Saving Seafood

DAVID GOETHEL: Fishermen on the Hook to Pay for Their Own Regulators

December 28, 2015 — The following is a excerpt from an opinion piece published today in The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Goethel, a groundfish fisherman out of Hampton, N.H., writes that he is suing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “to stop it from sinking New England’s groundfish industry for good.” He is represented by Cause of Action, a government watchdog group based in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Goethel writes: “The courts are the industry’s last chance. This month, along with the Northeast Fishery Sector 13, I filed a federal lawsuit- Goethel v. Pritzker. Our claim: Neither NOAA nor its subsidiary, the National Marine Fisheries Service, has the authority to charge groundfishermen for at-sea monitors. Even if Congress had granted this authority, they would have had to follow the process called for in the Administrative Procedure Act and other statutes-which they haven’t.  A bipartisan group of senators, including Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), highlighted this troubling fact in April. Writing to the assistant administrator of NOAA Fisheries, they stated NOAA ‘has chosen an interpretation of the FY15 report language that is inconsistent with congressional intent, and consequently, that very high [at-sea monitoring] costs will soon unreasonably burden already struggling members of the fishing industry in the Northeast.'”

Few professions are as significant to New England’s economy and history as fishing. Yet the ranks of groundfish fishermen have dwindled so much that we’re now an endangered species. The causes are many-but the one now threatening us with extinction is the federal government. Along with one other plaintiff, I’m suing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to stop it from sinking New England’s groundfish industry for good.

Groundfish include cod, haddock and 11 other common bottom-dwelling species. After years of dwindling stocks, in 2012 the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a disaster declaration for groundfish territory off the coast of New England. Over the past four years my cod quota-my bread and butter-plummeted from 60,000 pounds to 3,700 this year. I caught my limit in four days in June.

Shifting ocean patterns have certainly contributed to our struggles, but regulators are a separate anchor altogether. Groundfish fishermen are organized into a patchwork of 15 sectors, i.e., government-designed cooperative organizations. We operate under at least seven overlapping federal and state entities and programs, all of which have their own regulatory nets.

As if warrantless searches from the Coast Guard, catch inspections upon returning to port, and satellite tracking weren’t enough, at-sea monitors also accompany us on roughly one in five randomly selected fishing trips. They are hired by three for-profit companies-one of which is led by the former NOAA official who designed the monitor program. They follow us around and take notes on everything we do. That includes measuring our nets, measuring fish we bring in and those we throw back, and recording our expenses down to how much we spent on lunch.

The program is unnecessary given the heavy regulation that exists. And last month NOAA informed us that, beginning on Jan. 1, groundfish fishermen must pay an estimated $710 a day when a monitor is present. That fee covers the monitors’ training, mileage to and from the fisherman’s boat, supervisor salaries, data processes and all other administrative costs. It also covers a set profit margin for the three companies providing the monitors. What those margins are, neither NOAA nor the companies have disclosed.

Read the full opinion piece at The Wall Street Journal

DR. RAY HILBORN: Plenty of Sustainable Seafood Options Available

December 28, 2015 — The rising trend of “trash fish,” or unusual and underutilized seafood species, on fine dining menus in New York City was discussed last week in The New York Times by Jeff Gordinier. The idea is to, “substitute salmon, tuna, shrimp and cod, much of it endangered and the product of dubious (if not destructive) fishing practices,” with less familiar species that are presumably more abundant, like “dogfish, tilefish, Acadian redfish, porgy, hake, cusk, striped black mullet.”

Changing diners’ perceptions isn’t always easy, especially about seafood, but there is certainly momentum building for more diverse seafood species. Seafood suppliers are reporting record sales of fish like porgy and hake. Chefs feel good about serving these new species because, “industrially harvested tuna, salmon and cod is destroying the environment.” A new organization, Dock-to-Dish, connects restaurants with fishermen that are catching underutilized species and these efforts are highlighted as a catalyst for this growing trash fish trend. From a culinary perspective, this trend allows chefs to sell the story of an unusual and sustainable species, which more compelling than more mainstream species like tuna, salmon or cod. From a sustainability perspective, Gordinier implies that serving a diversity of seafood species is more responsible than the mainstream few that are “industrially caught” and dominate the National Fisheries Institute list of most consumed species in America.

Comment by Ray Hilborn, University of Washington

While I applaud the desire to eat underutilized species, it seems as if the chefs interviewed don’t know much about sustainable seafood. Below are a few quotes from the article that give the impression that eating traditional species such as tuna, cod, salmon and shrimp is an environmental crime.

“Salmon, tuna, shrimp and cod, much of it endangered and the product of dubious (if not destructive) fishing practices”

“The chef Molly Mitchell, can’t imagine serving industrially harvested tuna or salmon or cod. “You can’t really eat that stuff anymore,” she said. “It’s destroying the environment.”

“Flying them halfway around the world may not count as an ecofriendly gesture, but these oceanic oddities are a far cry from being decimated the way cod has. “Hopefully they’ll try something new and not just those fishes that are overfarmed and overcaught,” said Jenni Hwang, director of marketing for the Chaya Restaurant Group.”

“A growing cadre of chefs, restaurateurs and fishmongers in New York and around the country is taking on the mission of selling wild and local fish whose populations are not threatened with extinction.”

Read the full commentary at CFOOD

 

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Fishing for new markets

December 23, 2015 — New England wouldn’t be the same without the sight of fishing boats easing in and out of its working waterfronts. There is no better homage to this rich seafaring heritage than the visitors and residents alike who clamor for the region’s cod sandwiches, crisp haddock, buckets of steaming fried clams and, of course, the iconic overstuffed lobster roll.

But now, the industry that for centuries shaped New England’s economic, culinary and cultural life, faces serious challenges. This is exemplified by the reality facing New Hampshire’s groundfishermen, who catch the species that dwell near the bottom of the ocean, like cod, haddock and hake.

Dwindling stocks, stricter regulations and an influx of inexpensive seafood from other countries have made making a living off these species difficult, and forcing these pillars of the fishing industry to find alternative routes to market to survive.

Read the full story from the New Hampshire Business Review

Does fishing have a future in New England?

December 22, 2015 — Cod have been disappearing from the waters between Massachusetts and Maine, and shrimp populations are so depleted that the commercial shrimp season in the Gulf of Maine has been cancelled for the last three years.

At the same time, lobster are flourishing — alongside a host of species that have never before thrived in New England waters.

Why the wild ups and downs? One reason is that nearby waters are warming much faster than the rest of the ocean, making the environment newly unbearable for some longtime residents — and newly appealing for others. But overfishing has played a role as well, disrupting the balance of the watery ecosystem in unexpected ways.

It’s hard to predict where all this is headed, whether for individual species or local fishing communities. But it needn’t be a story of doom and gloom. These undersea changes may well dampen the prospects of the cod industry, but they will also bring new opportunities.

What’s happening in nearby waters?

Rapid and unusual warming.

Temperatures in the Gulf of Maine have been increasing faster than just about every other blue spot on the planet. According to a recent report in Science, Maine’s waters are in the top 0.1 percent when it comes to rapid warming.

While that team focused on the waters to the east and north of Massachusetts, that superwarm area they reported on actually extends significantly south, surrounding the Bay State.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Fish food for thought: New research affects catch limits

December 21, 2015 — PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — What happens when a fisherman tosses a fish back overboard?

It’s not a frivolous question. The government bases catch quotas and other rules in part on the mortality of tossed fish, and there isn’t always accurate data available about how many fish survive the fling. Now, a group of New England scientists says it’s finding that a surprisingly high percentage of the lucky fish might live to swim another day.

Scientists with the New England Aquarium and other institutions want to help the fishing managers get a better handle on what happens when cod, haddock and cusk get thrown from a fisherman’s line back into the sea. The first round of their research, on the imperiled Gulf of Maine cod, found that 9 to 21 percent of the fish died, better than the 30 percent estimate regulators had been using.

That data could help change quotas for recreational fishermen, who like their commercial counterparts must abide by strict limits on some species.

“We found that mortality rates are pretty low,” Dr. John Mandelman, the New England Aquarium’s director of research and a co-leader of the study. “Generally, in the past, they’ve used really conservative estimates.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The News Tribune

 

Off the hook – Researchers find mortality of cod caught and released off Gloucester is half of original estimate

December 21, 2015 — With cod at historically low population levels and commercial fishermen limited to landings that are just a fraction of what they once were, the recreational catch is now believed to account for as much as one-third of total landings of Gulf of Maine cod.

But recreational landings data was considerably poorer than the commercial data, which made it hard to estimate their true impact on the population or know the effectiveness of regulatory measures.

Solving the cod crisis will take a lot of research. Now, scientists are no longer restricted to their lab. As a recent study shows, creative thinking and technology can turn the ocean into a lab, and the results can be more precise and minimize the regulatory impact on fishermen.

A key missing piece in the puzzle was information on how many fish died after they were released by anglers. Lacking key data such as length and weight of released cod resulted in the assumption that 100 percent of those fish died. Missing data can lead to underestimating the population size, with overly strict regulations, said Michael Palmer, National Marine Fisheries Service research fishery biologist.

Researchers started collecting length and weight data in 2005 after regulators tightened reporting requirements for recreational fishermen. In 2011, a panel arrived at a consensus that 30 percent of cod released by anglers died. But Palmer was concerned that there were no directed studies, in the U.S. or internationally, to truth-test the estimate.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times

 

Fish Stocks Are Declining Worldwide, And Climate Change Is On The Hook

December 14, 2015 — For anyone paying attention, it’s no secret there’s a lot of weird stuff going on in the oceans right now. We’ve got a monster El Nino looming in the Pacific. Ocean acidification is prompting hand wringing among oyster lovers. Migrating fish populations have caused tensions between countries over fishing rights. And fishermen say they’re seeing unusual patterns in fish stocks they haven’t seen before.

Researchers now have more grim news to add to the mix. An analysis published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that the ability of fish populations to reproduce and replenish themselves is declining across the globe.

“This, as far as we know, is the first global-scale study that documents the actual productivity of fish stocks is in decline,” says lead author Gregory L. Britten, a doctoral student at the University of California, Irvine.

Britten and some fellow researchers looked at data from a global database of 262 commercial fish stocks in dozens of large marine ecosystems across the globe. They say they’ve identified a pattern of decline in juvenile fish (young fish that have not yet reached reproductive age) that is closely tied to a decline in the amount of phytoplankton, or microalgae, in the water.

Read the full story at NPR

 

AUDIO: Cause of Action & Plaintiffs Discuss At-Sea Monitoring Lawsuit

December 10, 2015 (Saving Seafood) — This afternoon, Cause of Action, a government accountability organization “committed to ensuring that decisions made by federal agencies are open, honest, and fair,” held a media call with David Goethel and John Haran, the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the Department of Commerce to overturn the Department’s decision to have the commercial fishing industry pay for the cost of at-sea monitoring.

According to Cause of Action, “a large majority” of the commercial fishing operations in New England “will be forced to shut down if the government forces those who fish for cod, flounder and other ‘ground fish’ to pay out of pocket for at-sea monitoring, a program the government has traditionally funded.” The industry is expected to begin paying for the cost of at-sea monitors sometime in 2016.

According to Cause of Action, NOAA estimates that up to 60 percent of the groundfish fleet will be unable to afford the cost of at-sea monitoring. Among other reasons for the challenge, Cause of Action noted that “Congress has directed NOAA to use its appropriated funding to cover the cost of these at-sea monitors,” and “NOAA is specifically required by statute to implement regulations that allow fishing communities sustainable prosperity and ‘minimize adverse economic impacts on such communities.'”

Listen to the call here

 

Fishermen sue to block impending fishing monitor costs

December 10, 2015 — PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A group of East Coast fishermen is suing the federal government over a shift in the cost of at-sea fishing monitors that they say will cripple the fishery during an already difficult time.

Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have said money for monitors in New England groundfisheries such as cod and haddock will be gone by early 2016. The monitors are trained workers who collect data to help determine future quotas on certain species of commercial fish.

Under the new rules, fishermen will have to pay for the monitors, which can cost about $800 per trip. Fishermen have spoken out for months against shifting the cost, saying it will sink many who are already dealing with the dwindling New England cod population and choking cuts to quotas.

A group including more than 20 groundfishermen is suing the federal Department of Commerce, which includes NOAA, in federal court in New Hampshire with a contention that the cost shift is illegal. The group is from New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Virginia and it is seeking an injunction to protect fishermen from having to pay up.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at San Francisco Chronicle

 

Overfishing is Getting Filleted by Markets

December 9, 2015 — Overfishing is a serious threat to the nearly 200 million people who depend on the world’s oceans for sustenance. After all, nearly one in five people around the world consume fish as their primary source of protein and overfishing has deleterious cascade effects on other marine ecosystems.

Illegal and excessive fishing are to a degree inevitable because oceans, rivers and many lakes are publicly administered. This gives fishermen an incentive to take from them as much as is legally possible. Yet, market-based resource management is offering a concrete solution to this “tragedy of the commons” and has already begun alleviating strains on U.S. fish stocks.

The U.S. economy is intertwined with the fate of the high seas. By conservative estimates, commercial and recreational fishing alone account for 1.3 million jobs and nearly $60 billion in economic activity. Overfishing has pernicious effects on Americans’ livelihoods: commercial anglers can lose out on up to 80 percent of potential revenue when local fish species see drastic population decline, as was the case in New England when cod, flounder, and halibut populations were unexpectedly low in 2009.

With market-based resource management, data from September 2015 show that the total number of wild stocks placed on the “overfishing” watch list has fallen to its all-time lowest level since 1997. Since the 2007 reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, annual catch limits (ACLs) have allowed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to reduce the number of overfished U.S. stocks by nearly 75 percent since 2007 alone (from 41 in 2007 to only 10 in 2014). ACLs create total tonnage allotments based on a series of population growth factors specific to certain fish species.

Read the full story at Economics 21