April 20, 2016 — Senate Vice President Arnold I. Palacios says the CNMI and the Hawaii Longline Association have finalized a deal regarding the tuna-catch limit.
Palacios was with Gov. Ralph Torres who visited Hawaii to meet its governor and officials of the Hawaii Longline Association who, the senator said, agreed to an annual payment of $250,000 for three years.
Palacios said the deal had been on hold for six months.
April 14, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said Monday he wants to “get as much as we can” from a proposed deal by Hawaii longliners to buy half of the CNMI’s tuna fishing quota for a couple of hundred thousand dollars per year, allowing them to fish past their annual catch limits if exhausted.
The Hawaii Longline Association wrote to Torres in February and offered a three-year deal—with $200,000 paid out each year—to allow their fishing vessels to catch up to 1,000 metric tons of bigeye tuna “against the CNMI catch limit,” Saipan Tribune learned. The offer is made on the expectation that Hawaii longliners would exhaust their own catch quota, and similar agreements with the CNMI have been made in the last several years.
The offered payment is not tied down to whether the longliners actually end up using the CNMI quota, Saipan Tribune learned, and the $200,000 would be paid without regard the amount of catch HLA has in any given year.
“I am trying to get as much as we can,” Torres said on Monday, “by meeting with our stakeholders in Hawaii and utilizing what we have here and seeing what we gave last year and what are giving up in the years coming.” Torres will be in Hawaii for three days and flew out yesterday.
Asked if he has received any information whether the offer was a “lowball,” Torres said the CNMI’s neighboring islands asked for $1 million “and that was shot down right away.”
“As much as we want a million dollars we will get as much as we can” so “that the industry continue to grow,” Torres said.
Still, an industry source from a neighboring island said the $200,000 price was “not enough.”
Using their formula to calculate market value of tons per yen or dollar, the source estimated a market value for the CNMI’s 1,000 metric tons at between $887,280 to $1.2 million.
The CNMI is allotted 1,000 metric tons for big eye tuna as part of regulations in for fishing in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean as managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
Office of the Governor spokesman Ivan Blanco earlier said that the CNMI is “actively reviewing available options including comparable market values from nearby island countries before an acceptance of the offer will be made.”
Department of Lands and Natural Resource Secretary Richard Seman, for his part, said they always do and hope for money but at the same time, “we want to be reasonable and extend our assistance to the Hawaii Longline Fishery Association who had been cut short by the overall international” regulations.
Asked if he thought the offer was market value or “a fair price,” Seman said it was not so much market value as “it is not based on what they catch.”
“They are just assuming that they catch that amount of quota. If they don’t catch anything, it is their loss,” he told reporters Monday.
Seman said the United States has been in the “forefront of compliance” under the rules that Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission has set up but it was “sad that [the U.S.] gets kind of shortchanged at the end of the day when it comes down to allocation” of fishing quota.
Seman said U.S. longliners are now using “its own territories’ quota” but added they are not going out and seeking other national quotas as compared to other longliners from China who are buying out some of Japan’s quota.
This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.
March 29, 2016 — The following was released by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council:
NOAA Fisheries announces the 2016-2017 recreational fishing season for black sea bass in the South Atlantic Region will start on April 1, 2016, and end on March 31, 2017.
Landings in the past three fishing years have not come close to the 2016-2017 annual catch limit of 1,001,177 pounds whole weight; therefore, black sea bass will be open for the entire April 1, 2016 – March 31, 2017 recreational fishing season.
This announcement is in compliance with the final rule for Regulatory Amendment 14 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region, which published on November 7, 2014 (79 FR 66316). Regulations were effective on December 8, 2014.
For the black sea bass recreational sector, the final rule for Regulatory Amendment 14 revised: The recreational fishing year for black sea bass from June 1 through May 31, to April 1 through March 31.
The black sea bass recreational accountability measure to have NOAA Fisheries announce the length of the recreational season for black sea bass annually in the Federal Register prior to the April 1 recreational fishing year start date based on when NOAA Fisheries projects the recreational sector’s annual catch limit will be met.
For more information on the final rule for Regulatory Amendment 14, please follow this link to the Frequently Asked Questions:
http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/sustainable_fisheries/s_atl/sg/2014/reg_am14/index.html
March 23, 2016 — NOAA Fisheries has opened the public comment period for the proposed management rule that includes withering cuts to several groundfish species and reductions in the overall level of at-sea monitoring (ASM) coverage for the beleaguered groundfish fleet.
It seems the proposed rule, also known as Framework 55, has a little bit of something for everyone to hate. They have until close of business on April 5 to submit their comments to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Environmental groups, such as Oceana, are bitterly criticizing the projected reduction in ASM for groundfish boats to about 14 percent from about 24 percent, saying the rule will “weaken the chances of recovery for this historic fishery.”
Fishermen point to the further reductions in what they already consider minuscule catch quotas and say those reductions — combined with the absorption of the costs for ASM — could finally be the management initiative that shutters the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery for good.
Savage quota cuts
The catch limits, set by the NOAA Fisheries for the 2016 fishing season that begins May 1, include savage cuts to the annual catch limits for gray sole (55 percent), Georges Bank cod (66 percent), northern windowpane flounder (33 percent) and Gulf of Maine yellowtail flounder (26 percent).
“We will not have a fishery as we know it anymore,” Vito Giacalone, policy director for the Northeast Seafood Coalition, said on Tuesday. “In fact, I think you can already make the case that we don’t have a fishery you can recognize now compared to any period in the past.”
March 23, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
Commercial harvest of vermilion snapper in South Atlantic waters will close at 12:01 a.m. (local time) March 29, 2016. The 2016 January-June commercial catch limit is 431,460 pounds whole weight. Reports indicate the catch limit will be met by March 29, 2016. Commercial harvest will reopen at 12:01 a.m. (local time) on July 1, 2016.
The operator of a vessel that has been issued a federal commercial permit for snapper-grouper and that is landing vermilion snapper for sale must have landed and bartered, traded, or sold such vermilion snapper prior to 12:01 a.m., local time, March 29, 2016. The prohibition on sale does not apply to sale or purchase of vermilion snapper that were harvested, landed ashore, and sold prior to 12:01 a.m. (local time) March 29, 2016, and held in cold storage by a dealer or processor.
During the closure:
This closure is necessary to protect the snapper-grouper resource.
March 23, 2016 — We are seeking public comment on a proposed rule that would set 2016-2018 catch limits for all 20 groundfish stocks, adjust the groundfish at-sea monitoring program, and adopt several sector measures.
Catch Limits
The new catch limits proposed for all 20 groundfish stocks are based on stock assessments conducted in late 2015.
The proposed allocations for Gulf of Maine cod, Georges Bank cod, Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder, and witch flounder could limit the operation of the groundfish fishery. However, these reductions are necessary to prevent overfishing for these stocks, which are all at historically low levels.
Based on the proposed allocation increases for Gulf of Maine haddock (150 percent) and Gulf of Maine cod (30 percent), we are proposing trip limit increases and season extensions for the recreational groundfish fishery in a separate action.
At-Sea Monitoring
The 2016 fishing year (May 1, 2016, through April 30, 2017) is the first full year that sectors will be responsible for the costs of at-sea monitoring. We worked with the New England Fishery Management Council to develop a set of reasonable modifications to the at-sea monitoring program to make the program more cost-effective while still reliably meeting monitoring groundfish catch.
The proposed changes include:
PORTLAND, Maine (March 17, 2016) — Maine’s annual rush to catch valuable baby eels prized by expensive restaurants and Asian markets likely will be more successful this year because of warmer weather, fishermen say.
Baby eels cost more at the dock than any other fishery in the state, and are among the most lucrative in the country, sometimes fetching more than $2,000 per pound. Maine has the only significant baby eel fishery in the country, and the season begins Tuesday.
But Maine’s baby eel, or elver, fishermen are coming off a difficult year. Fishermen caught less than 5,300 pounds of the baby eels against a quota of nearly 10,000 in 2015. Many fishermen blamed the slow year on a cold spring, in which the rivers where elvers swim in the spring still were frozen in late March.
Prospects are much better for this year, because rivers are running and temperatures are higher, said Rep. Jeffrey Pierce, a Dresden Republican and adviser to the Maine Elver Fishermen Association.
“There’s every reason to expect everyone will catch their quota,” Pierce said. “Last year at this time we were still snowmobiling on the Kennebec River.”
March 9, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
Today, we are announcing adjustments to the 2016 Atlantic herring catch limits for the different management areas. These adjusted catch limits account for overages and carryover of unharvested catch from 2014.
Catch information for fishing year 2014 shows that in three stock areas (Areas 1A, 2, and 3) Atlantic herring was under-harvested, while in one stock area (Area 1B) the catch limit was exceeded. The overall 2014 stock-wide catch limit was not exceeded. Therefore, we are adjusting the initial 2016 area catch limits to account for the overage and carryovers from the 2014 fishing year. The initial stock-wide catch limit is also adjusted to account for the overage incurred in Area 1B.
Final 2016 herring catch limits will publish later this spring.
Initial Adjusted Herring Catch Limits for 2016:
|
Area 1A |
30,397 metric tons |
|
Area 1B |
2,941 metric tons |
|
Area 2 |
32,100 metric tons |
|
Area 3 |
43,832 metric tons |
|
Stockwide |
103,045 metric tons |
For more information, read the proposed rule as published today in the Federal Register, and the permit holder bulletin available on our website.
Questions about this rule? Please contact Emily Gilbert, 978-281-9244, or Emily.Gilbert@noaa.gov.
March 3, 2016 — The following was released by the Office of Senator Jeanne Shaheen:
Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the lead Democrat on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, invited two prominent industry leaders in the New England fishing industry to testify at a committee hearing today. Through her leadership on the committee, Senator Shaheen was able to make New Hampshire’s struggling fishing industry a major focus of Thursday’s hearing. James Hayward and Dr. Joshua Wiersma both spoke to the enormous threat that new federal at-sea monitoring fees and existing catch limits pose to New Hampshire’s fishermen. As of the first of this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is forcing New Hampshire fishermen to pay for an at-sea observer program, which monitors catch sizes for conservation purposes. The program, which was previously paid for by NOAA, will cost fishermen an estimated $700 per day on fishing trips.
“Fishing is an integral part of New Hampshire’s economy and heritage,” said Shaheen after the hearing. “Our struggling small-boat fleet needs relief from onerous federal regulations so New Hampshire’s fishermen can continue to make a living. Catch limits and at-sea monitoring fees threaten the very existence of our fishing industry. I’m very pleased that Mr. Hayward and Dr. Wiersma took the time to inform the Senate of their first-hand experience in our region’s fishing industry.”
During the hearing Mr. Hayward and Dr. Wiersma delivered a dire warning to the Senate.
Mr. Hayward: “Time is crucial and the road we’re headed down right now is not a good one. It’s pretty much the end is near and if things aren’t changed soon, at least to some extent, the fleets going to look a lot different in thirty six month. I can assure you of that.”
Shaheen: “Will we still have any fishing in New Hampshire if we don’t see some changes from NOAA?”
Mr. Hayward: “What will happen is the infrastructure will be gone and when that’s gone, the boats will leave. The ones that want to remain will be forced out because they will have no place to offload, market or sell.”
That interaction can be watched here.
At a separate hearing today on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Shaheen confronted the Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker with the testimony she had just heard from Mr. Hayward and Dr. Wiersma. NOAA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Their interaction can be watched here.
Background information on Senator Shaheen’s invited witnesses:
James Hayward, President of XI Northeast Fisheries Sector, Inc.
James Hayward is a second generation commercial fisherman. He is primarily a day boat gillnet fisherman operating in the Gulf of Maine ranging from 20 to 120 miles from port. He currently owns two fishing boats located in Portsmouth Harbor, New Hampshire. He owns and manages Heidi Seafood Services, the only federally licensed groundfish dealership at the State facility in Portsmouth Harbor. He is president of the community’s groundfish sector, XI Northeast Fisheries Sector, Inc., as well as treasurer of New Hampshire community supported fisheries, New Hampshire Community Seafood. He is also a board member of the Northeast Seafood Coalition and the Northeast Sector Services Network, and a member of the Seafood Harvesters of America.
Dr. Joshua Wiersma, Manager, Northeast Fisheries, Environmental Defense Fund
Dr. Wiersma has over 15 years of experience working with commercial fishermen in New England to improve their business conditions. His doctoral research, which examined the value of collaborative research to New England fishermen, led him to work directly for the ground fishing industry after graduation. Initially hired by the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership as a Fisheries Economist, he then worked for the Northeast Seafood Coalition as their Sector Policy Analyst where he helped to create the twelve Northeast Fisheries Sectors. He went on to manage New Hampshire’s two ground fishing sectors for the next five years. Over this time, he also co-founded and was the Executive Director of New Hampshire Community Seafood Association, a successful community supported fishery cooperative that offers fresh, local, underutilized fish to the New Hampshire public through a type of fish share model. He is now the Manager of Northeast Fisheries at Environmental Defense Fund, where he continues to work with fishermen to shape effective fisheries management, to improve fisheries science and data collection, and to develop better seafood markets and other business opportunities.
February 26, 2016 — “He [Michael] buys a lot of fish. You can become a laundromat. You’ll never find a better laundromat than this mother….” — Carlos Rafael.
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“I could have to regret this to you [sic], because I don’t know you. You could be the IRS in here. This could be a cluster-f…. So I’m trusting you. The only thing is, I open myself because both of you is Russians and I don’t think they would have two Russians [posing as agents]. F… me – that would be some bad luck!” — Carlos Rafael
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“Rafael said that every Friday or Saturday, he works with an employee, later identified as Debra Messier, who is responsible for preparing the reports. If Rafael’s boats catch fish in excess of legal quotas, he tells Messier to change the description on the report to that of another species for which he had remaining quota, or to one for which there were no limitations at all.”
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Rafael told the UCs (undercover agents) that Michael delivers cash to Rafael in advance of fish shipments. Rafael then sends fish to Michael, in New York, in varying increments over a six-month period until the advanced payment is worked off. Rafael sends the fish to Michael by truck, after which Rafael marks a journal detailing the value of the fish shipped. Rafael reduces the balance owed to Michael after each shipment until the cash advance is fully repaid.