Saving Seafood

Public hearing set on fluke and sea bass regulations

January 4, 2016 — A public hearing on summer flounder and sea bass regulations will be held at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 7 at the Stafford Township Municipal Building.

What’s on the table is Draft Addendum XXVII to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Summer Flounder, Scup, Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan.

There will be a cutback of 30-percent of the coastwide harvest of summer flounder in 2016 from 23 million pounds to 16 million pounds but it may not impact recreational regulations because anglers fished under their 2015 quota.

Read the full story at Asbury Park Press

NORTH CAROLINA: Environmental issues roll into 2016

January 1, 2016 — Offshore drilling draws opponents

After a year of growing opposition from coastal communities against offshore drilling off the North Carolina coast, close watch will be kept on decisions in Washington in the upcoming year.

The Obama Administration is expected to release its proposed Atlantic oil leasing plan in early 2016.

To date, 93 communities along the Atlantic coast have gone on record against offshore oil and gas exploration activities.

That number includes several in the local area:

In Onslow County, the towns of Holly Ridge, Swansboro and Surf City have adopted resolutions.

In Carteret County, Emerald Isle, Morehead City and Beaufort have adopted resolutions opposing offshore drilling; and Atlantic Beach councilmen agreed to a resolution to be formally adopted this month. The Carteret County Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Development Authority have also taken a stance against it.

Read the full story at Jacksonville Daily News

More absurdness from the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries

December 31, 2015 — On January 1 we will have imposed on commercial fishermen (those who fish with nets) and people who like fresh seafood bought either from the local fish market or prepared in a local restaurant an example of the worst kind of government. That is, the imposition of regulations for the sake of regulation, without valid or reliable science or even common sense. The Division of Marine Fisheries will impose absurd regulations on the catching of flounder in North Carolina’s coastal waters.

The purpose of the regulations, plus the mission of the DMF in general in recent years, could be said to extinguish commercial fishing in the state’s waters.

Here’s how WECT-TV reports it:

The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission voted in late November to put new restrictions on catching Southern Flounder into place beginning Jan. 1, 2016.

Marine Fisheries Commission voting on new southern flounder regulations Thursday

Marine Fisheries Commission voting on new southern flounder regulations Thursday

Living on the Coast many of you enjoy catching and eating fresh southern flounder, but soon that fish might be harder to get. For almost a year, the Division of Marine Fisheries has been talking about changing the regulations on Southern Flounder.

Read the full opinion piece at Beaufort Observer

 

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

 

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

 

Supplemental Materials Now Available for the ASMFC’s 74th Annual Meeting

October 27, 2015 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Supplemental meeting materials for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s 74th Annual Meeting have been posted at http://www.asmfc.org/home/2015-Annual-Meeting for the following Boards/Sections (click on “Supplemental Material” following each relevant committee header to access information). 

American Lobster Management Board – Report for the Southern New England (SNE) Subcommittee’s October 2nd Meeting; Update on SNE Stock Projections Presented at the Subcommittee Meeting; Relationship Between Fishing Effort and Fishery Exploitation; Incidental Bycatch of Jonah Crab by Non-trap Gear; and Revised Advisory Panel Nominations

Atlantic Herring Section – Issues and Options Under Development and Consideration for Inclusion in Draft Amendment 3; Technical Report on Gonadal-Somatic Index-based Monitoring System for Atlantic Herring Closures; and Advisory Panel Meeting Summary

Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board – Delaware Bay Summer Flounder White Paper; Black Sea Bass Commercial Quotas; and 2015 FMP Reviews for Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass

Executive Committee – Executive Committee Recommended Changes to Commission Documents and Additional Issues for Consideration on Commission Guidance Documents

American Eel Management Board – Public Comment

Winter Flounder Management Board – Northeast Fisheries Science Center Stock Assessment Update on 20 Northeast Groundfish Stocks Through 2014 (This report has been modified to include information on winter flounder stocks only).

Atlantic Menhaden Management Board – Ecological Reference Point Recommendations for Draft Amendment 3 Development; Socioeconomic Study of Menhaden Fisheries – Request for Proposals Update; and Public Comment

Law Enforcement Committee – Revised Agenda

Tautog Management Board – Summary of Submitted Public Comment; Individual/Organization Comments; and Law Enforcement Subcommittee Review on Illegal Tautog Harvest

Spiny Dogfish Management Board – Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council Spiny Dogfish Motions and Selected Alternatives

Horseshoe Crab Management Board – 2015 FMP Review 

South Atlantic State/Federal Fisheries Management Board – 2015 FMP Reviews for Spotted Seatrout and Spanish Mackerel

As a reminder, Board/Section meeting proceedings will be broadcast daily via webinar beginning at 8:00 a.m. on November 2nd, continuing daily until the conclusion of the meeting (expected to be 1:45 p.m.) on November 5th.  The webinar will allow registrants to listen to the proceedings of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s management boards/sections during the Commission’s 74th Annual Meeting, November 2-5, 2015. Registrants will also be able to view presentations and motions as they occur. For a detailed agenda and meeting materials, go to http://www.asmfc.org/home/2015-Annual-Meeting. No comments or questions will be accepted via the webinar. Should technical difficulties arise during the streaming of the broadcast, the boards/sections will continue their deliberations without interruption. We will attempt to resume the broadcast as soon as possible. Board/Section summaries, presentations, and audio files will be available at http://www.asmfc.org/home/2015-Annual-Meeting the week of November 9th.

View a PDF of the Supplemental meeting materials here

NORTH CAROLINA: Weekly Update for Oct. 19, 2015

October 26, 2015 — The following was released by the North Carolina Fisheries Association:

NCFA BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING TIME CHANGED

Our board of directors will meet tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. at the Washington Civic Center, 110 Gladden St., Washington.  We encourage all fishermen who are able to attend, especially those participating in the summer and southern flounder fisheries.  

SAFMC HEARINGS ON PROPOSED FEDERAL MANAGEMENT MEASURES

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council has scheduled public hearings regarding the commercial dolphin trip limit for the Atlantic Coast, blueline tilefish, yellowtail snapper and black sea bass in South Atlantic in November.  For more information on the hearings, dates and how to submit comments see the news release.  

MAFMC OCTOBER 2015 MEETING SUMMARY

NMFS SEEKS PUBLIC COMMENTS ON DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT TO MODIFY A BLACK SEA BASS POT SEASONAL PROHIBITION

NOAA Fisheries is seeking public comment on a draft environmental impact statement for Regulatory Amendment 16 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region (Regulatory Amendment 16).  On Oct. 23, 2013, fishery managers implemented an annual prohibition on the use of black sea bass pots from Nov. 1 through April 30 in the South Atlantic. Regulatory Amendment 16 contains management measures to modify this prohibition in terms of area and time closed. The regulatory amendment also contains management actions to require specific rope marking for black sea bass pot gear. The purpose of the proposed actions is to reduce the adverse socioeconomic impacts from the prohibition while continuing to protect whales in the South Atlantic region. For more information see news release.  

NILS STOLPE: “SO HOW’S THAT ‘CATCH SHARES’ REVOLUTION WORKING OUT FOR GROUNDFISH?”

“I’ll add here that catch share management is not a cure-all for all that’s wrong with fishery management – though at the time Dr. Lubchenco and her “team” apparently believed it was – nor is it the reason for management failures. It is nothing more than an option for dividing the catch among users. As such it can have profound socioeconomic impacts on participants in the fishery and on fishing communities that depend on it, but not on the fishery resources themselves.”

Read Nils’ entire opinion here as published in FishNet USA/October 22, 2015.  

NOAA LAUNCHES NEW MOBILE-FRIENDLY FISHWATCH.GOV

October is National Seafood Month, and NOAA Fisheries has launched our first-ever mobile-friendly website to enable our users to access the nation’s database on sustainable seafood anywhere, anytime, on any device. 

FishWatch offers the same great seafood information, but now it’s easier to use on the go from your phone or tablet. Using the site, consumers can: 

  • Make smart seafood choices with facts about what makes U.S. seafood sustainable-from the ocean or farm to your plate.
  • Get information on the status of some of the nation’s most valuable marine fish harvested in U.S. federal waters as well as U.S. farmed fish that help meet our country’s growing seafood demand.
  • Understand how U.S. seafood is responsibly harvested and grown under a strong monitoring, management, and enforcement regime that works to keep the marine environment healthy, fish populations thriving, and our seafood industry on the job.

REGULATION AND RULE CHANGES:

–Commercial Scup Winter II quota and possession limits increase effective Nov. 1

–Commercial harvest of yellowtail snapper in South Atlantic federal waters will close Oct. 31

DEADLINES:

Oct. 29 – NMFS Proposed Rules for Snapper-Grouper, Dolphin and Golden Crab Comments

Nov. 4 – Atlantic HMS SEDAR Pool Nominations

Nov. 9 – NMFS Proposed Rule on ICCAT Bluefin Electronic Documentation Comments

Nov. 16 – SAFMC Proposed Federal Management Measures Comments

Nov. 19 – Derelict Fishing Gear Recovery Project Applications

Dec. 16 – NMFS Draft Ecosystem-based Fishery Management Policy Comments

MEETINGS:

If you are aware of ANY meetings that should be of interest to commercial fishing that is not on this list, please contact us so we can include it here.    

Oct. 27 at 12:30 p.m. – NCFA Board of Directors Meeting, Washington Civic Center, 110 Gladden St., Washington, NC

Nov. 2 at 6 p.m. – Question and Answer Webinar for Snapper Grouper Regulatory Amendment 25

Nov. 2-5 – ASFMC Annual Meeting, World Golf Village Renaissance, St. Augustine Resort, 500 Legacy Trail, St. Augustine, Fl

Nov. 9 at 6 p.m.- SAMFC Snapper Grouper Regulatory Amendment 25 Public Hearing

Nov. 12  at 6 p.m. – SAFMC Dolphin Wahoo Regulatory Amendment 1 Public Hearing to address commerical trip limits for dolphin

Nov. 18-20 – ASFMC River Herring Data Collection Standardization Workshop, Linthicum, MD

PROCLAMATIONS: 

GILL NETS – ALBEMARLE SOUND AREA- MANAGEMENT UNIT A-OPEN GILL NETS WESTERN ALBEMARLE AND CURRITUCK SOUND

View a PDF of the Weekly Update

Gulf of Maine’s cold-craving species forced to retreat to deeper waters

October 27, 2015 — For 178 years, dams stood across the Penobscot River here, obstructing salmon and other river-run fish from reaching the watershed’s vast spawning grounds, which extend all the way to the Quebec border.

Now, two years after the dam’s removal, the salmon’s proponents fear the fish face a more fearsome threat: a warming sea.

In recent years, the Gulf of Maine has been one of the fastest-warming parts of the world’s oceans, and climate change models project average sea surface temperatures here to increase by another 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2065, a development that could extirpate Atlantic salmon and other cold-loving species, many of which already find Maine at the southern edge of their ranges.

“We’re all for taking down the dams and all the things that are going on to restore habitat, but how much are they looking at the evidence?” asks Gerhard Pohle of the Huntsman Marine Science Center in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, co-author of a study predicting how the changes are likely to affect 33 commercial species over the next 75 years. “Distribution of salmon in the Gulf of Maine would be such that there wouldn’t be many left at all.”

The warming gulf is already presenting challenges to many of its cold-loving denizens. Scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Services, or NMFS, have recorded the steady retreat of a range of commercially or ecologically important fish species away from the Maine coast and into deep water in the southwestern part of the gulf, where bottom water temperatures are cooler.

The retreat, which intensified over the past decade, includes cod, pollock, plaice, and winter and yellowtail flounder. Other native species that once ranged south of Long Island – lobster, sand lance and red hake – have stopped doing so, presumably because the water there is now too warm.

“You can imagine that when you have species at the southern end of their ranges, they will be really sensitive to these changes,” says Michael Fogarty, chief of the Ecosystem Assessment Program at the NMFS Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. “They will either shift distribution or their survival rates might change.”

Read the full story at Portland Press Herald

The next food revolution: fish farming?

October 25, 2015 — Sanggou Bay looks like a place where the pointillism movement has been unleashed on an ocean canvas. All across the harbor on China’s northeastern coast, thousands of tiny buoys – appearing as black dots – stretch across the briny landscape in unending rows and swirling patterns. They are broken only by small boats hauling an armada of rafts through the murky waters.

For centuries, Chinese fishermen have harvested this section of the Yellow Sea for its flounder, herring, and other species. Today the area is again producing a seafood bounty, though not from the end of a fisherman’s rod or the bottom of a trawler’s net. Instead, the maze of buoys marks thousands of underwater pens or polyurethane ropes that hold oysters, scallops, abalone, Japanese flounder, mussels, sea cucumbers, kelp, and garish orange sea squirts. They are all part of one of the world’s biggest and most productive aquaculture fields. Sanggou Bay is a seafood buffet on a colossal scale.

The buoys here extend for miles out to the horizon, offering, on an aluminum-gray day, the only clue to where the ocean stops and the sky begins. Hundreds of migrant workers – many from as far away as Myanmar (Burma) – pilot the fishing boats zigzagging around the floats, shuttling fish to shore, checking the lines for mussels and oysters, and voyaging farther out to sea to harvest seaweed.

Read the full story at The Christian Science Monitor

 

 

RUSSELL LAY: “Disputed Fisheries Studies: Politics Or Inexact Science?”

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) – September 29, 2015 – The following excerpt appeared on September 27, 2015 in the Outer Banks Voice. Its author, Russell Lay, is co-owner and journalist at Outer Banks Voice, and an advocate for menhaden fishermen:

Science plays a big role in managing fisheries.

Scientists assess fish stocks, migration patterns, environmental issues – useful data that allow regulators to set policy.

We expect our science to be accurate and unaffected by politics, and as citizens, we expect political actors to treat science in the same manner.

Even Robert Fritchey, the author of Wetland Riders, a history of the Coastal Conservation Association, acknowledges that size limits, creel limits and other restrictions are necessary, and that “the science of estimating recreational discards and mortality is vastly improved.” Which would suggest that if interest groups are put aside, there is some hope science could be used in an unbiased manner to help manage fisheries.

Yet a series of e-mails found their way into the public domain from a 2007 round-robin discussion among several N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries scientists trying to peg a mortality rate for speckled seatrout caught by recreational anglers. See video

It would take a few hundred words to demonstrate where science goes off the rails and how other factors, including interest group reactions, exert an influence on what is expected to be an unbiased, fact-driven process.

The mortality rate is important because it is applied to the estimated landings of recreationally caught species and used to assign “catch quotas” for recreational and commercial interests.

The group of six scientists struggled. They questioned even the scope of the studies. “I have a problem with the adjusted values. The handling effect is a real phenomenon with recreational fishing and is definitely a cause for release mortality . . . this study wasn’t designed to look at stress-related mortality . . . ” said one team member.

They also expressed concerns over small sample sizes, differing numbers based on seasonality and salinity of the water, and a wide variance in mortality rates produced by the studies – from a low of 7.3 percent to a high of 19.4 percent.

For those who skipped the video, one comment by DMF scientist Douglas Mumford angered commercial fishermen already suspicious of state and national studies that were reducing stock assessment numbers in several species and therefore, reducing commercial quotas.

“If we put the 19.4 percent on the table, (recreational) folks will flip out. They’ll tell you there is no way 1 out of 5 fish they release dies,” Mumford wrote.

In the end the group decided to go at the low end and chose a mortality rate of 9.8 percent, even though more than one scientist felt a range closer to 14.8 percent was more accurate.

In 2015, another clash between science and politics took place.

The state Division of Marine Fisheries had ordered a stock assessment of southern flounder, a species many believe is suffering from a decline in North Carolina.

Commercial fishermen dispute those claims, citing rising numbers in commercial landings with no concurrent loss of landings on the recreational side, even while previous restrictions on southern flounder have reduced the catch effort by 137 percent, according to Britton Shackleford, president of North Carolina Watermen United.

Even though the DMF staff recommended against releasing the study, which subsequently failed to pass a peer review, DMF director Dr. Louis Daniel, backed by recreational members of the Marine Fisheries Commission and at-large member Chuck Laughridge (a life member of the Coastal Conservation Association), as well as the CCA and another recreational interest group, the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA), declared their intention to move forward on reducing the commercial catch of southern flounder.

Once again, commercial fishermen, noting a study that failed to pass a scientific peer review, saw the “flawed study” still being used to reduce commercial operations, and adding further fuel to the fire regarding whether science or politics was dictating policy at the state level.

While a group of 13 state senators and representatives was able to persuade the MFC to delay taking action on imposing those restrictions until their September meeting, vote counters in Raleigh worry that inland Republicans will follow the CCA lead and allow the MFC to impose restrictions even though the science backing the decision has failed to pass academic muster.

Menhaden was once a major economic contributor to coastal North Carolina communities.

Severe restrictions on menhaden harvesting were imposed in North Carolina and other states based on a 2012 stock assessment from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which claimed the species had been severely overfished by the commercial industry.

Read the full op-ed at Outer Banks Voice