Saving Seafood

Mid-Atlantic Council Initiates Action in Response to Overage of Black Sea Bass Catch Limit

December 21st, 2016 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council: 

On December 15, 2016, at their meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council initiated a framework action to review and modify accountability measures (AMs) for the commercial black sea bass fishery. The Council initiated this action in response to new information from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) indicating that commercial catch in 2015 exceeded the annual catch limit due to higher than anticipated discards. On December 21, NMFS announced a rule which reduced the 2017 commercial quota by 34% in response to this overage, as required by the Council’s AMs.

AMs are measures that are implemented if annual catch targets are exceeded and are intended to mitigate the negative biological impacts of such overages. Commercial AMs for black sea bass currently require pound for pound paybacks through quota deductions in following years, regardless of the circumstances of the overages. The Council initiated a framework action to consider adding flexibility in the commercial AMs based on stock status. The Council intends to develop and implement this framework by mid-2017.

Black sea bass management measures for 2017 may also be modified as a result of a new benchmark stock assessment, which was peer-reviewed this month. According to this assessment, black sea bass are not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. The Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) will meet in January 2017 to review the assessment and determine if it can be used to inform the Council’s management decisions. If so, the SSC will recommend acceptable biological catch limits for black sea bass for 2017-2019. At their February 2017 meeting in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Council plans to recommend commercial and recreational black sea bass catch and landings limits for 2017-2019 based on this new information. These recommendations are expected to result in a revised 2017 commercial quota that could reduce the magnitude of the reduction needed to address the overage of the 2015 annual catch target.

Flounder controls set to tighten, despite South Jersey pleas

December 19th, 2016 — A federal regulatory council voted this week in favor of drastically cutting next summer’s flounder harvest, despite strong protest from South Jersey fishermen and politicians.

No final state bag or size limits were decided at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council meetings in Baltimore, but the organization did approve a 40 percent reduction in the coast-wide summer flounder catch for 2017.

The number is subject to change pending data still coming in from this season’s catch, but fishermen targeting fluke will likely face much stricter controls on the fish they can keep next summer.

“The stock is currently in a state of overfishing,” said Kiley Dancy, a fishery management specialist at the council. “It’s not looking great right now.”

Local government leaders and fishing-related business owners fear the new regulations could hurt South Jersey’s economy.

“Basically, I came out of there understanding that they want to shut down fishing,” said Robin Scott, owner of Ray Scott’s Dock in Margate, who attended the meetings.

Jim Donofrio, executive director of the New Gretna-based Recreational Fishing Alliance, has even vowed to appeal the decision by asking President-elect Donald J. Trump’s incoming administration to strike down the restrictions.

Bob Martin, the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said he was “greatly disappointed” by the decision to tighten controls on flounder.

“In effect, these actions will result in a moratorium on one of our most important recreational fish species,” Martin said in a statement Thursday.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City 

Pallone, New Jersey DEP push back against summer flounder cuts

December 16th, 2016 — This was one of the more consequential Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council meetings in recent memory.

The council’s decisions that were made this week in Baltimore will have a major impact on fishermen, starting with recommendations for cuts to summer flounder, special management zones for artificial reefs, and final rules for a coral protection on the Continental Shelf.

SUMMER FLOUNDER

Anglers are facing the most restrictive fluke regulations yet as a 40-percent cut in the allowable coastwide harvest is being recommended.

It’s based on models that show summer flounder was overfished this year and its biomass is on the decline. Fishermen and legislatures refute that science.

Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) is asking NOAA to postpone any cuts until a benchmark assessment is complete. He said there continues to be legitimate concerns that the random sampling heavily relied upon by NOAA and the estimates produced are inaccurate.

The state Department of Environmental Protection is also taking a strong position against the reductions, which it said will cripple recreational and commercial fishing in New Jersey and be felt sharply throughout the Shore economy.

On Wednesday the council approved a non-preferred coastwide measure for a 19–inch minimum size limit, a four-fish bag limit and a season from June 1 – Sept. 15.

Read the full story at The Ashbury Park Press

MAFMC Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland: December 12-15, 2016

November 21, 2016 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The public is invited to attend the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s December 2016 meeting to be held December 12-15, 2016 in Baltimore, Maryland. The meeting will be held at the Royal Sonesta Harbor Court, 550 Light St., Baltimore, MD 21202, Telephone 410-234-0550.

Webinar: For online access to the meeting, enter as a guest at: http://mafmc.adobeconnect.com/december2016.

Meeting Materials: Briefing documents will be posted at http://ww.mafmc.org/briefing/december-2016 as they become available.

View the agenda at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council

Urban Sanctuary Designation Sought For Popular Offshore Fishing Canyon

November 1, 2016 — OCEAN CITY, Maryland — The National Aquarium on Monday announced it is seeking the public’s support in its effort to nominate the Baltimore Canyon off the coast of Ocean City as the nation’s first Urban National Marine Sanctuary.

The Baltimore Canyon, a 28-mile long and five-mile wide submarine canyon off the coast of Ocean City lies at the center of the resort’s multi-million dollar fishing industry and contains fragile deep sea corals rarely seen anywhere in the world along with habitat for countless species of marine life. The National Aquarium has launched a petition drive to have it designated as the nation’s first Urban National Marine Sanctuary, presenting a unique opportunity to connect an urban population to the ecological treasure using cutting edge deep sea exploration technology.

“The Baltimore Canyon is not only a fascinating ecosystem, but also a natural classroom and living laboratory that we can use to expose our children to a new world, our next frontier,” said National Aquarium Chief Conservation Officer Kris Hoellen. “We hope that with a groundswell of support from our community, we can designate this untapped aquatic treasure as our nation’s first Urban National Marine Sanctuary. It is time to invest in our deep seas and in Baltimore.”

Created millions of years ago, the canyon offers unprecedented ecological and educational value, according to the National Aquarium. In addition to protection from man-made threats, the National Aquarium hopes to gain special recognition for the Baltimore Canyon as the first Urban National Marine Sanctuary offering a groundbreaking opportunity for the public to connect and engage with the deep sea. The National Aquarium hopes to create a virtual high-tech system to connect discoveries from researchers in the canyon back to scientists, students and institutions on the mainland.

The National Aquarium is in the first states of the designation process with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Marine Sanctuaries. The first step is the petition drive to gain public support for the designation although the process could take as long as three years. If NOAA deems the Baltimore Canyon worthy of the designation, other steps would include an environmental impact assessment after which a series of public hearings would be conducted.

Read the full story at The Dispatch

Aquarium program offers food for thought on eating sustainably

May 4, 2016 — For decades, the National Aquarium has entertained millions of visitors while also teaching them about the need to conserve aquatic resources. The Baltimore institution has rescued marine animals off the coast of Ocean City, built floating wetlands to help clean the Inner Harbor’s water and featured Chesapeake Bay creatures in its tanks and exhibits.

But the aquarium was nearly silent on the subject of seafood consumption. The dark, serpentine halls told the story of precious resources being overfished. But that story didn’t have an ending — a solution for how to stem the decline. It had no programs to guide visitors on where to buy local fish caught sustainably, or how a customer could even understand what that meant.

That’s starting to change. A year ago, the aquarium hired its first director of sustainable seafood: T. J. Tate, who built a sustainable seafood program in the Gulf of Mexico. Tate is bringing together chefs, watermen and others in the seafood industry to talk about catching, raising, buying and eating locally caught fish, crustaceans and shellfish.

It is increasingly part of the story told by aquariums everywhere, at a time when overfishing is rampant worldwide while customers often overlook local products. Even fish that customers think is sustainable comes from far away — farm-raised salmon from Norway, or wild varieties from Alaska — and those distances have ramifications for air and water quality, too.  Visitors often ask what they should eat, and the aquarium wanted to find an engaging way to guide them.

“Telling the local seafood story in an integrated fashion — I mean the sustainable aquaculture supply and wild supply — is one of the most important things we can do to get people connected to oceans and the Bay,” said Eric Schwaab, who hired Tate when he was chief conservation officer at the aquarium. “There’s no better place to do that than Baltimore.”

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

Maryland Wants to Take shells for oyster project from prime fishing reef

MARYLAND – March 22, 2016 — Seeking to counter a shortage of oyster habitat in the Chesapeake Bay, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources is renewing a controversial bid to dredge old shells that have built up over centuries from an ancient reef southeast of Baltimore. Reviving a plan abandoned in 2009, the DNR has applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a permit to take 5 million bushels of shells from Man-O-War shoal just beyond the mouth of the Patapsco River. Ultimately, though, the state wants to barge away 30 million bushels, or about a third of the 456-acre reef.

The shells are needed to replace or augment oyster reefs worn down by harvesting and buried under an accumulation of silt, the DNR said. State officials said they would use much of the dredged shell in future large-scale, restoration projects. Some would also go to help the public fishery, though and to assist oyster farmers growing bivalves on leased plots of the Bay and its tributaries.

But the DNR’s request is drawing flak from conservationists, fishermen and even some watermen who might benefit.

Read the full story at ODU Magazine.