Saving Seafood

New England’s Newest Fishery Plan has Science at its Core

January 22, 2018 — New England’s fishery managers have released a sweeping new plan for managing the ocean ecosystems off New England’s coasts. Habitat Omnibus Amendment 2 has been fourteen years in the making and, as with any new fishing rule, it’s been controversial, with critics among the fishing industry and environmental advocates.

It has also been hailed as a groundbreaking application of ocean science.

The plan designates a number of areas in which fishing will be restricted in order to protect the physical structure of the seafloor. It’s all based on a model that synthesizes state-of-the-art maps and video surveys of the seafloor, the habitat preferences of individual species, and what’s known about the environmental impacts of different fishing gear.

With dozens of different species – from cod, to scallops, to lobsters – to consider, it’s an enormous juggling act. Michelle Bachmann, the lead fishery analyst for habitat with the New England Fishery Management Council, says that if there are critics on both sides, that probably means the Council has done its job. And she notes that no one is pretending this plan is either perfect or final.

Read the full story at WCAI

 

US cod catch could soon make a comeback, NOAA says

January 19, 2018 — Atlantic cod catch in the United States was recorded at an all-time historical low in 2016, but a rebound for the fishery may be on the horizon, according to officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Once a hallmark of New England’s commercial fishing sector, the Atlantic cod fishery has suffered plummeting catch volumes due to overfishing and environmental changes over recent years, The Associated Press reported, via The Bangor Daily News. However, cod stocks are showing some promising signs for the upcoming season, NOAA officials said, and quotas are on track to increase slightly in spring of 2018.

Cod fishermen in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank can expect a bump in their quotas come 1 May. That’s a step in the right direction, Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, said.

“The quotas are so constraining that there’s not a lot of opportunity and interest in targeting cod,” Martens told the Associated Press. “But we’re headed in the right direction.”

Considered a “choke species” by fishermen, once cod quotas are reached, fishing must cease outright. As such, many fishermen have been avoiding cod altogether, the AP reported.

Recent marine analysis has indicated more abundance of cod in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, Jamie Cournane, groundfish plan coordinator with the New England Fishery Management Council, an arm of NOAA, told the AP. Such figures have prompted the council to propose doubling the commercial cod quota for both New England areas to nearly 3.9 million pounds, a move that’s still awaiting U.S. Department of Commerce approval, Cournane said.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Pacific perch stocks declared ‘rebuilt’

January 18, 2018 — PORTLAND, Ore. — In welcome news for commercial fishermen, an important West Coast groundfish stock that was formerly overfished has now been rebuilt.

Pacific ocean perch, which is managed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS or NOAA Fisheries), has constrained the West Coast trawl fishery for decades.

Pacific ocean perch was overfished starting in the mid-1960s when foreign fleets targeted groundfish stocks, in particular Pacific ocean perch, off the U.S. West Coast. The mandates of the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary law governing U.S. fisheries management, eventually ended foreign fishing within 200 miles of the U.S. coast. The first federal trip limits to discourage targeting and to conserve a U.S. West Coast groundfish stock were implemented for Pacific ocean perch in 1979 by the PFMC and NMFS. Rebuilding plans for Pacific ocean perch were adopted in 2000 and 2003.

Managing groundfish fisheries under rebuilding plans has been an immense challenge for the Pacific Council and the NMFS, accoding to a press release from the agencies. These plans required sharp reductions in commercial and recreational fisheries targeting groundfish, and included widespread fishing closures through the establishment of Rockfish Conservation Areas off the West Coast and other measures.

“We are pleased to see that our management strategies have been successful in rebuilding this important groundfish stock, and want to acknowledge the industries’ cooperation and sacrifice in this effort,” said Council Chair Phil Anderson. “We also want to recognize NMFS for committing the resources to monitor and research groundfish stocks to improve the science used to sustainably manage these stocks.”

Read the full story at the Daily Astorian

 

Scallop Group Praises NMFS Decisions on Openings, But Still Wants Georges Bank Area as Well

January 18, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — In a step towards balancing sustainable scallop fishing and environment protection, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has approved the majority of Omnibus Fish Habitat Amendment 2 (OHA2).

The New England Fishery Management Council initiated OHA2 in 2004, and it was implemented in 2017 to update essential fish habitat designations, as well as designate new Habitat Areas of Particular Concern for Atlantic salmon and Atlantic cod. Now the council has received approval for habitat closures in the Great South Channel and western Georges Bank. According to a press release from the Fisheries Survival Fund, a group established to ensure the long-term sustainability of the Atlantic sea scallop fishery, the closures will “provide critical protections for species like Georges Bank cod, and will provide dramatically more protection for critical habitat than the nearly 20-year closures that they replace.”

The Fund is praising NMFS’ decision, saying that it creates “new opportunities for the successful scallop rotational management system.” However, they also have some concerns.

While NMFS approved habitat closures in the Great South Channel and western Georges Bank, they rejected habitat management in eastern Georges Bank. The Fund says that the area contains “some of the most historically rich scallop fishing areas in the world.”

“According to its decision memo, NMFS appears to have been seeking more information on how habitat-friendly rotational scallop fishing can be implemented to benefit both fishermen and habitat,” the Fund wrote in a press release. “In the meantime, the outmoded 20-year-old closures remain in place, despite zero evidence that these closures have done anything to promote groundfish productivity. In fact, the evidence suggests they have stymied economic growth and prevented optimization of scallop management.”

The Fisheries Survival Fund says that they hope NMFS is “willing to work on refining a solution to restore Northern Edge access.”

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

‘The government is what created Carlos Rafael’

January 18, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Bill Straus saw the writing on the wall years ago.

In 2009 — eight years before Carlos Rafael went to prison — the representative of Bristol’s 10th District spoke out during the establishment of the current catch-share system in the Northeast fishery. And even with Rafael behind bars, Straus says the threat of another Codfather emerging is ever present.

“The risk is still there,” Straus said. “And that’s why what comes out of the different remedies is so important.”

NOAA defines catch shares as a portion of catch for a species that is allocated to individual fishermen or groups. Each holder of a catch share must stop fishing when his/her specific share of the quota is reached. It’s often also looked at as quota. Fishermen and organizations can buy and sell quota.

Like any industry, the largest organization buys the smaller entities, whether it’s Disney purchasing Fox, AT&T attempting to acquire Time Warner or Rafael acquiring more quota.

“Catch shares are complicated things; there’s pluses and minuses,” SMAST Professor Dan Georgianna said. “Almost every study of catch shares shows decline in employment.”

Straus echoed that in a letter to the editor published in 2009 and in a conversation with The Standard-Times on Wednesday.

“The system encourages one owner or permit holder to gobble up the permits, and that it really works to that effect in a stressed fishery like New England groundfish,” Straus said. “What Rafael was able to do was approach people who had tiny bits of shares, and say, ‘I’ll just take it off your hands because you can’t afford to be sending your boat off to get that tiny amount.’”

In buying permits from across the Northeast, Rafael became one of the biggest organizations on the East Coast, not only catching the fish but also using Carlos Seafood Inc. as the landing’s dealer, which masked the act of misreporting.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Michelle Malkin: Big Brother on America’s Fishing Boats

January 17, 2018 — Salt water. Seagulls. Striped bass.

My fondest childhood memories come from fishing with my dad on the creaky piers and slick jetties of the Jersey shore. The Atlantic Ocean is in my blood. So when fishing families in New England reached out to me for help spreading word about their economic and regulatory struggles, I immediately heeded their call.

Now these “forgotten men and women” of America hope that the Trump administration will listen. And act.

The plague on the commercial fishing industry isn’t “overfishing,” as environmental extremists and government officials claim. The real threats to Northeastern groundfishermen are self-perpetuating bureaucrats, armed with outdated junk science, who’ve manufactured a crisis that endangers a way of life older than the colonies themselves.

Hardworking crews and captains have the deepest stake in responsible fisheries management — it’s their past, present, and future — but federal paper-pushers monitor them ruthlessly like registered sex offenders.

Generations of schoolchildren have been brainwashed into believing that our seas have been depleted by greedy commercial fishermen. In the 1960s and ’70s, it is true, foreign factory trawlers from Russia and Japan pillaged coastal groundfish stocks. But after the domestic fishing industry regained control of our waters, stocks rebounded.

Reality, however, did not fit the agenda of scare-mongering environmentalists and regulators who need a perpetual crisis to justify their existence. To cure a manufactured “shortage” of bottom-dwelling groundfish, Washington micromanagers created a permanent thicket of regional fishery-management councils, designated fishing zones, annual catch limits, individual catch limits, and “observers” mandated by the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Even more frustrating for the fishing families who know the habitat best, the federal scientists’ trawler surveys for assessing stocks use faulty nets that vastly underestimate stock abundance.

Meghan Lapp, a lifelong fisherwoman and conservation biologist, points out that government surveyors use a “net that’s not the right size for the vessel.” This produces “a stock assessment that shows artificially low numbers,” she says. “The fishing does not match what the fishermen see on the water.”

Instead of fixing the science, top-down bureaucrats have cracked down on groundfishermen who fail to comply with impossible and unreasonable rules and regulations. The observer program, which was intended to provide biological data and research, was expanded administratively (not by Congress) to create “at-sea monitors” who act solely as enforcement agents.

Read the full story at the National Review 

 

Study: 300 jobs lost in first month of NOAA groundfishing ban

January 17, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Nearly two months have passed since NOAA imposed a groundfishing ban on Carlos Rafael’s fleet. Those within the Port of New Bedford estimate it’s put upward of 80 fishermen out of work.

That number only scratches the surface according to a study done by SMAST professor Dan Georgianna.

Within the first 30 days of the ban, Georgianna estimates that across the Northeast 300 jobs were lost, with an income loss of about $5.7 million. When including the retail loss, the number surges to $12 million.

“They’re estimates, but I think they’re pretty good estimates,” Georgianna said.

The numbers include all those linked to Rafael’s vessels: fishermen, those working at the port handling Rafael’s landings, like lumpers or cutters, restaurants that once served Rafael’s fish and even the grocery stores that supplied his vessels with food for trips.

Georgianna performed the study at the request of Mayor Jon Mitchell, after NOAA banned groundfishing for Sector IX in November. Sector IX is comprised of Rafael fishing vessels. The ban represented NOAA’s penalties lobbied against Rafael.

Georgiana said he was not compensated for the study.

He used a model developed by NOAA to estimate the economic effects on harvesting grounfish, including supplying and maintaining the vessels, processing and wholesaling. He also used a model developed by Michigan State University to estimate the retail effects.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Nominations Sought for NEFMC

January 16, 2018 — The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) is seeking nominees for upcoming open seats. The NEFMC is one of eight regional councils established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) in 1976, and is charged with conserving and managing fishery resources from three to 200 miles off the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The MSA specifies that council nominees must be individuals “who, by reason of their occupational or other experience, scientific expertise, or training, are knowledgeable regarding the conservation and management, or the commercial or recreational harvest, of the fishery resources of the geographical area concerned.” Council members are directly involved in:

  • Developing and amending fishery management plans.
  • Selecting fishery management options.
  • Setting annual catch limits based on best available science.
  • Developing and implementing rebuilding plans.

The NEFMC manages: sea scallops, monkfish, Atlantic herring, skates, red crab, spiny dogfish, Atlantic salmon and groundfish** . Please note that the NEFMC does not manage summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, bluefish, striped bass or tautog.

MAINE
One obligatory (state) seat currently held by Terry Alexander of Harpswell, ME. Mr. McKenzie is completing his second of three possible consecutive 3-year terms.

MASSACHUSETTS
One obligatory seat currently held by Dr. John Quinn of New Bedford, MA. Dr. Quinn is completing his second of three possible consecutive 3-year terms.

Qualified individuals interested in being considered for nomination by the Governor to the Council should contact Samantha Andrews (617-626-1564, samantha.n.andrews@state.ma.us.) Nomination application kits will be made available upon request. All applications are due to DMF (c/o Samantha Andrews, 251 Causeway St, Suite 400, Boston, MA 02114) by the end of day on Monday, February 12, 2018. As part of the application process, the Commonwealth will conduct an initial background review.

Read the full story at The Fisherman

 

Rafael Faces New Allegations For Violations In Scallop Fishery

January 16, 2018 — A New Bedford fishing mogul known as “The Codfather” is facing new federal allegations for misreporting the amount of fish harvested by his fleet, this time in the scallop fishery.

“The Codfather,” or Carlos Rafael, is currently serving a 46-month prison sentence for falsifying groundfish quota, and for other offenses including tax evasion and bulk cash smuggling.

Now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is alleging Rafael lied about how many scallops four of his vessels caught during fishing trips in 2013. NOAA is looking to revoke permits issued to those vessels and charge Rafael a penalty of  $843,528.

Peter Shelley, senior counsel at the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy group, said these new allegations are critical.

“I think (these allegations) will be a strong enough deterrent that will really discourage people who might want to break the law from doing that, and it certainly will support the many fishermen in the fishery who obeyed the law that they’re not doing it for vain, that the agency will back them up,” Shelley said.

Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio

 

Massachusetts: New Bedford, Carlos Rafael pop up on Netflix show

January 16, 2018 — The Netflix show “Rotten” is a six-part docuseries that focuses on where food comes from, including cod.

In the series, which debuted Jan. 5, each episode focuses on a different food: honey, peanuts, garlic, chicken, milk and cod.

“As the global fish supply dwindles, the industry faces crises on all sides — including crooked moguls, dubious imports and divisive regulations,” according to the description of Episode 6 “Cod Is Dead.”

Read the full story and watch the series trailer at the New Bedford Standard-Times