Saving Seafood

Carlos Rafael’s fraud leaves New Bedford fishing permits on ice

November 22, 2017 — BOSTON — South Coast officials and seafood industry interests were stunned by Monday’s federal decision to shut down a sector with ties to disgraced fishing magnate Carlos Rafael, a decision they say will cut into the livelihoods of fishermen during the holiday season and beyond.

“The ruling itself was unexpected,” said Andrew Saunders, a New Bedford attorney retained two months ago by Northeast Fishery Sector 9, one of 19 non-profit entities set up to manage fishing industry operations in the face of strict catch limits imposed by the federal government.

The decision stems from the fraud perpetrated by fishing magnate Carlos Rafael – dubbed the ‘Codfather’ in local media coverage – but New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell says there’s collateral damage involved for people in the New Bedford area whose jobs are tethered to the harvesting of groundfish such as cod, flounder and haddock.

“The tying up of these vessels will deprive crew members opportunities to earn a living and it will eat into the revenue of shoreside businesses that support the industry,” Mitchell told the News Service, citing impacts on fuel and ice suppliers, net menders and settlement houses.

The decision was handed down by NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard, a former mayor of New Bedford. In his ruling Bullard zeroed in on Rafael, who was hit with a 46-month prison sentence in September after federal prosecutors convicted him of charges associated with falsifying records to evade federal fishing quotas and smuggling business proceeds to Portugal to avoid U.S. taxation.

Read the full story from the State House News Service at the Newburyport Daily News

Fish fleet film earns thumbs-up

November 22, 2017 — ROCKPORT, Mass. — John Friedrich drove down here from Amesbury on Saturday afternoon for the sole purpose of attending the premiere of the fishing documentary “Dead in the Water” at the Rockport High School auditorium.

Friedrich had read a story in the Newburyport Daily News about the documentary that chronicles the demise and unceasing challenges faced by the once-mighty Gloucester groundfish fleet and thought it was something he should see, to gauge for himself the true extent of the problem.

“I thought the film was very well done,” he said of the 15th documentary from veteran filmmaker and Rockport native David Wittkower. “But it was also very disturbing, just emotionally disturbing. It’s such a tragedy. The problem is so much more huge than I imagined.”

If Wittkower and producers Angela Sanfilippo and John Bell were looking for a template for the response they sought from Saturday’s packed house, that was it.

From the day he first envisioned the film in 2013, the mantra that has driven Wittkower has been to spread the story of Gloucester’s fishing crisis beyond the rocky shores of Cape Ann, to bring to the rest of America the tale of a disappearing American legacy and one of its first industries.

The showing on Saturday drew almost 300, most of them from Cape Ann and most with at least a nominal sense of the regulatory, environmental and market pressures faced by America’s oldest commercial fishing fleet.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Times at the Salem News

 

Massive fish fraud results in huge penalty for fishermen

November 20, 2017 — In an unprecedented punishment, federal regulators Monday ordered scores of commercial fishermen in Massachusetts to return their vessels to shore after the owner of many of the boats, a New Bedford fishing mogul known as “The Codfather,” failed to account for the fish they caught and orchestrated a massive fraud.

The move immediately prohibits 60 permit holders, including 22 active vessels, from going back to sea until at least the start of the new fishing season in May.

Most of the vessels were operated by Carlos Rafael, the magnate who was recently convicted of one of the nation’s largest violations of fishing regulations.

Read the full Story at the Boston Globe

 

Rafael Scandal Shuts Out Boats From Cod, Flounder Fisheries

November 20, 2017 — Federal regulators are shutting down fishing rights for a significant portion of New England’s stressed groundfish stocks, such as cod and flounder. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says managers for a New Bedford, Massachusetts-based sector undermined conservation goals while disgraced fishing magnate Carlos Rafael was falsifying catch reports.

There are 19 groundfish sectors in the Northeast, each representing a group of fishermen who manage catch quotas set by NOAA regulators. Sector IX is dominated by boats based in New Bedford and owned by Rafael, also known as “the Codfather,” who started a nearly four-year jail sentence in Fort Devens, Massachusetts, this month after he confessed to falsifying catch information.

Federal regulators say Sector IX officials, including Rafael’s daughter, failed to develop information to show that quotas were no longer being violated, and so its fishermen won’t be allowed to catch more groundfish this fishing year, which ends in April — or the next year, if a valid new management plan isn’t offered.

Read the full story at Maine Public

 

New England Council Supports Regional Administrator’s Action to Enforce Groundfish Sector IX Operations Plan

November 21, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fisheries Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council supports today’s announcement by the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO) that it will be enforcing groundfish sector rules and the Northeast Fishery Sector IX operations plan.

Under Amendment 16 to the Council’s groundfish plan, GARFO’s regional administrator has authority to withdraw approval of a sector at any time he or she, after consulting with the New England Council, determines that: (1) sector participants are not complying with the requirements of an approved operations plan; or (2) “continuation of the operations plan will undermine achievement of fishing mortality objectives” of the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan.

Regional Administrator Bullard consulted with the Council on two occasions – first during the Council’s June meeting in Portland, ME and then again during the September meeting in Gloucester, MA. On September 27, the Council voted to request that “GARFO immediately enforce sector regulations and the Sector IX operations plan.”

“We asked them to enforce the rule, and that’s what they’re doing,” said Council Executive Director Tom Nies. “Since 2004, the Council has emphasized repeatedly that sectors are responsible for monitoring their catch and enforcing sector provisions. Sector IX failed to comply with its own enforcement provisions when its president admitted to reporting violations.”

NMFS published an interim final rule on April 28, 2017 stating it had “provisionally approved” the Sector IX operations plan for 2017 and 2018, along with the annual catch entitlement (ACE) allocated to the sector for 2017.

Carlos Rafael, who was president of the sector at that time, pleaded guilty on March 30 to falsely reporting catch information for 13 vessels operating under the sector. However, since the Rafael case was under litigation when NMFS published the interim final rule approving all of the region’s 19 sectors and their operations plans, the agency stated its intention to take “additional action” if warranted for Sector IX following settlement of Rafael’s criminal case.

Rafael was sentenced September 25 in U.S. District Court in Boston to 46 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines. On October 11, he was further ordered to forfeit his interests in four vessels and their associated permits.

GARFO’s announcement today withdrawing approval of the Sector IX operations plans means that vessels enrolled in Sector IX are prohibited from: (1) fishing on a sector trip and harvesting sector ACE; (2) fishing on a common pool trip; or (3) joining another sector.

However, the action does not reallocate the ACE to other sectors or to the common pool. NMFS is continuing to analyze the extent of the sector’s ACE overages based on the misreporting of catch information for several stocks. The agency stated, “Any accountability measures, such as assessing and deducting ACE overages incurred by the sector, (will) be determined in a future action.”

“For the future success of the sector system, fishermen and the public must be confident that sectors will adhere to management provisions.”

– New England Fishery Management Council in a September 29, 2017 letter to GARFO Regional Administrator John Bullard seeking immediate enforcement of sector regulations and the Sector IX operations plan

Learn more about the NEFMC by visiting their site here.

 

ALASKA: Bering Sea Pollock and Cod in Good Shape But Could Be Moving North

November 17, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council’s Groundfish Plan Team recommended an allowable biological catch (ABC) for 2018 of Pacific cod in the Eastern Bering Sea of 172,000 mt down from this year’s ABC of 239,000 mt.

The actual catch limits will be determined by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council in early December.

Reasons for the downturn in ABC were:

* a 46% drop from 2016 to 2017 in the EBS shelf trawl survey abundance, or numbers of fish — the biggest drop in history.

* A 37% drop in EBS biomass (weight) from 2016 to 2017 — also the biggest in history.

There is good news for P-cod elsewhere near the Bering Sea, though. In the Aleutians, which supports a much smaller P-cod fishery, survey biomass is on a general upward trend — 15% each year since 2012.

There, the recommended ABC for this year increased to 22,700 mt from last year’s 21,500 mt.

And in the northern Bering Sea — there is serious consideration that stocks of P-cod and pollock that would normally be in the EBS may be spending more time during the summer in the northern areas.

The Northern Bering Sea survey indices show the relative change in biomass there from 2010 to 2017 as an increase of 907%. Relative change in abundance (numbers of fish) during that time is up 1421%. NBS biomass in 2017 is equal to 83% of the biomass change in the Eastern Bering Sea.

The Plan Team posed a question at the end of the presentation: “Given that the cause of the decline in EBS survey biomass is unknown, but that one plausible hypothesis is that a substantial portion of the biomass simply moved to the NBS survey area while remaining part of the same spawning population as the fish in the EBS survey area, does the given model impose drastic reductions in ABC that have a significant probability of later being shown to have been unnecessary?”

As of November 4 the catch of PCod in BSAI was 186,800 mt.

Pollock changes ahead

Pollock stocks look healthy enough for the Plan Team to recommend an ABC at 2.592 million mt in 2018 and 2.467 million mt in 2019. This reflects slight decrease in biomass from the ABC previously set for 2017 of 2.8 million mt, with a forecasted 2.9 million mt for 2018.

The current TAC for pollock in BSAI is 1.345 million mt. a slight increase over 2016’s TAC of 1.34 million mt.

The key factors scientists are looking at for Bering Sea pollock are:

* A potential decline described as being “expected, quite quickly”

* Is there a shift in distribution? The ecosystem survey in the northern Bering Sea this summer found increases in pollock.

* There are relatively few one-year-old pollock in the 2017 trawl survey.

* Future catches near current levels will require more effort.

The presentation noted “..the ability to catch the same amount as in 2017 through to 2020 will require about 35% more effort with a decline in spawning biomass of about 28% compared to the current level (based on expected average recruitment).”

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

In Their Own Words: Sablefish Gear Switching in the West Coast Trawl Quota Program

October 23, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The West Coast trawl catch shares program (individual fishing quota/IFQ program) was implemented in 2011 for the groundfish fishery — but it’s not without its problems. One provision rose to the top during the current five-year review as the most controversial: gear switching.

Sablefish is the most valuable groundfish, on a per-pound basis, on the West Coast. It is often graded on quality and at least five different sizes. Most sablefish is sold to Japan and a few other countries, but domestic markets have been in expanding for a few years. Whereas most other groundfish species have ex-vessel prices of cents per pound, sablefish frequently goes for dollars per pound. Better quality fish, i.e., those that are caught by longline or pots, typically fetch higher prices.

On the West Coast, sablefish — or blackcod — are caught in a mixed species fishery by trawl and are targeted by longline and pots. The species is an important component of the trawl “deepwater complex” that includes Dover sole, thornyhead rockfish and sablefish. Dover sole is a low price/high-volume species for trawlers but access may be limited if a trawler has insufficient sablefish quota.

Proponents of the trawl catch shares program in the late 2000s included an option to be able to switch gears to catch sablefish. That is, a trawler could use any legal groundfish gear, including pots and longline, to catch the valuable species if they so desired. Some fishermen say this was intended to allow trawlers to catch smaller amounts of sablefish that may be leftover from harvesting their deepwater complex. Other fishermen say it was intended to allow a switch to what some claim is an environmentally cleaner harvesting method. Because a single provision may have multiple purposes, both may be correct.

Regardless, the effect of the provision was that some fixed-gear vessels purchased trawl permits and quota and are now harvesting sablefish. Sablefish quota prices increased to the point where some trawlers could not afford to buy or lease it on the open market in order to access their Dover sole quota. Others may have simply chosen not to buy or lease the quota. A limited supply of sablefish quota overall may also have been the culprit for some trawlers not being able to access their Dover sole. In some years, the quota went quickly and less than five percent was available by year’s end. At the same time, fixed-gear vessels have made significant investments in gear and equipment to access trawl sablefish quota. Processors are concerned blackcod will continue to act as a choke species, limiting access to the volumes of groundfish necessary to keep processing crews working.

But there’s another wrinkle. Sablefish quota is available in two distributions: north or south of 36 degrees N. Latitude — near Point Conception in southern California. A handful of fixed-gear vessels using trawl quota have traveled from Oregon and Washington to fish the southern area. Southern California fixed-gear fishermen found themselves with new entrants on their traditional fishing grounds.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council in September took the first step at making the gear-switching provision work for everyone. One of the proposals includes eliminating the management line at 36 degrees north latitude, thereby creating one coastwide pool of quota. The Council also proposed mitigation measures to limit gear switching.

Seafood News talked with four people representing the major factions concerned about the sablefish gear-switching provision:

  • Jeff Lackey, a trawl vessel manager from Newport, Ore.
  • Michele Longo Eder, whose family members are fixed gear fishermen who have made investments in the trawl program
  • Mike Okoniewski, who works for a processor that depends on trawl groundfish
  • Chris Hoeflinger, representing Southern California traditional fixed-gear fishermen

Seafood News will run their perspectives, in their own words, of the gear-switching issue this week. The Pacific Fishery Management Council will be wrestling with this issue over the coming months.

— Susan Chambers

In his own words: Jeff Lackey, trawl vessel manager from Newport, Ore.:

The trawl catch shares program that began in 2011 has some positive elements. However, it has also led to operational difficulties that have significantly decreased catch for bottom trawlers.

The unintended consequence of the catch shares program was that a significant fixed-gear fishery for sablefish sprang up almost literally overnight within the trawl fishery. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of sablefish quota a year were going to fixed gear vessels and then coming to the dock without the associated catch of other groundfish species.

So by 2016, five years later, the species that trawl catch of sablefish helps get to the dock had seen their coastwide annual catch drop by about a third compared to pre-catch shares capacity. That’s roughly 14 million pounds a year in lost catch and corresponding seafood available to the consumer. This translates to dozens of lost full time jobs in the processing sector alone, as well as dozens of trawl vessels that left the fishery.

In 2011, some trawlers left the fishery altogether and some switched to the shrimp fishery rather than compete with fixed gear boats that were buying trawl permits and entering the trawl individual fishing quota (IFQ) fishery. It is difficult to generalize the business plan of each individual trawl vessel as each has a different set of circumstances, such as the amount of quota they have and the other fisheries they participate in.

However, when you match the individual stories of difficulty in executing a viable fishery given sablefish limitations with the overall data of a diminished fishery, a clear picture emerges. The lost yearly bottom trawl catch is about what one would expect for the amount of sablefish that has been lost from the trawl fishery. To return the fishery to pre-IFQ program catch levels and allow the stability the program affords to make even more gains, the coastwide sablefish quota allocated to the trawl IFQ program would need to be caught by trawl vessels to facilitate the catch of other groundfish species.

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission

Little hope in latest evaluations of codfish

October 23, 2017 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — The completed operational assessments to help determine 2018-2020 groundfish quotas do not appear to be any more optimistic about the state of Gulf of Maine cod than those that effectively shuttered the fishery in the fall of 2014.

The New England Fishery Management Council’s science and statistical committee is set to meet Monday and Tuesday in Boston to review the assessments for 19 groundfish species and finalize its catch recommendations to the full council.

According to committee documents, the operational assessments show the respective stocks of eight species — Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank haddock, redfish, white hake, windowpane flounder, pollock, Georges Bank winter flounder and American plaice — to be abundant and healthy.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Live Cam May Show True Status of Atlantic Cod Fishery

October 18, 2017 — Atlantic cod, New England’s most iconic fish, has been reported at historic lows for years, but fishermen hope a new video monitoring technique will prove there are more of the fish than federal surveyors believe.

Ronnie Borjeson, who has been fishing for more than 40 years, says the federal surveys don’t match up with what fishermen are seeing. “I don’t care if you’re a gillnetter, a hook and line guy, a trawl guy,” he said, “there’s codfish everywhere up there. Everywhere. You can’t get away from them.”

Borjeson helped test a video rig designed by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth that allows them to record fish underwater and count them on the video later. With this rig, scientists can sample a larger area in the same amount of time and hopefully improve federal estimates of how many cod are left.

According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, cod are overfished, and in 2014, the spawning population reached its lowest numbers ever recorded. The once-booming cod fishery has been subject to increasingly strict regulations since the 1990s, forcing commercial fishermen to target less-profitable species while they wait for the cod population to recover.

Read the full story at PBS

NEFMC SSC Meeting, October 23-24, 2017, Live Streaming Information

October 18, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) will meet Monday and Tuesday, October 23-24, 2017.  The public is invited to listen via webinar or telephone.  Here are the details.

MEETING LOCATION:  Hilton Garden Inn, Boston Logan Airport, 100 Boardman Street, Boston, MA.  Hotel information is available here.

START TIME:  10:00 a.m. on Monday, 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION:  Online access to the meeting will be available at: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/2947008207018884867.

There is no charge to access the meeting through this webinar.

CALL-IN OPTION:  To listen by telephone, dial +1 (562) 247-8422.

The access code is 913-207-938.

Please be aware that if you dial in, your regular phone charges will apply.

AGENDA:  The SSC will (1) review recent stock assessment information from the 2017 Groundfish Operational Assessments, as well as information provided by the Council’s Groundfish Plan Development Team, and recommend overfishing limit (OFL) and acceptable biological catch (ABC) levels for all groundfish stocks managed under the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan – except Georges Bank yellowtail flounder and Atlantic halibut – for fishing years 2018-2020; and (2) discuss other business as necessary.

MATERIALS:  Meeting materials are available on the Council’s website at SSC October 23-24, 2017 documents.

QUESTIONS:  Contact Joan O’Leary at (978) 465-0492 ext. 106, joleary@nefmc.org or Janice Plante at (607) 592-4817, jplante@nefmc.org.