Saving Seafood

NOAA Fisheries Announces 2017 At-Sea Monitoring Coverage Levels for Groundfish Sector Fishery

March 15, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA: 

NOAA Fisheries announces that for fishing year 2017 the total target at-sea monitoring coverage level is 16 percent of all groundfish sector trips. 

This target coverage level is a 2 percentage point increase from the 2016 coverage level (14 percent). As the target coverage level is set based on an average of at-sea monitoring data from the past 3 full groundfish fishing years, this level is set based on data from the 2013-2015 fishing years.

Federally funded observer coverage provided by the Northeast Fishery Observer Program to meet the Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology (SBRM) requirements will partially satisfy the 16 percent coverage requirement. Sectors will therefore actually pay for at-sea monitoring coverage on less than 16 percent of their groundfish trips, but the total will depend on the SBRM coverage rates, which are not yet out.

We expect to be able to reimburse sectors for some portion of their ASM costs. We do not yet have the information we need to determine the reimbursement rate. We were able to reimburse 85 percent of at-sea monitoring costs in 2016, but expect the 2017 reimbursement rate to be lower.

Certain sector groundfish trips, those using gillnets with 10-inch or greater mesh in Southern New England and Inshore Georges Bank, are also excluded from the ASM requirement due to their low catch of groundfish species. This further reduces the portion of sector trips subject to industry-funded monitoring and better focuses monitoring resources.

For more information, please read the Summary of Analysis Conducted to Determine At-Sea Monitoring Requirements for Multispecies Sectors FY 2017available on our website.

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel at 978-281-9175 or jennifer.goebel@noaa.gov

NORTH CAROLINA: Tale of two sides: Opponents, backers of shrimp trawling petition weigh in

February 23, 2017 — NEW BERN, N.C. — A fishing industry advocacy group said the proposed state regulations in a recently approved petition could sink shrimp trawling in North Carolina, but a recreational fishermen’s environmental nonprofit thinks shrimping will just need to change.

Representatives from the N.C. Fisheries Association, a nonprofit industry group that advocates for the state seafood industry, and the North Carolina branch of the Coastal Conservation Association, an interstate nonprofit dedicated to protecting the coastal environment, spoke Tuesday to a crowd of about 84 people at the regular meeting of the Coastal Carolina Taxpayer’s Association at the Stanly Hall Ballroom. The association invited them to provide their opinions on the petition for rulemaking approved Thursday by the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission.

Jerry Schill, NCFA executive director, said the association thinks the proposed special secondary nursery areas are the biggest problem with the petition’s proposed rules.

“The people who created this petition, they don’t understand the history of the (shrimp trawl bycatch) issue,” he said. “The fishing industry created nursery areas in the 1970s. In the 1980s, the term ‘bycatch’ came up.  Now we have turtle excluder devices in shrimp trawls and sea turtles have rebounded. Finfish bycatch is still an issue, but bycatch reduction devices are being used.”

Read the full story at the Carteret County News-Times

NORTH CAROLINA: Debate intensifies over new shrimping proposal

February 22, 2017 — Proposed shrimping regulations was once again at the center of debate in New Bern Tuesday night.

A meeting, hosted by the Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association, aimed at providing people in attendance arguments for, and against, the petition.

The petition would create stricter regulations on those fishing for shrimp. It would limit trawling to 3 days a week, increase the size of fish-eyes to reduce bycatch, and limit where trawling could take place.

It would also put significant restrictions on shrimping in the Pamlico Sound.

Those supporting the petition said it is needed to protect shrimp populations, as many fish species have declined in North Carolina waters.

“A lot of things will have to be looked at. Will the petition stand as written? I doubt it,” said Donald Willis, VP of the North Carolina Coastal Conservation Association.

Read the full story at WNCT 9

Feds to Analyze Environmental Impacts of Western Pacific Longline Fisheries for Bigeye and Tuna

February 17, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — HONOLULU — The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced on Monday that it will prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) on the U.S. Pacific Island deep-set tuna longline fisheries, which target bigeye tuna.

The PEIS will analyze the environmental impacts of management of deep-set tuna longliners, which operate out of Hawaii, American Samoa, and the U.S. West Coast. The need for the proposed action is to manage deep-set tuna longline fisheries under an adaptive management framework that allows for timely management responses to changing environmental conditions, consistent with domestic and international conservation and management measures.

The PEIS will be developed in coordination with the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council based in Honolulu.

Tuna longline fisheries use two distinct gear types: shallow-set vessels target swordfish near the surface and deep-set vessels target tunas deeper than 100 meters.

The deep-set tuna longline fisheries have greater levels of vessel participation, fishing effort, catch, and revenue than the shallow-set fishery. NOAA Fisheries previously evaluated the effects of the shallow-set fishery, so it will not be included in this PEIS.

The primary deep-set tuna longline fisheries are the Hawaii and American Samoa longline fisheries. Access to the Hawaii longline fisheries is limited to 164 vessel permits, of which about 140 vessels are active. Of these active vessels, about 20 may also shallow-set during any given year. Most vessels in the Hawaii deep-set tuna longline fleet homeport in Hawaii and about 10 operate from ports on the U.S. west coast. These vessels target bigeye tuna.

Access to the American Samoa deep-set tuna fishery is limited to 60 permits. Historically, a few deep-set tuna longline vessels operated out of Guam and the CNMI, but these fisheries have been inactive since 2011.

“The PEIS is a proactive step in the management of deep-set tuna longline fisheries,” said Council Executive Director Kitty M. Simonds. “It streamlines environmental review for future management decisions and facilitates the ability of fisheries to adaptively respond to changing conditions.”

Management tools used for deep-set tuna longline fisheries include limited assess programs, vessel size limits, area constraints, observers, satellite-based vessel monitoring systems, gear configuration and specific handling and releasing bycatch methods.

Potential management issues include territorial bigeye tuna specifications and transfers, changes to permitting programs, and new gear requirements to further reduce bycatch.

Potential environmental, social and economic issues include the catch of target tuna and non-target (such as sharks) species, interactions with protected species, gear conflicts, and impacts on the ecosystem.

Public comments may be made at the scoping meetings listed below, sent electronically via the agency, or by mail to Michael D. Tosatto, Regional Administrator, NMFS Pacific Islands Region (PIR), 1845 Wasp Blvd., Bldg. 176, Honolulu, HI 96818.

Public scoping meetings on the PEIS will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. on Feb. 21 in Hilo and Feb. 23 in Honolulu, Hawaii; Feb. 28 in Utulei, March 1 in Tafuna and March 2 in Pago Pago, American Samoa; March 7 in Susupe, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI); and March 9 in Mangilao, Guam.

All comments must be received by April 14, 2017.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Fisheries commission OKs shrimping limits

February 17, 2017 — The N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission Thursday approved a petition for rulemaking that could ultimately limit how shrimpers operate up and down the North Carolina coast.

At the close of the four-hour hearing at the Hilton Wilmington Riverside, the commission voted to approve the N.C. Wildlife Federation’s petition 5-3, with one member abstaining.

 The board was cleanly split, with each of the three commercial fishing industry representatives voting against the proposal, which could ultimately limit shrimping to three days on the Intracoastal Waterway and other estuaries and four days on the ocean up to 3 miles out, among other proposals.

Federation officials explained earlier in the meeting the proposed rules are designed to protect juvenile fish that depend on the estuaries and near-shore waters to mature from being caught up in shrimp trawlers’ bycatch.

Read the full story at JDNews.com

NORTH CAROLINA: Trawling Restrictions OK’d in 5-3 Vote

February 16, 2017 — The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission approved in a split vote on Thursday a contentious resolution restricting shrimp trawling in state waters.

The vote was 5-3, with Commissioner Joe Shute abstaining. Commissioners Mark Gorges, Chuck Laughridge, Brad Koury, Rick Smith and Mike Wicker voted for the measure. Opposed were Sammy Corbett, the commission’s chairman, Janet Rose and Alison Willis.

All three commissioners voting “no” represent the commercial fishing industry.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online

North Carolina Marine Fisheries to consider contentious shrimping proposal

February 16, 2017 — For centuries, shrimping has been central to North Carolina’s coastal economy, a practice two conservation groups are asking the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission to curb in order to protect vulnerable juvenile fish that are often collected along with shrimp.

The commission is expected to vote Thursday on the petition, which would limit how, when and where shrimpers could operate. Brought by the N.C. Wildlife Federation and the Southern Environmental Law Center, the petition includes particularly contentious provisions such as limiting the time a trawl can stay in the water to 45 minutes and reducing the days shrimpers can operate to three per week on inner waterways, including the Intracoastal Waterway and the state’s extensive sounds.

“The amount of finfish bycatch in the North Carolina shrimp trawl fishery is unsustainably high, and the negative impact of shrimp trawl bycatch is felt coast wide,” N.C. Wildlife Federation CEO Tim Gestwicki wrote in his petition to the commission.

Read the full story at Star News Online

JESS H. HAWKINS III AND ALLYN POWELL: NO: Shrimping hasn’t reduced fish stocks

February 15, 2017 — The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission will be voting on a petition submitted by the North Carolina Wildlife Federation on Feb. 16 in Wilmington that will significantly impact our state’s shrimping industry, negatively affect our seafood restaurants and consumers and eliminate jobs.

The petition claims that shrimping has resulted in declines of populations of at least three types of fish, spot, Atlantic croaker and weakfish, that current fishing practices are unsustainable and proposes many unnecessary rules on shrimp trawling, the main manner that shrimp are caught in the United States. Simply and clearly, the petition lacks scientific evidence that attributes shrimp bycatch to declines in spot, croaker and weakfish.

While shrimpers do catch small fish, called bycatch, there is no proof scientifically that shrimp trawl bycatch has an impact on populations of spot, croaker and weakfish. In fact, independent fisheries experts have found that croaker are not in a state of decline, and that fishing is not negatively affecting weakfish populations. Instead natural factors, not fishing mortality, are responsible for coastwide declines in weakfish.

Read the full opinion piece at The News & Observer

Fishing regulators look to reduce tangled turtles

February 15, 2017 — By Aug. 1, Chatham fisherman Jamie Eldredge has pulled the 200 conch pots he has in Nantucket Sound.

He has made the summer switch to fishing for dogfish in the Atlantic Ocean.

In doing so, Eldredge has avoided what has become a major headache for conch fishermen — large leatherback turtles that get tangled up in conch and lobster lines while pursuing jellyfish. In Nantucket Sound, a significant number of those turtles die, three times more than anywhere else in Massachusetts, and state fishery scientists are worried they may be targeted by a lawsuit charging they are not doing enough to protect an endangered species. In a series of public hearings held in coastal and island communities this month, they asked conch fishermen for ideas on how to deal with the problem.

State Division of Marine Fisheries officials think they know the answer: pull all conch pots in August.

“There’s something about that overlap of animals at that time of year, and what’s happening in the fishery, that’s very deadly for them (leatherbacks),” said Erin Burke, a Division of Marine Fisheries aquatic biologist specializing in endangered species.

Read the full story at The New Bedford Standard-Times

50 NGOs critique MSC over bycatch

January 26, 2017 — A group of 50 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has sent a letter to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) expressing their concerns about its certification of fisheries with high levels of bycatch.

The letter was authored by Kate O’Connell of the Animal Welfare Institute and Friederike Kreme-Obrock of Sharkproject Germany and signed by the heads of 50 nonprofits dedicated to environmental conservation, including dozens of groups dedicated to the protection and preservation of sharks, whales and dolphins.

“Many of our organizations have commented on fishery assessments under the MSC process, and over the years we have noted an apparent, and deeply worrying, lack of concern regarding the potential impacts on these species, as well as certain target species,” the letter said. “It is our view that many of the fisheries that have been assessed via the MSC certification process have not been subject to an adequate review of information available on bycatch of non-target species.”

The letter accuses the MSC of being subjective in interpreting evidence and in estimating the effects of a fishery’s impact on non-targeted species. It cites the absence of in-depth stock assessments for some species of bycatch as a problem under MSC Principle 2, which aims to maintain population levels of all species affected by a fishery at biological based limits.

Read the full story at Seafood Source