Saving Seafood

Herring shut down as fleet nears catch limit

September 14, 2018 — Interstate regulators with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission decided to shut down the Gulf of Maine herring fishery from Sept.13 until the end of the month, saying 97 percent of the quota from the productive fishing grounds has been landed.

The area includes coastal Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

Herring fishermen started the year with a catch limit of more than 240 million pounds, but that figure was scaled back to just under 110 million pounds in mid-August by NMFS “to lessen the risk of overfishing.” The agency warned that while the season officially ends on Dec. 13, certain grounds could be closed early as the catch limit neared.

Last year the commission closed the same region to fishing for the month of October based on an analysis of samples of female herring in the area. The closure was related to spawning.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

New York’s Whales Love Bunker. So Do Fishing Boats. Conflict Ensues.

September 13, 2018 –It has been a bountiful summer for bunker in the waters off New York, and for local whale spotters. Bunker, a favorite food of many larger predators, including whales, are enjoying another year in a decade-long recovery.

But [Paul] Sieswerda, the founder of Gotham Whale, a research nonprofit that provides commentary during whale cruises, sees a shadow on the horizon far bigger than a whale. Industrial-scale fishing boats from a fish processor in Virginia called Omega Protein have ventured a bit farther north than their usual range this summer.

On Aug. 30, a boat from Omega Protein lowered a net nearly six city blocks long into the water, about 25 miles southeast of the Rockaways, and pulled up about 800,000 pounds of bunker, also known as menhaden. On Sept. 6, Omega returned to the vicinity and hauled out nearly 2 million pounds more.

The catches, in federal waters outside the three-mile state line, are perfectly legal. Omega, which grinds and refines the oily, bony fish into pet food and fish-oil capsules and employs 125 fishermen, is authorized to harvest about 500 million menhaden (or about 340 million pounds) this year — over 70 percent of the total menhaden catch, according to quotas set by regulators.

That does not mean they are welcome.

Tom Paladino, a former charter fishing boat captain who started running whale watches from the American Princess in 2010 as local whale sightings began to grow, did not mince words. “We have a major issue with a fishing fleet coming in and taking all the food from the whales,” he told his passengers.

Omega says it is doing nothing of the sort and is removing only a tiny fraction of the local menhaden that its spotter pilots have estimated to be in the tens of millions. “The best science shows that this is a completely sustainable fishery and the whale diet is not being impacted at all,” said an Omega spokesman, Ben Landry.

Omega’s fishermen are not the only ones after local menhaden. Bait fishermen who sell menhaden to the shellfishing trade and also sometimes use purse seine nets can catch three million pounds this year in New York State waters, where Omega doesn’t fish. A bill stalled in the State Legislature would prohibit purse seining of menhaden in New York.

The regional management body for the waters in question, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which has been gradually increasing the allowable catch for menhaden for five years, does not see an issue. This year’s 476-million-pound cap on the Atlantic menhaden catch “has zero percent chance of subjecting the resource to overfishing or causing it to be overfished,” said Toni Kerns, director of the commission’s Interstate Fisheries Management Program.

At the local level, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is not concerned, either. “There’s not been any alarm bells about them coming up here,” James Gilmore, the director of D.E.C.’s marine resources division, said of the Omega Protein boats.

Read the full story at the New York Times

 

New England herring fishing to be limited in September

September 12, 2018 — Interstate fishing regulators say the quota is almost tapped out in one of the most productive herring fishing areas of the Northeast, and they’re shutting the fishery down for the rest of the month.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission says 97 percent of the quota has been harvested from the inshore Gulf of Maine. The area includes coastal Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

The commission says the fishery will be shut down from Thursday morning until Sept. 30. Boats that harvest other species will also be allowed to possess no more than 2,000 pounds of herring per trip per day.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the San Francisco Chronicle

Notice of Rescheduled Hearings for Summer Flounder Commercial Issues Amendment

September 11, 2018 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

This week the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will begin a series of public hearings for the Summer Flounder Commercial Issues Amendment. Due to predicted inclement weather associated with Hurricane Florence, several of these hearings have been rescheduled. Hearing date and location changes are highlighted below in bold.

  • The Washington, NC hearing originally scheduled for September 12 has been rescheduled for Monday, September 24, 6:00 PM, North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, Washington Regional Office, 943 Washington Square Mall, US Highway 17, Washington, North Carolina 27889.
  • The Dover, DE hearing originally scheduled for September 13 has been rescheduled for Wednesday, September 26, 6:00 PM, and the hearing location has been moved to Dover Public Library, Meeting Room B, 35 Loockerman Plaza, Dover, Delaware 19901.
  • The Newport News, VA hearing originally scheduled for September 13 has been rescheduled for Wednesday, September 26, 7:00 PM, Virginia Marine Resources Commission, 2600 Washington Avenue, 4th Floor, Newport News, Virginia 23607.

An updated version of the public hearing document is available here. A complete hearing schedule and additional details about this action are available here.

ASMFC Meeting Changes and Postponements in Response to Hurricane Florence

September 11, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Scheduling changes have been made to following meetings and public hearings originally planned for this week in response to Hurricane Florence. We hope that all those in the path of Hurricane Florence stay safe.
 
NO CHANGE: Atlantic Striped Bass Tagging Subcommittee, which is scheduled to meet tomorrow, September 11, is still on and will be held at the Commission’s offices.
 
IN-PERSON MEETING CHANGED TO WEBINAR: Atlantic Striped Bass Stock Assessment Workshop, which is scheduled for September 12 – 14 at the Commission’s offices, will now occur via webinar. Members can register for that webinar at https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/130242117; to join the conference call dial 1-888-585-9008 and enter passcode 110-057-813 when prompted.
 
HEARING RESCHEDULED: NC Public Hearing on the Summer Flounder Commercial Issues Amendment, which was scheduled for September 12th at 6 PM, has been rescheduled for September 24th at 6 PM at the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries Washington Regional Office, 943 Washington Square Mall, US Highway 17, Washington, NC
 
HEARING RESCHEDULED: GA and SC Public Hearing on Atlantic Cobia PID, which was scheduled for September 12th at 6 PM, has been tentatively rescheduled for September 24th or 25th.  We will issue another press release once the details are finalized.
 
HEARING RESCHEDULED: VA Public Hearing on the Summer Flounder Commercial Issues Amendment, which was scheduled for September 13th at 6 PM, has been rescheduled for September 26th at 7 PM at the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, 2600 Washington Avenue, 4th Floor, Newport News, VA
 
HEARING DATE AND LOCATION CHANGED: DE Public Hearing on the Summer Flounder Commercial Issues Amendment, which was scheduled for September 13th at 6 PM, has been rescheduled for September 26that 6 PM at the Dover Public Library, Meeting Room B, 35 Loockerman Plaza, Dover, DE

Atlantic Herring Area 1A Fishery Moving to Zero Landing Days on September 13, 2018

September 11, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

As of September 10, the Area 1A Atlantic herring fishery has harvested 97% of the Trimester 2 allocation. Beginning 12:00 a.m. Thursday, September 13, 2018 the Area 1A fishery will move to zero landing days through September 30, 2018, as specified in the ASMFC Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan.

Vessels participating in other fisheries may possess no more than 2,000 pounds of Atlantic herring per trip per day. In addition, all vessels traveling through Area 1A must have all seine and mid-water trawl gear stowed.

For more information, please contact Megan Ware, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at 703.842.0740 or mware@asmfc.org.

Virginia gets a year to comply with menhaden limits or face moratorium

September 10, 2018 — East Coast fishery managers have decided to give Virginia until next year to adopt regulations that limit catches of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay rather than seek an immediate moratorium on harvests.

Conservation groups and the fishing industry have been engaged in a long-running battle over how many menhaden can be caught without ecological consequences.

Humans don’t eat menhaden, but the small, oily fish are a critical food for a host of marine life from whales to striped bass. While the overall stock is considered healthy, conservationists have argued that such evaluations do not account for its role as forage for fish, birds and marine mammals.

Last fall, forage fish advocates persuaded the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to slash the maximum allowable harvest in the Bay — where much of the East Coast harvest takes place — from 87,216 metric tons to 51,000 metric tons a year, even as it increased the total allowable coastwide catch.

But the action angered Omega Protein, which operates a facility in Reedville, VA, that “reduces” large amounts of menhaden caught by its fishing fleet into other products, such as fish oil supplements and animal feed. Omega is by far the largest harvester of menhaden in the Chesapeake and the entire East Coast. The company has not exceeded the new limit for Bay waters in years because it has drawn more of its catch from the Atlantic, but officials said the lower number restricts their future options and has no scientific basis.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

 

Regulators weigh health of shrimp fishery

September 7, 2018 — Fishery managers will move closer to deciding the fate of the Gulf of Maine’s northern shrimp fishery when they meet in October to review the latest assessment of the imperiled stock.

The review is one of the final steps leading to a decision whether to reopen the fishery to commercial fishing for the 2019 season for the first time in six seasons.

It does not look good.

The popular winter fishery has been shuttered since the beginning of the 2014 season to all but research-related shrimping because of historically low abundance and biomass numbers that reflect a stock in free fall.

The 2017 benchmark assessment — which led regulators to close the fishery for the 2018 season — showed no signs of improvement from previous years and regulators seem to expect the same outcome from the 2018 stock assessment.

“The trends are similar,” Megan Ware, a fishery management plan coordinator with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates the fishery, said Thursday. “We’re still seeing the low trends that we’ve seen in the past five years.”

The 2017 stock status report made for sobering reading.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

ASMFC 77th Annual Meeting Preliminary Agenda and Public Comment Guidelines

September 7, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s 77th Annual Meeting will be held October 21-25, 2018 at The Roosevelt Hotel, Madison Avenue @ 45th Street, New York, NY. All of the business meetings scheduled during this week (with the exception of closed sessions) are open to the public, free of charge. However, if you plan on attending any of the Annual Meeting social events, please help us prepare for these events by registering early (see below for more details). Please note the preliminary agenda is subject to change. Bulleted items represent the anticipated major issues to be discussed or acted upon at the meeting. The final agenda will include additional items and may revise the bulleted items provided in the Preliminary Agenda which follows.

Senator Phil Boyle, Jim Gilmore and Emerson Hasbrouck have been working for quite a while now on the meeting details and are looking forward to welcoming you all to New York. The Roosevelt is an historic old hotel located in midtown Manhattan, and the site of the Commission’s first (and 10 of the next 16) annual meetings!  You can easily walk to the theatre district, Times Square and the famed New York diamond district.  The subway is right across the street from the hotel in Grand Central Station and you can get anywhere in the city on the subway.

ACCOMODATIONS: A block of rooms is being held at The Roosevelt Hotel.  Cindy Robertson (crobertson@asmfc.org) will make Commissioner/Proxy reservations and will contact you regarding the details of your accommodations. Please notify Cindy of any changes to your travel plans that will impact your hotel reservations (including late arrivals), otherwise you will incur no-show penalties. We greatly appreciate your cooperation in this matter.

For all other attendees, please make your reservations by calling 888.833.3969 as soon as possible and identify Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to obtain the negotiated room rate of $288.00 sgl/dbl plus tax. Hotel reservations must be made before September 24, 2018.   Room availability will not be guaranteed beyond this date.  Please be aware that you must guarantee your room reservation with a major credit card or one night’s advance payment and you must notify the hotel of any cancellation prior to 72 hours before arrival or you will be billed one night’s room plus tax. If you have any problems regarding accommodations, please contact Cindy at 703.842.0740 or crobertson@asmfc.org. 

GETTING TO NEW YORK: New York is serviced by three airports: La Guardia, J.F. Kennedy and Newark Airports. Probably the best option would be the Super Shuttle, with rates between $20-$30 each way for a shared ride (800.258.3826 or www.supershuttle.com). Amtrak offers an extensive schedule of trains to Penn Station daily. I would strongly advise against driving into the city as parking is very expensive (parking is approximately $75/day at offsite garage) and you won’t need your car once in the city! If you choose to drive, you can take the passenger ferry from Port Imperial/Weehawken to midtown (www.nywaterway.com). Port Imperial Terminal is located directly across from the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail and operates 7 days a week and all day between Port Imperial in Weehawken, NJ and Midtown/W. 39 St.  Free connecting shuttle bus service is available to and from the Midtown terminal. The indoor parking garages at Port Imperial offer secure parking and are located directly across from the ferry terminal.  Rates vary based on duration.

REGISTRATION:  The meeting registration fee is $200/per participant and $150/per spouse or guest if you register by October 15, 2018. After October 15th and in New York the fees will be $225 and $175, respectively. The registration fee covers the Sunday and Monday night receptions, the Tuesday night dinner, and the Wednesday Hart Award Luncheon, as well as event materials. Payment is not required until you arrive at the meeting; however, we ask that you please assist us in planning for the meeting by registering as soon as possible. You may register by submitting the attached registration form by email to lhartman@asmfc.org, fax (703.842.0741) or US mail to 1050 N. Highland Street, Suite 200A-N, Arlington, VA 22201. Once you have registered, payment can be made in several ways (1) check, cash or credit card at the ASMFC Registration Desk at the Annual Meeting; (2) credit card by calling Lisa Hartman at 703.842.0744; or (3) mail a check to ASMFC (address above).

The preliminary agenda is available on the Commission website at http://www.asmfc.org/home/2018-annual-meeting; the final agenda and meeting materials will be available on October 10th.

Meeting Set to Consider Future of Maine Shrimp Fishery

September 6, 2018 — A regulatory panel will meet next month to consider what the future holds for New England’s shuttered shrimp fishery.

The fishery has been shut down since 2013 because of low population, poor survival of young and concerns about warming oceans. An arm of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will meet in Portland on Oct. 4 to review the most recent assessment of the shrimp stock.

The board will consider sending potential changes to the fishery out for public comment. Possibilities include crafting new rules for the fishery if it reopens. However, officials with the Atlantic States commission say that’s unlikely at this point because little about the shrimp’s status seems to have changed.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News