Saving Seafood

NCFA: Workshop Meets to Address Bycatch in North Carolina Shrimp Trawl Fishery

January 13, 2017 — The following was released by the North Carolina Fisheries Association:

A workgroup formed by the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission in 2015 to investigate ways to further reduce bycatch in shrimp trawls met recently in New Bern. The industry work group is a collaborative effort that consists of staff from the Division of Marine Fisheries, N.C. Sea Grant, fishing vessel owners, net makers and a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The meeting recently held at the Riverfront Convention Center in New Bern follows the second year of a three year project, and is showing some very promising results.

The goal set by the Marine Fisheries Commission for the workgroup was set at 40% reduction in finfish bycatch.

Of the devices that were tested, the device achieving the highest reduction in the previous year was further modified for year two, resulting in a 54.5% reduction of finfish bycatch and a 52.2% reduction in bycatch of all types.

It was noted that none of the sampling for the project was done by extrapolation, but by sampling the entire contents of over 180 tows.

The meeting was held while a Petition for Rulemaking, filed by the North Carolina Wildlife Federation and the Southern Environmental Law Center, is being considered by the Marine Fisheries Commission. If the proposed regulations were enacted as proposed by the petitioners, there would be severe restrictions to shrimping in North Carolina.

“In the many years that I’ve been involved with representing the state’s commercial fishermen, there is no one issue that we’ve spent more time on than reducing bycatch in the shrimp trawl fishery”, said Jerry Schill, President of the North Carolina Fisheries Association. “Further, there is no one issue where we’ve had more success than reducing that bycatch. However, with their goal of eliminating shrimp trawling in our state, the onslaught continues. It will not abate until they’re successful”.

The public meeting to address the petition will be held on Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at the Riverfront Convention Center in New Bern, NC, beginning at 12:30pm.

Fishermen Team Up With Scientists To Make A More Selective Net

December 14th, 2016 — Some New England fishermen are pinning their hopes on a new kind of trawl net being used in the Gulf of Maine, one that scoops up abundant flatfish such as flounder and sole while avoiding species such as cod, which are in severe decline.

For centuries, cod were plentiful and a prime target for the Gulf of Maine fleet. But in recent years, catch quotas have been drastically reduced as the number of cod of reproductive age have dropped perilously low.

For many boats, that turned the formerly prized groundfish into unwanted bycatch. And for fishermen, it can be tough to avoid cod while trying to catch other fish. The stakes are high.

“Say tomorrow I go out, have a 10,000 set of cod and I only have 4,000 pounds of quota, essentially your sector manager — the person that oversees this — would shut me down,” says Jim Ford, whose trawler is based in Newburyport, Mass.

Not only that, Ford would be forced to “lease” cod quota allowances from other fishermen to cover his overage. The cost of such leases, he says, can quickly outweigh the value of the cod that’s inadvertently caught.

“And I would pay a ridiculous price. And then you’re shut down, you can’t even go fishing,” he says.

But instead of joining the growing number of New England fishermen hanging up their nets, Ford has worked to modify the nets themselves. This summer he joined a net-maker and scientists at Portland’s Gulf of Maine Research Institute to design a trawl net that targets profitable species while avoiding cod.

Read the full story from NPR at WLRH

Bula! Pacific Tuna Commission Gets To Work On Fishing Policies

December 6th, 2016 — Honolulu International Airport is a ghost town. It’s 1 a.m. Sunday, hours past the routine blitz of interisland travelers and down to the handful of passengers heading to far-off lands plus a few others sleeping off the disappointment of a canceled flight.

I hand over my passport to the woman working at the Fiji Airways counter, throw my luggage on the conveyer belt and hope it arrives in Nadi, where I’m going to cover the weeklong meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.

The commission — a treaty-based group composed of 26 members including Pacific Island nations, the United States, the big tuna players from Asia, the European Union and others — decides how to manage and conserve highly migratory fish stocks while reducing bycatch and ensuring the overall sustainability of one of the world’s biggest sources of protein.

Over the course of five full days, hundreds of scientists, government officials, nonprofit leaders and others will debate the myriad issues facing the health of tuna populations, the safety of fishing observers, the effects of climate change, the value of marine protected areas and the impact of new policies on local economies and international relations.

I was mulling this over on the plane while waiting to take off when the Boeing 737’s captain interrupted my thoughts with an update on what to expect on our way to Fiji.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat 

JANE LUBCHENCO & BRAD PETTINGER: With America’s fisheries rebounding, we can’t turn back

November 28, 2016 — The following is excerpted from an opinion piece written by Jane Lubchenco and Brad Pettinger. It was originally published Saturday in The Oregonian:

In the last 20 years, one of the country’s most valuable natural resources has transformed from a national disaster to a great American recovery story. But unless you’re a fishery scientist or a fisherman who suffered through the near collapse of a fishery, you’ve probably never heard the story.

We lived it.

We’ve been working along the West Coast for 40 years and can attest to the catastrophic collapse of a once massive groundfish fishery. We know fixing it was hard and messy. But we also know that troubled fisheries in the United States and around the world should look to our success and others for lasting solutions.

In the early 2000s, the fishery was in terrible shape. A number of rockfish species were becoming significantly overfished. As long-lived species, their recovery was expected to take decades. Level of discards of “bycatch” — accidental catch that occurs when fishing for target species – was high. This led to the fishery being declared a ‘federal disaster.’ Fish, fishermen and the communities that relied on them were suffering, and it was clear that if the system hadn’t yet hit rock bottom, it soon would.

Fortunately, potential economic extinction is a strong motivator. Fishermen teamed with scientists, conservationists and government managers. In 2011, we adopted a new approach that would bring science, accountability and long-term sustainability to a system that badly needed them.

Where previous management approaches placed numerous and strict limits on when, where and how boats could fish, the new approach established and managed secure fishing privileges for the fishery. Scientists used sound data to determine the amount of each species that could be caught each year while still allowing the species to recover. That total annual catch limit was divided among members of the fishery.

In five short years, the conservation turnaround has been remarkable and faster than anticipated. Species have rebuilt, bycatch discarding decreased by 75 percent and fishery managers have increased the amount of fish that can be sustainably caught. In fact, the fishery was recently certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council and received a slew of top ratings from Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch.

Read the full opinion piece at The Oregonian

The Bycatch That Gives You a Haddock

November 4, 2016 — Starting in October, the federal government began a pilot project to test electronic monitoring on midwater herring trawlers fishing in “groundfish closed” areas off the coast of New England, two of which are in the rich spawning grounds on the continental shelf known as Georges Bank. The yearlong project will help regulators decide whether cameras can replace people as observers to regulate herring trawlers’ catch of haddock.

But before the study is finished, the New England Fishery Management Council will be working to loosen the rules on how much haddock herring trawlers can catch.

Since 2011, government observers have been required on any trips trawlers make to those areas, as part of a program to limit incidental catch, often called “bycatch,” of untargeted fish species. In the case of herring fishing, the biggest bycatch concern on Georges Bank has been haddock, a species on the rebound after the groundfish collapses of the mid-1990s.

But the monitoring program has been expensive. A recent amendment to all Northeast fisheries plans required the industry to assist in funding its overseers, increasing pressure to bring down costs.

Federal regulators believe electronic monitoring could be the answer.

“This year we’ll get really good (human) observer coverage — 440 sea days — so we’re going to compare what the observer sees and what the camera sees,” said Daniel Luers, a monitoring expert at the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries office of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “The contractors will watch all the videos, and then NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) will watch to confirm that what the contractors have seen correlates with the observers.”

What they’re looking for are “discard” events, where fishermen dump unwanted fish back into the sea — rather than reporting the bycatch and facing fishing closures.

Read the full story at Eco RI News

Fishery council says no to river herring and shad plan

October 7, 2016 — A call to put river herring and shad in the same fishery management plan as mackerel, squid and butterfish was voted down by the Mid-Atlantic Marine Fisheries Council.

Incidental bycatches in ocean trawl fisheries was a main reason behind the consideration, but the council will stick with a plan already in place for dealing with it.

American shad, hickory shad, alewife and blueback herring — a quartet of anadromous fish that are at historic low population levels — often mix with mackerel in the ocean.

They get scooped up incidentally in commercial trawl nets meant for mackerel. The MAMFC said the amount may be substantial enough to negatively impact their populations.

The plan had the support of many sport fishermen, environmental and conservation groups on the Eastern seaboard who said the it would’ve led to more aggressive stewardship on the species.

NOAA Establishes Marine Mammal Bycatch Criteria for U.S. Imports

August 16, 2016 — WASHINGTON – Nations that export fish and fish products into the U.S. will now have to meet the same standards for protecting marine mammals that American fishermen follow.

NOAA Fisheries published its final ruling last week which forces trade partners to show that killing or injuring marine mammals incidental to fishing or bycatch in their export fisheries do not exceed U.S. standards.

“Fishing gear entanglements or accidental catch is a global threat to marine mammal populations,” said Eileen Sobeck, the assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries. “Establishing these bycatch criteria mark a significant step forward in the global conservation of marine mammals.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Closing parts of the ocean to fishing not enough to protect marine ecosystems

July 18, 2016 — A University of Washington fisheries professor argues that saving biodiversity in the world’s oceans requires more than banning fishing with marine protected areas, or oceanic wilderness areas. In a three-page editorial published in the journal Nature, he argues that this increasingly popular conservation strategy is not as effective as properly managing recreational and commercial fisheries. “There’s this idea that the only way you can protect the ocean is by permanently closing parts of the ocean to fishing, with no-take areas,” said Ray Hilborn, a professor in the UW’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “You protect biodiversity better by regulating fisheries over the country’s entire economic zone.”

Marine protected areas have grown in popularity since the early 2000s. Recent examples include an area twice the size of Texas in the central Pacific established in 2014 by President Barack Obama, and a proposal to close 25 percent of the Seychelles’ exclusive economic zone, an island nation off Africa’s east coast.

Several environmental organizations have set a longer-term goal of making 30 percent of the world’s oceans into no-take marine protected areas by the year 2030. But Hilborn believes this is not the best way to protect global marine ecosystems.

“If the problem is overfishing or bycatch, then fisheries management is much more effective than establishing MPAs because you regulate the catch over the entire economic zone,” Hilborn said. “I don’t see how anyone can defend MPAs as a better method than fisheries management, except in places where you just can’t do management.”

In countries with functioning fisheries management systems, Hilborn believes, conservationists and the fishing industry should work together on large-scale protection of marine biodiversity and sensitive marine habitats.

Read the full story at Science Daily

ALASKA: Sea Share steadily expands donations of fish to the needy

July 18, 2016 — The decades long “bycatch to food banks” program has grown far beyond its Alaska origins.

Today, only 10 percent of the fish going to hunger-relief programs is bycatch — primarily halibut and salmon taken accidentally in other fisheries. The remainder is first-run products donated to Sea Share, the nation’s only nonprofit that donates fish through a network of fishermen, processors, packagers and transporters.

Sea Share began in 1993 when Bering Sea fishermen pushed to be allowed to send fish taken as bycatch to food banks — instead of tossing them back, as required by law.

“Back then, that was the only thing that we were set up to do, and we are the only entity authorized to retain such fish. It became a rallying point for a lot of stakeholders, and from that beginning we’ve expanded to the Gulf of Alaska, and grown to 28 states and over 200 million fish meals a year,” said Jim Harmon, Sea Share director.

Some seafood companies commit a portion of their sales or donate products to Sea Share. Vessels in the At-sea Processors Association have donated 250,000 pounds of whitefish each year for 15 years, which are turned into breaded portions. Sea Share’s roster also has grown to include tilapia, shrimp, cod, tuna and other seafood products.

Over the years, Sea Share has ramped up donations in Alaska, where halibut portions from Kodiak fisheries are used locally, in Kenai as well as being flown to Nome and Kotzebue, courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard. A new freezer container has been stationed at the Alaska Peninsula port of Dillingham, holding 8,500 pounds of fish, and several more are being added to hubs in Western Alaska, Harmon said.

“I think we’ll probably do 250,000 pounds in the state this year,” he added.

Read the full story at the Alaska Dispatch News

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission eyes menhaden

July 6, 2016 — DOVER, Del. — Delaware officials are hosting an Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission public hearing on proposed changes to the interstate management plan for Atlantic Menhaden.

Wednesday evening’s hearing in Dover involves a proposal to allow two licensed commercial fishermen to harvest up to 12,000 pounds of menhaden bycatch when working from the same vessel and fishing with stationary, multi-species gear, limited to one vessel trip per day.

Currently, the bycatch limit is 6,000 pounds per vessel per day.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Times