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New executive director at California Wetfish Producers Association

Ma 27, 2022 — Economist and Pacific fisheries expert Mark Fina has been named executive director at the California Wetfish Producers Association, succeeding Diane Pleschner-Steele the group’s longtime leader.

Fina brings long experience in North Pacific fisheries. He started his analytical career working for the Anchorage, Alaska-based consulting firm Northern Economics.

After a year, he chose to focus his work on fisheries, taking a position as senior economist for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council where he led the analysis of several major fisheries management actions regulating the groundfish and crab fisheries off the state of Alaska. In this role, he also participated in a broad range of community, industry, and stakeholder forums across the state.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

California Wetfish Producers Association Welcomes a New Executive Director

May 25, 2022 — The following was released by the California Wetfish Producers Association:

The California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA) welcomed Mark Fina, Mark Fina Consulting Services, as the Association’s new Executive Director. Mark brings long experience in North Pacific fisheries to his new position. He started his analytical career working for the Anchorage-based consulting firm Northern Economics. After a year, he chose to focus his work on fisheries, taking a position as senior economist for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. There, he led the analysis of several major fisheries management actions regulating the groundfish and crab fisheries off the state of Alaska. In this role, he also participated in a broad range of community, industry, and stakeholder forums across the state.

After a decade with the North Pacific Council, he joined United States Seafoods where he represented the company in the fishery regulatory process. He also served as President of the Alaska Seafood Cooperative, the entity overseeing the harvest of quota in the offshore Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands multispecies groundfish fisheries. For the past five years, he has worked in seafood certification, and currently serves as the chair of the board of the Responsible Fisheries Management program, a North American seafood certification program benchmarked by the Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative. Mark has a J.D. from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Applied Economics from Virginia Tech. Mark commented, “I am very happy to be joining the CWPA and look forward to working with members to promote the sustainability of the coastal pelagic/wetfish fisheries in California, through collaborative research and facilitating dialogue both within and outside the industry.” Mark takes the helm of CWPA from outgoing longstanding Executive Director Diane Pleschner-Steele,

“My family has been urging me to slow down,” Pleschner-Steele explained, recounting her 40 years involved in fishery issues, including more than two decades as a journalist focused on west coast fisheries and a 10-year stint as manager of the California Seafood Council, advisory to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. She has spent the past 18 years at the helm of CWPA, a non-profit organization that she created with help from the CWPA Board. She recently retired from 18 years on the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Coastal Pelagic Species Advisory Subpanel.

Although Pleschner-Steele is stepping down as Executive Director of CWPA, the Board has asked her to stay involved part-time behind the scenes to help manage CWPA’s extensive research program. CWPA partners with both the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, conducting collaborative field surveys targeting sardine, anchovy and market squid. The goal of these projects is to improve the science governing fishery management policies.

California’s fishing industry faces myriad challenges in the coming years, with offshore wind development on the fast track, NOAA’s initiative to foster ocean aquaculture recently identifying Aquaculture Opportunity Areas in Southern California, and the national and California campaigns to conserve 30 percent of all land and coastal waters by the year 2030, all threatening to usurp valuable fishing grounds. “The future of fishing as we know it is threatened,” Pleschner-Steele said, “But the future of California’s historic wetfish industry lies in improving the science underpinning fishery management.” She added, “I’m delighted that Mark has joined this association.
I’m happy to help but I’m confident that this association will be in good hands with Mark Fina manning the helm of CWPA.”

 

Pacific squid: Better ocean conditions, catches and prices bring optimism

August 10, 2021 — The California squid fleet fished in favorable ocean conditions as the season kicked off on April 1.

Last year’s ocean water temperatures left an air of optimism that the effects from El Niño conditions in 2018 and 2019 had swung through normal (ENSO) temperatures, and that this year’s harvest would increase.

“We’re having a better year,” says Diane Pleschner-Steele , executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, in Buellton. “We saw the shift last summer, and we’re back into La Niña.”

Landings for 2020 came in at 55.27 million short tons, according to converted data from PacFIN. As of July in 2021, the fleet had landed 48.77 million short tons.

Though the fishery has been conducted at night in years past, Pleschner-Steele noted that boats had been fishing during the days and that some good catches had been coming from the waters near Monterey.

Another optimistic uptick for this year has been that ex-vessel offers are hitting around $1,200 per ton. That’s up from last year’s $1,000 per ton average. In recent years the bulk of West Coast squid has been exported to China. Trade wars between the United States and China entered full swing in 2018, and since then tariffs from both sides have hobbled product movement to the west.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Oceana sues NMFS over California sardine management

July 20, 2021 — Alleging that West Coast fisheries managers are repeating mistakes of the past half-century, the environmental group Oceana is suing NMFS over its approval of the latest sardine management plan and demanding more action to rebuild the stock.

“Despite these hard lessons, NMFS repeats these management failures in Amendment 18,” states the group’s complaint, filed by the legal group Earthjustice July 14 in the U.S. District Court for northern California, naming Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, NOAA and the fisheries agency.

Oceana says NMFS should not have approved the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s amendment to the coastal pelagic species management plan, allowing managers to “chose a suite of already disproven, status quo management measures that will keep this population at levels too low to support either the ecosystem or the primary fishery that relies on sardine for half a century or more.”

Managers recognize that the sardine stock size is primarily driven by environmental factors, and that there is inadequacy of surveys used in assessments, said Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association.

“Oceana just refuses to acknowledge the reality,” said Pleschner-Steele. “We’ve been arguing for years that the surveys don’t capture the (accurate number) of fish.”

The accusation of “status quo is misrepresenting management,” said Pleschner-Steele. The council and NMFS need flexibility to improve surveys and assessments, monitor environmental factors and consider the fishing community needs with “the only reasonable rebuilding plan,” she said.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

PFMC Approves Pacific Sardine Fishing Levels for 2021

April 13, 2021 — The following was released by the California Wetfish Producers Association:

Conducting its April meeting via webinar, the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) approved management measures for the ‘northern’ stock of Pacific sardines for the season July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022. The conflict over sardine fishery management became painfully apparent after the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) rejected the catch-only sardine biomass projection, which was the only estimate available because NOAA field surveys were cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The catch for the Mex-Cal fishery (33,000 tons with only about 700 tons from California) was nearly three times larger than the sardine model’s northern sardine catch estimate for the Mex-Cal fishery in 2020. The Mexican catch was actually higher than the entire 2020 biomass estimate. This discrepancy illuminated serious problems with current assessment methods and assumptions.

The SSC recommended several urgent research priorities, including reconsideration of the model and assumptions used to assign sardines to northern vs. southern stocks. The CPS Management Team and Advisory Subpanel also supported the SSC’s recommendation to fall back to the 2020 assessment, and add another layer of precaution to account for the uncertainty, until problems can be addressed in a full stock assessment with independent scientific review. The approved management measures reduced the already low allowable catch by another 25 percent.

“We greatly appreciate the expressions of concern from the SSC, management team and advisory subpanel, and the Council’s action based on those concerns,” said Diane Pleschner-Steele, Executive Director of the California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA). “This conflict is between what fishermen say is out there, based on what they see, and what biologists say, based on insufficient science.”

Both fishermen and independent scientific surveys have documented sardine recruitment and increasing abundance. But assumptions of continued decline and low recruitment caused the directed sardine fishery to be closed in 2015, and ‘northern’ sardines to be declared ‘overfished’ in 2019, which reduced the incidental take of sardine in other fisheries to 20 percent. The Council also was required to develop a rebuilding plan.

The directed fishery has been closed for nearly 7 years, and the model used to predict biomass has not updated the age data from the fishery since 2015. Stock assessment scientists prefer only age data from ‘directed’ fishing, and have not used age data from incidental catches or the live bait fishery, which have both seen an increase in small fish in recent years. The problem is that NOAA’s sardine acoustic trawl surveys, conducted primarily offshore, have not seen it, and those surveys, coupled with assumptions made regarding ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ sardines, have largely driven stock assessments in recent years.

To resolve this Catch-22, CWPA requested and received an Exempted Fishing Permit (EFP) in 2020 and coordinated a closely-controlled directed fishing effort to capture sardine schools throughout the year. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) sampled and aged all the landings. Age data shared with the Council during the meeting showed a spike in young sardines, virtually all captured in water temperatures under about 62 degrees F, assumed to be ‘northern’ sardines.

CWPA is also conducting a nearshore acoustic survey in California this year, in cooperation with the Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC), and has been cooperating with CDFW since 2012 in the Department’s nearshore aerial survey. “There’s a substantial body of sardines (and anchovy) in nearshore waters inshore of NOAA surveys in California. These fish need to be included in stock assessments, and we’re cooperating with the SWFSC and Department to collect the data needed,” Pleschner-Steele commented.

Another frustrating problem that California fishermen continue to face is the current scientific assumption that all sardines above 62 degrees F are assumed to be ‘southern’ stock sardines that have migrated up from Mexico. Those fish are subtracted from the ‘northern’ sardine stock assessment. But for management, all catches are deducted from the ‘northern’ sardine harvest limit, regardless of water temperature. This is a big problem, particularly in summertime in southern California, when the live bait fishery is active. All California coastal pelagic (CPS) fisheries have been impacted by current sardine management policies that restrict the incidental catch of sardine to only 20 percent. This has sharply reduced landings for CPS finfish like anchovy and mackerel, because fishermen must try to find pure schools with no or few sardines. Even the squid fishery has had problems avoiding sardines.

“We strongly support the SSC’s urgent research priorities,” Diane Pleschner-Steele said. “We need to fix the problems with sardine assessments and management as soon as possible.” She added, “we are committed to conduct the research necessary to improve the sardine stock assessment. If the ‘northern’ sardine stock assessment accurately reflected the abundance of sardines reported by fishermen virtually yearlong (in water temperatures below 62 degrees F), northern sardines would not be considered ‘overfished.’”

California fishermen and processors are grateful that the Council considered the issues and uncertainties raised and combined scientific underpinning with practicality and common sense. Balance is a key mandate of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The Council and NMFS are required to consider the needs of fishing communities, not just biology, in developing rebuilding plans. The future of California’s historic wetfish industry hangs in the balance.

D.B. Pleschner is executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, a nonprofit dedicated to research and to promote sustainable Wetfish resources. More info at www.californiawetfish.org

Pacific Fishery Management Council Approves Pacific Sardine Rebuilding Plan

September 17, 2020 — BUELLTON, Calif. — The following was written by D.B. Pleschner, executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association:

Thousands of fishermen, processors and allied fishing businesses along the west coast thank the Pacific Fishery Management Council for taking final action on a rebuilding plan for the “northern” stock of Pacific sardine that achieves the balance between conservation and fishing communities mandated by the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA).

This action was required by the MSA after the “northern” sardine stock was declared “overfished” in 2019, when the biomass estimate fell below 50,000 mt. The Council decision came after many months of hard work by stock assessment scientists, modelers, the Coastal Pelagic Species (CPS) Management Team and the Council’s Science and Statistical Committee (SSC), to build and analyze a Rebuilder model based on the 2020 “northern” sardine stock assessment, which covered a period of low recruitment. The herculean effort attempted to forecast future sardine population growth and rebuilding time scenarios under various harvest alternatives.

“The Council’s unanimous decision to support the Management Team’s recommendations shows that they understand reality, the big picture,” said Diane Pleschner-Steele, Executive Director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, representing California fishermen and processors. “Our sardine harvest policy already has a built-in rebuilding plan. The Council closed the main directed fishery in 2015, and sharply reduced incidental harvest rates last year. Further cuts would drive many fishing businesses out of business, and we appreciate the Council’s acknowledgement of that prospect.”

The environmental group Oceana immediately issued a press release decrying the Council action, accusing fishery managers of irresponsible mismanagement. Oceana and other environmental activists based their arguments on the Rebuilder model that scientists, the Management Team and the Council all acknowledged did not reflect reality because it could not model the environmental cycles driving sardine productivity, nor could it predict the future. Further, it assumed that the total harvest allowance was caught every year.

Oceana’s accusation, “fishery managers have failed to learn from the mistakes of history,” does not pass the straight face test when all the facts are presented. During the great sardine decline in the late 1940s, the historic sardine fishery harvested 50 percent or more of the standing stock. Today’s sardine fishery harvest amounts to only 0.6 percent of the northern sardine population — very close to 0 US harvest, which was modeled as Alternative 2, and showed disastrous economic impacts to fishing communities in California and the West Coast because it curtailed major fisheries. Commercial fisheries that take sardines incidentally include market squid, anchovy and mackerel in California and Pacific whiting, pink shrimp and groundfish along the entire West Coast. In addition, the live bait fishery relies on sardines and serves a billion-dollar recreational fishing enterprise.

The Council decision illuminates a dicey problem: sardine fishery management policy assumes that two sardine stocks exist along the west coast and Mexico, divided by a temperature barrier at about 62 degrees F. But the Council manages only the “northern” stock, and in recent years, stock assessments have subtracted thousands of tons of sardines found in waters warmer than 62 degrees on the assumption that those were “southern” sardines that migrated up from Mexico. Stock assessments also are now based on annual NOAA summer acoustic trawl (AT) surveys that begin in the Pacific Northwest and move south, not reaching California waters until late August, when water temperatures are typically above 62 degrees. Thus, most California sardines are now omitted from “northern” stock assessments on the assumption they are “southern” sardines. Also, NOAA research ships are too large to survey near shore, where most fishing occurs in California. For the past few years, fishermen have testified to a growing abundance of sardines on their fishing grounds yearlong. But complicating matters even further, for management purposes, all sardines landed are subtracted from the “northern” sardine harvest allowance, regardless of sea temperature. This catch-22 sets the backstory for the Council’s final decision.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions the Council meeting was conducted via webinar, and parade of fishermen, seafood processors and community representatives testified to the hardship they are already experiencing under current restrictions. They all voiced unanimous support for Alternative 1, “status quo” fishing regulations. The Management Team also recommended Alternative 1 as the most balanced and flexible choice. Environmental groups testified as well, and all supported Alternative 3, a static five percent harvest rate hard-wired for close to 20 years, based on Rebuilder model analysis, that would have cut current harvest levels nearly in half, precipitating harsh economic impacts.

In their deliberations, Council members highlighted the flexibility of the “status quo” sardine Harvest Control Rule (HCR) that sets harvest limits based on current environmental conditions. They concurred with scientists and the Management Team that the Rebuilder model does not reflect reality; it can’t model the natural high and low productivity cycles of sardines. Council members recognized that the HCR’s precautionary harvest limits are designed to provide forage for predators. Respecting both the need for conservation and the needs of fishing communities, Washington Councilmember Phil Anderson commented that he would rather provide a little more harvest now to keep fishing communities viable. Otherwise they might not survive into the future. Council chair Marc Gorelnik summarized discussion with his comment, “Mother Nature bats last.”

Scientists and Council members alike recognize that environmental conditions are key to stock rebuilding, as they have been for eons even without fishing. The Management Team pointed out that actual fishery catches in the past five years, since the main directed fishery was closed, have averaged only about 2,300 metric tons, far short of the allowed annual catch target, and most of the catch is “southern” stock sardines. The Council also recognized that the current HCR equates to a built-in rebuilding plan because it has flexibility to reduce catches in relation to the biomass, and also includes automatic actions to further restrict fishing in low abundance years. The Council has already reduced the fishery as far as feasibly possible. Now Mother Nature needs to do the rest.

All things considered, the Council made the proper rebuilding plan decision, following the MSA mandates to specify a time period for rebuilding that is as short as possible, taking into account the biology of the stock and needs of fishing communities. The MSA does allow directed fishing to continue when rebuilding an overfished stock, and does not require instant recovery or the most drastic action be taken. Optimum Yield is a long-term goal. The MSA also allows flexibility in developing a rebuilding plan. The plan will be updated when new information is available – nothing is cast in stone.

In light of evidence of recruitment and the abundance of sardines that California fishermen have been reporting inshore of AT surveys, fishery representatives are asking for a review of the rebuilding plan in 2021 as soon as possible after the next coastwide sardine survey, which was cancelled in 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions, and will for the first time in 2021 include a survey of nearshore waters, in a collaborative effort using fishing industry vessels. The fishing industry is dedicated to help improve the science underpinning stock assessments. “If stock assessments were accurate,” said Corbin Hanson, a highline fisherman who has fished sardines as well as other CPS for more than a decade, “sardines would not be declared ‘overfished.’”

Court Rules NMFS Needs to Better Manage Anchovies, CA Wetfish Assoc. Pushes Back

September 9, 2020 — For the second time in two years, a federal court has ruled that National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) violated the nation’s fishery management law — the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act or MSA — by not using the ‘best available science’ in setting static catch limits on a widely fluctuating anchovy biomass. But an important industry group of harvesters and processors who are also involved in scientific research projects, take issue with the decision.

“Long story short, the judge ruled on a ‘what if’ worst case scenario, not on the reality of anchovy abundance now, or our little anchovy fishery, which food habits studies have shown take less than 1 percent of the anchovy consumed by predators,” said Diane Pleshner-Steele, the executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association. The CWPA is also an intervenor-defendant in the suit.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Pacific Squid: Trade hurdles to China remain, but prices are steady

August 21, 2020 — The California squid fleet faced stiff tariffs, covid-crimped markets and a slow start to the season. Oceanic conditions, on the plus side, appear to have improved for the 2020 season.

“It’s been going OK,” says Diane Pleschner-Steele , executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, in Buellton. “I don’t think they’re setting the world on fire, but they’re catching.”

According to PacFIN, the 2020 harvest of squid for California, Oregon and Washington stood at around 42,000 short tons as of early July. Based on data from previous years, Pleschner-Steele adds that this year’s preliminary catch of 10,107 short tons for California (according to California Department of Fish and Wildlife as of June 26) and other oceanographic data suggests that the fishing grounds indeed felt the effects of El Niño conditions in 2018 and 2019. 

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Monterey Bay: Squid are back in abundance

May 4, 2020 — Squid boats dotting the Central California coastline have been joined by salmon fishermen and women as both seasons are now underway. While the salmon fishery is just getting started up, the squid fishery is already showing signs of a promising season.

“I can tell you that the squid seems to be going really well,” said Moss Landing Harbormaster Tommy Razzeca, “we have a bunch of vessels working out of the harbor.”

The squid fishery is among the most lucrative and productive in the state, frequently valued in the double-digit millions. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, landings from California market squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) were over 34,000 short tons in the 2018-2019 season, generating more than $33 million in revenue.

But according to Diane Pleschner-Steele, the executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, these charming and elusive animals can be difficult to pin down. The statement has proven true in the last couple of years.

Read the full story at the Santa Cruz Sentinel

Pacific council recommends keeping California sardine catch at 4,000t in 2020

April 13, 2020 — Sardine landings off the coast of the US state of California will stay the same in 2020 if harvesters catch all they are permitted under the limits recommended by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC), the California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA) reports.

Despite concerns expressed by environmental groups, the PFMC this week approved repeating the 4,000 metric ton catch target of 2019 in the new season, which begins on July 1, 2020 and ends June 30, 2021, according to a press release from CWPA. A meeting and vote on the matter was held via webinar as a result of COVID-19 concerns.

The decision still requires approval and publication in the Federal Register by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

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