Saving Seafood

Fishing Year 2021-22 Sector At-Sea and Electronic Monitoring Provider Applications

September 18, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is currently accepting at-sea and electronic monitoring applications from providers interested in providing monitoring services to groundfish sectors for fishing years 2021 and 2022.  The deadline to submit an application is October 19, 2020.

If you would like to provide either at-sea monitoring (ASM) or electronic monitoring (EM) services to groundfish sectors in fishing years 2021 and 2022 (May 1, 2021, through April 30, 2023), you must submit an application by October 19, 2020.  Applications must include a cover letter and the information and statements identified in the regulations at 50 CFR 648.87(b)(4) and (5).  In your cover letter, please specify whether you are interested in providing ASM services, EM services, or both.  Service providers interested in providing both ASM and EM services must develop separate ASM and EM deployment plans to meet the service provider performance standards [§ 648.87(b)(4)(ii)(A)].

We will review your application in accordance with the third-party monitoring provider standards [§648.87(b)(4)].  For currently operating at-sea monitoring providers, our review will also include an evaluation of your past performance in comparison to the at-sea and electronic monitoring operational standards [§ 648.87(b)(5)], to determine whether to approve your company for fishing years 2021 and 2022.  Please review the regulations for at-sea and electronic monitoring provider and operational standards carefully, including the requirements for signed statements.

Approvals will cover both fishing year 2021 and fishing year 2022, and final decisions will be published in the Federal Register.  There will be a subsequent opportunity to apply to be approved as an ASM and/or EM provider only for fishing year 2022.

Please use Kiteworks, a secure file-sharing service, to submit the requested document.

Visit our web site for more information on groundfish sectors and provider applications.

NEFMC to decide on at-sea monitoring levels later this month

September 16, 2020 — Now two years and change in development, the New England Fishery Management Council measure that could determine the fate of the Northeast groundfish fishery is set for final action on the middle day of the council’s upcoming three-day meeting.

The agenda for the council’s Sept. 29 through Oct. 1 meeting, originally scheduled for Gloucester and now consigned to a webinar, sets aside all of Sept. 30 for groundfish-related issues — including the highly contentious Amendment 23, which will set future monitoring levels aboard sector-based Northeast commercial groundfish vessels.

The council is considering four alternatives: Putting monitors on 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of all sector-based groundfish vessels trips. It has designated 100% coverage as its preferred alternative.

In January, NOAA Fisheries set the target level for 2020 at-sea monitoring at 40% of all sector-based groundfish trips. It’s highly unlikely the agency will hit that target this year after the COVID-19 pandemic kept monitors off boats for about five months.

The council’s preferred choice of 100% monitoring levels helped establish an obvious and stark divide between the fishing industry and conservationists, as if they needed the help.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Move to increase EU’s seafood supply-chain transparency welcomed by environmental groups

September 14, 2020 — The European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment (ENVI) has voted in favor of steps that would bring more transparency to E.U. fisheries activities and traceability to seafood supply chains.

ENVI’s proposed amendments to the fisheries control regulation include:

  • Vessel tracking and catch reporting to be required for all E.U. vessels.
  • The use of cameras on part of the fleet to ensure full and verifiable documentation of seafood catches.
  • Migrating the current paper-based seafood traceability systems into a digital format.
  • Information on fisheries monitoring and control efforts to be made public.
  • Making the sanctioning system more effective and considerate of environmental rules in all member states.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Cities take council to task over monitoring recommendation

September 8, 2020 — You may have noticed that we’ve written a bit lately about the monitoring measure — Amendment 23 — being considered by the New England Fishery Management Council to set future monitoring levels for sector-based groundfish vessels.

It’s a hot item. Conservationists are all for it. Local fishermen say it could spell the death knell for the industry. The council is expected to take final action on the measure at its September meeting.

The cities of Gloucester and New Bedford — the state’s historic commercial fishing fiefdoms — weighed in. Not surprisingly, they are fervently against the council’s preferred option, which would put monitors on every trip by every sector-based groundfish vessel — at an average cost of about $700 per day per boat.

“Monitoring in any fishery is an important component to fisheries management,” the city of Gloucester stated in its comments to the council. “But the New England Fishery Management Council’s preferred alternative of 100% at-sea monitoring on the groundfish sector program is excessive and in complete disregard of the socio-economic disruptions and extreme hardships that will be imposed on fishermen, their groundfish sectors and their communities.”

And it goes on from there.

So there you go. The battle lines are drawn.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Massachusetts Fishermen, State Leaders Fighting At-Sea Monitoring Proposal

September 8, 2020 — Massachusetts fishermen are not sitting back quietly as the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) considers a policy shift that would require 100% at-sea monitoring of commercial groundfish vessels. Fishermen, along with some state leaders, are raising concerns and making their opposition to the measures known.

Amendment23 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan would require groundfishing vessels to implement 100% at-sea monitoring or a combo of at-sea monitoring and electronic monitoring. And while the goal of the proposal is to improve catch accountability in the fishery, fishermen argue that it’s “overly burdensome and unnecessary.” In addition, with no vaccine available for COVID-19, there are also continued concerns about being able to properly social distance while at sea.

Read the full story at Seafood News

New Zealand introduces plan to put camera aboard all its fishing vessels

September 8, 2020 — New Zealand’s government last week announced plans to put cameras on board 345 fishing vessels, a plan that will cost more than NZD 40 million (USD 27 million, EUR 23 million).

In a press statement, New Zealand Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash said the introduction of on-board cameras will be across the nation’s inshore fishing fleet. He said the government will provide at least a portion of the funding required to install and operate the cameras, but “the precise amount will depend on the business case put together by officials for Cabinet sign-off..”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Electronic Reporting Project Bringing More Timely Data to Hawai’i Longline Fisheries

August 31, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

With 145 vessels completing more than 1,600 trips annually, the Hawaiʻi longline fisheries set more than 20,000 fishing lines each year. Data collected from all of these trips provide critical information for monitoring fishing quotas and fish populations. For each set, captains complete a paper logsheet and staff at our Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center process it—this takes a lot of time. A pilot electronic reporting project demonstrates that the new technology is showing promise in streamlining and shortening this process.

Most vessels target tuna on deep-set trips, with some targeting swordfish on shallow-set trips. Once a vessel returns to the dock, the captain has 72 hours to submit the logsheets. Then, our staff perform checks and validations before entering the data, a process that takes about 3 weeks. This lag can make monitoring less efficient.

We conducted a project in collaboration with the Fisheries Information System program using electronic reporting technologies. It showed that these technologies can improve the quality and timeliness of the data for scientists, managers, and industry.

The electronic reporting initiative had its beginnings in 2007 when the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council and NOAA Fisheries allowed longline permit holders the option to submit their logsheets electronically. In 2016, the Fisheries Information System program provided funding to the science center to develop electronic reporting applications and provide tablet computers to the Hawaiʻi fisheries. FIS is a state-regional-federal collaboration with the mission of improving access to comprehensive, high-quality, timely fisheries information.

Read the full release here

Fish council hears comments on 100% monitoring option

August 28, 2020 — The New England Fishery Management Council returned to a semblance of normalcy on Wednesday, holding its first in-person, public meeting of any kind since the COVID-19 pandemic struck about five months ago.

In some ways, the public hearing on Amendment 23 — the measure to set monitoring levels for Northeast sector-based groundfish vessels — was unexplored terrain.

The ninth and final public hearing on the measure was the first al fresco meeting in the history of the council. Capacity was limited to 50, but there was more than enough space. About 20 attendees joined a handful of council staff under the tent in the parking lot of the Sheraton Four Points hotel, next to Route 128.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

The Dark Side of Being a Female Shark Researcher

August 27, 2020 — I was 21 years old when I encountered the place where sharks and television intersect. It was my first research internship, working with a famous shark scientist I had long admired but only just met. My second week, I was on a boat with a film crew, chumming for sharks in the background while the senior scientist dispensed expertise in the foreground. At one point, the film crew suggested I sit next to my hero on camera and repeat the prompt: “So, [Dr. Hero], why did you become a shark scientist?”

For the beautiful green-eyed assistants, of course,” he replied, gesturing at me. I froze, silent, a nervous half-smile on my face.

Don’t worry,” a member of the film crew assured me afterward. “We won’t use it.” I felt a wash of relief and gratitude. It was years before I thought to wonder why I’d felt I was the one who would have looked bad if they had.

This isn’t the worst experience I’ve had as a woman in shark science, or even in the top 10. It barely makes my list at all. I remember it mainly for how small and ashamed it made me feel in the first moments of my career as a scientist; for the way his joke told me clearly who I was to him, and how he thought I fit into the story.

Read the full story at Scientific American

Sens. Markey and Warren press NOAA on observer redeployment while stock surveys remain suspended due to COVID-19

August 19, 2020 — The following was released by The Offices of Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey (D-MA):

Dear Acting Administrator Jacobs:

We write regarding steps that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has taken during the COVID-19 pandemic to manage fisheries stocks in the Northeast. We appreciate the challenges your agency faces in balancing the safety of NOAA employees, observers, fishermen, and broader communities with regulatory requirements for monitoring, observations, and surveys. However, we question the lack of consistency between the current operational plan for monitoring and observation and that for ecosystem surveys.

The dangers posed to the health of both fishing boat crews and observers led NOAA to temporarily waive at-sea monitor and observer coverage in the Northeast. The size of fishing vessels and the nature of the work makes social distancing a challenge, and the cross-jurisdictional nature of the Northeast fishery—with both observers and fishermen often traveling and working across state lines—provides an additional element of risk and complication. NOAA has provided guidance on how fishermen can seek additional waivers for coverage, but directed that at-sea observers and monitors redeploy starting on August 14, 2020.

Read the full letter here