Saving Seafood

Some businesses shun Mississippi shrimp over skimmer nets

May 25, 2016 — Thousands of restaurants and stores across America could be shying away from some Mississippi caught shrimp because a small portion of the shrimp fleet isn’t taking steps to save sea turtles, a watchdog group says.

None of the boats that fish Mississippi waters using skimmer trawls, which allow the net to rise above the water to catch shrimp that can jump over the more prevalent “otter” nets, are required to use turtle excluder devices that allow turtles to escape the nets before they drown. The theory is the nets are emptied more often and therefore the turtles won’t drown.

Oceana, the watchdog group, released a report Tuesday on the effects of using TEDs on sea turtles and bycatch, the portion of the catch that’s gets swept up with the shrimp then discarded. It said the vast majority of Mississippi shrimpers, including most of the boats using skimmers, use TEDs. But because skimmers aren’t required to use them, Seafood Watch, a group that ranks seafood according to its sustainability, has put skimmer-caught seafood on its red, or avoid, list.

KARL JOHNSTONE: Federal management of Cook Inlet fisheries would be a step back

May 11, 2016 — Were U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens alive today, he would be shocked to discover Alaska commercial fishermen (see commentary by United Cook Inlet Drift Association President Dave Martin, published by Alaska Dispatch News April 24) want to use the federal legislation he co-authored — the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act — to bring federal overreach to Cook Inlet only miles from the state’s largest city.

The now 40-year-old act booted foreign fishermen out of the 200-mile fisheries zone of the Alaska coast and led to the restoration of depleted fisheries, as detailed in a commentary published by ADN April 12. But the feds continue to struggle with how to manage bycatch in what are now domestic offshore fisheries.

Alaska salmon managers, on the other hand, have been successfully dealing with bycatch problems since statehood. Sometimes facing threats from commercial fishermen, they cleaned up mixed-stock fisheries that had decimated salmon stocks throughout the northern Panhandle.

In Cook Inlet, they wrote the book on best management for mixed-stock, mixed-species management that weighs commercial and noncommercial fishing interests. The reason the feds elected to delegate to the state all authority for salmon management, not only in Cook Inlet but also on the Alaska Peninsula and Prince William Sound, is not what Martin claims, not as some desire to dodge a role in moderating the inevitable fish wars that surround commercial, subsistence, personal use and sport allocations. The reason the feds took themselves out of the picture is they realize the state is already doing a better job than they could do.

Read the full opinion piece at Alaska Dispatch News

ASMFC Atlantic Menhaden Board Approves Draft Addendum I for Public Comment

May 5, 2016 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Comission:

Alexandria, VA – The Atlantic Menhaden Management Board approved Draft Addendum I to Amendment 2 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Atlantic Menhaden for public comment. The Draft Addendum proposes modifying the FMP’s bycatch allowance provision. Specifically, it considers allowing two licensed individuals to harvest up to 12,000 pounds of menhaden bycatch when working from the same vessel fishing stationary, multi-species gear – limited to one vessel trip per day. Bycatch represents less than 2% of the total coastwide landings.

The practice of two permitted fishermen working together from the same vessel to harvest Atlantic menhaden primarily occurs in the Chesapeake Bay pound net fishery.  This practice enables the fishermen to pool resources for fuel and crew.  However, the practice is currently constrained by the FMP’s bycatch allowance provision, which includes a 6,000 pound/vessel/day limit. The Draft Addendum seeks comment on whether the provision should be revised to accommodate the interests of fixed-gear fishermen who work together, as authorized by the states and jurisdictions in which they fish.

The intent of Draft Addendum I is to add flexibility to one element of the bycatch allowance provision while the Board prepares to address menhaden management more comprehensively through the development of Draft Amendment 3 to the FMP over the next two years. A subsequent press release on the public hearing schedule and Draft Addendum I availability will be distributed once state hearings have been scheduled.

In a separate action, the Board extended the episodic event set aside program until the finalization of Amendment 3. It also conditionally approved a request from New York to be added as an eligible state.  The program reserves 1% of the coastwide total allowable catch to be used by New England states in areas and times when menhaden occur in higher abundance than normal.  Rhode Island opted into the program in 2014 and 2015, and harvested a portion of the set aside each year.  As a result of the Board’s decision to extend the program, the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut remain eligible to participate in the program in 2016.

New York is currently reporting unusually large amounts of menhaden in the Peconic Bay estuary, raising the potential for more large fish kills, similar to last year, as the waters warm.  New York sought Board approval to participate in the episodic event set aside program so fishermen can harvest a portion of the large build-up of menhaden in the Peconic Bay estuary to mitigate the impacts of additional fish kills. The Board approved the request subject to a one million pound harvest cap under the episodic event set aside.

Helping Fishermen Catch What They Want, and Nothing Else

May 3, 2016 — Heather Goldstone, of NPR affiliates WGBH and WCAI, discusses bycatch reduction in fisheries on a recent episode of “Living Lab.” Her guests were veteran gear designer Ron Smolowitz of the Coonamessett Farm Foundation, who has worked with the southern New England scallop industry; Steve Eayrs, a research scientist at Gulf of Maine Research Institute, who has worked with groundfishermen in Maine; and Tim Werner, a senior scientist with the New England Aquarium, who put acoustic pingers on gill nets to warn away dolphins. An excerpt from the segment is reproduced below:

It’s the holy grail of commercial fishing: catch just the right amount of just the right size of just the right species, without damage to the physical environment. It’s a tall order, and few fisheries are there yet.

Leaving aside the issue of straight up over-fishing, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that, each year, fishermen around the world accidentally catch more than seven million tons of marine life – everything from whales and turtles, to sea cucumbers – that they weren’t even after. Such by-catch, as it’s known, is essentially collateral damage.

And fishing has other environmental impacts. In some parts of the ocean, the scars left by trawls dragged across the sea floor can be seen for years.

But, it doesn’t have to be that way. Over the past decade or so, a lot of effort has gone into designing fishing gear and related equipment that allows fishermen to catch more of what they do want, and less of what they don’t, while also minimizing damage to the environment. For example:

  • Veteran gear designer Ron Smolowitz and the Coonamessett Farm Foundation have worked with the southern New England scallop industry over the past several years to develop a trawl that excludes loggerhead sea turtles. It turns out, it’s also better at capturing scallops, with the end result that scallopers can use smaller areas and less fuel – 75% less – to make their catch.

Read the full story and listen to the segment at WCAI

Feds continue to discuss potential new regulations for turtle excluder devices

April 22, 2016 — The federal government is considering new requirements and regulations for turtle excluder devices to reduce sea turtle bycatch in shrimp fisheries.

Michael Barnett, a fisheries biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service, said it has been documented that there are an abundance of turtles in the Gulf of Mexico in the same areas and at the same times that skimmer trawl fisheries operate.

Through the use of TEDs and protecting nesting sites, turtle populations have had a “dramatic increase,” Barnett said. However, with a number of catches being seen in skimmer trawls, it is necessary for NOAA to look into rules regarding bycatch in skimmers.

Notably from the data already collecting, Barnett said, is that the turtles being seen in the bycatch were small, young turtles that could have passed through the 4-inch bar spacing of standard TEDs.

Read the full story at Houma Today

Status and Trends of the US Sea Scallop Fishery

April 18, 2016 — Rotational area management is the cornerstone of U.S. sea scallop fisheries management; areas that contain beds of small scallops are closed before the scallops experience fishing mortality, then the areas re-open when scallops are larger, producing more yield-per-recruit. When scallop vessels are fishing in these areas they are limited in terms of total removal. The scallops are harvested for their mussel (“meats”) by being hand shucked at sea; the vast majority being landed iced.

There have been many issues associated with commercial fishing gear in recent years as we move towards more sustainable fisheries. Important objectives to scallop gear operations include increasing the size of scallops retained in the gear, preventing damage to scallops not ready for harvest, avoiding mortality to unwanted fish species, mitigating any adverse impact to habitat, and reducing risk to threatened and endangered species. Scallops are primarily harvested by dredges that sweep across the surface of the sea floor. Besides catching scallops, the gear also captures as a bycatch flatfish such as yellowtail flounder and winter flounder. Many of these flatfish stocks are in an overfished condition due to past heavy pressure from targeting fisheries and environmental change, including rising ocean temperatures. Reduction of bycatch in the scallop fishery has been accomplished by gear modifications, time/ area closures (e.g., seasonal restrictions), and the higher scallop catch per unit effort (CPUE) achieved by rotational management.

Another issue relates to the concerns that some stakeholders have about adverse impacts of scallop dredging on the habitat. While many studies indicate that fishing has relatively little long term impact on the types of high energy habitats scallops inhabit, management takes the precautionary approach of minimizing the swept area of the fishery. The 2016 projection for swept area is 3,600 square nautical miles. This is down from the 16,000 square nautical miles fished in the 1990’s, which produced substantially less yields — another major benefit of the rotational fishing strategy.

The scallop fishery also had an issue with the bycatch of loggerhead sea turtles in the mid-Atlantic; estimates suggested that the fishery killed or injured over 700 loggerheads in 2003 alone. The industry and its scientific partners have since developed gear solutions and now virtually no turtle mortality has been observed.

By solving issues related to scallop stock management, bycatch, habitat, and protected species, the U.S. scallop producers applied for and received the “Certified Sustainable Seafood” credential from the Marine Stewardship Council, aiding in the worldwide marketing of the U.S. sea scallop.

See the full story at the Northeast Agriculture Insights and Perspectives.

Wiki-fishing: How Alaska’s smaller boats compete with vast trawlers

April 11, 2016 — Stephen Rhoads, a commercial longline fisherman in Alaska’s verdant south-east panhandle, fishes by two rules. One is: stay married. Mr Rhoads has seen countless marriages of fellow fishermen sink under the weight of so many days at sea. The second rule is: use fewer hooks. Mr Rhoads works the Pacific halibut fishery, which opened for business on March 19th, using baited hooks strung off lines as long as three miles. Using as few hooks as possible and carefully targeting the desired species, Mr Rhoads explains, helps keep fish stocks healthy and smaller businesses afloat. To do so, he relies on a crowdsourced compendium of fishermen’s tales.

A war between small family fishing operations and Seattle-based companies pushed Alaska to statehood in 1959. The state’s $6 billion commercial fishing industry still suffers from a David-and-Goliath complex. Over the years, Alaskan halibut fishermen have faced big reductions in their harvest limits while factory trawlers dump millions of pounds of dead halibut overboard as by-catch. Quotas are becoming consolidated into fewer hands, and fishing permits are leaving Alaska’s small coastal communities and heading out of state. The average age of a fisherman in Alaska is 50, an increase of a decade since 1980.

Mr Rhoads is a member of a network started by the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA), which aims to do something about this and to reduce by-catch of sensitive species such as rockfish at the same time. Network fishermen, who numbered only 20 at the project’s start, agreed to share data on where and what they were catching in order to create maps that highlighted areas of high by-catch. Within two years they had reduced accidental rockfish harvest by as much as 20%.

See the full story at The Economist

 

ALASKA: Gulf fishermen wary of Congressional intrusion into council process

April 7, 2016 — Gulf of Alaska fishermen suspect that Washington, D.C., politics might come into play for fisheries regulations they want left to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

A letter circulated by the Alaska Marine Conservation Council and signed by 250 Gulf of Alaska fishermen and residents was sent to each of Alaska’s three congressional delegation members.

The letter asks that the Alaska’s representatives in the nation’s capital oppose any legislation intended to press Gulf of Alaska fisheries regulations.

“Specifically, we request our Alaska delegation to support development of a Gulf of Alaska Trawl Bycatch Management Program (aka catch share) in the Council process so all stakeholders may contribute to a transparent process,” the letter asks.

“Please do not support any attempt to circumvent the council process through legislation in Washington, D.C., as that would effectively preclude Alaskan coastal communities and stakeholders from having a direct voice in the process.”

During ComFish, an annual Kodiak commercial fisheries booster event, Stephen Taufen of Groundswell Fisheries Movement acknowledged writing the letter and said that the Congresswoman in question is Rep. Jaime Hererra Beutler, R-Wash.

Beutler, a representative of southwest Washington, sits on the House Appropriations Committee. Much of the Gulf trawl industry is based in Seattle.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

New NOAA rules governing bycatch in Atlantic herring fishery start May 4

April 7, 2016 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has approved adjustments to its Atlantic herring fishery management plan that aim to minimize bycatch.

The new rules require vessels to report slippage – catch discarded prior to official sampling by an approved observer – to be reported in each ship’s daily herring catch report.

In addition, vessels must either return to port or move 15 nautical miles away from the location where the slippage occurred, depending on whether the event is deemed a precautionary measure performed for reasons of safety or whether it is considered an avoidable accident. If the latter is the case, the vessel at fault must return to port, and if the slippage is deemed accidental, the vessel still must move and may not fish in that area for the duration of its journey.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Reducing Bycatch in Shrimp Trawlers: Could Efforts in North Carolina Provide a Solution?

April 5, 2016 — Bycatch is a huge problem for the US shrimp industry, which is under pressure to reduce the unintended entrapment of marine species. Devices that deflect turtles and help fish avoid or escape the nets have been necessary for years, and federal law requires nets to be fitted with devices that reduce bycatch by 30 per cent but despite this, the amount of bycatch is still about three times that of the targeted shrimp (North Carolina Wildlife Federation).

A report released by the North Carolina Wildlife Federation described the amount of bycatch in the state as being unsustainably high and unacceptable at about three times that of the targeted shrimp.

But North Carolina’s shrimp industry is huge — fishermen harvested 14.1 million US dollars worth of shrimp in 2014, and nearly 200 commercial fishermen currently work in the industry.

In light of the bycatch, North Carolina is now taking steps to find a solution. In 2015 the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission established a group of fishermen, net makers, researchers, fish dealers and other stakeholders who gather and evaluate information on the effectiveness of various bycatch reduction devices or BRDs.

Among those tested are the composite panel with spooker cones (a cylindrical shaped device used to spook or scare fish to seek escape), additional escape openings called fisheyes and tailbags, also known as codends, the portion of the net that holds the shrimp catch.

Read the full story at The Fish Site