Saving Seafood

NOAA: At Sea Monitors Remain on Board, Likely at Cost to New England Groundfishermen

August 3, 2015 — NOAA Fisheries has denied the request by the New England Fishery Management Council in June to use emergency measures to immediately suspend at-sea monitoring for vessels in the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s decision, which was not unexpected, signals the federal agency intends to proceed with its plan to shift the costs of at-sea monitoring — currently absorbed by NOAA — onto the groundfish permit holders later this month. It is estimated that will cost each boat an additional $700 to $800 each time a monitor is on board.

In a letter dated July 30, NOAA Regional Administrator John K. Bullard said the council’s request did not meet any of the criteria for emergency action.

“This was a foreseeable problem that does not justify an emergency action,” Bullard wrote to Tom Nies, executive director of the New England Fishery Management Council.

Bullard also discounted the safety element included in the underlying rationale for the council’s request, which asserted that shifting funding responsibility in mid-season could create safety issues by motivating fishermen to condense their fishing into the period when NOAA was paying for monitoring.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

MASSACHUSETTS: MEETING TO DISCUSS GROUNDFISH DISASTER AID

August 2, 2015 — GLOUCESTER — Two bins down, one to go.

The distribution of the nearly $33 million in federal groundfish disaster aid has moved through the first two phases — or bins, in the parlance of NOAA Fisheries and the respective state fisheries directors — in the past year-and-a-half.

Bin 3? That’s become something of a stickier wicket.

NOAA and the fishery directors for the five coastal New England states and New York initially agreed on a formula that would use the $10 million in the third bin to address long-term issues of the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery, including a potential vessel buyout and/or permit buyback plan.

Those plans dissolved in the spring when the respective regulators and stakeholders couldn’t agree on the inordinately complex equation for developing long-term solutions for the fishery declared a federal disaster in 2012.

Now, the money has been returned to Bin 2, which means each of the six states will individually decide how to best spend their allotment from the $10 million.

Tonight, the Gloucester Fishing Commission will take a stab at coming up with what it believes to be the best option for the nearly $7 million earmarked for Massachusetts.

Read the full story at The Salem News

 

NOAA begins fence-mending with Northeast fishermen

July 23, 2015 —  NOAA Fisheries this week undertook an effort to build trust and cooperation from the New England fishing industry by including the industry in upcoming groundfish stock assessments.

NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, based in Woods Hole, conducted meetings at five sites Wednesday, with web meeting access provided for several more sites up and down the New England coast.

The NOAA scientists made a presentation of the assessment process and some of the options that the New England Fishery Management Council’s Science Committee has for action on assessments.

According to the NOAA web site, those options range from the status quo to a complete review and rebuild of all the methods and computer models being used by the science center to guide NOAA’s annual quota decisions on 20 different groundfish stocks.

With very few fishermen fishing for groundfish, few were among the 20 or so participants, according to Don Cuddy, spokesman for the New Bedford-based Center for Sustainable Fisheries.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

SCOTLAND: Media’s Fish Tales and Codology

July 22, 2015 — Back in 2012, the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times famously screamed that there were, “just 100 cod left in the North Sea”. Even at the time, it ranked as one of the greatest howlers ever published – as the BBC pointed out a fortnight later, they were only about half a billion wrong. It would have been funny but for the impact it had on the Scottish fishing industry. Having slimmed down dramatically over the preceding decade, and after the voluntary adoption of serious practical measures to aid recovery of a depleted stock, the last thing it needed or deserved was a bunch of irresponsible journalists destroying the market for locally caught fish.

It’s a shame that you can’t catch cod in London, Edinburgh or the grim, grey streets where environmental activists come from. Unfortunately for the fishing industry, a very large proportion of the UK’s fish comes from the northern part of the North Sea, and particularly the waters around Shetland. From a part of the world that doesn’t even appear on some newspapers’ weather maps, in other words. More fish are landed in Shetland than in England, Wales and Northern Ireland combined, and to journalists in London it barely exists. Out of sight, out of mind … and from where tales of plentiful cod, not to mention a couple of dozen other commercial fish species, can be safely ignored.

And such tales! Cod everywhere, cod impossible to get away from, cod recovering too fast for vastly shrunken quotas to cope, cod of a size not seen for decades. Grinning anglers mooring up in Scalloway claiming that after a great day out the 100 cod were down to 90 or whatever.

It certainly made for a contrast with annual quota talks in Brussels, where UK and Scottish ministers had to fight year after year just to prevent already inadequate cod quotas being cut further. Whatever the scientists were doing, it didn’t tally with what fishermen were seeing every day, haul after haul, and needless to say the anti-fishing brigade were delighted with the whole process. Good news on wildlife is very bad news for environmental groups; doom, gloom and ecological catastrophe are what they need to suck in donations. From that point of view, the disappearing cod story was extremely opportune.

Read the full story at The Scotsman

 

Last Groundfish Permit Stays on Martha’s Vineyard, Though Days Are Numbered

July 23, 2015 — The Nature Conservancy, working with the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, has purchased the Island’s last historic groundfish permit, marking a major milestone in the trust’s efforts to develop a permit bank to support Island fishermen.

The federal New England multi-species permit, also known as a groundfish permit, was held by Greg Mayhew, owner of the Unicorn, a legendary 75-foot dragger out of Menemsha.

“We wanted our fishing permit to stay on Martha’s Vineyard and not go to some corporation or conglomerate,” Mr. Mayhew said in a statement issued Thursday by the conservancy.

Among other challenges facing local fishermen, the decline in groundfish populations in recent years has led to smaller quotas, leaving many businesses unable to compete. Since regrouping last year, the fishermen’s preservation trust has concentrated on developing a permit bank that would allow Vineyard fishermen to lease quota at an affordable rate.

Christopher McGuire, marine program director for The Nature Conservancy, said the Unicorn permit might only support one or two Island fishermen, since the quota is limited.

“There is only so much fish to lease out,” he said. But he added that there are relatively few groundfishermen on the Island, so competition for the quota might be light.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

 

Fishing group meets to discuss New England catch limits

July 23, 2015 — It’s simple: If fishermen can’t catch it, we can’t eat it. On Wednesday, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center met with fishermen across New England to discuss the state of groundfish like cod.

The federal government had to close down all commercial and recreational cod fishing late last year because the population was at an all-time low. This restriction allows them to repopulate off the coast of Maine and Massachusetts.

22News spoke with Schermerhorn’s Seafood Owner Michael Fitzgerald as he was getting updated from his suppliers. Cod is still largely off limits, but there is a popular alternative you can buy.

Read the full story and watch the video at WWLP

 

NEW TIMES AND LOCATIONS: JULY 22 MEETINGS FOR FISHERMEN ON GROUNDFISH OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENTS

July 20, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries: 

Northeast Fisheries Science Center Hosting Outreach Meetings on July 22 on Groundfish Operational Assessments. The NEFSC is holding outreach meetings on July 22 in Portland, Gloucester, Woods Hole, New Bedford, and Hampton, NH for fishermen interested in the upcoming operational assessments for 20 stocks of Northeast groundfish.

Information on meeting times and locations has been updated, with New Bedford and Woods Hole meetings from 10am-12noon, Gloucester and Portland meetings from 2-4pm, and a meeting added in Hampton, NH from 6-8pm.

Assessment analysts will be on hand to meet with interested fishermen, and to learn more about recent observations from the fleet that might help focus future research to improve assessments. 

There will also be a short webinar on the timeline for the assessments, what new information will be considered, and how the results will be reviewed before they are sent into the fishery management process.

Questions? Contact Teri Frady at 508-495-2239 or email teri.frady@noaa.gov.

New England Fishery Management Council and NOAA Fisheries Seek Comments on Amendment 18 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan

July 17, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA:

The New England Fishery Management Council has been developing  Amendment 18 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan for several years.

The notice of availability of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Amendment 18 published today in the Federal Register. The DEIS is open for comments through August 31. More information, including dates and times of public meetings, is available on our website and on the Council’s website.

Amendment 18 provides a range of alternatives that could address the following issues:

  • Accumulation limits for Northeast multispecies permit holders;
  • A sub-allocation and other management measures for Handgear A permit holders;
  • Data confidentiality with regards to leasing of groundfish allocations;
  • An inshore/offshore boundary within the Gulf of Maine and potential associated management measures for Gulf of Maine cod; and,
  • Establishing a Redfish Exemption Area for vessels to target redfish.

The Council is expected to take final action on Amendment 18 at its September 2015 meeting.

Send your comments to:

Email: nmfs.gar.amendment18@noaa.gov

Mail:       John K. Bullard

Regional Administrator

Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office

55 Great Republic Drive

Gloucester, MA 01930

Fax: 978-281-9315

Please include “Amendment 18” in the subject line or on the outside of the envelope.

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

Haddock

Public Comment Sought on EIS for New Gulf of Alaska Groundfish Bycatch Management Program

SEAFOODNEWS.COM By Peggy Parker — July 15, 2015 — In yesterday’s Federal Register, the National Marine Fisheries Service, in consultation with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, announced their intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on a new bycatch management program for trawl groundfish fisheries in the Gulf of Alaska.

The proposed action would create a new management program that would allocate allowable harvest to individuals, cooperatives, and other entities that participate in GOA trawl groundfish fisheries.

The program is intended to improve stock conservation by imposing accountability measures for taking target, incidental, and prohibited species catch, creating incentives to eliminate wasteful fishing practices, providing mechanisms for participants to control and reduce bycatch in the trawl groundfish fisheries, and to improve safety of life at sea and operational efficiencies.

The EIS will analyze the impacts to the human environment resulting from the proposed trawl bycatch management program.

NOAA Fisheries and the Council say an EIS may be required for this bycatch management program because some important aspects of the proposed action on species and their users may be uncertain or unknown. Thus, the agency and the Council are initiating scoping for an EIS in the event one is needed.

NOAA Fisheries and the Council want public comments to identify the issues of concern and help determine the appropriate range of management alternatives for the EIS. Comments should also focus on the environmental, social, and economic issues to be considered in the analysis.

NMFS will accept written comments through August 28, 2015.

You may submit comments electronically at www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=NOAA-NMFS-2014-0150 [2].

Or send written comments to Glenn Merrill, Assistant Regional Administrator, Sustainable Fisheries Division, Alaska Region NMFS, Attn: Ellen Sebastian. Mail comments to P.O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 99802–1668.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It has been reprinted with permission.

MASSACHUSETTS: 151 Cape Ann crew, dockhands to share in $3M relief

July 13, 2015 — The state will distribute about $3 million in federal fishery disaster aid to 525 eligible Massachusetts-based crew members, dock workers and owner-operators, including 136 from Gloucester and 15 from other towns on Cape Ann, according to the state Division of Marine Fisheries.

Peter Lorenz, DMF spokesman, said letters went out June 30 to 601 Massachusetts-based crew members who applied for the funds, informing them of their status.

Lorenz said 76 applicants were not qualified for any payments.

The payments for eligible years range from $1,209 per year to $10,080 per year, with 68 successful applicants to receive $8,064 per eligible year while 120 successful applicants maxed out at $10,080 per eligible year.

Lorenz said the qualified recipients, including the 151 from Cape Ann, must fill out state-vendor forms. Once the forms are approved, the agency will begin scheduling payments — which will go out weekly on Fridays.

The $3 million earmarked for crew members, dock workers and some owner-operators is part of the $8.3 million initially contained in the second phase of the $75 million in federal fishing disaster funding approved by Congress in January 2014.

The four coastal New England states, as well as New York and New Jersey, received about $33 million of the total $75 million, with Massachusetts’ share amounting to about $14.8 million.

The first phase of funding funneled $6.5 million to more than 200 eligible federal limited permit holders in the form of checks of $32,500 per eligible permit.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times