Saving Seafood

Electronic Reporting and Red Snapper Top Gulf Council Agenda

February 4, 2016 — The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council recently met in Orange Beach, AL, home to miles and miles of sugar-white sand beaches, as well the largest charter-for-hire recreational fishing fleet in the U.S. equipped with electronic data collection, to discuss numerous fishery issues, including electronic reporting for for-hire vessels, regional management for recreational red snapper, and the shrimp permit moratorium.

Regional Management of Recreational Red Snapper, or Reef Fish Amendment 39, was at the top of the agenda for the 17 voting members of the Council which is comprised of the directors of the five Gulf state marine resource management agencies, or their designees, and 11 members nominated by the state governors and appointed by the Secretary of Commerce. Amendment 39 would affect recreational fishing for red snapper in federal and state waters.

Amendment 39 was developed to divide the recreational red snapper quota among regions to allow region-specific management measures. After reviewing the Amendment and public hearing summaries, the Gulf states’ marine resource directors rejected the amendment leading the Council to postpone further discussion while they explore other options for recreational red snapper management.

Both charter-for-hire and commercial representatives sitting on the Council fought for the private recreational sector to establish a management plans to no avail.

“It is sad to see the five Gulf State directors fail to reach an agreement with each other and foster a real solution for private recreational anglers,” said Gulf Seafood Institute (GSI) member Captain Troy Frady of Distraction Charters in Orange Beach. “If this amendment had not been abandoned, it would have created a path to provide much needed relief for private recreational angler’s short federal fishing season. Now, there is nothing meaningful in the works that is being done for recreational fishermen.”

Commercial fisherman and GSI Florida Board member David Krebs, president of Ariel Seafood, said that he also was disappointed in the Council and that the recreational representatives did not pursue working on the amendment to protect the recreational interests.

“We are once again seeing an assault on the commercial IFQ’s (Individual Fishing Quotas) filled with lies and mistruths,” he said. We are hoping the Council will appoint a recreational advisory panel to work through the details to give recreational fishermen some relief in flexibility and sustainability.”

Read the full story at Gulf Seafood Institute

 

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD: Electronic catch monitors would improve fishery

November 27, 2015 — Managing the decline in New England’s commercial fishery has long been a delicate dance among fishermen, regulators and scientists.

The scientists estimate how many fish are available for harvest, and regulators use those estimates to allot catch shares among various groups of fishermen, called “sectors.”

It doesn’t always work smoothly.

Fishermen question the validity of the science, saying that they see more fish than the estimates would indicate. Regulators are influenced by members of Congress, who represent fishing communities, not fish, and are concerned with the communities’ economic survival.

Scientists say that they are doing the best they can with the data available, but what they can see paints a much darker picture than what the fishermen report.

Fortunately, there may be a way to produce data that everyone can be confident in: electronic monitoring.

Currently, professional monitors go out on fishing boats about 20 percent of the time, cataloging what the boats pull up in their nets and what they throw overboard.

The information they bring back is valuable, but there are problems with the system. The fishermen have to pay for the live monitors, and they are expensive. That’s especially true for boats leaving from rural areas, where the captain has to pay the travel expenses and accommodations for a monitor who is not locally based.

Read the full opinion piece at the Portland Press Herald