Saving Seafood

Northeast Consortium and NEFMC Announce Funding for New Collaborative Research Projects

NEWBURYPORT, Mass. — July 8, 2015 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The Northeast Consortium, a University of New Hampshire-based institution established in 1999 to foster collaborative research, under contract to the New England Fishery Management Council, announces funding for three new research projects that will focus on spawning groundfish in waters off the New England coast.

Awards totaling over $335,000 will support a mapping study examining the distribution of spawning cod on Georges Bank, an acoustic and trawl survey of winter-spawning cod in Ipswich Bay, an inshore area off the coast of MA, and work on winter flounder spawning activities offshore in the Gulf of Maine.

The result of a supplemental request for proposals issued last February, projects were required to articulate collaborations between commercial fishermen and scientists, and could include, among other approaches, research that enables the Council to improve groundfish spawning protection by increasing the understanding of groundfish spawning activity or aggregations of spawning groundfish.

Here are more project details.

Project Title: Mapping the distribution of Atlantic cod spawning on Georges Bank using fishermen’s ecological knowledge and scientific data
Lead Institution: University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth, School for Marine Science and Technology; Co-Principal Investigators: Steven X. Cadrin, Gregory DeCelles, and Douglas Zemeckis

Purpose: To map the spatial and temporal distribution of cod spawning on Georges Bank using existing scientific information and data acquired from interviews with current and retired fishermen who fish for cod on Georges Bank. The information is needed to better understand cod population structure and essential fish habitat in this region.

Project Title: Synoptic acoustic and trawl survey of winter-spawning cod in Ipswich Bay, western Gulf of Maine Lead Institution: Gulf of Maine Research Institute; Project Leader: Graham Sherwood
Purpose: To expand our knowledge of the winter-spawning component of Atlantic cod by conducting a synoptic acoustic and trawl survey of Ipswich Bay. Improved knowledge of spawning dynamics in this area will lead to more fine-scale (in both time and space) management options.

Project Title: Identifying offshore spawning grounds of Gulf of Maine winter flounder
Lead Institution: University of New Hampshire; Project Leader: Elizabeth A. Fairchild
Purpose: To determine where winter flounder in the Gulf of Maine are spawning offshore and when, by studying their populations during the spawning season at offshore sites identified by commercial fishermen as locations where large numbers of adult winter flounder are seen during the spawning season.

 NEC/NEFMC – Cooperative Research Projects Funded 

These awards represent a continuation of the 2014 partnership established between the Consortium (NEC) and the Council. The NEC has representation from four research institutions: the University of New Hampshire, University of Maine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with Dr. Chris Glass at the University of New Hampshire, in the lead as its Director.

The Council is a group of 18 fishery officials that includes representatives from each New England coastal state, the federal government, and appointees from the region, all of whom are charged with managing the groundfish complex (cod, haddock, pollock and several species of flounder), in addition to other regional fish stocks. Funding collaborative research is fully consistent with its interest in understanding and improving this resource.

Read the release here

 

GIB BROGAN: A Knockout Blow for American Fish Stocks

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — July 7, 2015 — Today the New York Times published an op-ed written by Oceana fisheries campaign manager Gib Brogan that is critical of both the recent Omnibus Habitat Amendment proposals approved by the New England Fishery Management Council and the members of the fishing industry who advocated for them. The op-ed is the latest attack by an environmental organization against the Council-approved version of the Omnibus Habitat Amendment, and is aimed at convincing the National Marine Fisheries Service to reject the Amendment.

Calling the measures a “knockout blow” to the region’s groundfish stocks, Mr. Brogan accuses the Council of “gutting” habitat protections. He is similarly critical of the Fisheries Survival Fund, which he describes as a “well-funded industry group” that “spends more than a quarter of a million dollars a year advocating for their interests, often at the expense of other fisheries.”

An excerpt of the op-ed is reproduced below: 

First, the council is preparing to drastically reduce the amount of protected habitat in New England waters, including by nearly 80 percent around the Georges Bank. The plan would allow for expansion of bottom trawling and dredging, two of the most destructive fishing methods, into protected habitats.

In addition to gutting habitat protections, the council wants to suspend a program that places observers on fishing vessels to monitor compliance. But without monitoring the numbers of fish being taken out of the ocean, there is no way to accurately determine the health of their populations or ensure that quotas are respected.

The fishing industry had agreed to eventually pay for the monitoring. But as federal funds near expiration, later this year, the industry is trying to renege on its responsibilities by pressuring the council to eliminate the program. When the bank balance is low, it isn’t time to fire the accountant.

Pressure for even more change looms. Atlantic scallops are one of the most lucrative parts of the American fishing industry, responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of shellfish every year. Scallop companies have a well-funded industry group, paradoxically named the Fisheries Survival Fund, which spends more than a quarter of a million dollars a year advocating for their interests, often at the expense of other fisheries. Dissatisfied with its current profits, the scallop industry is pushing the council to reopen portions of the most important New England cod habitat on Georges Bank, where the bottom-scraping scallop dredges would destroy any hope of rebuilding cod populations.

Similar pressure is coming from the cod, haddock and flounder industries, which are in a perpetual state of crisis as fishermen work with small catch limits that were set by managers trying to rebuild the populations. In the last two years, the New England fishery was declared a disaster and received more than $30 million in relief funding from the federal government to help with the losses. To stay viable for another year, the industries claim that they need additional access to closed areas.

Read the full opinion piece at the New York Times

DON CUDDY: If it’s the same, it will never be different

June 23, 2015 — DON CUDDY — We are having a serious problem in New England with the performance of the models used in fishery management. To remedy a situation that, along with some other factors, has led to the current crisis in the groundfish industry, we need new data … and maybe we need new models.

All the researchers will tell you that the existing models have trouble performing well when fish stocks, such as Gulf of Maine cod, Georges Bank cod and Georges Bank yellowtail are low. With healthy stocks, a certain amount of scientific uncertainty can be factored in as a buffer. But with low abundance, the margin for error is very thin, and fishermen and their families pay the price. When catch limits are cut, a small variation can mean the difference between an independent fisherman remaining on the water or being forced out of business.

I had a call last Monday from a producer of the “Today” show in New York. They were looking to profile a day in the life of a New England fisherman. I contacted veteran fisherman Frank Mirarchi, whose opinion pieces will be familiar to readers of The Standard-Times. In fact, his latest one, advocating electronic monitoring of the catch, ran that same day. But Frank told me he just sold his boat and is an ex-fisherman. This is what is happening to the single-boat owner around New England.

Getting better data is a theme familiar to anyone with connections to the fishing industry in New England. It is central to the mission at the Center for Sustainable Fisheries and was the focus of the forum CSF sponsored at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in May.

Read the full opinion piece from The New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Georges Bank vote sparks more debate between fishermen, environmentalists

June 21, 2015 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The world of Northeast American fisheries may have felt a seismic shift in the wake of the three-day meeting last week of the New England Fisheries Management Council. But it is much too soon for either side in the endless fishery management debate to claim a victory.

Major non-profit environmental organizations are lamenting the decision by the council to recommend reopening 5,000 square miles of Georges Bank, an area known as the Northern Edge, to fishing after a closure of two decades.

Peter Shelley, senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, charged that the council ignored years of scientific data and analysis and “caved to industry pressures” regarding Georges Bank. (The council did approve four other areas of habitat protection.)

“The council hammered the final nail into the coffin of what could have been a landmark victory for ocean habitats protection in New England,” Shelley wrote on his organization’s web site.

Dr. Sarah Smith, a member of the Fisheries Solutions Center at the Environmental Defense Fund, wrote The Standard-Times in an e-mail, “We are disappointed that the council chose short-term economic gains for a few over the long-term health of the fishery, particularly struggling stocks such as Georges Bank cod and yellowtail flounder.

“The Council’s preferred alternative overlooks our best scientific information, and perhaps most troubling, would virtually eliminate protection for sensitive areas that serve as critical habitats for juvenile cod and other groundfish.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times