Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: State won’t follow Gloucester fishery aid plan

October 1, 2015 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — With one day to spare before the grant period is set to begin, the state finally released details on its plan to distribute the final portion of federal fishery disaster aid to Massachusetts fishermen with federal permits.

It is not the so-called “Gloucester Plan” that would have spread between $6 million and $7 million to federally permitted fishermen who landed at least 20,000 pounds of groundfish in any of the fishing seasons 2012 to 2014.

Instead, according to Katie Gronendyke, spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, the state will divide the federal assistance among fishermen with a Massachusetts homeport as of April 30, 2015, who either landed at least 10,000 pounds of groundfish in any fishing season between 2012 and 2014 or had an observer aboard their vessel for at least one groundfish trip in 2014.

The plan, according to Gronendyke, will “better target active fishermen in the groundfishery throughout the Commonwealth.”

The full grant of $6.9 million contained in the third phase, or Bin 3, of federal funding being funneled through the state is the final installment of the roughly $21 million in federal fishery disaster funds designated for Massachusetts from the $75 million appropriated by Congress in January 2014.

The state Division of Marine Fisheries, Gronendyke said, is in the process of identifying qualified recipients by auditing federal catch and trip data.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NEW BEDFORD STANDARD-TIMES: Fishery management needs balance

September 30, 2015 — The requirement that the cost of at-sea monitors be paid by the fishermen who participate in the Northeast Multispecies Fishery is mere weeks away from being phased in.

Study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggests as many as 60 percent of affected boats could be pushed out of profitability by the requirement, based on estimates of monitors costing $700 per day.

Republican U.S. Rep. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire hosted a roundtable mid-month with NOAA representatives and fishermen to address the issue.

“We’re supposed to take into account that we don’t destroy the fishing communities,” Rep. Ayotte said, according to Sept. 18 report by the Portsmouth Herald. “(Requirements to protect fishermen) are being ignored in all this.”

She was referring to National Standard 8 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which says measures used to manage the fishery must “take into account the importance of fishery resources to fishing communities by utilizing economic and social data,” consistent with the prevention of “overfishing and rebuilding of overfished stocks.”

The requirement for consistency, above, might explain why Greater Atlantic Regional Administrator John Bullard told Rep. Ayotte that “eliminating overfishing” supersedes all other priorities.

The Standard-Times is having a very difficult time trying to understand why a policy that will have such a clear negative impact on fishermen is being instituted when the beneficial impact on the resource — the fishery — is so unclear.

Read the full editorial from the New Bedford Standard-Times

Cape Cod fleet hopes for financial aid

September 29, 2015 — The big “bin” of cash, doled out by Congress in September 2012, when they declared the New England groundfish fishery a disaster, is about to be emptied of the last nickels and dimes.

It wasn’t a hurricane or brutal snowstorm that caused the disaster, it was a lack of cod. Quotas for the Cape’s namesake fish were slashed 80 percent in the Gulf of Maine and 61 percent for Georges Bank.

A total of $32.8 million was set aside for the New England fishery, with $11 million reserved for future use and $14.6 million sent to Massachusetts for distribution.

“The first round was money distributed by the federal government to permit holders who caught 5,000 pounds of ground fish in either 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013,” explained Claire Fitzgerald, policy analyst for the Chatham-based Cape Cod Commercial Fisherman’s Alliance.
In round one (or bin one) $6.3 million of Massachusetts’ share of the award was parceled out to 194 ground fish permit holders who qualified; $32,463 apiece. Unfortunately, in the case of the Fisheries Alliance, less than half of the two dozen boats in their Fixed Gear Sector qualified.

Read the full story from The Cape Codder

Fishing industry pushes for safety exams every 2 years

September 27, 2015 — SEATTLE — The Coast Guard will require commercial fishing vessels to undergo dockside safety examinations only once every five years, a move that North Pacific industry officials are protesting as far too infrequent.

The industry officials want the exams, which become mandatory Oct. 15, to be required every two years so that the Coast Guard has a better chance of spotting torn survival suits, malfunctioning alarms and other safety problems.

Commercial fishing has long ranked as one of the most deadly occupations in the nation. Plenty of people within the industry have bridled at regulations that have come about in recent decades, so it’s unusual to have some call for tougher oversight. But the North Pacific industry officials said in their letter that the two-year interval would do a much better job of overseeing safety and could save lives.

“Once every half decade is just a really bad idea,” said Chris Woodley, executive director of the Seattle-based Groundfish Forum and a member of the Coast Guard’s Fishing Vessel Safety Advisory Committee. He is one of 15 representatives of North Pacific fishery associations and seafood companies that have signed onto the protest letter sent this month to U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Paul Zukunft.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

 

Weekly Update: 9/21/15 North Carolina Fisheries Association

September 21, 2015 — The following was released by the North Carolina Fisheries Association:

INTERESTED CANDIDATES FOR SAFMC SEAT EXPIRING IN 2016
Members interested in serving in the obligatory seat for the South Atlantic Marine Fishery Commission, please let Lauren know. You can email or give her a call at 252-725-2468.

NEW ANALYSIS COMPARES COSTS OF ELECTRONIC MONITORING AND AT–SEA OBSERVERS
Earlier this year, NOAA Fisheries issued regional electronic technology implementation plans that lay out our vision for the implementation of this technology in U.S. fisheries. One key element missing from those plans and ongoing Council discussions regarding the use of electronic monitoring was cost information. To better inform the Council decision-making process with regard to fishery-dependent data collection, NMFS is issuing two reports comparing the projected costs of two different operational electronic monitoring programs with the costs of more traditional observer/at-sea monitoring programs, as well as an independent review of the groundfish electronic monitoring report. The costs in both reports are estimated for hypothetical programs and costs are based on agency spending and cost estimates provided by three electronic monitoring service
providers in the fall of 2014. Access the reports below:

Cost Comparison for Hypothetical Groundfish Sector
Independent Review of the Groundfish Cost Comparison
Cost Comparison for Hypothetical Herring/Mackerel Fishery

Read the full update from the North Carolina Fisheries Association

NOAA teaches about devices that return fish to the deep

September 15, 2015 — A group of about 20 NOAA Fisheries port agents and other staffers will be heading out on an educational mission Wednesday to learn techniques to more safely catch and release deep-water groundfish without piling up dead discards.

The group, scheduled to head out of Gloucester aboard the Yankee Fleet’s 75-foot Yankee Clipper for a half-day charter that will cost the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration about $1,200, will learn how to use safe-handling devices designed to help return fish to the appropriate depths, even if they suffered barotrauma on the way up from the bottom.

“Our goal is to reduce the dead discards, which often occur because of barotrauma,” said Greg Power, a NOAA fisheries specialist who supervises the network of the agency port agents extending from Maine to Virginia. “We want to help get them safely back down to the bottom so they can survive.”

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA Fisheries Announces Increase in Common Pool Gulf of Maine Cod Possession and Trip Limits

September 15, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries announces an increase to the trip and possession limit for Gulf of Maine cod for common pool vessels.

We had reduced possession and trip limits to zero on June 15, 2015, to prevent the common pool from exceeding its Trimester 1 quota. To date, the common pool fishery has harvested approximately 31% of its annual quota for Gulf of Maine cod.

Through this action, we are increasing the possession and trip limit from zero to 25 pounds per trip for the remainder of the fishing year, though April 30, 2016.

This new limit goes into effect with publication in the Federal Register on Wednesday, September 16.

Read the rule as filed in the Federal Register today, and the permit holder bulletin available on our website.

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel, Regional Office, at 978-281-6175 or Jennifer.Goebel@noaa.gov.

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Criteria for fishing aid likely to be relaxed

September 11, 2015 — WESTON, Mass. — It probably isn’t going to be the so-called Gloucester Plan that dictates which Massachusetts-based fishermen receive shares of the approximately $6 million in the final installment of federal fishing disaster aid, according to state fisheries officials.

Massachusetts Fish & Game Commissioner George Peterson said Thursday he anticipates the final spending plan, which the state expects to submit to NOAA Fisheries for approval by Oct. 1, will be much closer to the plan put forward by a cadre of Cape Cod fishermen, legislators and stakeholders at last Friday’s contentious meeting of the disaster aid working group in New Bedford.

That plan, with a lower standard of qualifying criteria needed to share in the assistance than the initial recommendations by the city of Gloucester and the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, would provide assistance to any fisherman who landed at least 10,000 pounds of groundfish in any of the fishing years from 2010 to 2014 or who had one vessel trip with an at-sea monitor aboard in 2014.

“After the public hearing and a lot of comment, we think it’s a better plan, a more inclusive plan,” Peterson said.

Peterson said he expects the state Division of Marine Fisheries, which he oversees, will provide him, Secretary of Environmental Affairs Matthew Beaton and Gov. Charlie Baker with the final draft proposal of the distribution plan sometime at “the beginning of next week.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times 

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Warring plans delay awarding of fish aid

September 10, 2015 — The consensus toward developing a plan to distribute the approximately $6 million remaining in federal groundfish disaster aid seems to have degenerated into a contentious melee and now local stakeholders anxiously await the decision by the state Division of Marine Fisheries on which Massachusetts fishermen will qualify for assistance.

“I think we should hear something pretty soon,” Jackie Odell, the executive director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, said Wednesday. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s as soon as the end of this week.”

The process for formulating a distribution plan turned ugly at a two-hour Friday afternoon meeting in New Bedford, according to several people who participated, with different Bay State fishing regions — and fishermen of different species — pitted against each other in their respective efforts to influence DMF’s final spending plan. The meeting had been expected to end with a decision on what plan to forward to DMF.

“When I left that call, I was feeling very frustrated and very upset,” said Gloucester Economic Development Director Sal Di Stefano, who participated via conference call. “It was very unfortunate. We shouldn’t be pitting one fisherman against another. It shouldn’t be Gloucester versus the Cape or the Cape versus New Bedford. That doesn’t move the industry forward at all.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

New Analysis Compares Costs of Electronic Monitoring and At-Sea Observers

September 9, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Earlier this year, NOAA Fisheries issued regional electronic technology implementation plans that lay out our vision for the implementation of electronic technology in U.S. fisheries. One key element missing from those plans and ongoing Fishery Management Council discussions was cost information. 

Today, NOAA Fisheries is releasing two reports comparing costs of actual at-sea monitors and observers against a proposed electronic monitoring system in hypothetical Northeast groundfish and Atlantic herring/mackerel fisheries.

We found that electronic technologies can be a cost-efficient monitoring option in some cases, but not always. Our findings suggest technology, such as on-board camera systems, may be most cost-effective for monitoring compliance, such as in the midwater trawl herring and mackerel fisheries. Our reports also show that human observers proved more cost-efficient than electronic technologies at catch accounting, such as required for groundfish sectors.

Any monitoring program must weigh many factors including data quality, feasibility, and cost. This analysis of relative costs fills an important information gap, and is a first step that will help inform the broader discussion taking place at the Fishery Management Councils about the most effective way to monitor fisheries.  

You can find the full reports, including details about factors driving program costs and our assumptions, as well as an independent peer review pf the report, online.