Saving Seafood

Are All U.S. Sharks Overfished?

August 10, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The world’s oceans are home to around 500 species of sharks. With so many species, it’s difficult to talk about the status of shark stocks overall. Regardless of the species, federal laws and regulations work to ensure that shark fisheries in the United States are healthy going into the future.

Read the facts below to learn more about what it means to be overfished and how we sustainably manage our shark fisheries.

1. U.S. law requires that shark fishing rules foster long-term biological and economic sustainability.

Fishery management in U.S. federal waters is governed primarily by the Magnuson-Stevens Act. First passed in 1976, the act requires that all fishery management plans meet 10 National Standards. That means the approximately 50 species of sharks managed in federal waters are fished under rules designed to:

  • Prevent overfishing
  • Rebuild overfished stocks
  • Increase long-term economic and social benefits of fisheries
  • Ensure a safe and sustainable seafood supply

Gulf of Mexico blacktip sharks are a good example of these rules at work. A popular food fish, blacktip sharks experienced a slight population decline in the 1990s. We established a quota specifically for this population in 2015. That combined with retention limits tied to other commercially valuable species contributed to a higher population today than the target level set by scientists.

Learn more about U.S. fisheries management

Understand why U.S.-caught sharks are a sustainable food choice

2. The terms “overfished” and “threatened” mean different things.

It’s a common misconception that overfished species are at risk of extinction. But the categories of overfished and overfishing are not directly related to threatened and endangered designations under the Endangered Species Act.

To understand the difference, it helps to know another term: maximum sustainable yield. This is the largest catch level that a species can sustain over a long period of time. If a stock is declared overfished, that means its numbers have fallen too low to produce its maximum sustainable yield. An overfished status doesn’t say anything directly about whether the species is endangered or likely to become endangered.

NOAA Fisheries is dedicated to rebuilding overfished stocks. Of the 43 shark stocks managed in the Atlantic Ocean, six are overfished. We have put rebuilding plans in place for each of these with strict catch limits based on the best available science. These limits are closely monitored and enforced.

Learn more about efforts to rebuild sandbar shark populations

Learn more about how retention limits help us sustainably manage shark fisheries

3. Our largest shark fisheries target healthy stocks.

The vast majority of sharks harvested in the United States are species with above-target population levels. In the Atlantic, for example, 94 percent of all U.S. shark landings in 2018—including bycatch—were of five species, which are neither overfished nor subject to overfishing:

  • Spiny dogfish shark
  • Smooth dogfish shark
  • Gulf of Mexico blacktip shark
  • Atlantic sharpnose shark
  • Finetooth shark

Two of these—spiny dogfish and Gulf of Mexico blacktip—have actually experienced population growth over recent decades.

Learn more about how spiny dogfish have benefited from sustainable management

Read the full release here

Kelly Denit Appointed New Director for NOAA’s Office of Sustainable Fisheries

July 14, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today, NOAA announced the appointment of Ms. Kelly Denit as the new Director of NOAA’s Office of Sustainable Fisheries. As the new director, Ms. Denit will oversee a national office responsible for the implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the management of Atlantic highly migratory species, and promoting U.S. seafood safety while supporting seafood-related commerce and trade.

In this role, she will work closely with Fisheries’ regional offices and science centers in partnership with the regional fishery management councils, interstate marine fishery commissions, and states to establish effective fishery management measures, set catch limits, ensure compliance with fisheries regulations, and reduce bycatch. She will ensure office activities support agency priorities and work with key stakeholders—including the commercial and recreational fishing industries, tribes, academia, non-government organizations, and others—to advance those priorities around the country.

“U.S. fisheries are among the world’s largest, most valuable, and most sustainable as a result of the U.S. fishery management process. As our new lead for the implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, Ms. Denit has a tremendous responsibility and I have every confidence she will rise to the challenge based on her experience and her extraordinary leadership skills,” said Samuel Rauch III, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs at NOAA Fisheries.

Ms. Denit has held various positions within NOAA over the last 15 years after first joining the agency as a Knauss Sea Grant fellow in Fisheries’ Office of International Affairs. Most recently, she served as the Chief of the Domestic Fisheries Division in the Office of Sustainable Fisheries. In that role she provided national policy direction and performance oversight to ensure the continued sustainable management of our nation’s fisheries, primarily in federal waters. Prior to that, Ms. Denit’s work covered a range of activities from state/federal partnerships to recreational fisheries to strategic planning/budgeting to catch share programs. She has also worked at the NOAA Ocean Service’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science in Beaufort, North Carolina.

Read the full release here

NOAA taps new sustainable fisheries director

July 14, 2020 — On Monday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries appointed Kelly Denit as its new director of its office of sustainable fisheries.

As the new director, Denit will oversee a national office responsible for the implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the management of Atlantic highly migratory species, and promoting US seafood safety while supporting seafood-related commerce and trade.

“One of the critical aspects of this new role will be supporting our fishing businesses and communities as they navigate through the challenges of COVID-19,” she said.

Read the full story at IntraFish

Department of Commerce Announces 2020 Appointments to the Regional Fishery Management Councils

July 2, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The U.S. Department of Commerce today announced the appointment of 22 members to the regional fishery management councils that partner with NOAA Fisheries to manage marine fishery resources.

Established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, councils are responsible for developing region-specific fishery management plans that safeguard and enhance the nation’s fisheries resources. Council members represent diverse groups, including commercial and recreational fishing industries, environmental organizations, and academia. They are vital to fulfilling the act’s requirements to end overfishing, rebuild fish stocks, and manage them sustainably.

NOAA Fisheries works closely with the councils through the process of developing fishery management plans. We also review, approve, and implement the plans.

Each year, the Secretary of Commerce appoints approximately one-third of the total 72 appointed members to the eight regional councils. The Secretary selects members from nominations submitted by the governors of fishing states, territories and tribal governments.

Council members are appointed to both state-specific and regional seats—also known as obligatory and at-large seats, respectively.  Council members serve a three-year term and may be reappointed to serve three consecutive terms.

Read the full release here

Bipartisan Bill Will Amend MSA to Include COVID-19 as Fisheries Disaster

June 15, 2020 — While thousands of fishermen around the country struggle to get relief funds promised in the CARES Act that was passed last March, two U.S. representatives from different parts of the country introduced a bill yesterday that would resolve many of the problems.

Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) and Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME)’s new bill would amend the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act (MSA) to allow fisheries disasters to pandemic, such as COVID-19 to be added to the list of disasters eligible for relief.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Rep. Golden introduces legislation to make disaster relief funds available to fishermen

June 11, 2020 — In a bipartisan effort, Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Rep. Garret Graves (R-Louisiana) on Thursday introduced legislation to make additional disaster relief available to thousands of fishermen whose businesses are harmed by a pandemic.

The legislation would amend the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act to allow fisheries disasters to be declared due to pandemic, such as COVID-19.

“For the last few months, many Maine fishermen and lobstermen have had almost nowhere to sell their catch because COVID-19 has nearly shut down demand for fresh seafood all over the world,” Golden said. “Coronavirus is just as much of a disaster for this fishery as it would be if a Category 5 hurricane hit, and our lobstering and fishing communities deserve the same relief fisheries receive for other disasters. My bipartisan bill with Congressman Graves would make pandemics an allowable reason to declare a fisheries disaster, opening up a process to direct federal relief funds to affected fishing communities. Lobstermen and fishermen need this support right now, and the need will only grow if a second outbreak of COVID-19 happens this fall.”

A fisheries disaster declaration uses an established process for appropriating and distributing federal relief funds to fisheries and fishing communities during an unexpected event that causes significant losses.

To make the disaster declaration, a governor must request a fishery’s disaster declaration from the Commerce Secretary, along with a requested amount of relief funds for their fishery. If the Commerce Secretary agrees with the disaster declaration, in most cases the fishery is awarded the amount requested by the governor.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

Saving Seafood Coalition Members Applaud Proclamation Restoring Commercial Fishing to Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument

June 5, 2020 — WASHINGTON — Members of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities thank President Trump for the presidential proclamation signed today restoring sustainable commercial fishing activities in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. Our members are grateful to elected officials from both parties, White House staff, and fisheries managers who have pushed for our fisheries to be managed under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and who have advocated for commercial fishermen to be fully included in the regulatory processes that shape their livelihoods.

Under the proclamation, a revision to President Barack Obama’s executive order designating the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument, the contours of the monument remain unchanged, and potentially destructive oil drilling and exploration remains banned. But commercial fishermen are now allowed to resume fishing in waters they had fished for decades before the monument was created, in areas that President Obama and others called “pristine” even before commercial fishermen were banned from them. It also restores parity with recreational fishermen, who were never prohibited from fishing in the monument area.

Our members believe in robust debate among industry, scientists, regulators and environmentalists to produce the best decisions regarding fisheries management. While it is not perfect, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary law governing U.S. federal fisheries, has been championed by both industry and environmental advocates for helping to make U.S. fisheries a sustainable model for the world. Today’s revision restores management of fisheries within the monument area to the regional management councils created under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, once again allowing for the robust debate such impactful policy decisions demand.

In April 2010, President Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum establishing the “America’s Great Outdoors Initiative” to “promote and support innovative community-level efforts to conserve outdoor spaces and to reconnect Americans to the outdoors.” In the ensuing report the administration pledged to implement “a transparent and open approach to new national monument designations tailored to engaging local, state, and national interests.” Unfortunately, the Obama Administration did not uphold President Obama’s pledge in the creation of the Atlantic marine monument, or in the expansion of Pacific marine monuments.

In a 2017 letter to President Trump asking him to restore fishing in marine national monuments, then-Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT) and Representative Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-AS) wrote, “Removal of the fishing prohibitions in the monument proclamations and the return of U.S. fisheries management to the Regional Fishery Management Councils would continue to prevent overfishing and protect the marine environment as required by the MSA and other applicable laws, while allowing our fishing fleet to compete with their foreign competitors. Using the Antiquities Act to close U.S. waters to domestic fisheries is a clear example of federal overreach and regulatory duplication and obstructs well managed, sustainable U.S. fishing industries in favor of their foreign counterparts.”

The nation’s eight regional councils have also repeatedly pushed for management of fishing in marine national monuments to be returned to the council process. Just last week in a letter to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, they wrote, “The ban on commercial fishing within Marine National Monument waters is a regulatory burden on domestic fisheries, requiring many of the affected American fishermen to travel outside U.S. waters with increased operational expenses and higher safety-at-sea risks.” They further stated, “marine National Monument designations in their present form hinder the Councils’ ability to sustainably manage fisheries throughout their range, and they restrict the Councils and the National Marine Fisheries Service from acquiring invaluable knowledge about the stocks and the marine ecosystem made available through catch-and-effort and observer data.”

Mayor Jon Mitchell of New Bedford, Massachusetts, the nation’s top fishing port by value, a Democrat, expressed deep concern about the lack of broad stakeholder consensus in the monument designation, and expressed his preference for the council process. In testimony before Congress in 2017, he said, “The monument designation process has evolved effectively into a parallel, much less robust fishery management apparatus that has been conducted entirely independent of the tried and true fishery management council process. It lacks sufficient amounts of all the ingredients that good policy-making requires: Scientific rigor, direct industry input, transparency, and a deliberate pace that allows adequate time and space for review.”

The council process has led to many conservation successes, such as efforts to preserve coral habitats in the Mid-Atlantic. Most importantly, these conservation successes were achieved through robust debate among all stakeholders. Saving Seafood Coalition members are pleased that today’s proclamation will allow this robust debate to once again guide fisheries management in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument.

Coalition members also continue to believe that there is no difference in principle between the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument and other U.S. marine national monuments in the Pacific, and that the council process is the appropriate method for managing fisheries in all U.S. federal waters. The U.S. has the largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the world, and the U.S. Pacific is the largest part of the U.S. EEZ, with our Pacific fishermen working hard to provide economic vitality to their communities, and food security to our nation.

Our members look forward to working with the White House to restore the proper regulation of commercial fishing under the Magnuson-Stevens Act in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument.

FSF Statement on Proclamation on Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument

June 5, 2020 — The following was released by the Fisheries Survival Fund:

The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF) applauds the proclamation signed today by President Trump that will once again allow sustainable fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. Fishermen had long been able to sustainably harvest fish from these areas without affecting the surrounding habitats, and this order ensures that they will continue to be able to do so in the future.

FSF has always held that designating marine monuments by executive order is not an appropriate way to regulate fishing. Fisheries management is best conducted through the collaborative process established by the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and not through executive fiat. The Magnuson-Stevens Act has led to the best-managed and most conservation-minded fisheries in the world, and today’s order is a reaffirmation of that management.

FSF looks forward to continuing to work with fisheries managers to promote sustainable fisheries management for our Northeast fisheries.

U.S. Regional Councils Call for Removal of Fishing Restrictions in Marine National Monuments

June 5, 2020 — In a letter to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross last week, the nation’s eight regional fishery management councils reiterated their recommendation that President Trump restore management of fishing throughout U.S. federal waters, including Marine National Monument waters, to the councils as implemented by the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

In the letter, the councils wrote, “The ban on commercial fishing within Marine National Monument waters is a regulatory burden on domestic fisheries, requiring many of the affected American fishermen to travel outside U.S. waters with increased operational expenses and higher safety-at-sea risks.” They further wrote, “Marine National Monument designations in their present form hinder the Councils’ ability to sustainably manage fisheries throughout their range, and they restrict the Councils and the National Marine Fisheries Service from acquiring invaluable knowledge about the stocks and the marine ecosystem made available through catch-and-effort and observer data.”

The letter also reiterated previous council letters from 2017 and 2016, and the councils’ 2016 Outcomes Statement and Recommendations, calling for fisheries management in all U.S. federal waters to be conducted through the public process of the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

In 2017, the councils wrote, “Designations of marine national monuments that prohibit fishing activities–especially those that did not receive adequate economic and social impact review and did not allow for a robust public review process–have disrupted the ability of the Councils to manage fisheries throughout their range as required by MSA and in an ecosystem-based manner.”

In its 2016 letter, the councils wrote, “We believe fisheries management decisions should be made using the robust process established by the MSA and successfully used for over forty years.”

Last week’s letter was the result of a Council Coordination Committee meeting that brought together leaders of the nation’s eight regional councils by videoconference for the first of their biannual meetings.

Read the full letter here