Saving Seafood

RON SMOLOWITZ: Marine Monument Plan Subverts Public Input

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — October 8, 2015 — The following letter from Ron Smolowitz, of the Coonamessett Farm Foundation, was published today in the Cape Cod Times.

Your recent editorial endorsing a new Atlantic marine national monument (“A fitting tribute,” Sept. 27) misses the main reason a large and growing number of fishermen, coastal residents and public officials are so opposed to the proposal: It undermines the democratic process and threatens the future of public input in the management of public resources.

For many fishermen, this is not primarily an economic issue. Parts of the areas under consideration, particularly Cashes Ledge in the Gulf of Maine, have been closed to most forms of fishing for over a decade, and will remain closed under Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2, recently approved by the New England Fishery Management Council. Fishermen recognize the value of reasonable protections for these areas.

Rather, there is broad opposition to a marine monument because this proposal – and the precedent it sets – threatens the open and public process that has so far successfully preserved these areas. A national monument designation would mean that unilateral, one-time executive action will replace public input from a diverse variety of interests – including scientists, fishermen, regulators, and environmentalists – that has played an essential role in promoting conservation and successful management. This process works and needs to be respected.

Read the letter from Ron Smolowitz to the Cape Cod Times here 

UMass Dartmouth researchers developing open-source system for assessing fish movement

October 7, 2015 — UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science & Technology (SMAST) Associate Professor Geoffrey Cowles is leading a collaborative research effort to develop geolocation methodologies to improve understanding of fish movement patterns of Atlantic cod, yellowtail flounder, and monkfish. The project will focus on the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank and includes researchers from SMAST, Northeastern University, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, along with the fishing industry.

Geolocation, which is the process of taking data recovered from a fish archival tag and coming up with the best estimate of positions between release and recapture, can provide insights into catchability and fishery interactions. Using this technique, the research team will be able to guide behavior-dependent aspects of the model parameterization, as well as interpret the geolocated tracks. Researchers will also employ their collective skills in computer programming, oceanographic modeling, statistical analysis, and fisheries biology to assist in furthering the development of technology to geolocate fish.

This study will also use data acquired from previous studies on each of the example species, which all have their own characteristic behaviors and were tagged in different areas of the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank region. Most studies of fish movements have relied on fishery recaptures of conventional tags, which provide only the locations of release and recapture. Such tagging studies may bias perceptions of movement patterns.

Archival tags, which are attached to fish internally or externally to record temperature and pressure at regular intervals, enable estimations of fish location while at large. This type of information is often not fully utilized due to the technical difficulties of producing such movement histories via geolocation techniques.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard- Times

 

“New England Fishermen Preservation Act” From Rep. Guinta to Cancel Federal Fees

October 1, 2015 — WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — The following was released from the Office of Congressman Frank Guinta (NH):

With his New England Fishermen Preservation Act (H.R. 3661) today, Congressman Frank Guinta continued his effort to stop federal fees that could extinguish New Hampshire’s fishing industry. Just nine Granite State operators still fish the Gulf of Maine, where National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) regulations have reduced their catch by 95 percent, report members of Seabrook’s Yankee Fishermen’s Co-op.  

New fees, averaging over $700 per vessel every few days, could cost fishermen in the region thousands of dollars monthly. “These are small, family businesses,” said Rep. Guinta (NH01), a member of the House Financial Services Committee. “Many are struggling to stay afloat, due to heavy regulations that seem to change from week to week. Fishermen up and down the Northeast could be sunk, when NOAA finally makes good on its threat.”

Rep. Guinta explained that under his bill “NOAA will continue to pay the costs of monitoring fishermen at sea, as the agency has for years.” Currently, NOAA pays contractors to accompany crews but has proposed shifting payment to fishermen themselves. The agency has shifted deadlines several times, recently from the end of October to December. In an email to congressional staff, NOAA regulators admit the change would be “economically challenging” for many.

“It’s economically challenging that an agency with a several-billon dollar budget is demanding fishermen pay its operating costs,” responded Rep. Guinta.

The New England Fishermen Preservation Act exempts Northeast fishermen from compliance with monitoring rules, until NOAA funds the program. Earlier this Congress, Rep. Guinta introduced the bipartisan Fisheries Investment and Regulatory Relief Act, which would re-direct existing federal money to U.S. fisheries and strengthen local control.

Read Rep. Guinta’s New England Fishermen Preservation Act here

MAINE: NOAA Allows State Waters Scallop Exemption Program

October 6, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Through a final rule published today, scallop vessels holding both Northern Gulf of Maine Federal permits and Maine commercial licenses may fish inside Maine state waters, even if the Federal Northern Gulf of Maine fishery is closed.

Maine requested this exemption as part of the Scallop State Water Exemption Program, which allows Federal permit holders to be exempted from a few specific regulations when fishing in a state waters scallop fishery where the state’s program does not jeopardize the objectives of the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan.

This rule goes into effect on November 6.

This exemption will benefit approximately 40 Federal Northern Gulf of Maine permit holders.

Read the rule as filed in Federal Register and the permit holder bulletin.

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

Atlantic Sea Scallop. Credit: NOAA

Legislator: Fed money for fish study a good sign

October 2, 2015 — BOSTON — One of the Legislature’s top fishing advocates has taken encouragement from the federal government approving funding for an industry survey of cod stocks.

As part of $6.9 million in federal disaster relief, the National Marine Fisheries Service approved federal funds for an industry-based survey of Gulf of Maine cod, a species whose apparent decimation led to drastic reductions in catch limits and a fisheries disaster declaration.

Gov. Charlie Baker and other Massachusetts elected officials have criticized federal fishery regulators for refusing to consider alternative scientific methods for estimating fish stocks. The School for Marine Science and Technology at UMass Dartmouth has developed new methods for assessing sea life.

Sen. Bruce Tarr, a Gloucester Republican, said he was encouraged that the industry study was included in the grant award approved by federal fishery regulators.

“It offers me a sign of hope that they will begin to take seriously collaborative research and consider the independent efforts to try to give us a better understanding of what’s happening with cod stocks,” Tarr told the News Service.

The state Division of Marine Fisheries on Thursday announced the award, which will send most of a $6.7 million pot toward direct aid for fishermen and use another $200,000 to fund the administration of a program to buy back fishing licenses, which would be industry-funded, according to the state. The division will work on developing a proposal for a buyback program, and will work on helping fishermen obtain experimental federal permits for small-mesh nets.

Read the full story at New Bedford Standard – Times

 

 

NOAA Fisheries to Keep Recreational Gulf of Maine Haddock Regs in Place

September 29, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries requested public comments on an interim final rule that reduced the minimum fish size for Gulf of Maine haddock from 21 inches to 17 inches.

We received 43 comments, but none provided justification for changing the interim final rule. Thus, the current GOM haddock recreational measures will remain in effect for the remained of the 2015 fishing year (through April 30, 2016).

Get more information and answers to some of the issues raised by the commenters.

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

Georges Bank cod stock in grim shape

September 30, 2015 — PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — One of the two critical areas where New England fishermen search for cod may be in even worse shape than suspected.

Fishing managers already knew cod stocks in Georges Bank were thin, but new data from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center say research boats caught less of the fish this past spring than in all but one spring season dating back to 1968.

A report from the center, given to The Associated Press on Tuesday, states that the boats caught about 3.3 pounds of cod each time the net went in and out of the water last spring, compared with more than three times that amount two years earlier. Those numbers were routinely more than 20 pounds per trip in the late 1980s.

The status of cod in Georges Bank, a broad swath of elevated sea floor off the Massachusetts coast, could motivate regulators to again lower catch quotas for the area. Quotas have plummeted from more than 4,800 metric tons in 2012 to less than 2,000 metric tons this year.

It’s more bad news for the faltering fishery, which generations of New England fishermen have relied upon to make a living. Regulators and marine scientists have said overfishing hit the stock hard and warming oceans could be making it worse.

“Is that coming as a surprise from anybody who knows what the water temperature is out there? No, it shouldn’t be,” said David Goethel, a New Hampshire-based fisherman. “These fish are declining because of climate change.”

Regulators say the Gulf of Maine, home of the other key cod fishing ground off New England, is also in dire shape — National Marine Fisheries Service scientists said last year the amount of cod spawning in the Gulf was estimated to be 3 percent to 4 percent of its target level.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Providence Journal

 

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

Officials: Key fishing area for Atlantic cod in dire shape

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — September 29, 2015 — One of the two critical areas where New England fishermen search for cod may be in even worse shape than suspected.

Fishing managers already knew Georges Bank’s cod were thin. New data from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center says research boats caught less of the fish per trip this past spring than all but one spring season dating back to 1968.

Georges Bank is a broad swath of elevated sea floor off of Massachusetts. The Gulf of Maine cod fishery is the other key cod ground and regulators say it is also in dire shape.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at My Fox Boston

Congress wary of marine monument plan

September 23, 2015 — Congressional opposition seems to be growing against the method — if not necessarily the intent — of the conservationist effort to create the first marine national monument on the Atlantic seaboard.

The conservationists’ proposal, which implores President Obama to use executive decree in the form of the Antiquities Act to unilaterally create a marine national monument off the coast of Massachusetts in the Gulf of Maine seems to have raised some populist hackles.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton said the Salem Democrat believes “any decisions about the future of the Gulf of Maine need to be reached in a collaborative process that includes all stakeholders, including the commonwealth’s fishermen.”

Spokesman Andy Flick said Moulton has not yet decided whether he will testify at Tuesday’s scheduled hearing by a subcommittee of the House Natural Resource Committee on the issue, but that “our staff is working to ensure all stakeholders will have an opportunity to be heard.”

The monument proposal, initially generated by the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pew Charitable Trusts, would have President Obama designate Cashes Ledge — which is about 80 miles east of Gloucester — and an area of deep-water canyons and seamounts south of Georges Bank as a marine national monument that would be off limits to all fishing and future sea-floor development.

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times