80 percent of the total quota is caught, the daily limit will drop to just 500 pounds if NOAA predicts the quota will be exceeded, said NOAA spokesperson Maggie Mooney-Seus.

            But until July 16, boats continue fishing under the old limits, which allow day-boat fishermen—those leaving and departing port on the same day—to keep up to 10,000 pounds of skate wings per trip. Vessels fishing on trips lasting more than 24 hours are allowed 20,000 pounds of skate wings under the old rules.

            The fishing community's reaction to the 5,000-pound cap has been mixed.

            Many boats in the New England fleet, particularly larger boats targeting groundfish on multi-day trips, land skate as bycatch. The boats keep and sell skate, but at prices far below target species.

            But skate are unavoidable, some fishermen say, and the new daily trip limit restricts how much skate can be kept, not how much can be caught.

            Some of these fishermen say a skate limit of 5,000 pounds—let alone 1,900 pounds, as originally proposed—will only result in more skate being dumped, often dead, overboard.

            "We are going to kill them and throw them over the side," said Carlos Rafael, who owns one of the largest groundfish fleets in New England.

            NOAA's quota is "not reducing the catch.  All they are doing is make us kill them and not profit from them," he added, predicting millions of dollars in lost skate revenue.

            Mooney-Seus told SavingSeafood the agency’s Scientific and Statistical Committee estimates a 50 percent survival rate for discarded skate.

            The new regulations also concern the day-boat skate fishery, which includes smaller boats out of ports such as Chatham and New Bedford, Mass., and Point Judith, R.I.

            Tom Dempsey, a policy analyst at Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association, said this year’s regulations—a mix between old and new rules—may spell an early end to the skate season.

            The problem is timing, Dempsey said.

            For the first few months of the season, fishermen have fished under the old, higher-trip limits. As a result, the skate quota is filling up fast, Dempsey said.

            As of June 24, less than eight weeks into the season, the fleet had landed 39 percent of the 2010 season quota. At that rate, Dempsey estimates 60 percent of the quota will be filled by July 16, when the trip limit drops to 5,000 pounds.

            Not long after than, Dempsey estimates, the quota may hit 80 percent—at which point daily skate limits could drop to 500 pounds if officials predict the quota will exceed 100 percent by the end of the fishing year.

            If that happens, skate fishing will be economically unviable for smaller day-boat operators.

            Skate fishermen, Dempsey said, are “staring down the face of this problem.”

            Mooney-Seus of NOAA said a drop to 500 pounds is possible, but the agency expects "the fishery will be able to land 100 percent of its quota under the 5,000-pound" limit.

            Tobey Curtis, NOAA fishery policy analysis, said if the fishery reaches 80 percent of quota "with only a few days left in the year, and [is] not expected to land 100 percent of the quota, NOAA could choose not to change the trip limit."

 

Skate limits concern monkfishermen

            Dempsey fears the new skate quota will impact another critical fishery—monkfish.

            Although skate is bycatch to monk fishermen, ancillary skate revenue makes monkfish trips profitable to small boats, Dempsey said.  And because “70 percent of monkfish work is [spent] handling and cutting skate," a 500-pound limit means the  "same work" with significantly less revenue. The trips, he said, will no longer be worthwhile.

            The bottom line, Dempsey said: if skate limits drop to 500 pounds, fishermen “directly reliant” on skate are, in effect, “eliminated” from the fishery.

           

Insiders fear skate quota will go unfilled

            Richard Canastra, co-owner of the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction in New Bedford and the Boston Seafood Display Auction, says the new skate rules, combined with the sector management system implemented May 1, may mean the 2010 skate quota is never reached.

            In addition to the trip limit cut—which is 75 percent for boats on multi-day trips—the new sector system has led to a fleet consolidation. Under the sector plan, many boat owners have chosen to sell quota to others rather than fish.  As a result, Canastra said only some 35 percent of the roughly 200 groundfish boats in the New England fleet are fishing.

            But unlike groundfish quota, fishermen cannot trade skate catch limits. Fewer boats fishing mean fewer skate landed.

            “We will never reach total allowable catch for skate because less effort,” said Canastra.

            Mooney-Seus of NOAA disagreed. “2010 skate landings are already approaching their quotas.  We do not expect the skate fisheries will have trouble attaining their quotas,” she said.

            Canastra is not so sure.  Answers will come in time, he said. “We have to take a look at the second quarter landing when the trip limit of 5,000 lbs come into effect.”

 

NOAA predicts revised pollock catch limits

            In addition new skate regulations, NOAA may soon announce a significant boost to the annual catch limit of pollock, a key Northeast groundfish.

            Pollock have been called a "choke stock" by fishermen because low pollock quotas threaten to trigger automatic sector closures.  (In the Northeast sector system, all sector fishing ceases once the sector's quota is reached on any groundfish species.)

            The current 2010 annual catch limit for pollock is 3,148 metric tons, 2,748 metric tons of which is allotted to the groundfish fleet.

            But in a June 16 groundfish committee meeting NOAA staffers said they “hope to be able to increase the Pollock annual catch limit to 16 thousand [metric tons.],” according to a NOAA statement.

            NOAA cautioned, however, that a change to the catch limit is not finalized. "This information is preliminary until the final stock assessment report is complete," said the agency.

            NOAA's Mooney-Seus told SavingSeafood, the “pollock stock assessment workshop was held and the preliminary results indicate that the stock is rebuilt.”

            She added that the new information comes from a "much more sophisticated model" incorporating improved age and growth information, two additional years of trawl information and catch and discard data from the recreational and commercial fisheries.

            Mooney-Seus said NOAA is "working on an emergency action to increase the pollock catch limits for the year."

            She added that the agency is "not sure what the final numbers are yet," but that the agency hopes to announce an increase in mid-July.

            In a statement, NOAA's Northeast administrator Patricia Kurkul said the agency hopes "these actions demonstrate that we are dedicated to rebuilding the resource and enabling fishermen to continue fishing."

            She added, "We made a commitment to the fishing industry to be as flexible as possible when new science is made available that affects management decisions."           

 

Fishing industry reacts with praise, criticism

            Though a pollock catch increase will help the industry, some insiders were quick to fault the agency for inconsistent data.

            Canastra said the scale of the increase makes him question NOAA scientific credibility.

            "The cat is out of the bag that they [were] 500 percent [off]," said Canastra. "If it's 500 percent off, how good was science?"

            Rafael said that although the pollock increase "helps a lot," the new data shows NOAA's numbers are "screwed up." He fears similar errors in assessments of other species.

            But some read NOAA's revision different.

            David Goethel, a New Hampshire groundfisherman, is pleased the new "science tends to show what we see on the water."

            But he urged caution. "Theses are new models [and there is] a certain degree of uncertainty with new models. We don't want to turn everyone loose and find in a couple years we are in a real mess."

            Dempsey of CCCHFA called the revision "the best news anyone has heard out here in a long while." "Most sector fishermen say, 'This is going to allow me to stay on the water this year,'" Dempsey said.

            And he said to give credit where credit is due.

            "The way you get what you are looking for is to thank people," he said. "This is a legitimate win. NMFS clearly got the message and it got done."

 

 

 

A trio of representatives from the New England Fishery Management Council presided over a hearing at the Seaport Inn that drew a crowd of about 150, but after a routine introduction, the tone turned hostile.

After state Rep. William Straus, D-Mattapoisett, politely broached the possibility of a "doing nothing" option rather than pursing a system that would "pick winners and losers" without doing anything for the fishery, New Bedford Mayor Scott W. Lang took off the gloves.

"I think we need to throw out the baby with the bathwater, and along with that the washcloth, the soap and the rubber ducky," he said to the three representatives of the council.

He decried the proposed Amendment 15 regulations as "social engineering," backed by no studies, that will deliberately kill off a way of life in fishing communities all along the seaboard.

And he told the representatives that the system "is broken on your end, not ours."

Following a lengthy Powerpoint presentation about the outlines of the 360-page amendment, Lang and others zeroed in on two elements: the government's estimate of the job losses and the fleet shrinkage, and the consolidation of the fleet toward newer, bigger, more efficient boats.

Those elements are at the heart of NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco's stated desire to shrink the fishing fleet nationwide through a system called "sector management" and "catch shares."

Read the story in the Standard-TImes

Last year, Matthews lost his scallop permit when the National Marine Fisheries Service scaled back permits to reduce the harvest.

"They did it based on history. They look at who’s been scalloping the longest. Back in 1994, I didn’t land anything (scallops), so I lost my permit," he said, pawing the fish schmutz out of his gray beard. "I can survive on fluke, but that’s about all. I can’t make any money. So I won’t be able to pull my boat this year."

A trawler should come out of the water every two years to have its hull scraped, repaired, and repainted. Matthews’ boat is due, but it will have to wait.

"If I still had scallops, I’d be all right," he said. "The scallop guys do all right."

Read the complete story from New Jersey On-Line.