Saving Seafood

CALIFORNIA: Dramatic sardine population decline means likely West Coast fishing ban

March 27, 2019 — There won’t be any boats pulling bulging nets of fresh sardines out of the ocean along the West Coast this year after another dramatic decline in population virtually guarantees a ban on the commercial take of the tiny schooling fish.

The northern Pacific sardine population, stretching from Mexico to British Columbia, has plummeted 98.5 percent since 2006, according to a draft stock assessment released this week by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Pacific Fishery Management Council.

It means regulators have no choice but to ban sardine fishing for the fifth straight year starting July 1 from Mexico to the Canadian border.

“We’ve been urging for an overhaul to the way sardine are managed for the last seven years,” said Geoff Shester, a senior scientist with Oceana, an ocean conservation advocacy group. “It is critical to hold fishery managers accountable for exacerbating this modern-day sardine collapse and seek management changes to use best available science to learn from our mistakes.”

Read the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle

California Swordfish Fishery Faces Sustainability and Market Pressures Following Driftnet Ban

October 16, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — With the scrawl of Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature and the unanimous backing of both the California State Senate and Assembly, California has officially banned the controversial drift gillnets used to catch swordfish.

Senate Bill 1017, signed into law on Sept. 27, will phase out driftnet fishing over a four-year period that includes both buyouts and incentives for commercial fishermen to revert to gear and practices that result in less bycatch — the dolphins, sea turtles, whales and other species that get entrapped in the nets and sometimes killed while fishing for swordfish and thresher sharks.

Ashley Blacow, Pacific policy and communications manager for Oceana, wrote in a statement, “Ocean waters off California are some of the most productive and ecologically diverse in the world … . Pulling large drift gillnets out of the water for good while transitioning to cleaner gear means countless marine animals will continue to thrive off the California coast and Californians will have access to sustainably, locally caught swordfish.”

There are 20 commercial driftnet boats still operating in the state — a marked decrease from 129 boats in 1994, according to reporting by The Mercury News. The fishing occurs mostly between San Diego and Big Sur. The bill’s buyout program will compensate fishermen $10,000 for their state drift gillnet permit and an additional $100,000 for surrendering their nets.

California is the last state in the nation to allow such drift gillnets.

While the impending ban will probably be looked at as “a defining moment,” according to Geoff Shester, Ph.D., California campaign director and senior scientist at Oceana, “there are still many battles to go.”

Shester pointed to the renewed push from fishermen to make pelagic longline fishing legal again in California. That fishing practice uses hundreds, and sometimes more than 1,000, baited hooks that hang near the water’s surface to catch species like swordfish and tuna. Like driftnets, longline fishing results in significant amounts of bycatch.

“Why take the approach of pick your poison when you don’t have to choose poison?” Shester asked. Instead of indiscriminate fishing practices with high levels of bycatch, Shester hopes fishermen, with the help of government policies and environmental research, will adopt sustainable practices like deep-set buoy gear.

A local scientist, Chugey Sepulveda, Ph.D., director and senior scientist at the Pfleger Institute of Environmental Research (PIER) in Oceanside, came up with the concept for deep-set buoy gear in 2009.

With this method, a fishing line of one to three baited hooks is dropped to the depths where swordfish feed. When there’s a bite on the hook, the buoy on the surface moves, alerting the fishermen. The gear typically consists of up to 10 lines that fishermen monitor in real time.

Sepulveda explained in an email to The Coast News, “The idea was based primarily on our swordfish tagging studies which showed that California swordfish segregate from other bycatch species at depth during the day — they tend to hang out well below the thermocline and feed on deep forage with only occasional surface basking.

“This daily dive pattern seemed like an ideal opportunity for targeting swordfish and avoiding sensitive bycatch like sea turtles and marine mammals, species that predominantly remain within the surface waters.”

Sepulveda worked with PIER research biologist Scott Aalbers to modify typical hook and line methods for a gear design specific to the West Coast that would effectively catch swordfish and greatly reduce bycatch.

According to data from a PIER-led, seven-year study of commercial and experimental deep-set buoy gear trials off California shores, fishing with buoy gear resulted in a catch that was 83 percent swordfish, 12 percent bigeye thresher shark and 98 percent marketable. Non-marketable species, like blue shark and two elephant seals, were released alive.

The swordfish caught was also more profitable, as people will pay a premium for sustainably caught fish that is not mangled and makes it to market faster. Blacow said, “Last year, drift gillnet vessels targeting swordfish made $52,000 per vessel and those vessels targeting swordfish with deep-set buoy gear made $81,000 per vessel.”

Nonetheless, Sepulveda, who is also a fisherman, said deep-set buoy gear “was designed to provide fisherman with an additional opportunity, not to replace one of the few options our local fishermen have.” As such, he explained that commercial fishermen are disappointed by the passage of SB 1017 “as it means that they have one less tool available to harvest local swordfish.”

Sepulveda noted that domestic fisheries are much more regulated than the foreign gillnet and longline operations that the U.S. imports the majority of its swordfish from. Those imports “flood our markets at reduced prices,” Sepulveda wrote, which makes it hard for local fishers to compete.

In response to such concerns, Blacow wrote, “We acknowledge that an array of regulations have been put in place over the years in attempts to clean up the fishery. However, despite gear modifications and special closed areas the fishery continues to have unacceptably high amounts of waste — throwing back more than half of what is caught … . Just because an activity is regulated doesn’t automatically mean that activity should be occurring in the first place.”

Blacow pointed to a 2018 National Marine Fisheries Service study that estimates that “between 2001 and 2016 the California drift gillnet fishery captured 1,602 protected marine species including whales, dolphins, sea lions, sea turtles and seabirds.”

Furthermore, Blacow believes that restricting seafood imports that do not meet U.S. environmental standards would be a step in the right direction in ensuring food sustainability and the livelihoods of U.S. fishermen.

Sepulveda shared similar thoughts, stating, “Our ultimate goal is to enhance domestic sustainable swordfish operations, improve the availability of jobs in the fishing sector while reducing our reliance upon foreign under-regulated and substandard product.”

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Oceana wins lawsuit against feds over anchovy quota.

January 22, 2018 — Anchovies may have fallen out of fashion as a food for humans, but they are a key food source for whales, dolphins, pelicans and a host of other creatures that make Monterey Bay one of the richest marine ecosystems in the world.

And Jan. 18, that ecosystem scored a huge victory: Oceana, a marine environmental nonprofit, and Earthjustice, an environmental law nonprofit that represented Oceana, won a lawsuit in the U.S District Court Northern District of California against the federal government. Their argument: that the National Marine Fisheries Service set the anchovy catch limit off the California coast at illegally high levels in October 2016.

The crux of Oceana’s case was this: In October 2016, NMFS set the catch limit at 25,000 metric tons annually for the California subpopulation of anchovies when the latest available science suggested the total biomass of that population was between 15,000-32,000 metric tons.

In other words, the annual catch limit was set within the estimated range of the total population.

Read the full story at the Monterey County Weekly

Saving Seafood covered Oceana’s legal challenge in a story posted November 29, 2016. It’s available here.

The full ruling is available here.

The following was released today by Oceana:

MONTEREY, Calif. — In response to a lawsuit brought by Oceana, as represented by Earthjustice, a federal judge struck down a decision by the National Marine Fisheries Service (Fisheries Service) to set a 25,000 metric ton (mt) catch level for the central population of northern anchovy for violating the nation’s fishery management law. The court rejected the Service’s reliance on decades-old data to manage this fishery off the California coast. The court found that the government’s annual catch limit was not based on the best scientific information available, and that the Fisheries Service did not adequately consider whether its management prevented overfishing. Instead of basing catch limits on the most recent scientific data showing that the anchovy population had reached a historic low of less than 32,000 mt, the Fisheries Service set the limits based on pre-1990s population estimates assuming a population of more than 733,000 mt.

“The law is clear: the agency can’t sweep inconvenient facts under the rug and rely on a bureaucratic preference to “set it and forget it” for the most ecologically critical fish on the West Coast,” said Andrea Treece, Staff attorney for Earthjustice. “The agency must develop modern, reality-based management measures that reflect the actual status of the anchovy population and ensure that enough of them stay in the ocean to feed pelicans, sea lions, salmon, and other marine predators.”

“This decision holds the Fisheries Service to fundamental standards intended by Congress, which require the government to sustainably manage our nation’s fisheries for the benefit of both fishermen and dependent species,” added Mariel Combs, Pacific Counsel for Oceana.

The decision strikes down the rule currently in place. Now the agency must promulgate new management limits based on the best available science.

“This decision is a huge victory for the ocean’s little fish, and in turn the larger fish and wildlife, that depend upon them,” said Geoff Shester, California campaign director and senior scientist for Oceana. “An abundant anchovy population also supports California’s coastal economy including sport fishing and whale watching. The court delivered an important win for science, marking a turning point that will force fishery managers to safeguard some of the most important fish in the sea.”

 

Sardine fishing could be banned for 3rd year in a row

March 27, 2017 — The once-thriving sardine population — made famous in John Steinbeck’s novel “Cannery Row” — has taken a nosedive along the West Coast, where regulators are considering a ban on reeling in the tiny bait fish for a third year in a row.

Sardine numbers have plummeted 95 percent since 2006, according to estimates released Friday by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The perilously low numbers give regulators little choice but to again close fishing starting July 1 from Mexico to the Canadian border.

“If the initial estimate for this year remains in place, the fishery will be closed for the third straight year,” said Kerry Griffin, the staff officer for the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which makes policy along the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington. “We all want a healthy ecosystem, sustainable fisheries and healthy coastal communities that depend on fishing opportunities.”

Fishery biologists blamed the collapse on natural fluctuations — which recent sediment studies show have been common throughout history — and changing ocean conditions. Conservationists, however, believe overfishing made a bad situation worse.

“There would have been a decline anyway, but we made the decline worse by continuing to fish,” said Geoffrey Shester, senior scientist for Oceana, an international advocacy group that has been fighting to lower the annual sardine take and implement stricter regulations. “Scientists in the agency warned about a collapse, but the managers of the fishery didn’t pay attention to that and, in fact, took a much higher percentage of the existing stock.”

Read the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle

California wildlife agency backs deep sea protections

December 5th, 2016 — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has given preliminary support to a plan to protect more than 16,000 square miles of deep ocean habitat off of Southern California, while reopening nearly 3,000 square miles of rockfish conservation area to fishing.

The plan, proposed by the marine nonprofit Oceana, was one of the alternatives that the Pacific Fishery Management Council considered as it reviewed West Coast groundfish management plans in late November.

“With the inclusion of the proposed modifications, CDFW tentatively supports Oceana’s proposal south of Point Conception,” the fish and wildlife department wrote in its comment letter to the council.

It noted, however, that the plan requires more review and input from fishermen, scientists and other interested people, and suggested minor revisions to the closure map.

“We were pretty thrilled to hear that the state of California identified that proposal that we submitted as their preferred option,” said Geoff Shester, California campaign director for Oceana. “The idea is that we’re trying to freeze the footprint, and protect areas that are not yet developed.”

The Pacific Fishery Management Council, which manages U.S. fisheries from the edge of state waters to 200 nautical miles offshore, is updating its essential fish habitat for West Coast groundfish, including rockfish and other species.

Read the full story at The San Diego Union Tribune 

RAY HILBORN: Sardine stories

April 14, 2016 — At the end of February, Dr. Geoff Shester, California campaign director for the nonprofit advocacy group Oceana, criticized the Pacific Fishery Management Council for the persistence of low numbers of California sardines. The lack of a population recovery may cause the commercial moratorium to last until 2017.

The author explained this sardine population decline as being 93 percent less than it was in 2007. Shester does not believe this is because of environmental causes like climate change, El Niño or natural fluctuations in forage fish species, however. Instead he blames the management body.

“They warned of a population collapse, and the fishery management body basically turned a blind eye and continued moving forward with business as usual.”

Shester also cited recent sea lion deaths, specifically 3,000 that washed ashore in California in 2015.

See the full story at the National Fisherman. Reproduced with permission.