Saving Seafood

U.S. to spend $25 million to distribute East Coast fish to nutrition programs

December 27, 2021 — The federal government will spend $25 million on East Coast fish to aid nutrition assistance programs and help New England’s struggling commercial fishing industry.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday it would make the purchase on Atlantic groundfish. That is a group of species such as cod, haddock and pollock that come to the docks in states including Massachusetts and Maine and are popular in seafood markets and restaurants.

The purchase came after members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation called on the USDA to purchase more East Coast seafood through its programs that distribute food to residents in need.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

 

Groundfish: Council Picks Framework 63 Preferred Measures; Specifications Include 2022 Catch Limits for Georges Bank Cod

December 10, 2021 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

During its December 7-9, 2021 webinar meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council selected preferred alternatives for Framework Adjustment 63 to the Northeast Multispecies (Groundfish) Fishery Management Plan. The Council then voted to submit the framework to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS/NOAA Fisheries) for review, approval, and implementation. The target implementation date is May 1, 2022, the start of the next groundfish fishing year.

The framework contains revised fishery specifications for several stocks, including:

• Gulf of Maine cod for fishing years 2022 through 2024;

• Georges Bank cod for fishing year 2022, marking a sharp reduction from previous catch limits;

• Georges Bank yellowtail flounder for fishing years 2022 and 2023; and

• White hake for fishing year 2022, consistent with the new rebuilding plan for this stock.

In addition, the framework includes 2022 total allowable catches (TACs) for three resources on Georges Bank that the U.S. shares with Canada – Eastern Georges Bank cod, Eastern Georges Bank haddock, and Georges Bank yellowtail flounder. The Council signed off on the U.S./Canada TACs during its September meeting. All other groundfish stock specifications remain unchanged from what the Council adopted in Framework 61.

Read the full release from the New England Fishery Management Council

Proposed cod cuts to cost Gloucester fleet

December 9, 2021 — To help rebuild what NOAA scientists say is a Georges Bank cod stock that is overfished, the New England Fishery Management Council on Wednesday unanimously set new rules that would drastically reduce the cod catch in the fishing year 2022 that begins May 1. The cuts could cost the Gloucester fleet $1 million in revenue.

The council set limits on both commercial and recreational Georges Bank cod fisheries as it voted to pass along all components of so-called Framework 63 management measures to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which still has to approve this package of recommendations.

After several hours of debate and several back-and-forth amendments, the council declined to remand back to its Scientific and Statistical Committee its recommendations on a 57% lower acceptable biological catch of Georges Bank cod.

New England Fishery Management Council member Elizabeth “Libby” Etrie, program director of the fishing membership organization Northeast Service Sector, Inc. of Gloucester, appeared to have found a compromise position between a remand, which could have delayed the implementation of new fishing rules, and setting a 754 metric ton cod catch for three years, as the scientific panel had originally recommended.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Fishery groups question cod limits

December 8, 2021 — Two fishing industry trade associations are asking the New England Fishery Management Council to reevaluate its drastically reduced catch limit recommendations on Georges Bank cod.

The groups, the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition and the Associated Fisheries of Maine, say the New England Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee lacked “relevant information” to make its determination on an Acceptable Biological Catch for Georges Bank cod. They are asking for a remand.

The New England Fishery Management Council is meeting through Thursday, Dec. 9. It plans to discuss its Scientific and Statistical Committee’s recommendations on overfishing limits and acceptable biological catches for several species — including Georges Bank cod and Gulf of Maine cod — for 2022-2024 on Wednesday, Dec. 8, at 10:45 a.m.

You can find a link to join the webinar for the council’s meeting here: https://www.nefmc.org/calendar/december-2021-council-meeting.

The Newburyport-based New England Fishery Management Council is charged under federal legislation with conserving and managing fishery resources off the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

“Why are these assessments not reflecting what fishermen are seeing on the water?” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the nonprofit Northeast Seafood Coalition, which represents commercial fishing interests in the northeastern United States. She said the council will be discussing two critical stocks in Georges Bank cod and Gulf of Maine cod. She said there is uncertainty about the assessment of both stocks.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Alaska residents’ salmon permits down 50 percent since 1975

October 13, 2021 — The preliminary value to fishermen of the nearly 41 million salmon caught this summer at Alaska’s largest fishery at Bristol Bay is nearly $248 million, 64 percent above the 20-year average. That figure will be much higher when bonuses and other price adjustments are paid out.

But as with the fish bucks tallied from Alaska’s cod, pollock, flounders and other groundfish, the bulk of the Bay’s salmon money won’t be circulating through Alaska’s economy because most of the fishing participants live out of the state.

In 2017, for example, 62 percent of gross earnings from the Bristol Bay driftnet fishery and 40 percent from the setnet fishery left Alaska as nonresident earnings.

That’s due to the region experiencing an overall 50 percent decline in local permit holdings since Alaska began limiting entry into commercial salmon fisheries in 1975. Combined, residents of the Bristol Bay region now hold less than one-quarter of the region’s salmon permits.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Baltic Sea fishing quotas agreed for 2022 with huge cuts in the cod catch

October 13, 2021 — The Council for the European Union reached an agreement on next year’s fishing opportunities in the Baltic Sea at the latest AGRIFISH Council meeting in Luxembourg this week, with some total allowable catch (TAC) levels still exceeding scientific recommendations.

Following much of the European Commission’s proposal published in August, substantial quota reductions have been made for multiple stocks, including an 88 percent cut for western Baltic cod to just 489 metric tons (MT).

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

NOAA Fisheries Announces Gulf of Maine Cod and Haddock Recreational Regulations for 2021

August 18, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is announcing that current Gulf of Maine (GOM) cod and haddock recreational measures will remain in place for the remainder of fishing year 2021, which ends April 30. 2022.

The recreational fishery for GOM cod and haddock is managed under the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan (Plan). The Plan includes a proactive recreational accountability measure, which allows the Regional Administrator, in consultation with the New England Fishery Management Council, to develop recreational management measures for the fishing year to ensure that the recreational quotas are achieved, but not exceeded. We project that current measures for GOM cod and haddock should prevent the recreational fishery’s quotas from being exceeded.

Read the full release here

Request for Comments on Petition for Rulemaking for Atlantic Cod

August 18, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today, NOAA Fisheries published a notice of receipt of a petition for rulemaking that was submitted in June 2020 by the Conservation Law Foundation. This petition requests we prepare a Secretarial Amendment and take specific emergency action to end overfishing and rebuild Atlantic cod.

This notice provides the public 45 days to comment on the petition for rulemaking.  To review and comment on the notice and associated documents, please go to our online portal and enter NOAA-NMFS-2021-0039 in the search box.

For more information read the notice as published in the Federal Register.

Questions?

Industry: Contact Peter Christopher, Supervisory Fishery Policy Analyst, 978-281-9288

Media: Contact Allison Ferreira, Regional Office, 978-281-9103

Cod study could lead to better management

August 12, 2021 — When the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute opened its doors in 2013, the first major project undertaken by its researchers focused on the gene sequencing of the region’s iconic species of Atlantic cod.

It was fitting. The species was the very lifeblood of the regional groundfish fishery through centuries and the economic engine that drove the commercial fishing industry through its halcyon era.

The cod project led to GMGI’s first published paper in 2017. Four years later, GMGI researchers have built on that first study by publishing a second manuscript detailing the development of a new genetic tool to help distinguish between spring-spawning and winter-spawning cod, as well as males and females, in the western Gulf of Maine.

The study, published in the August edition of the journal “Ecology and Evolution” could prove a boon to marine researchers and fishery biologists by bringing sharper resolution to stock assessments and applying the best science to understand the complex fishery, said Tim O’Donnell, a senior research associate at GMGI and lead author on the study.

“The original work at GMGI was pretty similar to this, but they used a slightly different technique and way fewer individuals (cod),” O’Donnell said.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times