Saving Seafood

Co-owner: New Bedford fish auction could see periodic closures over next month

May 24, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The fish auction that’s been a daily institution on the city’s waterfront for decades could see periodic closures over the next month or so, as a co-owner said Monday that this year’s significant cut to the cod quota is keeping many boats tied to the docks, rather than bringing in fish.

Richard Canastra, co-owner of the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction since 1994, said Monday morning that in his view, “there won’t be” fish auctions on some days between now and July 4, when he expects commercial fishing activity to pick up again.

“There’s not many fishermen fishing anymore,” Canastra said as he stood outside the auction building on Hassey Street. “A lot of the boats are just tied up — they’re not going to fish. Why would they fish if there’s only so much (allowable) cod?”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in conjunction with the New England Fishery Management Council, instituted a 62-percent reduction in the allowable catch for Georges Bank cod this year, in quotas that took effect May 1.

Former New Bedford Mayor John Bullard, now regional administrator for NOAA fisheries, has said the new regulations create “about a 95 percent cut” since 2012 in catch limits for Georges Bank cod, a key species for New Bedford’s fishing industry.

Government documents detailing the quotas say they’re, “intended to help prevent overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks, achieve optimum yield” and ensure that fishery management is based on the best data available.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Consortium pushes Atlantic pollock as sustainable alternative to cod in New England

May 13, 2016 — New England fishermen have caught more than 10 million pounds of Atlantic pollock every year since 2003, and now a loose consortium of proponents are advocating for its greater use as a cheaper alternative to cod and haddock.

As New England’s cod fishery has been damaged by slow reproduction, tight quotas and the impacts of climate change, a group of fishermen, processors, restaurateurs and sustainable seafood advocates are aiming to rebrand Atlantic pollock as New England’s fish, according to an Associated Press article.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Survey delay might hurt fish population research

May 12, 2016 — The following is an excerpt from a story published today by the Boston Globe.

NEWPORT, R.I. – Even before mechanics found deeply pitted bearings near crankshafts in its generators, problems that could have led to catastrophic engine failure, the Henry B. Bigelow was running more than a month behind.

Now, the government research vessel is embarking on its annual spring voyage later than ever before, a delay that could have serious consequences for scientists’ ability to assess the health of some of the 52 fish stocks they survey, from the waters off North Carolina to the eastern reaches of the Gulf of Maine.

Fish migrate and change their feeding patterns as waters warm, which might make it difficult for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists to compare this spring’s survey of fish populations with previous counts.

The prospect of skewed data could complicate efforts for policy makers to set proper quotas, potentially leading either to overfishing or unnecessarily strict catch limits.

“I worry that this will create statistical noise and more uncertainty,” said Gary Shepherd, a fishery biologist at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, where he and other scientists recommend quotas based on what the Bigelow catches, along with other data.

As the waters warm, some of the fish, such as herring, migrate out of the survey area and into the region’s rivers. Other species, such as squid, which are short-lived, might not survive in representative numbers through June, when the Bigelow is now scheduled to finish its survey.

“If the survey had started at its normal time, it would have found squid on the continental shelf,” said Robert Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, a Washington-based group that represents the fishing industry. “But now it won’t because the survey doesn’t sample Nantucket Sound.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

MASSACHUSETTS: House budget includes money for SMAST

April 29, 2016 — Next year’s state budget, passed by the House on Wednesday, includes increased funding for city public schools; money to expand fisheries research; and money for community programs.

“This is a big victory, I was able to secure most of what we asked for,” Rep. Antonio F.D. Cabral, D-New Bedford, said Thursday. The budget awaits approval by the state Senate.

Notable funds set to come the city’s way include $450,000 for fisheries research conducted by UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST).

“This is critically important,” said SMAST Dean Steven Lohrenz. “Funds have been tight lately so this will allow us to continue to do the kind of pioneering work we’ve been doing with our collaborative fisheries research.”

The research conducted by SMAST looks at ways to improve accuracy in fisheries data collection. Lohrenz said that the new funds will allow researchers to conduct new projects including video survey techniques of cod and other groundfish.

“Their progress with data collection is very important for our fisheries industry especially with federal regulations that could cut quotas for the next fishing cycle,” Cabral said. “We’re hoping down the road that they can do for ground fish what they did for the scallop industry.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

CONNECTICUT: Fishing limits are too onerous, fishermen tell Rep. Joe Courtney

April 25, 2016 — STONINGTON, Conn. — U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, spoke with local fishermen Friday who shared their ongoing concerns about federal fishing regulations that limit the numbers of fish they can haul.

The regulations, which are intended to restore fish stocks, have forced local fishermen to throw back thousands of fish that are usually dead already, they said.

Mike Gambardella, owner of Gambardella Wholesale Seafood, who called the gathering of area fishermen, said if catch limits don’t change, he’ll be forced to close his business.

At the moment, Gambardella’s operation is only allowed to bring in 10 black sea bass per day, which he said is absurd. And since 2010, the state’s quota for summer flounder has gone down more than 100,000 pounds.

Gambardella showed Courtney photos of a local fisherman who brought in thousands of sea bass in one tow. The fisherman was then forced to pick 10 of them to keep and had to throw the rest back.

“These federal regulations are really in bad shape,” he said. “Something has got to change, or I’ll have to close my doors.”

Read the full story at The Westerly Sun

Monitoring The Catch Aboard Groundfishing Vessels

April 22, 2016 — While the feds used to pay for [at-sea] monitors, as of March 1st, fishermen have had to start footing the roughly $700-per-day cost.

John Bullard is Regional Administrator for NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fishery Office in Gloucester. His agency uses input from fishermen and scientists to set quotas and other regulations for the industry.

“It’s not that we wanted the industry to pay,” Bullard said. “We understand the hardship that the groundfish industry is under, believe me.”

Bullard explained that NOAA covered the costs of at-sea monitors for as long as it could. But that money is now gone. And he said the industry has had plenty of warning.

“We’ve been saying to industry, ‘You guys are gonna have to pay for this…not because we want you to, but because the money’s gonna run out.’ So this hasn’t been a sudden thing,” said Bullard.

Most groundfishermen now must scramble to come up with ways to pay for at-sea monitors. Meanwhile, others are trying another option: electronic monitoring with video cameras.

Read and listen to the full story at WCAI

Pacific Council Finalizes Salmon Recommendations

April 19, 2016 — The Pacific Fishery Management Council finalized their recommendation for ocean salmon seasons on Thursday, April 14. Draft copies of the adopted seasons can be viewed here. Seasons are not official until being signed by the Secretary of Commerce and adopted by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission for waters from 0-3 nautical miles.

The adopted regulations reflect the very challenging issues with poor forecasts for numerous ocean salmon populations. These salmon have variously been affected by several years of extreme drought conditions in California, and followed last year by poor ocean conditions resulting from the recent El Nino event along the Pacific Coast.

The commercial troll salmon seasons North of Cape Falcon will have no coho salmon quota this year, and Chinook quotas, season length, and open periods and open period limits. From Cape Falcon to Humbug Mt. the Chinook seasons will have a number of closures throughout the season, reduced weekly landing limits during the fall period, and limited to fishing only in nearshore waters during October. While the area from Humbug Mt. to the OR/CA border will have reduced June and July quotas from recent years, no fishing allowed in August and September, reduced landing limits, and several additional closed periods in June and July.

Read the full release at The Fishing Wire

Hawaii’s Tuna Longliners Offer to Buy Additional Quota from Northern Mariana Islands

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.

MASSACHUSETTS: Will Sea Bass Quota Go Up or Down?

April 7, 2016 — Last year, sea bass literally put some commercial fishermen in the black.

The black fish with the delicious pure white meat abundantly filled local waters and made up some financial losses for fishermen curtailed by otherwise stringent regulations on striped bass, cod, flounder and other lucrative species.

But that might change soon.

In a memo dated March 18 from the Division of Marine Fisheries in Boston, while regulations for striped bass, bluefish, fluke and scup will likely remain unchanged this year in Massachusetts, “Regulations for black sea bass have been amended to achieve a mandatory 23 percent harvest reduction.”

The Massachusetts regulatory agency says these revisions are being implemented along the entire Atlantic seaboard via “emergency rulemaking” to take effect prior to the onset of the 2016 season. Public hearings will be held to discuss proposals before changes are finalized.

Read the full story at Newport This Week

ALABAMA: Red snapper season could be an all-time low

April 7, 2016 — Alabama anglers could be faced with the most restrictive red snapper quota ever in the Gulf of Mexico, possibly just six days, U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne said Wednesday.

Byrne, R-Fairhope, is a frequent critic of the federal government’s handling of regulations for the annual snapper season for commercial and recreational fishing. Deep-sea fishing is a multimillion-dollar tourism draw in Alabama, and the coastal region touts itself as the top snapper spot in the world.

This year’s limits are set to be revealed in coming weeks. Byrne, however, warned that they may be even lower than those prompting public protest in 2014 and 2015.

Based on estimates from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Fisheries Service, this year’s season for recreational fishing will be capped at “six to nine days,” Byrne said. The 2015 season was 10 days, up one day from 2014’s record low of nine.

The commercial charter/for-hire season will be from 30-56 days, Byrne added. The 2015 season was 44 days.

“It’s very disappointing,” Byrne said. “It’s very much like what we had last summer. … This derby season is not good for anybody and it could be dangerous.”

Read the full story at Al.com