Saving Seafood

Outlook For Southern New England Lobsters Is Dire

August 2, 2017 — Lobster populations in Southern New England are in dramatic decline and recovery is not likely to happen anytime soon.

That’s according to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission — an interstate compact, which manages fisheries in the region.

A 2015 assessment by that group showed record lows.

On Tuesday, the commission considered a number of management options to boost lobster egg production, but agreed nearly uniformly that rebuilding populations of Southern New England Lobster was unlikely.

“We’re seeing warmer waters and lobsters are very sensitive to temperature,” said Megan Ware, the group’s fishery management plan coordinator. “So it could be that we’re hitting that thermal threshold for them, and they’re moving to colder waters.”

Read the full story at WNPR

ASMFC South Atlantic Board Receives Atlantic Croaker and Spot Benchmark Stock Assessment & Peer Review Reports

August 2, 2017 — ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s South Atlantic State/Federal Fisheries Management Board met in May and August to receive the findings of the 2017 Atlantic Croaker and Spot Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Reports. While neither assessment was endorsed by an independent panel of fisheries scientists (Peer Review Panel) for management use, the Panel agreed with the general results of the assessment that immediate management actions are not necessary. The Panel recommended continued use of the annual traffic light analyses (TLA), established in 2014 to monitor fishery and resource trends, and implement management measures as needed, for Atlantic croaker and spot.

The Panel did acknowledge several improvements since the 2010 Atlantic croaker assessment, notably with regard to the estimation and inclusion of dead discards from the Southeastern US shrimp trawl fishery. Estimates of these discards indicate they account for a large majority of fish removed from the population annually (via directed and non-directed fishing activities) for both Atlantic croaker and spot. The Panel recommended continued monitoring of these discards and potential inclusion or consideration of these discards in the annual TLAs conducted for Atlantic croaker and spot.

A key issue causing uncertainty in the results of both assessments was the disagreement between recent trends in harvest and abundance. Trends in stock abundance for Atlantic croaker and spot are estimated through several federal and state fishery-independent surveys. Typically, if these surveys catch a relatively large number of Atlantic croaker or spot, that would indicate a greater number of Atlantic croaker or spot available to be harvested by their directed fisheries. Thus, scientists and managers would expect a greater abundance of Atlantic croaker or spot would also be reflected through an increase in harvest for that year. Similarly, a decrease in abundance would be expected to be coupled with a decrease in harvest. However, for both Atlantic croaker and spot, recent harvest numbers are declining while estimated abundance is increasing.

A similar trend is evident in the 2016 TLAs for Atlantic croaker and spot. The TLA assigns a color (red, yellow, or green) to categorize relative levels of indicators on the condition of the fish population (abundance metric) or fishery (harvest metric). For example, as harvest increases relative to its long-term mean, the proportion of green in a given year will increase and as harvest decreases, the amount of red in that year will increase. Under the Addendum II to Amendment 1 for Atlantic Croaker and Addendum I to the Omnibus Amendment for Spot, state-specific management action would be initiated when the proportion of red exceeds the specified thresholds (for both harvest and abundance) over three consecutive years for Atlantic croaker and two consecutive years for spot.

The 2016 TLA for Atlantic croaker shows red proportions of greater than the 30% threshold for the harvest metric (Figure 1) and 0% for the abundance metric (Figure 2), indicative of relatively low harvest and high abundance in 2016. Since thresholds were not exceeded for both metrics over the last three years, no management response is necessary for Atlantic croaker.

The 2016 TLA for spot also shows red proportions of greater than the 30% threshold for the harvest metric (Figure 3) and 0% for the abundance metric (Figure 4), indicative of relatively low harvest and high abundance in 2016. Since thresholds were not exceeded for both metrics over the last two years, no management response is necessary for spot.

The Peer Review Reports will be available on the Commission’s website, www.asmfc.org, on the respective species pages by mid-August. For more information, please contact Mike Schmidtke, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at mschmidtke@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

No new rules for declining southern New England lobstering

August 2, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine — An interstate panel that manages fisheries voted on Tuesday against a plan to try to preserve the declining southern New England lobster population with new fishing restrictions.

The New England lobster fishery is based largely in Maine, where the catch has soared to new heights in recent years. But the population has collapsed off Connecticut, Rhode Island, southern Massachusetts and New York’s Long Island as waters have warmed in those areas.

An arm of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission considered a host of new restrictions about lobster fishing in southern New England on Tuesday and chose to shoot the plan down.

Restrictions could have included changes to legal harvesting size, reductions in the number of traps fishermen can use and closures to areas where lobsters are harvested. But members of the commission’s lobster board said they feared the proposed restrictions wouldn’t do enough to stem the loss of lobsters.

Board members agreed to try to figure out a new strategy to try to help the crustaceans, which have risen in value in recent years as Asian markets have opened up.

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

Trump Administration Decision Signals Possible Shift In Fishing Regulations

August 1, 2017 — When it comes to regulatory issues, the fishing industry often finds itself facing off against environmentalists. And some recent moves by the Trump administration seem to be leaning more in the direction of siding with fishermen.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), the regulatory body that sets the rules for the fishing industry, is meeting this week, and one of the topics of conversation is a recent decision regarding fishing in New Jersey.

The ASMFC said the population of summer flounder – also known as fluke –has been declining since 2010 and is at serious risk. So the commission reduced limits on how much could be caught. New Jersey came up with alternative plan which the state asserted would protect the fish, while still allowing more fishing. But the fisheries commission rejected the New Jersey plan, saying too many fish would be caught, and that it would be bad for the population.

Ordinarily, the federal government listens to the commission’s recommendations. But last week, the U.S. Department of Commerce rejected its recommendation, allowing New Jersey to go ahead with its plan. The ASMFC says this is the first time since passage of the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act in 1993 and the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act in 1984 that the secretary of commerce rejected a noncompliance recommendation by the commission.

“I do think it’s healthy for the administration to not simply rubber stamp everything that is done by these commissions, but rather have an actual role in it,” said Bob Vanasse, executive director of an industry group called Saving Seafood. “And I do think that elections matter,” he said.

Vanasse said this is an example of Trump administration listening to the fishing industry.

“I think there’s definitely been a shift in how the commercial fishing industry, how their issues are being addressed by this administration,” he said. “And I think, frankly, it’s a mistake to think it’s some kind of right-wing, Trump administration, erroneous action. I think it’s actually, overall, positive.”

Vanasse said another example of that positive impact is the federal review that’s happening now of national monuments, including Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which is about 130 miles off the coast of Cape Cod. The Obama administration designated it an offshore monument near the end of his presidency, closing it off to a lot of fishermen.

Vanasse said the Trump administration’s review of that monument designation is an example of something that’s being handled responsibly by people who have careers in this area — not just political appointees.

Read and listen to the full story at WGBH

NEW JERSEY: Fluke-catching quota costing fishermen thousands

August 1, 2017 — BELFORD, N.J. — Dozens of commercial fishermen say they are losing out on pay after they reached their state-imposed limit on how many fluke they are allowed to catch.

Captain Roy Diehl says he and dozens of other commercial fluke fishermen are docked because they caught their allowed quota for the July-August season just two weeks after it opened. He says he blames the 30 percent quota reduction set by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission for this year.

“What it does is it takes seven weeks of income out of everybody’s paycheck for the year,” says Diehl. “It’s pretty tough because there’s a lot of fluke out there and we can’t have them.”

The coolers at the Belford Seafood Co-op are empty until fisherman are able to resume catching fluke Sept. 3.

Read and watch the full story at News 12 New Jersey

Fishing managers to meet over Trump official’s flounder rule

July 31, 2017 — Interstate fishing regulators are meeting to discuss a Trump administration decision they say has the ability to jeopardize conservation of marine resources on the East Coast.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is meeting Tuesday in Alexandria, Virginia. The commission has disagreed recently with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross over a decision he made about summer flounder fishing.

The commission announced in June it had found New Jersey out of compliance with management of the fishery.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald

New rules to help southern New England lobsters up for vote

July 31, 2017 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A plan to try to slow the decline of southern New England’s lobster population with new fishing restrictions is up for a potential final vote this week.

The population of lobsters off Connecticut, Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts has plummeted in recent years. The regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is considering a host of new restrictions about lobster fishing at a meeting on Tuesday.

Proposed management tools have included changes to legal harvesting size, reductions to the number of traps and seasonal closures to fishing areas.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Boston.com

Forage Fish Should Be Managed on a Case-by-Case Basis: Menhaden Science Committee

Findings by ASMFC BERP Workgroup align with recent forage fish research by Hilborn et al.

WASHINGTON – July 31, 2017 – The following was released by the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition. Saving Seafood previously covered Hilborn et al., which found that previous forage fish research may have overestimated the impact of forage fishing on their predators. Saving Seafood also produced a video about the study, which can be found here:

Earlier this year, a team of scientists led by Dr. Ray Hilborn found, among other conclusions, that forage fish are best managed on a case-by-case basis that accounts for their unique environmental roles. In a memo earlier this month, an inter-state scientific review committee tasked with incorporating the ecological role of menhaden into management determined that this conclusion aligns with their own findings.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Biological and Ecological Reference Points (BERP) Workgroup, which is leading development of ecosystem-based fisheries management for Atlantic menhaden, reviewed the Hilborn et al. paper earlier this summer. It concluded that the paper’s recommendation of using stock-specific models to evaluate ecosystem needs were similar to models being developed by the workgroup.

“The [workgroup] is currently developing a suite of intermediate complexity menhaden-specific models that align with the general recommendations from both Dr. Hilborn and the 2015 Stock Assessment Peer Review Panel,” said the July 14 memo, Review of Hilborn et al. 2017.[1] “The [workgroup] anticipates that these models will be ready for peer review in 2019.”

The Hilborn et al. study, published in April in Fisheries Research, found that there were several variables in forage fish species that make imprecise, one-size-fits-all management approaches difficult. Most importantly, there seems to be little correlation between the number of predator species in the water and the number of forage fish, making it nearly impossible to determine a catch level that is appropriate for forage fish as a whole. Other variables include the natural variability of forage fish, which is different from species to species, and relative locations of predators and forage species.

“We suggest that any evaluation of harvest policies for forage fish needs to include these issues, and that models tailored for individual species and ecosystems are needed to guide fisheries management policy,” the paper finds.

The ASMFC will consider the work of the BERP, including its review of Dr. Hilborn’s paper, at its upcoming 2017 summer meeting, to be held from August 1-3 in Alexandria, Virginia.

[1] ASMFC Biological Ecological Reference Points Workgroup, “Memorandum: Review of Hilborn et al. 2017,” July 14, 2017

Change in Area 1A Trimester 2 Effort Controls and Meeting Notice

July 27, 2017 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Herring Section members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts revised the effort control measures for the 2017 Area 1A Trimester 2 (June 1 – September 30) fishery. The revised measures are underlined and become effective Sunday, July 30, 2017.

Days Out of the Fishery

  • Vessels with a herring Category A permit that have declared into the Trimester 2 Area 1A fishery may land herring five (5) consecutive days a week. One landing per 24 hour period. Vessels are prohibited from landing or possessing herring caught from Area 1A during a day out of the fishery.
    • Landing days in New Hampshire and Massachusetts begin on Monday of each week at 12:01 a.m.
    • Landings days in Maine begin on Sunday of each week at 6:00 p.m.
  • Small mesh bottom trawl vessels with a herring Category C or D permit that have declared into the Trimester 2 fishery may land herring seven (7) consecutive days a week.
 Weekly Landing Limit
  • Vessels with a herring Category A permit may harvest up to 680,000 lbs (17 trucks) per harvester vessel, per week.
  • 120,000 lbs out of the 680,000 lb weekly limit can be transferred to a carrier vessel (see below).
 At-Sea Transfer and Carrier Restrictions
The following applies to harvester vessels with a herring Category A permit and carrier vessels landing herring caught in Area 1A to a Maine, New Hampshire or Massachusetts port.
  • A harvester vessel can transfer herring at-sea to another catcher vessel.
  • A harvester vessel is limited to making at-sea transfers to only one carrier vessel per week.
  • Carrier vessels are limited to receiving at-sea transfers from one catcher vessel per week and can land once per 24 hour period. A carrier vessel may land up to 120,000 lbs (3 trucks) per week.  The carrier limit of 3 trucks is not in addition to the harvester weekly landing limit.
  • Carrier vessel: a vessel with no gear on board capable of catching or processing fish. Harvester vessel: a vessel that is required to report the catch it has aboard as the harvesting vessel on the Federal Vessel Trip Report.

The initial Area 1A sub-annual catch limit (ACL) is 31,115 metric tons (mt) after adjusting for a carryover from 2015 and the research set-aside. The Section allocated 72.8% of the sub-ACL to Trimester 2 and 27.2% to Trimester 3. After incorporating the 295 mt fixed gear set-aside and the 8% buffer (Area 1A closes at 92% of the sub-ACL) the seasonal quotas are 20,625 mt for Trimester 2 and 7,706 mt for Trimester 3.

These effort controls are projected to extend the Trimester 2 fishery through mid-September. Landings will be monitored closely and the fishery will be adjusted to zero landing days when the trimester’s quota is projected to be reached.

The Atlantic Herring Section members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts are scheduled to reconvene via conference call to review fishing effort on:

  • Wednesday, August 9 at 10:00 AM

Please noted the new passcode for the next call: To join the calls, please dial 888.394.8197 and enter passcode 499811 as prompted.

Fishermen are prohibited from landing more than 2,000 pounds of Atlantic herring per trip from Area 1A on no landing days. Please contact Toni Kerns at tkerns@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740 for more information.

Trump administration steps in on fishing limits, and the implications could ripple

July 25, 2017 — [Commerce Secretary Wilbur] Ross earlier this month dismissed the findings of the 75-year-old Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which concluded that New Jersey was violating a conservation plan for summer flounder that all the other states in the compact approved. Many conservationists thought that New Jersey, while following protocols, was bowing to the fishing industry.

The decision, which effectively allows New Jersey to harvest more summer flounder, marked the first time the federal government had disregarded such a recommendation by the commission, and it drew a swift rebuke from state officials along the East Coast.

Officials in New Jersey, which has one of the region’s largest fluke populations, had drafted an alternative plan that they said would do more to protect the fishery, but it was rejected by the commission, whose scientists concluded the plan would result in nearly 94,000 additional fish being caught. Ross, who oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, overruled the commission, allowing New Jersey to proceed.

“New Jersey makes a compelling argument that the measures it implemented this year, despite increasing catch above the harvest target, will likely reduce total summer flounder mortality in New Jersey waters to a level consistent with the overall conservation objective,” Chris Oliver, assistant administrator of fisheries at NOAA, wrote the commission in a letter on behalf of Ross.

“This is the first time that no one asked me for a formal recommendation,” said John Bullard, NOAA’s Greater Atlantic regional administrator. “The secretary’s decision goes against long-standing protocol, and there’s a cost to that.”  He added: “There’s a reason to have regional administrators, because their experience and knowledge is valuable in making decisions like this one. This is an unfortunate precedent.”

“Ross was brilliant in his decision,” said Jim Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance in New Jersey, which represents thousands of recreational fishermen across the country. “The Trump administration has challenged a broken fishery management system in this country, and I applaud them for doing it.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe