February 28, 2022 — Regulators will be taking up a plan to require lobstermen to install electronic trackers on their boats this spring.
The American Lobster Management Board discussed the plan this week before deciding more time is needed to evaluate the issues.
Steve Train, a lobster fisherman from Long Island, Maine, said it’s important for lobstermen to buy into rules. They’re concerned about the proposal’s cost, purpose and privacy.
Read the full story from the Associated Press
January 20, 2022 — Maine lobstermen objected Tuesday to a proposal from interstate fishing managers that would require offshore lobstermen to have electronic trackers on their boats.
An arm of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is considering implementing the tracking requirements on federally-permitted lobster and Jonah crab fishermen in order to collect data on where and how they fish. At a public hearing on Tuesday, commission officials laid out the proposal and heard concerns from lobstermen across the northeast.
The managers hope the data will help with fish stock assessments, interactions with protected species such as right whales, enforcement and ocean planning.
Lobstermen currently don’t have to report where they fish but competition for space could become more prevalent as other uses, such as aquaculture, marine protected areas and offshore energy, emerge. Officials said this data could help regulators understand how new uses could affect the fishery, something that’s currently challenging because they don’t know where fishermen drop their traps.
December 9, 2021 — Federal fishing managers are looking for feedback from lobster harvesters about a plan to require electronic tracking.
An arm of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, an interstate regulatory authority, is considering implementing the tracking requirements for lobster and Jonah crab boats that have federal permits. The board approved the proposal for public comment on Monday.
December 2, 2021 — If NOAA gets its way, Allen Walburn will soon be forced to keep electronic monitors on his three charter fishing boats to follow their every move, a requirement that he likens to criminal defendants forced to wear ankle bracelets.
“I don’t want people knowing where I’m at,” said Walburn, 71, who has been running his charter fishing business in Naples, Fla., since 1978.
In a key test of NOAA’s surveillance powers, Walburn and a group of other charter fishermen from the Gulf of Mexico have gone to court to block the proposed rule, asking a federal judge in Louisiana to declare it unconstitutional and an invasion of their privacy.
In court briefs, NOAA argued that its proposal to require electronic tracking in the Gulf should be allowed under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the nation’s premier fishing law passed by Congress in 1976.
The law, which Congress is now considering reauthorizing, requires NOAA to devise plans to prevent overfishing and protect the long-term health of fish populations. The agency argues that electronic monitoring makes data collection more timely, accurate and cost-efficient than other alternatives.
November 23, 2021 — NOAA Fisheries has produced the first comprehensive manual describing the Observer Declare and Deploy System—the ODDS. This web-based system determines which fishing trips require observer or electronic monitoring (EM) coverage in the federal groundfish and Pacific halibut fisheries off Alaska.
The ODDS is one of only two systems in the United States where fishermen, managers, and observer providers can all interact with information on past and upcoming fishing trips.
The ODDS was built and is maintained by the Fisheries Monitoring and Analysis division of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center.
Since its launch in 2012, ODDS has successfully logged more than 50,000 fishing trips.
Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries
October 29, 2021 — The Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission could consider final approval of an electronic tracking requirement for lobstermen in federal waters as early as spring 2022, officials said last week.
The commission’s American Lobster Management Board went over a potential timeline for the action at its fall meeting and staff said that a draft of the requirement could be ready for public comment by December.
The board initiated the idea to collect spatial and effort data from lobster and Jonah crab fishermen.
The potential data could help address challenges with stock assessments, interactions with protected species and offshore enforcement. It could also be crucial to help record exactly how much space the U.S. lobster fishery covers, as officials look at the expanded use of aquaculture, protected marine areas and offshore wind energy.
Read the full story at the Ellsworth American
July 13, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
Effective today, July 13, a vessel enrolled in an electronic monitoring program may be assigned observer or monitor coverage consistent with its respective program’s requirements. This lifts a temporary exemption that has been in place since August 2020.
In June, NOAA Fisheries and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center announced that vessels were no longer eligible for release from observer or monitor coverage if a fully vaccinated observer or a quarantined/shelter in place observer is available. This exemption was lifted for most vessels July 1, and today’s announcement lifts it for EM vessels.
June 25, 2021 — A group of 52 NGOs, retailers, seafood supply chain companies, and academic groups are urging the European Union fisheries ministers to add cameras and remote electronic monitoring (REM) to fishing fleets to help prevent illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.
The group, which includes organizations like the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, Oceana, ClientEarth, and more, is calling on the E.U. to mandate cameras for vessels that are above 12 meters in length. Currently, the E.U. is planning mandates to add cameras, but only for certain vessels above 24 meters.
June 15, 2021 — Six captains and five companies from Florida and Louisiana can represent others in a lawsuit challenging new federal regulations for nearly 1,300 charter boats across the Gulf of Mexico, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan certified the suit early this month as a class action for the people who take small groups of anglers into the Gulf. She rejected an argument that some charter captains support the regulations.
“The claims and defenses of class representatives are typical of the claims of the class as a whole,” she wrote on June 2.
The lawsuit contends that privacy and other rights are violated by regulations which require permanently active tracking devices on the boats. The suit also challenges requirements to report information including the crew size, number of customers, the fee charged to each and the amount and price of fuel.
Although the regulations took effect in January, the government has not yet set a date for requiring the devices, said Judy Pino, spokeswoman for the nonprofit law firm New Civil Liberties Alliance, which represents the captains.
June 15, 2021 — A week after receiving class-action status in its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Commerce, NOAA, and NOAA Fisheries, a nonpartisan civil rights group has filed an amended lawsuit regarding NOAA Fisheries plan to monitor charter boats in the Gulf of Mexico.
A group of 11 small businesses and fishing-boat owners claim that a policy requiring electronic monitoring and reporting infringes on their operations. Last July, NOAA Fisheries issued an order to electronically submit reports for each fishing trip, even if no fish were caught. It also requires boats to notify the agency before departing on any kind of trip.