Saving Seafood

Resources Available to Assist Fishermen with Transition to Electronic Reporting

October 7, 2021 — The following was released  by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is moving away from paper vessel trip reporting requirements in the Greater Atlantic Region. Beginning on November 10, 2021, most fishermen permitted to fish federal marine waters from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to the Canadian border will be required to submit their vessel trip reports electronically. They must be submitted to NOAA Fisheries within 48 hours of the conclusion of a fishing trip. The new reporting requirement applies to all federally permitted vessels except those holding only a permit for American lobster.

There is a wealth of information for fishermen making the transition from paper to electronic reporting, including a number of detailed tutorials and recordings of previously held training webinars. Learn more and watch a new short video on how to use the new eVTR app on our website.

If you have additional questions about electronic reporting requirements in the Greater Atlantic region:

•Contact the Industry Support Line at (978) 281-9188.

•Contact your local Port Agent.

Read the full release from the NOAA Fisheries

 

Fishermen were right: Dogfish are eating cod

November 30, 2020 — When Chatham commercial fisherman Bruce Kaminski took Lt. Gov. Tim Murray and other state officials out fishing in August 2008, he hoped to prove the spiny dogfish were overrunning their fishing grounds and inhibiting the restoration of more valuable species such as cod.

That day, Kaminski and his crew caught 300 dogfish on 300 hooks in a scant 10 minutes. It was a sign that dogfish populations were rebounding from low numbers in the late 1990s. Cape fishermen were asking that their daily catch limit of dogfish be increased from 600 pounds per day to something closer to the 7,000 pounds per day they caught in the early ’90s.

Dogfish have since rebounded to relatively healthy levels, and fishermen are now allowed to catch 6,000 pounds per day, but they say the dogfish comeback happened at the expense of cod, which are still mired at all-time low population levels.

There are many reasons for the lack of success reviving the cod population — chronic overfishing, a rapidly warming ocean and insufficient habitat protection, to name a few. But fishermen told scientists for decades they think an imbalance in the ecosystem, brought on by a resurgent dogfish population, shares a good portion of the blame.

Fishermen say they have witnessed dogfish eating cod, but that’s been hard to quantify. From 1977 to 2017 only 14 cod were found in the stomachs of dogfish caught in NOAA’s annual bottom trawl survey that involves random sampling using a fishing net in waters from Cape Hatteras to the Canadian border.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

ERIC BURNLEY: Commercial fishermen do not affect recreational fishing

February 3, 2020 — There is a misconception among some recreational fishermen that commercial fishermen are to blame for all the ills we suffer with a lack of flounder, bluefish, trout, striped bass, or (you name it) . Sorry, Charlie, it just ain’t so.

There was a time when both commercial and recreational fishermen could take as many fish of any size as they wanted, and we did. I have seen coolers full of flounder come off the Point at Cape Hatteras with many of those fish well below 12 inches. Blues stacked up like cordwood at Indian River when the run was on, and trout deck loaded in Delaware Bay. At the same time, commercial fishermen were filling their nets with the same fish until the market value dropped to the point where it became a losing proposition to go after them.

I was a small part of the movement to put limits on both recreational and commercial fishermen here in Delaware and in Virginia. In Delaware, I was on the Delaware Wildlife Federation’s Advisory Council, and we met regularly with state officials to try to bring some order to the fishery. The late Buddy Hurlock and his wife Rose were the driving force behind this movement.

Read the full story at the Cape Gazette

New NOAA director seems willing to work with fishing industry

November 20, 2017 — Jon Hare has just completed his first twelve months on the job as science and research director for NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole. And it’s a big job. But he’s still smiling.

The NEFSC manages the living marine resources of the Northeast Continental Shelf Ecosystem from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Hatteras. But Hare’s energy and enthusiasm have been equal to the task, while his willingness to listen and engage with all comers have earned him respect within NOAA and in the larger community. “It’s been a challenge but one that I’ve enjoyed,” he said, sitting down for a wide-ranging discussion at the Fishing Partnership office in New Bedford last week.

There was plenty to talk about but in this city, it begins with fish.

Among its many duties, the Science Center is responsible for conducting the groundfish surveys that determine annual catch limits for each species. Tensions with industry have ensued. Fishermen have frequently been critical of the survey’s methods and findings, convinced that cuts to their quota are a result of flawed science rather than falling stock levels.

There was not a lot of empathy from NOAA in the past but Hare has displayed his willingness to collaborate with the industry. NOAA supports a number of fishing industry-based projects, using commercial fishing vessels, to gather data that can be used to augment the government surveys.

“When any group asks me to meet with them I go. What we do affects them in their day-to-day life and that weighs on me,” he said. “I think now there is more of seeing the pros and cons of a particular piece of science. We need to value different perspectives. We should care what everyone thinks. It’s about communication.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Warming Waters Bring New Marine Species to NC, But Chase Away Some Familiar Ones

Bull sharks and lion fish are among the species becoming more common in North Carolina, while black sea bass and other fish are getting harder to find.

August 8, 2017 — A big reason reason North Carolina is seeing so much change in its marine species is because the state has an unusual variety of them, said Sara Mirabilio, a researcher and fisheries extension specialist with North Carolina Sea Grant.

Near Cape Hatteras, the cold Labrador Current comes down from the Arctic, and the warm Gulf Stream flows up from the Gulf of Mexico.

“We are at the northernmost range for southern species and the southernmost range for northern species,” she said. “So climate change at the boundaries will show the most impact.”

In many ways climate change is unfolding as the slowest of slow-motion disasters. But fish can move quickly and for long distances when spurred by relatively small changes in water temperature.

Lately they have moved so quickly that fisheries regulations are lagging, and tensions are rising between commercial fishermen based where the fish used to be, and those where the fish have moved.

On a recent day, Mike Ireland’s 99-foot trawler “Sharon Nicole” was docked behind a seafood wholesaler in the Hobucken community east of New Bern, just off the Pamlico Sound.

Shrimp season was under way, but he and his crew were repairing one of the massive, powered winches that haul in their nets. It was an especially crucial one, because it reels in the small net they drag to locate fish.

“This is probably the most important tool on the boat,” Ireland said. “With this little sample net you can really pinpoint where they’re at.”

Read and listen to the full story at WUNC

2016 fishing review highlights monitors —human and electronic

April 24, 2017 — NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Office released its annual year in review for 2016 and nowhere does it mention the ever-churning debate over Gulf of Maine cod and the yawning divide between scientists’ data and the primary-source observations of fishermen.

For the most part, the report is a four-color chronicle of what officials at Gloucester-based GARFO — which manages the nation’s federal fisheries from the Gulf of Maine south to Cape Hatteras and west to the Great Lakes — consider the agency’s most tangible accomplishments in 2016.

Still, the review gives some insight into some of the agency’s management priorities and policy areas where it may marshal its resources in the future.

It specifically mentions the office’s work in drafting a recovery plan for endangered Atlantic salmon and a five-year action plan for the species. It highlights its work with commercial groundfishermen — many of them from Gloucester — on potential changes to the small-mesh whiting fishery.

The report also highlights the agency’s transfer of the cost of of at-sea monitoring to permit holders.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

NILS STOLPE: Why is the summer flounder quota being reduced 50 percent in two years (with another major reduction for the following year)?

October 20, 2016 — Summer flounder, also known as fluke, support recreational and commercial fisheries that are among the most important in the mid-Atlantic and southern New England. They have been a mainstay of recreational fishermen either from their own boats or on for-hire vessels, support a large directed commercial fishery, their incidental harvest is important in other fisheries and they are near the top of the list of must-have meals for summer visits to the shore. Hundreds of party and charter boats depend on them for all or for part of their annual incomes, thousands of private boats seek them out every summer, and much of the business bait and tackle shops do every year depends on the fishery. Hundreds of commercial fishing boats target them or take them incidentally in other fisheries.

screen-shot-2016-10-21-at-11-21-18-amTo say that the summer flounder fishery is important to tens of thousands of people from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras would be an understatement. The fishery is more important to both recreational and commercial fishermen than any other in the Mid-Atlantic and southern New England.

“By 2010 the fishing mortality on summer flounder had declined to its lowest level in at least 30 years, and summer flounder stock biomass was the highest since the stock assessments began in the 1960s” (from The summer flounder chronicles II: new science, new controversy, 2001–2010, M. Terciero, Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, Dec 2011).

But in a memo dated 25 July 2016, the Chair of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), wrote “the revised understanding of the stock status produced by the assessment update indicates reductions in the estimates of SSB, and increases in the estimates of annual Fs.” So 5 years after declaring that the summer flounder stock was at its highest level in half a century the managers decided fishing mortality was greater that it had been thought to be and that there were fewer summer flounder than was previously estimated.

Following a quota cut for both recreational and commercial fishermen of 27% for the 2016 fishing year it was decided that a 31% cut was necessary in 2017. That’s a 50% reduction in landings in two years.

The NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, MA conducts annual bottom trawl surveys in the spring and the fall that have been continuous since 1963. They are designed to give a relative measure of the abundance of the various species caught. The chart on the right shows that there has been nothing particularly dramatic going on with the summer flounder in either the spring or autumn survey, seemingly nothing that would warrant such draconian quota cuts (note that beginning in 2009 a new survey vessel was employed, resulting in higher absolute catches).

screen-shot-2016-10-21-at-11-21-40-amWith the quota reduction in 2017, commercial summer flounder landings are going to be at their lowest point since 1974. From 1950 to 2014 annual commercial landings averaged 7,200 metric tons. The 2017 quota will be one third of that. In the words of the head of NMFS in 2011 ”in 1976, federal management of marine fisheries was virtually non-existent. With the exception of state managed waters, federal activities were limited to supporting a patchwork of fishery specific treaties governing international waters, which at that time existed only 12 miles off our nation’s coasts.” In twenty-three of the twenty-six years between 1950 and 1976, pre-Magnuson years with no significant management of summer flounder, commercial landings were higher than they will be in 2017, which will be the fortieth year of intensive management of the fishery. This management has involved annual surveys, at least 100 meetings (usually involving at least a dozen people and usually held at coastal resorts or conference centers) and over 8,000 pages (either dealing with summer flounder alone or in combination with sea bass and scup, which are all included in the same management plan) of reports, calculations, charts and tables, memos, meeting notices and on and on.

Kind of makes you wonder what’s going on with summer flounder management, doesn’t it?

Read more about summer flounder management at FishNet USA

CFRF Black Sea Bass Research Fleet

August 24, 2016 — The following was released by the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation:

On September 1st., the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF), in partnership with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RI DEM), will launch a one-year pilot project to develop a cost-effective method to collect critically needed fishery dependent data on black sea bass (Centropristis striata) in the Southern New England and Mid-Atlantic Bight region. The project will be approached collaboratively by a team of commercial and recreational fishermen and fisheries scientists and managers, and will involve eight months of black sea bass catch and discard characterization from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras. The Black Sea Bass Research Fleet will involve eight fishing vessels from a variety of gear types, including trawl, lobster/crab trap, gillnet, and hook and line, in collecting biological black sea bass data as part of routine fishing practices. Participant fishermen will use a specialized tablet app to efficiently and accurately record biological information about black sea bass catch and bycatch throughout the year. The results from the proposed project will help to fill existing data gaps for the northern Atlantic black sea bass, which is an essential first step in developing a management plan that reflects the current state of the black sea bass resource.

The CFRF will be soliciting applications from fishing vessels based in Rhode Island to participate in the Black Sea Bass Research Fleet in September 2016. More information about the project, including application materials, will be available on the CFRF website here.

The CFRF looks forward to getting the Black Sea Bass Research Fleet up and running!

NOAA switching fish survey practice

August 3, 2016 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries announced Tuesday afternoon that it will begin the planning process to turn over part or all of a key fish population study from its flagship $54 million research vessel to private commercial fishing vessels.

“We are thinking we want to make good on our commitment in our strategic plan for more transparency and building confidence in (fish) survey results,” said William Karp, the science and research director for NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center. He said other regions, Alaska and the Northwest, use commercial vessels for this purpose.

The spring and fall bottom survey has been done by NOAA vessels since 1963 and is the longest continuous fish survey in the world. Using a special net, the 208-foot-long Henry B. Bigelow samples fish populations at 400 randomly selected sites from Cape Hatteras to the Canadian border. The relative abundance of the species they catch forms an index that helps scientists estimate fish populations along with biological information and landings data.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times