April 27, 2016 –PORTLAND, Maine — Federal regulators will soon release new rules for New England’s beleaguered cod fishery, including the role at-sea monitors will play.
At-sea monitoring is a controversial subject in the fishery because the government has shifted the cost of paying for monitors to fishermen. The monitors collect data that informs fishing regulations.
The new cod fishing season starts May 1, and the rules governing it are expected this week.
April 26, 2016 — A study by a group of researchers led by Dr. Andrew J. Pershing from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute appeared in Science last November (“Slow adaptation in the face of rapid warming leads to collapse of the Gulf of Maine cod fishery”). The Pershing study concluded that fisheries managers overseeing Gulf of Maine cod failed to consider ocean temperature in their management strategies, leading to overfishing of the stock. This week’s issue of Science published comments from two groups of scientists critiquing the Pershing study and its conclusions. In the same issue, the Pershing team responded with a defense of their work. Summaries of the comments and response are provided below:
A group of researchers at the Population Dynamics Branch of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, led by Dr. Michael C. Palmer, argues that the Pershing study’s claim that rising temperatures led to “extra mortality” is unsubstantiated by the overall mortality data. While Palmer’s group agrees that environmental factors affect fish stocks, they argue that the Pershing study failed to attribute additional mortality to temperature alone. Consequently, they conclude, “The analyses of Pershing et al. provide no evidence to support the hypothesis that failure to account for increases in temperature led to overfishing of the Gulf of Maine Atlantic cod stock.”
Read the full comment at Science
A group of Canadian fishery scientists led by Dr. Douglas P. Swain from Fisheries and Oceans Canada argues that the Pershing study is based on a flawed analysis of the population dynamics of Gulf of Maine cod. They write that the Pershing model made inappropriate assumptions, and that the model should undergo simulation before being used to make management decisions. They also argue that the Pershing study failed to take into account other factors that may have affected the mortality rates of Gulf of Maine cod. They conclude, “It is necessary to reserve judgment on the role of climate change…until more defensible analyses are conducted to address this issue.”
Read the full comment at Science
The Pershing group published a response to these comments. They argue that including temperature-dependent mortality improves abundance estimates. Further, using this metric shows that warming waters reduces growth rates of Gulf of Maine cod. They conclude, “Our report did not claim to have a definite answer to what is causing cod mortality to increase. Rather, we claimed that this increase is real, that it is likely related to temperature, and that failing to account for it led to catch advice that allowed for overfishing.”
April 22, 2016 — BIDDEFORD, Maine — A group of scientists say more Atlantic cod might survive being thrown back in the water by fishermen than previously thought.
Scientists from several organizations, including the New England Aquarium in Boston and University of New England in Biddeford, conducted a study. It’s published in the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea’s Journal of Marine Science.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Times
April 19, 2016 — In the sustainable fisheries conference held at Rhode Island College last week, audience members were asked various demographic and opinion questions about the ocean, fisheries, and management that were tabulated and presented on the spot. Unscientific, yes, but very interesting. The question of whether the groundfish fishery is sustainable was asked of the audience before and after, and the results suggest that some opinions were changed — for the positive — by the two hours of discussion.
When asked who would be best to regulate the fishery, the answer showed the thoughts of those in the audience based on biases and attitudes, but there is only one answer to that question. The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, passed by Congress and administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is the fishery’s manager, and that won’t change.
One very important part of that manager’s charge is ensuring both conservation and economic goals are considered in its management.
One policy tool for those goals is at-sea monitoring, which aims to provide accurate data on what is caught and what is thrown back. Accurate assessments support effective management and more successful fishing. It has been a point of contention for several years, as the cost of monitoring is to be borne by the industry, not the regulator. Cost aside, monitoring can help fishermen.
Hauling up less abundant species like Gulf of Maine cod or yellowtail flounder creates a dilemma for the fisherman. His options are to throw legally landed fish back into the ocean to avoid the choke species mechanism that limits the harvest of abundant stocks, or to take the fish back to port to be counted against the quotas, and hasten the day the fishing season comes to an end.
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.
April 7, 2016 — WASHINGTON — A proposed federal rule that would give regional councils more say in setting catch limits on fish has sparked rare friction between the Obama administration and environmental groups.
The proposal, years in the making, could take effect this summer. It would provide the eight councils “additional clarity and potential flexibility” to comply with the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act.
Groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and Earth Justice say the change could roll back nearly a decade of progress in rescuing once-overfished populations.
Since Congress updated Magnuson-Stevens in 2006, the number of stocks labeled as overfished or subject to overfishing has dropped to the lowest level in 20 years of tracking.
“We would go backwards from what is now a pretty successful rule,” said Lee Crockett, director of U.S. Ocean Conservation for the Pew Charitable Trusts. “This adds more flexibility to what was pretty clear guidelines, and our experience has been that when flexibility is provided to these fishery management councils, it’s not a good thing.”
The councils, which include state officials, environmental activists and industry representatives, determine catch limits on dozens of stocks, including cod off New England, red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico and salmon in the Pacific.
They follow science-driven guidelines — first issued in early 2009 in the waning days of the Bush administration — that are enforced through the “National Standard 1” regulation, which the proposed rule would modify.
April 4, 2016 — The program, slated to begin next month, will include about 20 boats, roughly 10 percent of the region’s active groundfishing fleet, and will require fishermen to use sophisticated software, maintain cameras through the harsh conditions at sea, and submit to constant electronic scrutiny.
That has made some fishermen, who say their boats are like homes, uneasy.
They worry about losing their privacy and whether the footage could become public.
“Our bathrooms are buckets out on deck. I do not want some person counting how much toilet paper I use when I go to the head,” said David Goethel, who fishes cod out of Hampton, N.H.
Goethel sued NOAA last year for requiring fishermen to assume the costs of the observer program, which he said were too expensive and would put many of his colleagues out of business. The agency had previously covered the costs, but officials said they could no longer afford to subsidize the $3 million program.
April 1, 2016 — Working as both a biologist and a fisherman, David Goethel brings a unique perspective to the state and federal fishery management boards he’s an adviser on.
“I’ve spent all my life acting as a translator because they speak all different languages,” says Goethel, who worked as a research biologist at the New England Aquarium before he became the owner and operator of the Ellen Diane, a 44-foot fishing trawler based out of Hampton.
But the most recent disconnect between the factions has resulted in Goethel and other groundfishermen filing a federal lawsuit.
After delaying the regulation for years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is now requiring groundfishermen to pay for the at-sea monitoring program — at a cost of an average $710 per trip, conducted at random. The monitoring is done to ensure that the fishermen adhere to groundfish catch quotas set in May 2010 by the New England Fishery Management Council, under NOAA. (Groundfish include cod, haddock and other common bottom-dwelling species.)
April 1, 2016 — New rules that took effect last month shift the costs of at-sea monitoring to local fisherman.
Critics say these new fees threaten the very existence of New Hampshire’s dwindling fishing industry and will put people out of business. There’s now a lawsuit pending on the issue.
Jeff Feingold, editor of the New Hampshire Business Review, joined NHPR’s Morning Edition to talk about the issue.
Let’s start with some background – what are these fees all about?
Back in 2010, they put these new rules together that limited the amount of ground fish that could be caught; that’s cod, haddock, and other fish, a lot of what commercial fishermen are looking for.
March 30, 2016 — PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — The number of New Hampshire boats fishing for groundfish has continued to decline, with only five full-time groundfisherman left in the state.
Fishermen have been catching haddock, cod and flounder off the coast and selling it in New Hampshire for centuries. But fishermen said that quotas and regulations over the past decade that are meant to protect groundfish have made it almost impossible to make a living.
The regulations have also affected other fishermen. At Tuesday’s regional meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council, some complained they were unable to catch herring to use as bait because they were in the same area as regulated groundfish.