Saving Seafood

Technology buoys fishermen devastated by cod’s collapse

August 11, 2015 — Late last year, the National Marine Fisheries Service released an unexpected, midseason stock assessment estimating that the number of spawning cod is 3 to 4 percent of a sustainable population. Within months, cod fishermen — already operating under shrunken quotas — had to find a new species to target and build a business around.

And then another blow: By the end of this year, NMFS wants groundfish fishermen to pay for their own “at-sea monitors,” the independent observers who collect data on bycatch and ensure fishermen follow the rules. Such monitors can cost $800 for each day on a boat, and NMFS requires one to be on 20 percent of trips, in addition to the observers NMFS pays to put on board.

Ford and other fishermen say they can’t afford it. Without cod, they say, their profit margins are slim.

Here’s Ford’s budget: On a good day of fishing flounder, he might make $1,500. His two-man crew gets 25 percent. Fuel costs about $250. And then there’s insurance, maintenance and other recurring expenses. Spending up to $800 on an at-sea monitor, he said, would make the trip not worth it.

“That’s the thing I can’t get past — is the cost of it,” Ford said. “I’ll tie the boat up before I pay for an observer.”

Is there another option?

Read the full story here

 

There’s no cod from Cape Cod in local markets

August 1, 2015 — EASTHAM, MA —  Step out of the hot, sunny day into the cool, fresh-smelling interior of Mac’s Seafood in Eastham and you’ll find a showcase full of glistening fish and shellfish nestled in a thick bed of ice chips.

Bluefish, summer flounder, cod and striped bass fillets, bluefin tuna, halibut and swordfish steaks, monkfish tails, bright pink slabs of salmon, shucked Atlantic sea scallops and whole squid, plus clams, oysters and mussels in their shells. There are plenty of choices.

But company co-owner Alex Hay doesn’t hesitate to say that his customers won’t find Cape Cod codfish in his fish market – or in any other fish market in the area.

Cod has slipped almost entirely out of reach for local fishermen over the last decade as stocks have contracted due to overfishing and environmental changes and quotas have been reduced to near nothing.

Read the full story at The Washington Times

Study highlights noise threat to Atlantic cod

July 28, 2015 — Atlantic cod could be at risk from noise created by wind farms and other off-shore developments, according to new University of Stirling research.

A study carried out by the University’s world-leading Institute of Aquaculture found that Atlantic cod exposed to noise levels common in land-based aquaculture facilities exhibited significantly reduced rates of egg production and fertilisation.

But the researchers believe this could also have implications for Atlantic cod in the wild.

Dr Andrew Davie, of the University’s world leading Institute of Aquaculture, said: “We need to be cautious as our study focused on the noise generated in enclosed, on-shore aquaculture facilities, while in wild context cod have greater opportunity to escape from noise disturbances.

Read the full story here

 

Gulf of Maine Research Institute Releases Information About FishTank Workshop

July 27, 2015 — The following was released by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute:

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute will be facilitating a FishTank Workshop entitled “Taking Stock: A Workshop to Collaboratively Improve Assessments”, taking place on November 9 & 10, 2015 at the Radisson Hotel Plymouth Harbor, 180 Water Street, Plymouth, MA 02360.

Registration starts, August 1 and can be done on-line at http://www.gmri.org/fisheries-convening/fish-tank/register 

A little background:

The most recent Fish Tank series (http://www.gmri.org/fisheries-convening/fish-tank/meeting-materials)  brought together commercial and recreational fishermen, scientists, and policy representatives from across the region to spark productive conversations and brainstorm ideas to improve the increasingly complex stock assessment process and data streams feeding into the assessment. The goals of these sessions included:

·         identifying potential data gaps in the Gulf of Maine cod stock assessment,

·         formulating industry-led research questions to address data gaps through collaborative research or the use of fishery-dependent data, 

·         sharing ideas with NOAA Fisheries on improving communications around stock assessments.

From these meetings, it is our intent through this workshop to develop plans to take action on industry recommendations, discuss how data from research projects can be integrated into the stock assessment process, and determine best approaches to obtain funding for project ideas. We also hope to have panel sessions to showcase other initiatives in the region around improving stock assessments, as well as results from relevant collaborative research projects in the region that may inform stock assessments.

NOAA begins fence-mending with Northeast fishermen

July 23, 2015 —  NOAA Fisheries this week undertook an effort to build trust and cooperation from the New England fishing industry by including the industry in upcoming groundfish stock assessments.

NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, based in Woods Hole, conducted meetings at five sites Wednesday, with web meeting access provided for several more sites up and down the New England coast.

The NOAA scientists made a presentation of the assessment process and some of the options that the New England Fishery Management Council’s Science Committee has for action on assessments.

According to the NOAA web site, those options range from the status quo to a complete review and rebuild of all the methods and computer models being used by the science center to guide NOAA’s annual quota decisions on 20 different groundfish stocks.

With very few fishermen fishing for groundfish, few were among the 20 or so participants, according to Don Cuddy, spokesman for the New Bedford-based Center for Sustainable Fisheries.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

SCOTLAND: Media’s Fish Tales and Codology

July 22, 2015 — Back in 2012, the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times famously screamed that there were, “just 100 cod left in the North Sea”. Even at the time, it ranked as one of the greatest howlers ever published – as the BBC pointed out a fortnight later, they were only about half a billion wrong. It would have been funny but for the impact it had on the Scottish fishing industry. Having slimmed down dramatically over the preceding decade, and after the voluntary adoption of serious practical measures to aid recovery of a depleted stock, the last thing it needed or deserved was a bunch of irresponsible journalists destroying the market for locally caught fish.

It’s a shame that you can’t catch cod in London, Edinburgh or the grim, grey streets where environmental activists come from. Unfortunately for the fishing industry, a very large proportion of the UK’s fish comes from the northern part of the North Sea, and particularly the waters around Shetland. From a part of the world that doesn’t even appear on some newspapers’ weather maps, in other words. More fish are landed in Shetland than in England, Wales and Northern Ireland combined, and to journalists in London it barely exists. Out of sight, out of mind … and from where tales of plentiful cod, not to mention a couple of dozen other commercial fish species, can be safely ignored.

And such tales! Cod everywhere, cod impossible to get away from, cod recovering too fast for vastly shrunken quotas to cope, cod of a size not seen for decades. Grinning anglers mooring up in Scalloway claiming that after a great day out the 100 cod were down to 90 or whatever.

It certainly made for a contrast with annual quota talks in Brussels, where UK and Scottish ministers had to fight year after year just to prevent already inadequate cod quotas being cut further. Whatever the scientists were doing, it didn’t tally with what fishermen were seeing every day, haul after haul, and needless to say the anti-fishing brigade were delighted with the whole process. Good news on wildlife is very bad news for environmental groups; doom, gloom and ecological catastrophe are what they need to suck in donations. From that point of view, the disappearing cod story was extremely opportune.

Read the full story at The Scotsman

 

Fishing group meets to discuss New England catch limits

July 23, 2015 — It’s simple: If fishermen can’t catch it, we can’t eat it. On Wednesday, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center met with fishermen across New England to discuss the state of groundfish like cod.

The federal government had to close down all commercial and recreational cod fishing late last year because the population was at an all-time low. This restriction allows them to repopulate off the coast of Maine and Massachusetts.

22News spoke with Schermerhorn’s Seafood Owner Michael Fitzgerald as he was getting updated from his suppliers. Cod is still largely off limits, but there is a popular alternative you can buy.

Read the full story and watch the video at WWLP

 

Mark Latti: Anglers, charter captains fume over cod regulations

Last Saturday, with the ocean calm, the forecast right and the sun peeking over the horizon, we cruised out to Jeffreys Ledge to fish.

It was a good day 30 miles offshore. The seas were flat, whales were plentiful, the sun shimmered on the water and we caught fish.

The three of us landed 14 cod, 12 haddock, 15 pollock, a cusk and as always – too many dogfish.

In fact, it was our best day for cod in a couple of years. Twelve fish were over 24 inches.

And once the cod were boated, they went right back overboard, with six of the haddock.

New regulations in the Gulf of Maine prohibit the possession of cod. They also limit anglers to three haddock.

The regulations have groundfisherman grumbling, charter captains canceling trips, many boats for sale and businesses on the brink.

Read the full story from the Portland Press Herald

 

Federal regulators deny petition from environmentalists to ban cod fishing

July 15, 2015 — Federal regulators are denying a request from a coalition of environmental groups to prohibit fishing of imperiled Gulf of Maine cod.

Cod are an important food species that New England fishermen have sought for centuries.

Regulators and scientists say the stock is struggling because the level of cod spawning in the Gulf of Maine is a fraction of target levels.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CentralMaine.com

DON CUDDY: Spreading misinformation about our fisheries

July 15, 2015 — Anyone knowledgeable about the commercial fisheries of the United States will find nothing original in the op-ed piece recently submitted to the New York Times by the environmental organization Oceana.

Even its title ‘A Knockout Blow for American Fish Stocks’ is misleading. American fish stocks are healthy. NOAA’S annual report to Congress, submitted at the end of 2014 showed that only twenty-six of the three hundred and eight fish stocks assessed were subject to overfishing.

‘Overfishing’ occurs when too many fish are removed from a population to produce maximum sustainable yield. As a scientific term it is quite misleading, carrying, as it does, the clear implication that low stock assessments result solely from fishing pressure; whereas ‘overfishing’ can result from a number of other factors, such as changes in water temperature or salinity, degraded habitat and increased predation.

NOAA also maintains an ‘overfished’ list; comprising any stock whose biomass is such that its capacity to produce its maximum sustainable yield is in jeopardy. Only thirty-seven of two hundred and twenty eight stocks found themselves on that list. Hardly a knockout. No new stocks were added to the list in 2014. In fact, three were removed from the previous year, according to the NOAA report.

The Oceana piece also asserts that recent estimates determined that New England cod stocks were at three to seven percent of target levels. As fishermen in the Gulf of Maine can attest, most of that bottom is now taken over by lobster gear and neither the fishermen nor the NOAA survey vessel can tow through that. So nobody can determine with any certainty how much cod might be out there; not to mention the fact that if a fisherman sees cod in the water he goes someplace else. Why? Because the introduction of fishing sectors and catch shares in New England have made cod a commodity, like pork bellies. The result is best illustrated by New Hampshire fisherman Dave Goethel’s plight. He has a photo showing 2000 pounds of cod that his 40-foot boat caught, after a one-hour tow on a research trip last December. If sold, the cash value at the dock would have brought him $3,000. But to lease those 2,000 pounds of cod would have cost him $4500. That’s what you call a knockout. In a multispecies fishery you need some cod quota, even if you are targeting haddock or other groundfish species and so the lease price keeps going up. That is one reason why the percentage of fishing quota actually caught in the New England groundfishery in 2013-2014 was only 33 percent of the allowable catch limit. Because of regulatory constraints fishermen are now avoiding fish that allegedly are not there.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times