Saving Seafood

Lawsuit calls for feds to protect California humpback whales from gill nets

October 28, 2022 — The Center for Biological Diversity is suing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, claiming it is not protecting endangered Pacific humpback whales from entanglements in California drift gillnets.

The Center, in the lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday, claimed that in the past two fishing seasons, about 12 Pacific humpbacks were caught in the California drift gillnet fishery. Researchers claim this excessive harm to endangered humpback whales violates the Endangered Species Act.

Whales caught in drift gillnets can drown or become constricted by nets as they swim away, causing stress, injuries and infections. This makes any entanglement of a humpback whale in drift gillnet gear an unlawful “take” under the act.

The fishery allegedly leaves mile-long hanging nets in the ocean overnight to catch large fish like Pacific bluefin tuna, swordfish and thresher sharks. The fishery then discards more than half of the fish caught, the lawsuit alleges. The fishing effort takes place from Aug. 15 through Jan. 31 and overlaps with important areas for sea turtles, threatening those endangered animals as well.

The Center claims NOAA Fisheries failed to adequately analyze the impact on the humpback populations listed under the act in 2016. Entanglements can lead to death, injury and lower calving rates in whales.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

North Carolina fisheries commission forces a gillnet ban

March 19, 2019 — North Carolina’s commercial fishermen are bracing for a fight over actions taken by the state’s Marine Fisheries Commissioners that forced a ban on the use of all gillnets in the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers.

The controversial action was a follow-up to a February meeting where a no-possession limit of striped bass was put into place, which is essentially a closed-season for both commercial and recreational fishermen in Central Southern Management Area of the state. At the same meeting, the commission requested that Department of Marine Fisheries Director Steve Murphey issue an additional proclamation restricting the use of all gillnets in the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers. Murphey chose not to issue the proclamation.

In a March 4 letter to the commission, Murphey wrote that he carefully considered the issue but concluded that scientific data does not support the management measure.

“While I respect the concerns of both the public and the MFC, after careful consideration I have concluded that such a measure is not supported by the scientific data that support gill nets as the primary or even the most significant source of discard mortality,” he wrote.

Gill nets are not the primary or even the most significant source of discard mortality in the Central Southern Management Area striped bass fishery, according to the department.

“This letter and Supplement A acknowledge discards in both the recreational and commercial industry, but it also points out that gill net restrictions already in place have resulted in significant reductions in striped bass discards and that recreational discards are increasing in recent years,” said Murphey.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

SUSAN POLLACK: Fishing For Progress: Saying No To ‘No Women On Board’

June 10, 2016 — In 1982, as supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment fought claims that that the proposed amendment to the Constitution would destroy the American family, I confronted an older mythology: Women are bad luck on boats.

I was a young maritime reporter for The East Hampton Star on Eastern Long Island. I loved boats and the sea, and I’d always loved adventure. That summer, I planned to join local fishermen aboard a state-of-the-art Japanese squid ship. This was several years after the United States enacted its 200-mile limit, but before American fishermen had fully developed a squid fishery of their own. In exchange for sharing their technical know-how, the Japanese would be permitted to catch squid in our waters.

I was game.

But as I was readying my boots and gear, I received an unexpected warning from the American sponsors of the U.S-Japan venture: no women on board.

Surely, something must be wrong: I’d spent the previous five years in gurry-soaked oil skins reporting on life at sea on American draggers, lobster boats, bay scallopers, gillnetters, long-liners and clamming rigs. I’d photographed the sun rising over the stern of a dragger hauling its catch of yellowtail and blackback flounders, cod, haddock and scup. I’d spent bone-chilling winter days in an open skiff, culling bay scallops – separating the delicate fan-shaped bivalves from whelks, rocks and seaweed. I’d danced on the boat, not for joy, but to keep warm.

On summer evenings, I’d helped my neighbor lift his gillnets, gingerly plucking out sharp-toothed bluefish and the occasional striper. And I’d finally succeeded in filleting a flounder without mangling the fragile flesh.

Read the full story at WBUR

JERRY SCHILL: Response to Ed Wall

June 20, 2016 — In response to Ed Wall’s Outdoors column, “Fisheries should be managed for all, by all,” I offer the following comments.

Mr. Wall mischaracterized my position on the referendum when he wrote that “Jerry Schill…is particularly disturbed by the fact that HB 1122 would allow a referendum on the issue by the state’s voters in the upcoming election in November. He is apparently concerned about citizens all across the state would be allowed to voice their opinions about something that he feels should be controlled solely by persons — and their representatives — in the coastal counties.”

I never said such a thing. I do not favor an illegal action, and that is what it would be if the bill in question was passed as Rep. Billy Richardson suggests. It would be a statewide election on the November ballot, and if passed, would become law with no further action by the General Assembly. It smacks at the very heart of representative government! We elect our representatives and senators to go to Raleigh, debate the issues in a deliberative manner, and then vote. If they aren’t willing to make those tough decisions, they have no business in Raleigh. The legislature has the authority to enact a net ban in North Carolina. The legislature is made up of legislators from Manteo to Murphy, so the entire state is indeed being heard, meaning that fisheries are being managed by all. Maybe not to Mr. Wall’s liking, but certainly being managed by all.

On the subject of the net ban: Mr. Wall and others with the opinion that they are not against commercial fishermen but support a net ban for the benefit of all, are either being disingenuous, or suffer from a tremendous lack of knowledge of commercial fishing. So allow me to make it perfectly clear: if you favor a net ban, you favor the elimination of commercial fishing. Period. In addition, if you favor a net ban, you think it’s OK to decimate a lot of families and quite a few rural communities.

Read the full letter at the New Bern Sun Journal

Commercial fishermen: Net ban would destroy N.C. seafood industry

May 23, 2016 — A state House bill first introduced 16 years ago has been resurrected that would ban the use of large trawling nets in state waters, a move that the commercial fishing industry says could destroy the livelihood for most North Carolina fishermen.

New Bern native Billy Richardson, D­-Cumberland, filed a bill that would let voters decide whether to outlaw gill and certain other nets in all state coastal waters. If the N.C. General Assembly supports House Bill 1122, the binding referendum would be on the November election ballot.

“It would be the end of North Carolina’s (commercial) fishery,” said Wayne Dunbar, a waterman for nearly 40 years, located in Pamlico County’s Paradise Shores on Lower Broad Creek, leading into the Pamlico Sound. “People that don’t fish wouldn’t get North Carolina seafood.”

Dunbar said this time of the year most of the fishermen trawl inland waters for speckled trout, flounder, spot, croakers and menhaden. On a typical day, he will go out in his small boat with 300 yards of net and fill a fish box with about 300 pounds of seafood.

Dunbar, who studied fish and wildlife management at Wayne Community College, said a net ban also would be devastating to the crab industry, the largest of the state’s fisheries.

The bait includes menhaden and other fish caught in nets.

Read the full story at the New Bern Sun Journal

CALIFORNIA: Marin group’s bill to phase out gill nets moves forward in Legislature

April 28, 2016 — A West Marin environmental group is sponsoring legislation to end the use of drift gill nets off the state’s coast, saying they inadvertently scoop up and kill other species, including federally-endangered leatherback sea turtles.

Marin’s Turtle Island Restoration Network has sponsored Senate Bill 1114, which would phase out the use of gill nets in favor of another method that better targets what the gill nets seek: swordfish. The change would prevent turtles, whales, dolphins, sharks and pinnipeds from being taken, the group says. The bill was approved by the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water earlier this month, the first stop during its journey in the Legislature. An appropriations committee is expected to take it up next month before more votes.

“Despite the fact that Pacific leatherback sea turtles are the largest sea turtles on the planet, they are no match for the driftnet fishery,” said Peter Fugazzotto, Turtle Island’s program manager. “This deadly fishery has been operating at too high of a cost to marine wildlife.”

Read the full story at the Marin Independent Journal

FLORIDA: Waters close to gill nets

November 5, 2015 — Waters in the Pamlico Sound and the northern portion of Core Sound will close to anchored, large-mesh gill nets starting this morning due to interactions with sea turtles.

The closure impacts Management Unit B under the state’s Sea Turtle Incidental Take Permit, which includes all of Pamlico Sound and the northern portion of Core Sound down to a line from Club House on Core Banks to a point on the shore at Davis near Marker 1, according to a North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries news release.

The closure took effect beginning one hour after sunrise.

DMF staff have observed numerous interactions with sea turtles in the management unit since it reopened Nov. 2. The closure is meant to avoid exceeding the allowed number of sea turtle interactions for the management unit.

Read the full story at Jacksonville Daily News