Saving Seafood

Effective Today: Closure of the Regular B Days-at-Sea Program

December 16, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Effective at 0845 hours on December 16, 2019, the Regular B Days-at-Sea (DAS) program is closed for the remainder of fishing year 2019, through April 30, 2020.  During this closure, Northeast multispecies vessels may not declare or use regular B days-at-sea.  We have closed the Regular B DAS program because 77 percent of the 242.5 lb Incidental Catch Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for Gulf of Maine cod is projected to have been caught.

The Regional Administrator is authorized to close the Regular B Days-at-Sea Program if it is projected that catch in the Regular B DAS Program cannot be constrained to the Gulf of Maine Cod Incidental Catch TAC.  With only two trip limits of catch available before the fishery meets or exceeds the Gulf of Maine Cod Incidental Catch TAC, we project that this criteria for closure has been met.

If you have crossed the vessel monitoring system demarcation line and are currently at sea on a groundfish trip declared under a regular B day-at-sea, you may complete your trip.

For more information see the rule as filed in the Federal Register today or our bulletin.

New regulations to expand protections for seafloor habitats, reopen fishing grounds off US West Coast

December 5, 2019 — New regulations for essential fish habitat off the West Coast of the United States that go into effect in 2020 will extend protections for deep-sea habitats and corals while reopening fishing grounds where fish populations have rebounded.

The new rules were finalized by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (known as NOAA Fisheries) last month, and will go into effect on January 1, 2020. The updated regulations were recommended to NOAA by the Pacific Fishery Management Council and enjoy broad support from the fishing industry and environmentalists alike. The changes will be implemented via an amendment to the Fishery Management Plan for groundfish off the US West Coast.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council is responsible for minimizing impacts of human activities on essential fish habitat (EFH), which are habitats deemed vital to maintaining sustainable fisheries. In 2005, the Council established area closures in groundfish habitat that limited the use of bottom trawling and other types of fishing gear that come into contact with the ocean floor.

According to NOAA Fisheries, groundfish fisheries contribute $569 million to household incomes in West Coast communities, from the state of Washington down to Southern California. About 3,000 square miles that had been closed to bottom trawling for groundfish will be reopened when the changes take effect, including 2,000 square miles of a Rockfish Conservation Area off the coasts of California and Oregon that have been off-limits to bottom trawling since 2002.

Read the full story at Mongabay

NOAA, Coast Guard: More regs needed in wake of Rafael ’s fraud

December 4, 2019 — Representatives from NOAA and the US Coast Guard are using Carlos Rafael’s case as evidence that more regulations and oversight are necessary in the groundfishing industry.

NOAA Special Agent Troy Audyatis explained to a crowd gathered at the New England Fishery Management Council Meeting on Tuesday how NOAA worked with other agencies to catch the so-called Codfather and said, “We need to prevent something like this from ever repeating itself down the road.”

Rafael was sentenced to 46-months in federal prison for falsifying fishing quota, cash smuggling, and tax evasion in a criminal case, and was ordered to pay a $3 million penalty to address the federal government’s civil claims against him which included counts of misreporting and underreporting his groundfish catch.

Audyatis said if there wasn’t an observer, who collects data from U.S. commercial fishing and processing vessels for NOAA, on Rafael’s vessels or a dock-side officer “thousands upon thousands of fish would simply disappear” without being reported.

One of the reasons Audyatis gave for Rafael being able to misreport and underreport was the vertical integration of Rafael’s business.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

‘We caught him using his own words’ NOAA: Rafael’s own fishery complaints opened door to his downfall

December 4, 2019 — It turns out that it was Carlos Rafael himself who opened the door to the civil and criminal investigations that resulted in his exile from the commercial fishing industry and his current residency at the FMC Devens federal prison.

In January 2015, angered by cuts to his portion of federal groundfish disaster relief, Rafael publicly railed against the process and said he planned to sell his more than 40 vessels and the approximately 60 federal fishing permits attached to them.

And with that, according to a NOAA Office of Law Enforcement presentation Tuesday to the New England Fishery Management Council on the criminal case against Rafael, five federal law enforcement agencies saw their opening.

They began widespread undercover investigations that ultimately led to Rafael’s indictment and conviction in November 2017 for fisheries reporting violations, tax evasion and bulk smuggling.

“We took this as an opportunity to reach out to Carlos Rafael as interested buyers,” said OLE Special Agent Troy Audyatis. “We caught him using his own words.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Pivotal week for groundfish ahead

December 2, 2019 — The term groundfish has always struck us with the ring of the improbable. Fish? Living on the ground? How can this be? We picture fish with feet, running in formation along the ocean bottom like the Ohio State band. No wonder we can’t find any cod. They’ve all run away.

This will be a pivotal week for groundfishermen, and by extension we suppose, groundfish themselves. As you may have read last week in the pages of this newspaper, and online at gloucestertimes.com, the New England Fishery Management Council is expected on Wednesday to set catch quotas for the next three fishing seasons for 15 of the 20 groundfish stocks covered in the Northeast Multispecies groundfish management plan.

So, Wednesday will be an important day for the local fleet. The council is meeting in Newport, Rhode Island, from Tuesday through Thursday and we’ll get the news you can use as quickly as we’re able.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

PFMC: Reminder – Groundfish Stock Assessment Process Review Webinar to be Held 12/13/2019

December 2, 2019 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

Participants in the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s (Pacific Council’s) 2019 groundfish stock assessment process will hold a meeting via webinar to review and evaluate the 2019 stock assessment review (STAR) process.  The webinar will be held on Friday, December 13, 2019 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time) or until business for the day has been completed.  The goal of the webinar is to solicit process improvements to recommend for future groundfish stock assessments and STAR panel reviews.  Process recommendations will be provided to the Pacific Council at their March 2020 meeting in Rohnert Park, California.

Please see the Groundfish Stock Assessment Process Review Webinar Notice on the Council’s website for participation details.

For further information:

  • Please contact Pacific Fishery Management Council staff officer John DeVore  at 503-820-2413; toll-free 1-866-806-7204.

Coast Guard: Catch misreported on 350 fishing trips

December 2, 2019 — The Northeast multispecies groundfishery may have been victimized by several misreporting schemes through a five-year period and “potentially up to 2.5 million pounds of regulated species were misreported by vessels from multiple sectors” in the fishery, according to a Coast Guard investigation of misreporting.

The report chronicling the Coast Guard investigation from 2011 to 2015 will be presented to the New England Fishery Management Council on Tuesday during the first of its three days of meetings in Newport, Rhode Island.

The Coast Guard presentation is one of two scheduled agenda items dealing with catch misreporting that will be before the council on Tuesday.

The same day, NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Law Enforcement is scheduled to make a presentation to the council specifically on misreporting uncovered during the criminal case brought against now-incarcerated New Bedford fishing mogul Carlos Rafael.

In its 21-page report, the Coast Guard said the analysis by its Boston-based First District enforcement staff identified more than 350 vessel trips during the period of 2011 to 2015 in the Northeast multispecies groundfishery “where there appears to be evidence of misreporting.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Most Recent Amendment to the Groundfish Fishery Management Plan a Rare Source of Agreement

November 27, 2019 — On November 19, 2019, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued Amendment 28 to the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (Amendment 28). The Pacific Groundfish fishery is one of the most diverse fisheries that NMFS regulates and also one of the most litigated. The fishery includes over 90 bottom-dwelling fish such as rockfish, cod, and flounder. This amendment closes a large amount of new areas to bottom trawling, and re-opens certain other more limited areas. These changes will also protect sensitive deep-water habitat and deep-sea corals from bottom fishing.

Amendment 28, which was developed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council over a five-year period, contains three major provisions:

  1. Defines new areas as Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) conservation areas for both groundfish and non-groundfish species, such as California habitat, in which bottom trawling is restricted.
  2. Opens certain areas previously closed to bottom trawling.
  3. Defines a new deep-water area closed to all bottom-contacting fishing to protect deepwater habitats.

In making changes to Groundfish EFH, NMFS closes over 12,000 square miles of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and opens over 200 square miles to bottom trawling. These closures are intended to protect certain ocean floor types, such as submarine canyons and deep sea corals. While the rule closes EFH areas up and down the Pacific Coast, the largest area to be closed is off the coast of Southern California, surrounding the Channel Islands. In the final rule, NMFS claims that the areas that are reopened have lower sensitivity than those that are being closed and will recover faster. Most of these lower sensitivity areas are off the coast of Central California. NMFS also claims that the closures will have a “minimal” impact on fishing communities because very little groundfish landings actually occurred in the closed areas.

Read the full story at The National Law Review

Blue Harvest inks deal to acquire 35 Rafael groundfish vessels for $25m

November 26, 2019 — One of the most anticipated forced sell-offs in the history of US commercial fishing – the unloading of Carlos Rafael’s fleet in New Bedford, Massachusetts — looks to be on the verge of completion.

Blue Harvest Fisheries, a US scallop and groundfish supplier backed by New York City-based private equity Bregal Partners, has signed a purchase agreement to buy at least 35 vessels and skiffs and all of their associated permits from Carlos Rafael for nearly $25 million, documents obtained by Undercurrent News confirm.

The deal includes millions of pounds of quota for at least eight types of fish in the Northeast multispecies fishery, including cod, haddock, American plaice, witch flounder, yellowtail flounder, redfish, white hake, and pollock.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Study documents ‘chronic social disruption’ plaguing New England fishing communities

November 22, 2019 — Years of fishery failures and tightening restrictions on the Gulf of Maine groundfish fleet have put severe psychological strain on fishermen and chronic disruption to the social fabric of New England fishing communities, according to a team of academic researchers.

Drawing on six years of surveys and interviews, the team based at Northeastern University in Massachusetts “found that psychological distress and social disruption were pervasive throughout New England fishing communities,” the authors wrote in their paper in the journal Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences.

“For instance, our results indicate that 62 percent of captains self-reported severe or moderate psychological distress one year after the crisis began, and these patterns have persisted for five years,” the report states.

Among its conclusions, the report strongly recommends more monitoring and managing of social effects and “human well-being” beyond economic analysis, to moderate the adverse effects on communities of fisheries disruptions like the long-running New England groundfish struggle.

“This particular fishing fleet has been through so much pain,” said Steven Scyphers, an assistant professor of marine and environmental studies at Northeastern and lead author of the study report.

Read the full story at National Fisherman