May 23, 2016 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. — Listening to the noise of the deep sea.
That’s the intent as researchers with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, based at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, recently placed a handful of recording devices along the ocean floor from George’s Bank to New Jersey to listen to the sounds of whales, dolphins and other marine life.
It’s part of a national effort to establish a network to monitor long term changes in ocean noise.
May 23, 2016 — HARWICH PORT, Mass. — The scalloping was pretty poor north of Provincetown last month for the crew of Aidan’s Pride; they towed their dredge for hours just to get a hundred pounds.
So the Wellfleet scallop vessel, owned by Aidan Lapierre and captained by Sean Gray, was heading south to Maryland about three weeks ago, hoping for a more bountiful harvest, when it broke an outrigger in rough water transiting the Cape Cod Canal.
It turned out to be a fortunate break, as the delay lasted just long enough that they were still around when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries office in Gloucester approved a plan May 3 to open a scallop-rich spot around 70 miles southeast of Saquatucket Harbor where Aidan’s Pride was tied up Thursday.
Catches in near-shore areas petered out over the past few years for members of what is known as the general category scallop fleet, smaller vessels around 40 feet in length that are only allowed to land 600 pounds of scallop meats a day. They were not able to harvest their allotted quota and petitioned NOAA and the New England Fishery Management Council to open a portion of the so-called Nantucket Lightship closed area exclusively to them because their vessels are not suited to the long trip to prime scalloping grounds on Georges Bank. In addition, the profits from the relatively small amount of scallops they were allowed to catch would quickly be eaten up by fuel costs.
Their only alternative: head south to the Mid-Atlantic.
But a window of opportunity opened after scientific surveys of the Nantucket Lightship area showed there weren’t enough mature scallops available to open it this year. Members of what is known as the limited access fleet — vessels 80 to more than 100 feet long which harvest as much as 17,000 pounds a day and are responsible for 95 percent of the scallop catch — wanted it kept closed to everyone.
“We chose not to go in there because the science said it wasn’t ready,” said Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney representing the Fisheries Survival Fund, which has many of the limited access fleet as members.
“We wanted the scallops to be larger, to get the maximum yield,” he said.
Since 2001, scallops have been managed under a rotational scheme much like letting a field lie fallow. Sampling is done to determine whether an area has enough large scallops to be opened to fishing. Areas with a lot of seed or immature scallops remain closed until they grow large enough for harvest.
It’s an approach that works but allowing someone into an area before it’s ready violates that management principle, Minkiewicz said. Scallopers faced with only being able to land 600 pounds would likely sort through the catch, discarding smaller animals in favor of the large ones that fetched higher prices, he said.
“They’re human,” he said. “We don’t blame them for it, but they will kill a lot more scallops than 300,000 pounds.”
Kevin Stokesbury, principal investigator at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s sea scallop research program, is also opposed to letting general category boats into the Lightship area, saying the dredge would likely kill a lot of small scallops. Surveys and studies by UMass Dartmouth’s School of Marine Science and Technology showed a small amount of growth actually doubled the amount of meat available. He agreed with Minkiewicz’s argument that killing off large numbers of young scallops, even if limited by a relatively small quota, could significantly affect future harvests in the area.
“While 300,000 pounds of harvest is not a lot compared to the biomass there, how many small scallops will you have to sort through to get to the few large ones?” he said.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Saving Seafood) – May 4, 2016 – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) has taken a formal position on the possibility of a Presidential proclamation of an Atlantic Marine Monument.
The Obama administration, at the urging of major environmental groups, is considering creating a National Monument in the New England Canyons and Seamounts region via the Antiquities Act. Few specifics have been released about what the monument would look like, but it could have significant negative impacts on fishermen in the affected areas.
The ASMFC’s Interstate Fisheries Management Program (ISFMP) Policy Board unanimously (with three abstentions) approved a resolution today drawing a line in the ocean (see map), in close proximity to the Atlantic canyons and seamounts off of Georges Banks, and urging that the creation of a monument only take place in a region seaward of that line. The ASMFC resolution urges that management of waters under Federal control from the coastline to that line be managed under the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
The resolution states:
The motion was initially crafted by members of the ASMFC Rhode Island Delegation, in consultation with other regional fisheries organizations. ASMFC’s Lobster Board, where the resolution originated, gave its unanimous approval to the proposal at its meeting on Monday.
In a letter this week to the ASMFC American Lobster Management Board requesting guidance on the monument issue, Board Chairman David Borden wrote about the potential consequences a monument would have for commercial and recreational fisheries in the area.
“The economic impacts of a potential Monument designation would undoubtedly be significant depending on where the boundaries are set. These economic impacts would be felt coast wide as the fishing fleets working in and around the canyons hail from ports across New England and the Mid-Atlantic.”
Specifically highlighted are the potential impacts on the offshore lobster and crab fisheries, which would be hurt by the prohibition on fishing in the monument area, or by being displaced into nearby fishing grounds. Lobster and Jonah crab revenue from Southern New England are estimated at $38 million per year. A monument designation could also hurt the lobster stock by pushing fishermen from areas where lobster is abundant into areas where lobster is more depleted. Concerns were also voiced about potential negative impacts of the proposal on whales and protected species.
Additionally, many of the States represented on ASMFC have major interests in finfish, pelagic longline, squid, and red crab fisheries, or have large recreational fisheries. “All of these fisheries could be directly affected by a closure or indirectly affected by a redirection of effort.”
According to ASMFC Chairman Doug Grout the ASMFC leadership plans to meet with representatives of CEQ next week to discuss ways to mitigate impacts on commercial and recreational fisheries.
About the ASMFC
In the early 1940s, recognizing that they could accomplish far more through cooperation rather than individual effort, the Atlantic coast states came together to form the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. An Interstate Compact, ratified by the states and approved by the U.S. Congress in 1942, acknowledged the necessity of the states joining forces to manage their shared migratory fishery resources and affirmed the states’ commitment to cooperative stewardship in promoting and protecting Atlantic coastal fishery resources.
Read a letter from ASMFC Lobster Board Chairman David Borden to the ASMFC Lobster Board
May 4, 2016 — At-sea monitoring requirements for Northeast multispecies groundfish vessels have been lowered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), bringing relief to fishermen who have been forced to absorb its cost due to a recent policy change.
In the same ruling, NOAA also set quotas for 2016 to 2018 covering 20 groundfish stocks, including decreasing the quota for Georges Bank cod to a level that will be “devastating” to the Northeast groundfishing fleet, according to one fisherman.
NOAA’s final rules, known as Framework 55, were filed Monday, 2 May and went into immediate effect to coincide with the beginning of the 2016 fishing season. Commercial groundfish operators will only be required to pay for monitors on 10 percent of their trips, whereas previously they had been expected to pay for them on 20 percent of their trips. The Northeast Fisheries Observer Program will pay for an additional four percent of the monitoring, pushing monitoring requirements to 14 percent of groundfish fishing trips taken by commercial vessels.
NOAA cited standards that required it to minimize costs and adverse economic impacts, while maintaining sound scientific practices to ensure sustainable fishing levels, as a reason for the lowering of the requirements.
April 29, 2016 — Federal consideration of a remapping of off-limits fishing areas is expected to cross a hurdle in the next couple of months, according to a fishing advocacy group.
Bob Vanasse, executive director of the group Saving Seafood, said the National Marine Fisheries Service will likely begin a process of formally considering the plan in May or June. He said the plan was advanced last year by the New England Fisheries Management Council.
The move would increase from about 40,000 to 42,000 the amount of square miles in the Georges Bank area that would be off-limits to fishing gear boats use on the seafloor, according to Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney who represents clients in the Atlantic scallop fleet.
Vanasse and Minkiewicz told the News Service the adjustments stemmed from 10 years of deliberations and more than 100 meetings where compromise was reached between different fisheries and other groups.
In addition to scallop boats, Georges Bank is fished by the groundfishing fleet, which uses trawlers to catch cod, flounder and other species.
The plan would also do away with restrictions on large areas that cycle between being open to trawling and closed, known as mortality closures, according to Vanasse.
April 25, 2016 — As a result of the combined efforts of NOAA Fisheries, the regional fishery management councils, and other stakeholders, in 2015 two stocks were rebuilt and the number of stocks listed as subject to overfishing or overfished remains near an all-time low.
“On the 40th anniversary of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), we recognize that our dynamic, science-based management process is proving to be successful at ending overfishing and rebuilding stocks, helping us realize significant benefits to the economy,” NOAA Fisheries stated in its annual report.
NOAA pointed out that based on the assessments carried out at the end of 2015, the findings are the following:
March 28, 2016 — The new fishing year begins in May and federal regulators are seeking public comments for proposed catch limits for the region’s groundfish industry. The proposed regulations, particularly for Georges Bank cod, have southern New England fishermen worried.
The proposed rules include catch quotas for 20 groundfish species, including cod, haddock, and flounder. Jennifer Goebel, public affairs officer for the regional office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said quotas are based on stock assessments.
“This year the stock assessment for the Gulf of Maine cod showed a slight increase and so we were able to make some increases on that,” she said.
But the cod from Georges Bank, a popular fishing spot for Rhode Island fishermen, is severely depleted. Goebel said regulators are proposing a 62 percent cut from what fishermen were able to catch last year.
March 25, 2016 — Dogfish Neck? Cape Skate? Pollock Peninsula?
Can this still be Cape Cod without the cod? There still is cod, and they’re still being caught, but the stocks have collapsed and that was further underlined this week when a Georges Bank quota cut of 62 percent to 762 metric tons was proposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Management Council on Monday. That follows an earlier massive cut during the last three-year management period – totaling a 95-percent reduction over the last four years.
Outer Cape fishermen are ahead of the curve – most have already abandoned cod.
“We experienced the lack of cod first. It’s been a long time so several years ago our fishermen transferred to other fish. A lot fish for monkfish, skate, dogfish so the cod rules don’t impact them” explained Claire Fitz-Gerald, Policy Analyst for the Chatham based Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance.
As recently as 2003 Chatham fishermen brought in 1,053,290 pounds of cod to Chatham Fish Pier while the dogfish catch was 224,589 pounds in 2004 (there was no record for 2003). Now those numbers are flipped. In 2012 just 113,406 pounds of cod were landed at Chatham’s Pier, while 936,563 pounds of dogfish, 64,191 pounds of pollock, 287,753 pounds of skate were brought in.
March 23, 2016 — NOAA Fisheries has opened the public comment period for the proposed management rule that includes withering cuts to several groundfish species and reductions in the overall level of at-sea monitoring (ASM) coverage for the beleaguered groundfish fleet.
It seems the proposed rule, also known as Framework 55, has a little bit of something for everyone to hate. They have until close of business on April 5 to submit their comments to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Environmental groups, such as Oceana, are bitterly criticizing the projected reduction in ASM for groundfish boats to about 14 percent from about 24 percent, saying the rule will “weaken the chances of recovery for this historic fishery.”
Fishermen point to the further reductions in what they already consider minuscule catch quotas and say those reductions — combined with the absorption of the costs for ASM — could finally be the management initiative that shutters the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery for good.
Savage quota cuts
The catch limits, set by the NOAA Fisheries for the 2016 fishing season that begins May 1, include savage cuts to the annual catch limits for gray sole (55 percent), Georges Bank cod (66 percent), northern windowpane flounder (33 percent) and Gulf of Maine yellowtail flounder (26 percent).
“We will not have a fishery as we know it anymore,” Vito Giacalone, policy director for the Northeast Seafood Coalition, said on Tuesday. “In fact, I think you can already make the case that we don’t have a fishery you can recognize now compared to any period in the past.”
March 23, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The city’s commercial fishing industry — battered by last month’s arrest of magnate Carlos Rafael on federal conspiracy charges, last week’s drug raids on the waterfront and ongoing monitoring costs — took another punch to the gut this week, as government regulators proposed new cuts to cod catches that could take effect May 1.
“Those cuts will be devastating to the groundfishing fleet of New Bedford, and the whole New England coast,” said John Haran, manager of groundfish Sector 13.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in conjunction with the New England Fishery Management Council, released a proposed update Monday to the federal management plan for the northeastern fishery.
The proposal includes updated catch quotas and fishing limits for the fishery’s 20 groundfish stocks — including cod, flounder, haddock and more — for the next three years. The 2016 groundfish year starts May 1.
The proposal includes a new, 62-percent reduction from last year in the allowable catch for Georges Bank cod, a key species for the New Bedford fishing industry.
“Our fleet is entirely concentrated on Georges Bank West cod,” Haran said, referring to boats not only in his sector, but also in New Bedford-based sectors 7, 8 and 9.
“We also fish for Georges Bank East cod, but not as much,” said Haran, who is running for Select Board member in Dartmouth.
The proposal allows a total catch limit of 762 metric tons of Georges Bank cod in the 2016 fishing year. The total catch limit for Georges Bank haddock, by comparison, is 56,068 metric tons — an increase of 130 percent from a year ago.
Haran said the problem is that cod is a “choke species,” because once a crew reaches its quota for cod, it can no longer fish for other species, such as haddock, because everything is caught at the same time.