Saving Seafood

Trump administration opts not to pursue appeal of driftnet ruling

April 23, 2019 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has decided against appealing a federal judge’s ruling that NOAA Fisheries illegally withdrew a proposal that would have placed hard caps on the bycatch of protected species caught in California’s swordfish drift gillnet fishery.

On Monday, 15 April, when its brief was due to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the administration instead filed a notice to dismiss its appeal voluntarily. As a result, NOAA Fisheries will begin talks with the Pacific Fishery Management Council to determine the limits that should be placed on such species as humpback whales, loggerhead turtles, and leatherback turtles.

The PFMC initially worked with key stakeholders to establish caps on nine species, and NOAA Fisheries published the draft review for implementation in October 2016. However, eight months later, after Trump was elected president, the agency reversed its course.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: Council committee struggles with federal Cook Inlet salmon plan

April 18, 2019 — Two-and-a-half years after a federal court directed the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to develop a fishery management plan for the Cook Inlet salmon fishery, there is still a lot of work to do.

The commercial salmon fisheries of Alaska are primarily managed by the state, including in Cook Inlet, where part of the fishery takes place in federal waters. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council for years deferred management of the salmon fishery there to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, finally removing Cook Inlet completely from its FMP in 2012.

The United Cook Inlet Drift Association and the Cook Inlet Fishermen’s Fund sued, saying the federal government had a responsibility to manage that fishery to ensure it complies with the Magnuson-Stevens Act. In 2016, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and the council reluctantly turned back to developing a management plan.

Many of the commercial fishermen there have a longstanding dissatisfaction with the Alaska Fish and Game and the Board of Fisheries, stemming from a belief that the department’s allocation decisions governed by the board are politically rather than scientifically motivated and that the escapement goals for sockeye salmon on the Kenai River are too high.

They sought to exercise federal influence over state management through the lawsuit, and now are running into roadblocks on federal authority to do so.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Federal appellate court upholds NOAA Fisheries’ definition of bycatch

April 18, 2019 — A panel of federal appellate judges has upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled on NOAA Fisheries’ method for assessing bycatch in New England fisheries.

The ruling, which was announced on Friday, 12 April, in the District of Columbia chambers of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, allows NOAA Fisheries to use statistical sampling to determine the amount of bycatch. It stems from a 2011 court case where judges ruled the agency did not establish methodology standards to assess the number of other species caught and discarded when harvesting selected fish.

In both instances, environmental group Oceana pursued the lawsuit.

After that decision, NOAA Fisheries decided to utilize human observers on vessels. In most cases, the observers were trained biologists who reported on a vessel’s harvest. However, since it was too expensive to place an observer on every vessel, the agency created a statistical formula that allocated the observers in a fashion that reduced bias. This enabled NOAA Fisheries officials to build fishery-wide assessments based the observers’ findings.

Oceana filed the subsequent suit in July 2015 and argued that the sampling method implemented violated the Magnuson-Stevens Act. In addition, it claimed that observers were only counting the bycatch of species under management plans within the agency.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

SEN. DAN SULLIVAN: Northern Lights: A global seafood superpower

March 26, 2019 — The seafood industry is the lifeblood of many of Alaska’s communities. The industry is the third largest economic driver in Alaska and the top employer. Alaska accounts for more than 50 percent of total U.S. commercial fishery harvest in volume and contributes more than 78,000 jobs to the Alaska economy. We are also the top exporter in the country of fish and seafood products.

Enhancing Alaska’s seafood powerhouse is one of the primary reasons I have fought to sit on the Senate Commerce Committee — which has fishing under its jurisdiction. As a member of that committee, I have worked relentlessly to continue the important work of my predecessor, Sen. Ted Stevens, who co-authored the Magnuson-Stevens Act. But there is a whole host of fisheries issues that also come before me, including ensuring that our fisheries remain healthy and vital, fighting burdensome regulations that would needlessly restrict access to our fishing resources, and, importantly, expanding the markets for our fisheries.

In my time as a senator, I’ve been working diligently on all of these priorities, and we’ve had some important successes. For instance, the Save Our Seas Act, a bill that I coauthored with Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to help keep plastics out of our seas, was signed into law by the president in October. I recently negotiated a provision, known as the Vessel Incident Discharge Act, to provide Alaska fishing vessel owners and operators relief from a patchwork of overly burdensome and confusing federal and state regulations for vessel ballast water and incidental discharges.
We’ve also had important successes in Congress to expand markets for Alaska fisheries.

When I arrived in the Senate, I was surprised to learn that while the national school lunch program requires school districts to buy American-made food, fish had been largely excluded from those requirements in practice. It was a major loophole that allowed, for example, Russian-caught pollock, processed in China and injected with phosphates, to be sent back to the United States for purchase in the National School Lunch Program. And it qualified for a Product of USA label because it’s battered and breaded here.

Not only was this bad for Alaska’s fishing industry, the chemical-laden, twice-frozen fish that was served to students just didn’t taste good. It literally turned a generation of kids in America off of seafood.

Read the full opinion piece at National Fisherman

US judge rules cod quota set-asides for Alaskan cities are unlawful

March 25, 2019 — Washington, D.C. Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kelly ruled March 21 that the North Pacific Council’s Amendment 113 (A113) to the Bering Sea Groundfish Fisheries Management Plan does not comply with Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) requirements.

The amendment, adopted in 2016, provided 5,000 metric tons of Pacific cod as a set-aside for processing facilities located west of 170 degrees longitude. It named the specific cities of Adak and Atka in the US state of Alaska and the plants located there as the plants that would benefit from this set-aside.

Shortly after the amendment was adopted in late 2016, the Groundfish Forum, United Catcher Boats and other groups who rely on cod, flatfish, and other groundfish in the Bering Sea, filed a complaint challenging the rule, based on five separate claims for relief.

They contended first, that the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) didn’t have the authority to “allocate shore-based processing privileges” and overstepped its authority with this amendment.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

2018 Alaska Fisheries Science Center Year in Review

March 1, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

More fish come through the Alaska fishing port of Dutch Harbor than anywhere else in the Nation. In fact, Dutch Harbor and Kodiak, Alaska, are the top two U.S. fishing ports in landed volume. These same two ports rank No. 2 and No. 3 in U.S. economic value.

We collect biological, ecological, and environmental data during long-term, standardized research surveys, from fishing catches, and through other research activities. In the laboratory and in the field we study what fish and crabs eat, where they live, and how fast they grow. We input these data into sophisticated computer models to generate estimates of fish abundance (number of fish in the population), determine the potential impacts of environmental change, and recommend sustainable fishing limits. We also collect socio-economic data on fisheries and coastal communities, and other ecosystem data. Resource managers use this information to develop sound management measures ensuring healthy fisheries over the long term with ecological, economic, and socio-cultural benefits for the nation.

Our primary responsibility is to provide scientific data, analyses, and expert technical advice to marine resource managers (i.e., the NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Regional Office, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the State of Alaska, the International Pacific Halibut Commission, and the Pacific Salmon Commission), Alaska tribal governments, public stakeholders, and U.S. representatives participating in international fishery and marine mammal negotiations. The work of monitoring and assessing fish, crab, and marine mammal populations, fisheries, and marine ecosystems is mandated by legislation, which includes the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the U.S Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Read the full release here

Forcing Other Countries To Ban Shark Finning: A Bipartisan Conservation Bill Back In Congress

February 5, 2019 — During the George W. Bush administration, American furniture makers had a crippling disadvantage. While American timber was tightly regulated, foreign supplies had no limitations on where their wood originated from, and could engage in destructive practices and undercut U.S. companies.

President Bush solved that by modernizing the Lacey Act, which was the conservation brainchild of Republicans a century earlier and had been modified a few times since. Under the new law, if a supplier could not show a legitimate trail of legal acquisition, it simply could not come into the U.S.

Modern fisheries have the same import problem, plus a domestic perception one.(1) When it comes to products like shark, American fishers have one set of rules, and it has created the most sustainable program on earth, but importation is a free-for-all. The Magnuson-Stevens Act means responsible shark management but in other countries shark finning is all too common

The Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act of 2019, H.R. 788, mandates the same science-based management standards for imported products that American fishermen use. The program this bill has been modeled after has worked well for sea turtles and other marine mammals.  Though it is a Republican bill, its support is bipartisan, rare enough for modern politics, but it is also supported by non-profit education organizations like Science 2.0. and the fishing industry, non-ban-happy conservation groups, aquariums and zoos. It almost sounds impossible to have such a diverse consensus, but there it is.

Read the full story at Science 2.0

Alaska management untouched under revised Modern Fish Act

January 24, 2019 — Though a landmark piece of fisheries legislation will affect how many Lower 48 federal sportfisheries are managed, there won’t be many changes for Alaska.

President Donald Trump signed the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Act — known as the Modern Fish Act — into law on Dec. 31, 2018. The law revises the management framework for recreational fisheries in federal waters, heralded by supporters as a way of differentiating sportfishing from commercial fishing and providing more fishing opportunity in the recreational sector.

In Alaska, though, the act won’t have much direct impact. Mike Leonard, the vice president of government affairs for the American Sportfishing Association, said it’s fair to say the provisions in the bill don’t herald many changes in the Pacific Northwest saltwater sportfisheries.

The final version of the bill itself removed some of the particular provisions directly changing management strategies, but the essential purpose of the bill remains, Leonard said.

“The passage of a bill itself that is focused on saltwater recreational fishing … I don’t know that Congress has ever done that,” he said. “The motivations behind this were to get a recognition within the (Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act) that recreational fishing is important but that (commercial and sport) are fundamentally different activities.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Judge: NMFS must rewrite anchovy catch rule

January 22, 2019 — Federal fishing regulators have until April 16 to rewrite a rule that sets annual catch limits (ACL) for commercial fishing of anchovy in federal waters off the northern coast of California, a judge has ruled.

The Jan. 18 order from federal judge Lucy Koh enforces a judgment in a lawsuit brought in 2016 by the environmental activist group Oceana against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Oceana’s lawsuit questioned the science that NMFS relied on in reaching a 2016 decision to set the ACL for northern California anchovy at 25,000 metric tons. The agency set that limit — even though landings typically only total less than a third of that, 7,300t — judging the stock’s maximum sustainable yield to be 123,000t, and calculating an acceptable biological catch of 100,000t. The ACL was set, conservatively, the agency said, at a fourth of that level.

Speaking to Undercurrent in June 2018 about the ruling, Diane Pleschner-Steele, the executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, disagreed with the biomass estimates, but because the harvesters her group works with are seeing more anchovies, not fewer.

Pleschner-Steele said that her group worked in 2017 with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to perform an aerial survey of anchovy stocks.

“The department’s plane flew along the coast inside the area that the NOAA acoustic trawl survey was transecting at the same time, and our spotter pilot estimated tonnage of the schools he observed,” she wrote.   “We documented tens of thousands of tons of coastal pelagic species — both sardine and anchovy —  that the NOAA cruise did not see or factor into its assessment because they survey largely offshore and don’t come into nearshore waters.   This is now recognized as a problem, and we’re hopeful that we can improve stock assessments over time.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

SAFMC Prepared for the Modern Fish Act of 2018

January 17, 2019 — The following was released by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act of 2018 (Modern Fish Act), which aims to provide more stability and access to recreational anglers, was signed into law by the President on December 31, 2018. The Act includes improving recreational data collection (through avenues such as smart phone apps), allowing additional management tools that are more appropriate for recreational fishing, and requiring studies of allocations in the South Atlantic/Gulf of Mexico mixed-use fisheries and limited access programs in mixed-use fisheries for all Councils except the Pacific and North Pacific Councils.

The Modern Fish Act affects federally-managed fisheries governed by the eight regional fishery management councils in the U.S. Initially established by the Magnuson-Stevens Act in 1976, the Councils, working with NOAA Fisheries and the Department of Commerce, have led the way in establishing fisheries management processes followed around the world today. Approval of the Modern Fish Act was celebrated by the recreational fishing community and allows federal fishery managers to explore novel ideas and partnerships to enhance fisheries management.

“These new tools are something that recreational fishermen have worked on very hard, and we are happy to see it in law,” said Chester Brewer, South Atlantic Council Member. The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council began work on management activities for the recreational fishery that align with items outlined in the in the Modern Fish Act as it was being developed. These include:

  • MyFishCount – a recreational reporting website and application for smart phones designed to allow anglers to voluntarily report their fishing activity, including numbers of fish harvested, numbers released, depth fished, and other information helpful for management. The pilot project, developed in partnership with the Angler Action Foundation and Elemental Methods, is funded through NOAA Fisheries and has over 800 users to date.
  • For-Hire (headboat & charter vessel) Electronic Reporting – federally-permitted headboat captains are currently required to report electronically; expected to begin in 2019, federally permitted charter captains in the South Atlantic region will be required to report trip-level data for all trips and all species electronically on a weekly basis, improving the timeliness and accuracy of data used for fisheries management.
  • Collaboration – In 2018, the Council collaborated with and participated in a Recreational Fishing Workshop with the American Sportfishing Association, Coastal Conservation Association, and Yamaha Marine during the October Council meeting. The workshop is part of a 3-phase project to explore approaches for innovative management of the private recreational sector of the South Atlantic Snapper Grouper fishery. Results from the workshop and additional stakeholder meetings will be presented to the Council during its March 2019 meeting on Jekyll Island, Georgia. The Council will consider the results and discuss how to develop a new approach for managing the recreational fishery that aligns with items identified in the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act.

“The Council is very excited to be cooperating with the recreational fishing community to develop this new approach for the Council’s area and we look forward to receiving recommendations from the recreational sector,” said Spud Woodward, South Atlantic Council Member.

“NOAA Fisheries and the Secretary of Commerce are to be commended for funding development of MyFishCount, an app that, when expanded and implemented, could meet the private recreational data reporting requirements of the Modern Fish Act,” said Jessica McCawley, Chair of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council. “NOAA Fisheries is working to provide additional funding to continue this important program for 2019/20, and the Secretary of Commerce and the NOAA Fisheries Administrator expressed strong support for such programs at the National Recreational Fishing Summit held last year,” McCawley noted.

Council Vice Chair Mel Bell noted the importance of timely, mandatory data reporting. “The State of South Carolina recently moved from their 20+ year, paper-only based for-hire reporting program to include use of an electronic report application that is web-based. With the pending implementation of federal charter vessel reporting, we will have all federal for-hire vessels, and all South Carolina state-only for-hire vessels, reporting electronically,” explained Bell, who also represents the SCDNR Marine Resources Division on the Council. “In addition, MyFishCount provides a method for individual recreational anglers to report electronically, which would help supplement existing data streams and be a much-needed improvement to our understanding of recreational catch information,” according to Bell.

Tune in to the Council’s meeting on Tuesday afternoon, March 5th, to hear the discussions. Materials and webinar registration information will be available from the Council’s website on February 15th.