Electronic monitoring Archives - Page 7 of 7

MARK PHILLIPS: Who will pay for electronic monitoring?

April 21, 2016 — The Nature Conservancy a 6.5 BILLION dollar ENGO (2014 IRS 990) has put forward a paper seeking Electronic Monitoring on groundfish boats by May 1, 2017. If people recall The Nature Conservancy said very little about the BP oil spill.

NOAA and it’s environmental partners are bound and determined to force paid monitoring and eventually EMS on the fishermen. The last EMS study was delayed and delayed so that NOAA’s partners could put out misinformation about costs. And when the report did come out it substantially underestimates costs by assuming the average groundfish trip is 1.5 days when in reality my sector’s average trip is 6-10 days which is 4 to 7 times greater in duration.

The report also underestimates the number of hauls, claiming the average trip has five haul backs when in fact we are looking at between 40 to 60 hauls per trip, an underestimation by a factor of 10.

Read the full opinion piece at the Center for Sustainable Fisheries

MAFMC: Meetings this Week

February 8, 2016 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The public is invited to attend the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s February 2016 meeting to be held February 9-11, 2016 in New Bern, North Carolina.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016 – Thursday, February 11, 2016

Double Tree by Hilton New Bern

100 Middle Street

New Bern, NC 28560

Telephone 252-638-3585

Webinar:

For online access to the meeting, enter as a guest at: http://mafmc.adobeconnect.com/february2016/

Briefing Materials:

Briefing materials will be posted on the February 2016 Meeting page as they become available.

South Atlantic Fishery Management Council

Public Hearing via Webinar

Today, February 8, 2016, 6:00 p.m.

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council will hold the final in a series of public hearings tonight via webinar to solicit public input on management measures that may affect fishermen fishing in federal waters (greater than 3 miles offshore) along the entire Atlantic coast. Join Council staff at 6:00 p.m. as they review proposed measures in the two amendments listed below. Then provide your formal comments via the webinar for Council consideration.

Electronic Reporting Requirements for Federally-Permitted Charterboats – The Council is considering mandatory reporting requirements for charterboats (6-pack) with federal for-hire permits including Atlantic Dolphin Wahoo For-Hire and Coastal Migratory Pelagic For-Hire permits. The amendment also modifies existing requirements for headboat electronic reporting.
Changes to King Mackerel Management Measures – Changes are proposed for king mackerel management along the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico including changes to management zones, annual catch limits, commercial trip limits, split seasons, and other measures.

NOTE: Registration for the webinar is required. Click below to register and join us later today to learn more and provide your comments!

Register Here

Additional information, including public hearing summaries, video presentations for each amendment, and additional resources are available from the Public Hearing and Scoping Meeting page of the Council’s website. Written comments may be submitted until Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Email comments to mike.collins@safmc.net with “For-Hire Amend” and/or “Mackerel Amend 26” in the Subject line of the email.

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.”

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