Saving Seafood

ASMFC 82nd Annual Meeting Details, Preliminary Agenda, and Public Comment Guidelines

September 9, 2024 — The following was released by Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Please find below the meeting details and public comment guidelines for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s 82nd Annual Meeting, which will be held October 21-24, 2024 at The Westin Annapolis, 100 Westgate Circle, Annapolis, Maryland This will be a hybrid meeting to allow for remote participation by Commissioners and interested stakeholders in all meetings. The Law Enforcement Committee, Habitat Committee and Atlantic Coast Fish Habitat Partnership Steering Committee will have unique webinar links that will be available as part of the individual committee materials. The preliminary agenda can be found athttp://www.asmfc.org/home/2024-annual-meeting; materials will be available at the same website link on October 9th.

Our Maryland Commissioners have been working closely with us on the meeting details and are looking forward to welcoming you all to Annapolis. This city is a captivating destination that exudes charm through its history as one of America’s oldest cities and former capital of the United States. Its blend of colonial history, maritime heritage, culinary excellence, and the United States Naval Academy, guaranteeing there is always something to explore!

 

ACCOMMODATIONS

A block of rooms is being held at The Westin Annapolis. Lisa Carty will make Commissioner/Proxy reservations and will contact you regarding the details of your accommodations. Please notify Lisa Carty of any changes to your travel plans that will impact your hotel reservations, otherwise you will incur no-show penalties. We greatly appreciate your cooperation.

For all other attendees, please make your reservations at The Westin Annapolis by calling 1-888-627-8994 and mentioning ASMFC to get our negotiated rate of $169 plus taxes per night.  You may also use this link to make reservations. The hotel reservations must be made by September 25, 2024.  Room availability will not be guaranteed beyond this date. 

 

If you are being reimbursed by ASMFC for your travel, please make your reservation directly with the hotel. Reservations made through travel websites do not apply toward our minimum number of required reservations with the hotel. If you have any problems regarding accommodations, please contact Lisa Carty at 703.842.0713 or lcarty@asmfc.org. 

 

GETTING TO ANNAPOLIS

The Westin Annapolis is easily accessible by automobile, train or airplane. BWI is the closest airport and you can take a taxi or UBER to get to the hotel.  You won’t need to rent a car because Annapolis is a very walkable town and we will provide transportation to the social events.  It is also an easy drive from most Mid-Atlantic states.

 

REGISTRATION

All of the business meetings scheduled during this week (with the exception of scheduled closed sessions) are open to the public, free of charge. However, if you plan on attending any of the Annual Meeting events, please help us prepare for these events by registering for the Annual Meeting events. Only those who will not be reimbursed for travel by the Commission (see travel authorization form) will need to pay the registration fee (e.g., guests and federal participants). The meeting registration fee is $200/per participant and $150/per spouse or guest if you register by October 11, 2024. After October 11th and in Annapolis the fees will be $225 and $175, respectively. The registration fee covers the Monday night welcome reception, and the Tuesday night dinner, as well event materials. You may register by returning the attached and linked registration form (by email to lhartman@asmfc.org, 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 payment can be made here; or (3) mail a check to ASMFC (address above). 

 

FISHING TOURNAMENT

Plans are well underway for the 31st Annual Laura Leach Fishing Tournament. Everyone is invited and encouraged to participate. You will receive a t-shirt with your $20 entry fee; and 100% of the tournament proceeds will be donated to a state-identified program (to be determined).  The tournament runs from Sunday (10/20) through Wednesday (10/23); the raffle drawing and tournament prizes will be awarded at the breakfast Thursday morning. 

 

FOR SPOUSES/GUESTS

The social for spouses and guests will be held on Monday morning at the hotel. A Tuesday outing is also being planned; full details will be available in the final notice.

 

PUBLIC COMMENT GUIDELINES

To provide a fair opportunity for public input, the ISFMP Policy Board has approved the following guidelines for use at management board meetings:

 

For issues that are not on the agenda, management boards will continue to provide opportunities to the public to bring matters of concern to the board’s attention at the start of each board meeting. Board chairs will ask members of the public to raise their hands to let the chair know they would like to speak. Depending upon the number of commenters, the board chair will decide how to allocate the available time on the agenda (typically 10 minutes) to the number of people who want to speak.

 

For topics that are on the agenda, but have not gone out for public comment, board chairs will provide limited opportunity for comment, taking into account the time allotted on the agenda for the topic. 

Chairs will have flexibility in deciding how to allocate comment opportunities; this could include hearing one comment in favor and one in opposition until the chair is satisfied further comments will not provide additional insight to the board.

 

For agenda action items that have already gone out for public comment, it is the Policy Board’s intent to end the occasional practice of allowing extensive and lengthy public comments. Currently, board chairs have the discretion to decide what public comment to allow in these circumstances.

 

In addition, the following timeline has been established for the submission of written comments for issues for which the Commission has NOT established a specific public comment period (i.e., in response to proposed management action).

 

1.    Comments received three weeks prior to the start of a meeting week (September 30) will be included in the briefing materials.

2.    Comments received by 5 PM on Tuesday, October 15 will be included in supplemental materials.

3.    Comments received by 10 AM on Friday, October 18 will be distributed electronically to Commissioners/Board members prior to the meeting.

 

The submitted comments must clearly indicate the commenter’s expectation from the ASMFC staff regarding distribution.  As with other public comment, it will be accepted via mail and email.

 

We look forward to seeing you all in Annapolis in October!

ASMFC American Lobster Board Releases Draft Addendum XXXI for Public Comment Draft Addendum Considers Postponing Implementation of Addendum XXVII Biological Management Measures

September 4, 2024 — The following was released by Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

A public hearing has been scheduled to gather input on Draft Addendum XXXI to Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for American Lobster. The Draft Addendum considers postponing the implementation of Addendum XXVII gauge and escape vent size changes to July 1, 2025. One general hearing will be conducted via webinar and is open to all to participate.

Addendum XXVII was adopted in May 2023 and established a trigger mechanism to automatically implement management measures to provide additional protection of the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank (GOM/GBK) spawning stock biomass. Changes to the current gauge and escape vent sizes in Lobster Conservation Management Areas (LCMAs) 1, 3, and Outer Cape Cod (OCC) were triggered based on observed changes in recruit abundance indices in October 2023 with the inclusion of 2022 survey data in the trigger index. The Board then extended the implementation date to begin the series of changes to gauge and vent size by January 1, 2025, starting with an increase to the minimum gauge size in LCMA 1 from 3 ¼” to 3 5/16” to coordinate with Canada regarding possible trade implications, and give the industry and gauge makers additional time to prepare for these changes. Based on a meeting held between US and Canadian lobster fishery managers and industry members in June 2024, the Board determined that postponing implementation of Addendum XXVII’s biological measures to July 1, 2025 would reduce negative impacts to the US and Canadian lobster industries in 2025 and allow Canada more time to consider implementing complementary management measures.

 

Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Board Releases Summer Flounder Draft Addendum XXXV for Public Comment

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board approved for public comment Draft Addendum XXXV to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass. The Draft Addendum considers changes to two exemptions to the summer flounder commercial minimum mesh size requirements: the Small Mesh Exemption Program (SMEP) and the flynet exemption. These changes are being considered following industry feedback indicating the SMEP has become an important program to maintain the economic viability of businesses and the definition of a flynet should be updated to reflect modern gear configurations and use patterns. Specifically, the Draft Addendum considers moving the western boundary of the SMEP approximately five miles westward, changes to the review methodology of the SMEP, and updates to the definition of a flynet under the flynet exemption. The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council is considering an identical set of options through a framework action. 

Lobster fishery set for temporary reprieve on size limits

August 14, 2024 — A second delay to implementing minimum gauge and vent sizes for lobsters caught in the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank and Outer Cape Cod was initiated last week by the American Lobster Board, which operates under the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), a measure that Maine lobstermen — and Congressman Jared Golden — have hoped and pushed for.

The new implementation date would be July 1, 2025, if the measure is approved by the ASMFC’s American Lobster Board.

An earlier delay the ASMFC approved had pushed back to Jan. 1, 2025, the new gauge and escape vent sizes in lobster traps for commercial lobster fisheries in the targeted lobster management areas. When the measure was first approved, it was to take effect based on a “trigger” mechanism.

The trigger is based on survey data showing a decrease of lobster recruits, that is, young lobsters. But many lobstermen fishing in the Gulf of Maine said what they observed on the water was different than the survey data reported. And, the first trigger was reached just months after the mechanism was approved, which led to the first implementation delay.

Read the full article at Ellsworth American

US lobster fishery faces delay in gauge-size increase; Canadian harvesters call for government to do more to combat illegal fishing

August 13, 2024 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) Lobster Board has initiated the process to delay a gauge size increase for the U.S. lobster fishery until 1 July 2025.

The ASMFC first delayed an increase in the lobster gauge size in October 2023, after lobster trawl surveys indicated a decline in the population of sub-legal lobsters. The gauge size increase was first initiated in 2017 as a proactive measure to improve the resiliency of the lobster stock in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, but that process was paused to focus on issues related to entanglement of  North Atlantic right whales.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

U.S. and Canada held talks on lobster gauge increase

August 12, 2024 — This article was first published in Landings, the Maine Lobster Community Alliance (MLCA)  newspaper, in August 2024.

U.S. and Canadian lobster fishery representatives met in Saint John, New Brunswick in late June to discuss the implications of the U.S. gauge increase for Lobster Management Area 1 (LMA 1) scheduled to take effect in January 2025. The meeting was in response to the concerns raised by Maine’s lobster industry at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) American Lobster Board meeting in May.

Background

ASMFC adopted Addendum 27 in May 2023 as a proactive measure which would automatically trigger a gauge increase for LMA 1 if the abundance of young lobster showed a 35% decline. The addendum was developed over five years. It was initiated in 2017 but delayed twice – in 2018 and in 2022 – because the lobster industry was deeply embroiled in management and litigation concerning right whale conservation requirements. Following the Maine Lobstermen’s Association’s (MLA) historic court victory and Congressional action to delay new whale rules for six years, the ASMFC held public hearings in March 2023 and adopted Addendum 27 in May.

Addendum 27 garnered little attention until last fall when, to everyone’s surprise, scientists determined that the abundance of young lobsters had dropped 39% from the historic high, thus triggering the management action just three months after the addendum was adopted. Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner Patrick Keliher urged ASFMC to delay implementation of the gauge increase from June 2024 to January 2025.“I don’t think when we were sitting here in May that we expected to be hitting the trigger as quickly as we did,” he said. He argued that more time was needed to continue discussions with Canada on the implications of having differing gauge sizes between the two countries. The ASMFC moved the date to January 2025.

At the Lobster Institute’s U.S.-Canada Town Meeting in January 2024 in Moncton, New Brunswick, the gauge increase was discussed by an international audience; many in Canada’s lobster industry were surprised to learn about the U.S. gauge increase. They were concerned that a U.S.-only gauge increase would disrupt lobster supply and markets due to the interdependence of the U.S. and Canadian lobster industries.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Press Releases, Meeting Summaries, and Motions from ASMFC’s 2024 Summer Meeting Now Available

August 9, 2024 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Press releases, meeting summaries, and motions from the Commission’s 2024 Summer Meeting are now available at https://asmfc.org/files/2024SummerMeeting/2024SummerMeetingSummary.pdf. The document can also be found on the Commission website on the Meeting Archives page athttp://www.asmfc.org/home/meeting-archive.

 
Presentations and recordings from this week’s meetings will be posted to https://www.asmfc.org/home/2024-summer-meeting early next week.
 

New regulations on lobstering delayed amid pushback from Seacoast lobstermen

August 9, 2024 — New federal regulations on the lobstering industry are being delayed after months of pushback from local lobstermen.

The rules would increase the minimum acceptable size for lobsters that can be caught and require bigger escape vents to be added to traps.

Regulators with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission told News9 the goal of the new rules, laid out in policy called Addendum 27, are aimed at protecting the population of younger lobsters and allowing them to grow to a size where they can reproduce and be suitable for harvesting.

“We’re looking at those lobsters that are kind of forecasting that would be available to the fisheries next year,” said Caitlin Starks, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator. Plan Coordinator.

The commission voted this week to delay the start of new rules from January to July.

Starks said the number of those younger lobsters have declined in research counts in recent years, triggering the new regulations.

However, local lobstermen have cast doubt on those studies and railed against the rules laid out in Addendum 27.

Read the full article at WMUR

River Herring Benchmark Stock Assessment Finds Populations Remain Depleted at a Coastwide Level Though Some Rivers Show Signs of Improvement

August 8, 2024 — The following was released by Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The River Herring Benchmark Stock Assessment finds the coastwide populations of both alewife and blueback herring (collectively referred to as river herring) are depleted relative to historic levels, with the habitat model indicating that overall productivity of both species is lower than an unfished population before the occurrence of any habitat modifications (e.g., dams or human alterations to the environment). The depleted determination was used instead of overfished and overfishing because of the many factors that have contributed to the declining abundance of river herring, which include not just directed and incidental fishing, but also habitat loss, predation, and climate change.

 
In terms of recent trends, there is no clear signal for either species across the coast. Even within the genetic stock-regions, trends in abundance and mortality differed from river to river, with some rivers showing increasing trends and low mortality rates, and others showing flat or declining trends and total mortality rates above the reference point. Although very few significant trends overall were detected since the adoption ofAmendment 2 in 2009, the majority of indices of abundance for both alewife and blueback herring are likely to be higher now than they were in 2009. However, half of the blueback populations and 65% of the alewife populations have a high probability of being above the total mortality reference point, indicating total mortality on adult fish was too high. Total mortality is the removal of fish from a population due to both fishing and natural causes.
 
The northern New England region shows more positive trends and a higher probability of abundance in the most recent years being greater than in 2009. It is unclear why that is the case, especially as the more northern regions also have higher probabilities of being above the total mortality reference point. States in the northern New England region have conducted extensive habitat restoration and dam removal, but so have states further south, and they have not seen the same degree of positive trends in run counts and indices. In addition, states in the northern stock-region have also accounted for the majority of directed catch in recent years, while states in the Mid-New England, Southern New England, and Mid-Atlantic stock-
regions have closed their fisheries. Genetic analysis indicates most of the ocean bycatch around Cape Cod and Long Island Sound was of alewife from the Southern New England stock-region and blueback herring from the Mid-Atlantic stock-region, two areas that have had more negative trends in recent years despite habitat restoration efforts and directed fishery closures.
The assessment includes two proof-of-concept approaches to develop biologically-based caps on bycatch in ocean fisheries. The data-limited methods produced estimates of bycatch caps that were lower than the current coastwide bycatch estimates and lower than the current caps in the Atlantic herring and Atlantic mackerel fishery. However, more work needs to be done on the data-limited bycatch cap approach, including consulting with the Mid-Atlantic and New England Fishery Management Councils on risk levels and how to implement species-specific caps in fisheries where the bycatch monitoring includes American and hickory shad as well as river herring. The assessment also recommended exploring species distribution modeling to identify hot spots of river herring bycatch that could be avoided with time-area closures as an alternative or complement to in-season monitoring of river herring bycatch.
No management action was taken given the continued coastwide harvest moratorium for states without an approved Sustainable Fishery Management Plan, as required by Amendment 2. Additionally, the New England Fishery Management Council is early in the process of drafting Amendment 10 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan, which is proposing the development of measures to reduce river herring bycatch in the federal fishery.
A more detailed description of the stock assessment results, as well as the Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Report will be available on the Commission website, www.asmfc.org, on the Shad & River Herring webpage. For more information, please contact James Boyle, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, atjboyle@asmfc.org.