Saving Seafood

US fishing rules coming to impact New England scallops, cod harvests

November 29, 2017 — The US’s National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) has released a proposal that could mean dramatic changes for the way fishing is managed off the coasts of the New England states, the Associated Press reports.

The proposed “Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment” from NMFS, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, would address the way such species as scallops and haddock are harvested in the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank and other areas, and how rare whales are protected.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News 

 

Odds are tiny for a winter shrimp fishing season

November 28, 2017 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — With fisheries regulators slated to gather in Portland on Wednesday, a shrimp fishing season in the Gulf of Maine this winter seemed as likely as bipartisan tax legislation in Congress.

The schedule called for members of the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section to meet in the afternoon to establish dates and landings limits for the 2018 season. All evidence suggested that, except for a tiny “research” fishery, the limit, or total allowable catch, will be zero and there will be no season at all.

According to the commission’s recently released “2017 Stock Status Report for Gulf of Maine, Northern Shrimp,” the resource is in terrible shape. For the past five years (2012 through 2017) the shrimp stock has been at its lowest, both in terms of number and total biomass, over the 34 years that the shrimp population has been surveyed.

Prospects for the shrimp resource to rebound in the Gulf of Maine are grim.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American 

 

Decision coming about future of New England shrimp fishing

November 27, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine — A decision is coming this week about whether New England’s long-shuttered shrimp fishery can reopen.

New England shrimping, largely based in Maine, has been shut down since 2013. Regulators say the shrimp are suffering from poor reproduction and warming ocean temperatures.

An arm of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is meeting on Wednesday in Portland to decide if there will be a fishery this coming season.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bristol Herald Courier

 

Massachusetts: Cape and Islands Lawmakers Join Fight to Protect Offshore Herring

November 27, 2017 — CHATHAM, Mass. — The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance is receiving support from the Cape and Islands legislative delegation in protecting offshore herring for local fishermen.

Earlier this month, the lawmakers called on the New England Fishery Management Council to create a buffer zone off the coast of the Cape and Islands from large-scale mid-water herring trawlers.

Current regulations allow the trawlers to fish three miles offshore from Provincetown past the Islands.

“The delegation has taken up a position that we staked out at the Fishermen’s Alliance years ago that we need a buffer zone,” said John Pappalardo, the alliance CEO.

“In other words, a zone off the Cape and Islands where these vessels cannot come in and intensively harvest sea herring.”

The alliance would like a 50 mile buffer zone.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

 

Plan to change New England ocean stewardship up for debate

November 24, 2017 — The federal government is close to enacting new rules about New England ocean habitat that could mean dramatic changes for the way it manages the marine environment and fisheries.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has been working on the rules for some 13 years and recently made them public. They would change the way the government manages the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank and southern New England waters, which are critical pieces of ocean for rare whales, unique underwater canyons and commercial fishermen.

The new rules would affect the way highly valuable species such as scallops and haddock are harvested, in part because it would alter protections that prohibit fishing for species in parts of the ocean. The proposal states that its goal is to minimize “adverse effects of fishing on essential fish habitat.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

 

Scientists Again Recommend Moratorium On Maine Shrimp Fishery

November 22, 2017 — Coveted Maine shrimp are likely off the menu again in 2018.

For the fifth straight year, federal scientists are recommending a moratorium on commercial fishing of northern shrimp in the Gulf of Maine. The small, sweet-tasting invertebrates’ numbers and biomass in the gulf have been dropping steadily, reaching their lowest recorded level this year, according to Max Appelman, who coordinates the fishery’s management for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

“We haven’t seen consecutive low values like this in the history of this fishery. So, somewhat unprecedented, where we are right now,” he says.

Read the full story at Maine Public

 

Maine’s shrimp fishery unlikely to open in 2018

November 22, 2017 — The Maine shrimp fishery appears headed toward another closed season in 2018 based on bleak stock assessments made earlier this year, according to federal officials.

If a panel meeting next Wednesday in Portland agrees with the recommendations released this week, 2018 would be the fourth year the small but much-loved winter fishery is closed.

“It was not a good result for shrimp this year,” said Max Appelman, who coordinates the fishery for the federal regulatory body, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, that oversees the fishery.

Abundance of the species was at a 34-year low in 2017, according to the commission. During the annual summer scientific survey, data showed that survival of the shrimp that spawned in 2016 was the second lowest observed in the history of the survey, which began in the mid-1980s.

Climate change is the likeliest cause for the crash in the fishery; Northern shrimp, or pandalus borealis, require cold winter water to spawn. Waters in the Gulf of Maine, the southern most waters the shrimp can survive in, are warming faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans, according to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

The environment for shrimp is increasingly “inhospitable,” according to the report.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

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 NOAA director seems willing to work with fishing industry

November 20, 2017 — Jon Hare has just completed his first twelve months on the job as science and research director for NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole. And it’s a big job. But he’s still smiling.

The NEFSC manages the living marine resources of the Northeast Continental Shelf Ecosystem from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Hatteras. But Hare’s energy and enthusiasm have been equal to the task, while his willingness to listen and engage with all comers have earned him respect within NOAA and in the larger community. “It’s been a challenge but one that I’ve enjoyed,” he said, sitting down for a wide-ranging discussion at the Fishing Partnership office in New Bedford last week.

There was plenty to talk about but in this city, it begins with fish.

Among its many duties, the Science Center is responsible for conducting the groundfish surveys that determine annual catch limits for each species. Tensions with industry have ensued. Fishermen have frequently been critical of the survey’s methods and findings, convinced that cuts to their quota are a result of flawed science rather than falling stock levels.

There was not a lot of empathy from NOAA in the past but Hare has displayed his willingness to collaborate with the industry. NOAA supports a number of fishing industry-based projects, using commercial fishing vessels, to gather data that can be used to augment the government surveys.

“When any group asks me to meet with them I go. What we do affects them in their day-to-day life and that weighs on me,” he said. “I think now there is more of seeing the pros and cons of a particular piece of science. We need to value different perspectives. We should care what everyone thinks. It’s about communication.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

This fisherman is determined to fight the rising tide of government quotas

November 10, 2017 — There’s another species in the ocean that is slowly disappearing. This one doesn’t have fins, but orange waders, heavy rubber gloves, and fishing tackle. It’s the commercial fishermen. The industry in which they work, fishermen say, is being choked by unmanageable fines and regulations.

Jim Ford of Lisa Ann Fisheries is one of those still standing. Fewer and fewer boats are going out to sea, to Ford’s dismay. While there used to be dozens of draggers going out of Newburyport, he’s now the only fisherman doing it full-time — pulling a net or trawling the rocky seabed to scoop up his catch.

Ford, 47, disagrees that the sea is being depleted. One of his recent 14-hour runs yielded 1,000 pounds of gray sole (worth about $3 a pound at auction), 300 pounds of monkfish, and some flounder. On his 52-foot fiberglass boat, Lisa Ann III, Ford typically steams out at midnight for a three-hour trip to Jeffreys Ledge with two crewmen on deck and a federal observer — a third-party ombudsman — to monitor overfishing.

This government watchman, a stranger with notepad and pen — and sometimes getting seasick — has spoiled fishing excursions for Ford. The thrill of the hunt, the wild unpredictability of the wind and the waves has turned into a list of quotas, trip limits, and gear restrictions.

He hopes that “some day the marine fishery agencies will figure out there’s more cod and other fish in the ocean then they think there is now. The government doesn’t see what I see out there every day.” Still, fishing policies aside, Ford never fails to get excited when the catch sensor blinks, indicating that there’s plenty of fish in the net. “I love fishing. Otherwise, I’d put my anchor down and call it quits,” Ford said. He spoke with the Globe about why he remains hooked.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe