Saving Seafood

SCeMFiS Announces Funding for Two Research Projects Impacting Fisheries Management

November 27, 2017 — CAPE MAY, N.J. — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

The Industry Advisory Board (IAB) of the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCeMFiS) has allocated $26,467 in funding for two research projects during the Fall IAB Meeting held October 31-November 1, 2017 in Cape May, New Jersey. The awards span the broad mission of the SCeMFiS and include research on marine mammals and continued funding for the omnibus stock assessment proposal for Atlantic herring.

Funded projects are as follows:

  • Independent Advisory Team for Marine Mammal Assessments – Phase V – this team addresses uncertainties in slow growing marine mammal populations and the interactions between marine mammals and fishing operations. PI: Paula Moreno, USM
  • Stock Assessment Team – stock assessment teams provide external support to NMFS for benchmark assessment working groups with a focus in 2018 on the Atlantic herring. PI: Steve Cadrin, UMass Dartmouth

This fall marked a trend to include industry sponsorship of social events and hold meetings close to prospective new members in an effort to attract and showcase research projects. The Cape May oceanfront provided a beautiful venue for the Fall IAB Meeting. Lund’s Fisheries Inc. and Atlantic Capes Fisheries, Inc. graciously provided food, beverages and evening social events on the Cape May Whale Watcher as well as Cold Spring Village/Brewery and The Grange Restaurant.

Jeff Reichle, President of Lund’s Fisheries, Inc. commented, “It was an honor to host the Fall IAB Meeting of SCeMFiS in the port of Cape May. The fishing industry in New Jersey, both commercial and recreational, has a huge impact on our coastal communities and we are very pleased to be part of this science based organization focused on cooperative research with NMFS and other fisheries management bodies to ensure that we have healthy, sustainable fisheries now and in the future.”

The Industry Advisory Board of the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCeMFiS), supported by the National Science Foundation I/UCRC Program, provides research related to major challenges in fisheries management and brings participants from industry, government, and other organizations in need of science-based solutions into contact with academic scientists capable of providing that expertise.

The SCeMFiS Industry Advisory Board is composed of members from the shellfish and commercial finfish industries and the NMFS-Northeast Fisheries Science Center. The organizational structure provided by the Center permits members to control the science agenda in exchange for financial support under the sponsorship of the NSF.

For a list of the SCeMFiS research projects already underway, please click the following link, http://scemfis.org/research.html. The Industry Advisory Board will review each of its funded projects at its next meeting to be held April 24 & 25 in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

 

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

 

New England’s herring fishery to shut for 2 weeks

The closure will allow the fish to spawn.

October 30, 2017 — Part of the New England herring fishery will be shut down for two weeks to allow the fish to spawn.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission says samples from Massachusetts and New Hampshire show a high number of spawning herring in the area. That means a stretch of coast and ocean from Cape Cod to southern Maine will close from Oct. 29 to Nov. 11.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

NOAA Fisheries Announces Increase in Atlantic Herring Quota for Area 1A for Period of October 24 – December 31, 2017

October 20, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Atlantic Herring Management Area 1A sub-annual catch limit is being increased from 31,115 mt to 32,115 mt  for the period of October 24-December 31, 2017. This is due to an underharvest of the New Brunswick weir fishery.

As stated in the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan, if the New Brunswick, Canada weir fishery herring catch through October 1 is less than 4,000 mt, then 1,000 mt will be subtracted from the management uncertainty buffer and allocated to the annual catch limit (ACL) and Area 1A sub-ACL.

Based on the best available information, the New Brunswick weir fishery landed 1,724 mt through October 1, 2017.

On October 24, NOAA Fisheries will allocate 1,000 mt of herring to the Area 1A sub-ACL, increasing the fishing year 2017 (Jan 1-Dec 31, 2017) Area 1A sub-ACL from 31,115 mt to 32,115 mt, and increasing the stockwide ACL from 101,656 mt to 102,656 mt.

Check the current status of the Atlantic herring catch.

For more details, read the notice as filed in the Federal Register, and the permit holder bulletin on our website.

Questions? Contact Daniel Luers, Fishery Management Specialist, 978-282-8457, Fax 978-281-9135.

Boom and Busted: Lessons from Alaska’s Mysterious Herring Collapse

In trying to untangle a herring crash from the aftermath of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, scientists in Prince William Sound are revealing just how resilient – and unpredictable – marine ecosystems can be.

October 13, 2017 — ON A COLD day in June, Scott Pegau leans toward the passenger window of a Cessna floatplane and peers out at the teal waters of Prince William Sound. The glacier-rimmed pocket of seawater on the southern coast of Alaska is protected from the open ocean by a string of rugged islands. It is both moody and alluring. Clouds dally on the snowy peaks and fray against the forested hillsides. The sea is flat and frigid, except for a single row of waves lapping at the rocky shore.

Pegau aims his gaze at the shallow waters behind the breakers. After a few minutes of searching, above a deep bay on one of the outer islands, he finally spots what he’s looking for: a school of juvenile herring. Pegau can distinguish them from other schooling species by the unique way they sparkle – an effect produced by sunlight playing off their silver flanks as the fish bank and roll. Try as I might, I can’t make out any twinkling, just the inky splotch of a few tons of small fish swarming below the surface.

“Small H1,” Pegau says into the headset microphone, tucked snugly under his thick, gray mustache. That’s code for a small school of one-year-old herring. He enters the location on his computer; huddled in the back seat, I make a tick mark on the backup tally. It’s the first of dozens of schools we’ll see on our flight.

Pegau conducts these surveys every year in hopes of understanding what’s in store for the herring population in Prince William Sound. The fish mature and begin to join the spawning stock at the age of three, so the counts give scientists and managers a clue about how many adults may be coming up the pipeline. Researchers and fishers alike always hope the answer will be many. But every year for the past quarter century, they have been disappointed.

The herring population in Prince William Sound crashed in 1993, just four years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill released 11 million gallons of crude into these waters. The collapse put an end to an $8-million-dollar-a-year fishery, and left a hole in the middle of the marine food web. Scientists have spent years trying to understand if and how the spill played a role in the herring’s demise here, and the results have been hotly contested. All of the legal proceedings finally closed in 2015, with herring listed as an impacted species but with most herring fishers feeling poorly compensated.

Even more concerning is the fact that, unlike most species hit by the spill, the herring haven’t bounced back over the decades since. Populations of forage fish are known to boom and bust, so most scientists thought it was only a matter of time before they rebounded. But 25 years later, there’s still no sign of recovery on the horizon.

“There’s definitely a possibility that the ecosystem went through a tipping point,” says Pegau, who coordinates the herring program at the Prince William Sound Science Center, an independent research institute whose work is funded in part by money from the spill settlement. A host of factors, which scientists are still trying to untangle, could be to blame, from hungry whales to virulent disease. “There’s no one thing that’s keeping them down,” Pegau says. “I think pretty much everyone is convinced of that.”

Read the full story at News Deeply

ASMFC August/September 2017 issue of Fisheries Focus Now Available

October 6, 2017 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The August/September 2017 issue of ASMFC Fisheries Focus is now available at http://www.asmfc.org/uploads/file/59d79752FishFocusAugustSept2017.pdf.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Upcoming Meetings

page 2

From the Executive Director’s Desk

ASMFC Discusses Next Steps in State/Federal Management

page 3

Species Profile

Spot

page 4

Fishery Management Actions

American Lobster

Scup

page 7

Proposed Management Actions

Atlantic Menhaden

Cobia

page 9 

Science Highlight

ASMFC Releases Stock Assessment Updates for Atlantic Menhaden and River Herring

page 11

ACCSP

ACCSP Submits Regional Recreational Implementation Plan to NOAA Fisheries MRIP

page 12

Comings & Goings
page 14

Employees of the Quarter Named

page 16

Past issues of Fisheries Focus can be found here – http://www.asmfc.org/search/%20/%20/Fishery-Focus.

ASMFC Atlantic Herring Section Launches New Website on Atlantic Herring Area 1A Spawning Monitoring System

October 6, 2017 — ARLINGTON, Va. — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

In May, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Herring Section approved the continued use of the GSI30-based forecast system to predict when the population will be spawning and when spawning closures should be set based on the development of herring gonads (reproductive organs) in Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine). GSI stands for gonadosomatic index and in its simplest terms assesses the onset of spawning based on the ratio of the weight of a female herring’s ovaries to its body weight. This new system, which was successfully piloted in 2016, uses the observed rate of increase in GSI to predict when spawning will occur and when the fishery will be closed. This replaces an earlier system that simply closed the fishery when the observed GSI was above a threshold value.

Stakeholders can see the spawning forecast model in real time here: https://www.massmarinefisheries.net/herring/.

Atlantic herring spawn in the late summer or early fall of each year. The timing of this event can vary by several weeks, which necessitates sampling the population each year to determine when the spawning closure should occur.  Once three samples have been collected that show a positive progression in gonadal development, a forecasted closure date can be determined by projecting forward when the population is likely to cross the spawning threshold. This forecasted closure date is continuously updated as new samples are acquired, and the closure is finally set within 5 days of the forecast date.

If not enough samples can be collected to forecast a closure date, a default closure date will go into effect. This date varies slightly by region:

  • Eastern Maine: August 28th
  • Western Maine: October 4th
  • Massachusetts-New Hampshire: October 4th

Whether initiated by the forecast model or a default date, the spawning closure lasts four weeks. If more than 25% of sampled fish are still in spawning condition when the fishery is reopened, the fishery will reclose for another two weeks. For more information, please contact Toni Kerns, ISFMP Director, at tkerns@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

Read the release at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission

Atlantic Herring: Council Discusses Amendment 8 ABC Control Rules; Passes on Picking “Preferred Alternative”

September 27, 2017 — The New England Fishery Management Council yesterday discussed the list of potential acceptable biological catch (ABC) control rules outlined in Draft Amendment 8 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan. The document contains nine new control rule alternatives plus the standard “no action.” After considerable debate and a review of the varying impacts of each option, the Council declined to pick a “preferred alternative.” Instead, the Council intends to wait to hear the full range of public comments during future public hearings before indicating any preferences. ABC control rules define how catch or fishing mortality changes with stock size. They are used in setting annual catch limits.

Amendment 8 is divided into two major components:

  • Alternatives to establish a long-term ABC control rule that “may explicitly account for herring’s role in the ecosystem and address the biological and ecological requirements of the stock”; and
  • Alternatives to address potential localized depletion and user conflicts in the fishery.

The Council focused on the ABC control rule aspect of the amendment during this ongoing meeting in Gloucester, MA. The localized depletion/user conflict alternatives will be discussed in detail during the Council’s December 5-7 meeting in Newport, RI. The Council is expected to approve the package of Draft Amendment 8 proposals during the December meeting if all of the necessary analyses are completed. While it’s still too early to tell, the Council tentatively is planning to schedule hearings in the spring of 2018.

Read the full release at the New England Fishery Management Council 

Herring fishing to be shut down along New England in October

September 27, 2017 — PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Fishing regulators are shutting down a chunk of the New England coast to herring fishing for most of the month of October.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission says vessels in the Atlantic herring fishery cannot catch or possess the fish in the shuttered area from Oct. 1 to Oct. 28. The closed area stretches along a coastal area that runs from southern Maine to Cape Cod.

The fisheries commission says the decision is based on an analysis of samples of female herring in the area.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Greenwich Time

Atlantic Herring Massachusetts/New Hampshire Spawning Closure in Effect Starting October 1 through October 28, 2017

September 27, 2017 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic Herring Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine) fishery regulations include seasonal spawning closures for portions of state and federal waters in Eastern Maine, Western Maine and Massachusetts/New Hampshire. The Commission’s Atlantic Herring Section approved a forecasting method that relies upon at least three samples, each containing at least 25 female herring in gonadal states III-V, to trigger a spawning closure.

Fifteen samples of female herring were collected to evaluate spawning condition. Based on the analysis of the samples, the Massachusetts/New Hampshire spawning area will be closed starting at 12:00 a.m. on October 1, 2017 extending through 11:59 p.m. on October 28, 2017. Vessels in the directed Atlantic herring fishery cannot take, land or possess Atlantic herring caught within the Massachusetts/New Hampshire spawning area during this time and must have all fishing gear stowed when transiting through the area. An incidental bycatch allowance of up to 2,000 pounds of Atlantic herring per trip/ calendar day applies to vessels in non-directed fisheries that are fishing within the Massachusetts/New Hampshire spawning area.

The Massachusetts/New Hampshire spawning area includes all waters bounded by the Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine coasts, and 43° 30’ N and 70° 00’ W.   For more information, please contact Toni Kerns, ISFMP Director, at 703.842.0740 or tkerns@asmfc.org.

A PDF version of the announcement can be found here –http://www.asmfc.org/files/AtlHerring/MA_NH_SpawningClosureSept2017.pdf