Saving Seafood

Western Pacific Council Asks for Remedies to ESA Consultation Delays, Monument Management Plans

March 29, 2022 — Endangered Species Act consultations through NMFS takes time, but the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council is tired of waiting.

Council Chair Archie Soliai reiterated concerns about NOAA Pacific Islands Regional Office delays in completing ESA consultations for the region’s longline and bottomfish fisheries when the Council met last week.

“Our experience with ESA consultations over the last several years have left us with the impression that our Council process is not respected,” Soliai said in a press release. “The Council is here to ensure the sustainability of our region’s fishery resources as mandated by the Magnuson-Stevens Act. We ask PIRO to provide us with realistic timelines and meaningful dialogue, so we may work together to complete these biological opinions and ensure that our fisheries can continue to operate in compliance with ESA.”

The Council said it will convey its concerns to Janet Coit, assistant administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), requesting assistance so biological opinions are completed in coordination with the Council.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Rep. Huffman Statement on Status of Magnuson-Stevens Act Reauthorization

March 25, 2022 — The following was released by the office of Rep. Jared Huffman:

Today, Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) released the following statement regarding the status of his Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) reauthorization legislation, the Sustaining America’s Fisheries for the Future Act, in light of Congressman Don Young’s passing:

“Over the past three years, I have worked to update and reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act – traveling coast to coast to hear from stakeholders, releasing discussion drafts for public review, and partnering with lawmakers from across the country in what has been a uniquely inclusive and comprehensive process. As part of this effort, I have had the privilege to work closely with the MSA’s original author, Congressman Don Young,” said Rep. Huffman. “Although we often differed politically, we were always able to have productive conversations when it came to fisheries management, and he was a brilliant negotiator for this landmark bill. His death is a tremendous loss for Alaska, the country, and all of us who had the honor of working with him. I’ve always said it’s important all voices be heard in this MSA reauthorization process – and so, we will be pausing further committee consideration of the legislation until his replacement is elected and we can ensure the voices of the Alaskan people are represented before the bill advances further through the House. I am grateful for the progress Rep. Young and I accomplished together as we neared the finish line with this bill, and I look forward to finalizing it with whomever takes the torch from the venerable Don Young.”

More information on the Sustaining America’s Fisheries for the Future Act and the reauthorization process can be found here.

Mid-water trawlers see win in challenge to Northeast herring exclusion zone

March 15, 2022 — A federal court ruling could reopen some Northeast waters to mid-water herring trawlers, after a 2019 rule change that shut them out of a broad swath of the nearshore Atlantic from Long Island to the Canadian border.

U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston ruled Marcg 4 in favor of a lawsuit brought by the Sustainable Fisheries Coalition, a trade group representing companies that fish for herring and mackerel. In November 2019 NMFS approved a measure from the New England Fishery Management Council to create an exclusion zone for mid-water trawling 12 miles offshore – with a bump out to 20 miles east of Cape Cod.

It was a culmination of two decades of debate over the impact of mid-water trawling, and complaints from other fishermen that it caused “localized depletion” of forage fish, disrupting ecosystems and their seasonal access to groundfish, tuna and other species.

“The council recommended the midwater trawl restricted area to mitigate potential negative socioeconomic impacts on other user groups resulting from short duration, high-volume herring removals by midwater trawl vessels,” NMFS Northeast regional administrator Michael Pentony wrote in 2019 in a decision letter approving the New England council’s proposal.

But in his opinion Judge Sorokin wrote that the “localized depletion” concept has not been adequately defined by the agency. That led him to decide the exclusion zone decision violated National Standard 4 of the Magnuson-Steven Fishery Management and Conservation Act.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Mid-Water Herring Trawlers to Return to Inshore Waters; Court Overturns Exclusion Zone off Long Island, Cape Cod

March 11, 2022 — The following was released by the Sustainable Fisheries Coalition: 

Lund’s Fisheries, owner of the F/V Enterprise, pictured here, applauded last week’s federal court ruling.

Herring fishermen from New England and the Mid-Atlantic won a crucial decision last week when a federal judge in Boston ruled in their favor against an exclusion zone in Northeast U.S. waters. The court ruled that a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) measure excluding the mid-water trawl fleet from productive inshore fishing grounds violated the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the nation’s premier fisheries law. The lawsuit was brought by the Sustainable Fisheries Coalition (SFC), a trade group representing herring and mackerel fishing companies.

Mid-water trawler vessels account for upwards of 70 percent of the annual herring catch. The NMFS measure would have prevented them from operating within 12 miles of shore from Long Island to the Canadian border, with an even larger buffer around Cape Cod. Analysis by the New England Fishery Management Council, the body that developed the exclusion zone, estimated that the trawlers could lose up to a third of their annual revenue.

Gerry O’Neill, owner of two mid-water trawlers and a herring processing plant in Gloucester, Mass., said that finding underestimated the area’s value.

“In recent years, we’ve relied on this area for most of our catch,” he said. “This was an existential threat to our livelihood. This decision is a huge relief.”

Thanks to the court ruling, Cape Seafoods’ F/V Endeavour and F/V Challenger, pictured here, can return to traditional inshore fishing grounds, significantly reducing their fuel costs and carbon footprint.

The New England Council recommended the exclusion zone in response to persistent complaints and advocacy by inshore fishermen, environmental groups, sport fishers, and others. They claimed that herring fishing caused “localized depletion,” a vague concept the court found not to have been meaningfully defined by the agency.

In fact, the Council’s scientific advisors were able to detect no adverse impacts from the herring mid-water trawl fishery on other marine uses. The court agreed with the SFC that the rule lacked both a scientific and conservation justification.

NMFS and the Council pushed this measure without a science basis, SFC argued, because its advocates were both persistent and politically influential. The court, by contrast, decided the matter on the grounds that the exclusion zone allocated all inshore fishing privileges to these other user groups without promoting conservation.

“The law is the only protection a small fishing sector has against a well-represented majority,” said Shaun Gehan, an attorney for the SFC.  “We are pleased the judge recognized this measure lacked a meaningful conservation benefit, not to mention fairness and equity, as the law demands.”

Wayne Reichle, president of Lund’s Fisheries in Cape May, New Jersey, said that the decision “restored his faith in the law” and that he “believed all along the closures would be reversed.” Additionally, he is confident that “localized depletion” has no scientific basis, but remains disappointed that this provocative term was used to justify the original measure.

Under law, federal fisheries management must prevent overfishing. Herring and mackerel, which serve as forage for other fish and marine mammals, are managed more conservatively than other stocks of fish. Once catch levels are set, the Secretary of Commerce is responsible for providing the fishery reasonable opportunities to harvest its allocation.

The main problem with the process was that it was couched as addressing so-called ‘localized depletion,’ which scientists were unable to identify,” he said. “This is an issue of user conflicts and should be addressed as such.”

He also noted that any solution to this concern must equitably balance all user group interests and not place undue burdens on fisheries’ ability to harvest sustainable herring quotas.

Herring fishermen file appeal brief in at-sea monitoring case

February 2, 2022 — Atlantic herring fishermen who lost their case in 2021 against the federal government regarding an at-sea monitoring program filed their opening brief late last week to an appellate court seeking to overturn the decision.

That brief, which was filed to the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals late Friday, 28 January, claims Rhode Island U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Sullivan erred last year when she ruled the Magnuson-Stevens Act allowed the government to order the fishermen to cover the costs for monitors on their vessels.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Alaskan Indigenous leaders fear impacts on salmon streams by mining project

January 27, 2022 — For Indigenous tribes living in Alaska’s remote Yukon-Kuskokwim region, southwest of the state, the future is bleak and uncertain. Tribal councils worry that plans to construct a 6,474-hectare (15,990 acres) open-pit gold mine near the Kuskokwim River watershed will have grave impacts on salmon habitats, their traditional ways of life and their health.

“This development could possibly destroy our livelihood, rivers and sea mammals that we depend on,” said Fred Phillips, representative of the Indigenous Village of Kwigillingok tribal council. According to him, tribes are not willing to take the risk.

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YKD) drainage is part of a rich biome encompassing coastal wetlands, tundra and mountains that supports the subsistence lifestyle of three distinct Alaskan Native groups; The Yup’ik, Cup’ik and Athabascan. To access the remote region, one needs to go by boat when the Kuskokwim River is flowing, or truck, snow machine and four-wheeler when the river is frozen.

Draining into the Bering Sea to the west, the Kuskokwim River, and many of its tributaries, are designated as Essential Fish Habitat (EFH), under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act for Pacific Salmon. This is a legislation that manages marine fisheries in US waters.

The sprawling river is a vital source of food for the 38 communities that reside alongside it, serving as a running ground for the chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) and sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka). Given the remoteness of the region, the communities rely on subsistence fishing. Salmon makes up more than 50 percent of the tribe’s annual diet.

Read the full story at Mongabay

 

US Pacific Federal Fishery Managers Recommend Tori Lines, New American Samoa Bottomfish Stock Assessment Approach

December 9, 2021 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council recommended today to replace blue-dyed fish bait and strategic offal discharge with tori lines in the Hawai‘i deep-set longline fishery’s suite of seabird conservation measures. This amendment will improve the overall operational practicality and efficacy of required mitigation regulations. At their meeting last week, the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) supported the regulatory changes, noting that they are informed by the best scientific information available.

The change was based on a fishing-industry-led collaborative project with Hawai‘i longline vessels to conduct field experiments over the past three years to compare seabird interaction rates with baited hooks. “The Hawaii Longline Association fully supports this change to tori lines,” said HLA Executive Director Eric Kingma. Council Executive Director Kitty Simonds added, “This action is an example representing the Council’s long history of proactive and adaptive conservation measures to address fishery impacts to protected species.”

The Hawai‘i deep-set longline fishery, which targets bigeye tuna, has been using a suite of seabird mitigation measures since 2001 under the Council’s Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan. This effort was accomplished through the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s bottom-up approach for making or changing fishery regulations that starts with an issue presented from Council advisory groups and the public.

The Council also endorsed the SSC’s recommendation to use a single-species, age-structured management approach for the next American Samoa bottomfish stock assessment scheduled for 2023. The American Samoa bottomfish fishery is managed in an 11-species complex, which is overfished and experiencing overfishing, according to a 2019 Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) assessment. Data are available to support age-structured assessments.

An SSC working group and PIFSC, American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources (DMWR) and Council staffs held two data evaluation workshops to improve information used in the stock assessment. “This data discussion and evaluation is a step in the right direction,” said DMWR Director and Council Chair Archie Soliai. “Consultation between PIFSC and DMWR is absolutely necessary to ensure that the next stock assessment is accurate.”

On another issue, Council members raised concerns with the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) “negative determination” that the proposed critical habitat designation for Endangered Species Act (ESA)-listed coral species is not expected to affect the territories’ Coastal Zone Management Programs. Territory governments have been receiving conflicting information from NMFS on whether the “negative determination” is automatic for critical habitat designations. The Council requested that NMFS follow up with the Guam and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) governments to provide specific reasons for not accepting the territorial objection of the NMFS negative determination on the Coastal Zone Management Act federal consistency provisions.

Council members from the CNMI, Guam and American Samoa continued to press NMFS regarding the pending critical habitat designation. In November 2020, NMFS proposed the designation of critical habitat in nearshore territorial waters. Critical habitat is habitat containing physical features essential to supporting recovery of ESA-listed species.

Territory resource agencies and governors have since voiced their dismay that such designations may impact the territory governments’ ability to manage coastal areas, which are often funded by or authorized by the federal government. Critical habitat designations add a layer of federal agency consultation to the federal project approval process.

Tomorrow the Council will discuss outcomes of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission annual meeting on tropical tuna management measures and proposed Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Marine Sanctuary updates, among other topics. Instructions on connecting to Webex, agendas and briefing documents are posted at www.wpcouncil.org/meetings-calendars.

The Council manages federal fisheries operating in waters offshore of the State of Hawai‘i, the Territories of American Samoa and Guam, the CNMI and the U.S. Pacific Remote Islands Areas.

 

After years without representation, fight heats up for Alaska Native seats on powerful fisheries council

December 3, 2021 — After years without representation on one of the most influential decision-making bodies in America’s seafood industry, agencies and lawmakers are pushing for tribal representation on the powerful North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC).

The council plays a key role in managing US fisheries such as Alaska pollock under the authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary law governing marine fisheries management in federal waters.

There are currently 15 members on the council, largely made up of US seafood industry representatives, representatives from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and state agencies in Alaska, Washington state and Oregon.

In his Magnuson-Stevens Act reauthorization bill, Representative Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, asked specifically that the NPFMC have two individuals “appointed from Indian tribes in Alaska” to strengthen the transparency of the act.

Mary Sattler Peltola, executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, said in testimony before Congress that without a NPFMC seat or bodies advising the council, Alaska Natives have only had concerns heard “through a Governor’s office that has historically and presently prioritized those with private financial interests in the fisheries over the long-term subsistence interests of Alaska Natives.”

Read the full story at Intrafish

 

Federal monitoring push stokes battle with Gulf fishermen

December 2, 2021 — If NOAA gets its way, Allen Walburn will soon be forced to keep electronic monitors on his three charter fishing boats to follow their every move, a requirement that he likens to criminal defendants forced to wear ankle bracelets.

“I don’t want people knowing where I’m at,” said Walburn, 71, who has been running his charter fishing business in Naples, Fla., since 1978.

In a key test of NOAA’s surveillance powers, Walburn and a group of other charter fishermen from the Gulf of Mexico have gone to court to block the proposed rule, asking a federal judge in Louisiana to declare it unconstitutional and an invasion of their privacy.

In court briefs, NOAA argued that its proposal to require electronic tracking in the Gulf should be allowed under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the nation’s premier fishing law passed by Congress in 1976.

The law, which Congress is now considering reauthorizing, requires NOAA to devise plans to prevent overfishing and protect the long-term health of fish populations. The agency argues that electronic monitoring makes data collection more timely, accurate and cost-efficient than other alternatives.

Read the full story at E&E News

Secretary of Commerce issues fishery disaster determination for the 2019 Atlantic herring fishery

November 22, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA:

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo announced today her determination, at the request of several Northeastern states, that a fishery disaster occurred for the 2019 Atlantic herring fishery.

“Fishery disasters don’t just impact local communities—they ripple out into the broader economy impacting consumers and businesses far beyond the coast,” said Secretary Raimondo. “Resilient and sustainable fisheries are not only essential to our coastal communities, but play a vital role in supporting our blue economy and our nation’s overall economic wellbeing. With this determination, we proudly support our fishing industry and will work with the affected communities to help them get back on track.”

To reach a determination, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce works with NOAA Fisheries to evaluate the fishery disaster requests based primarily on data submitted by the requesting states. Fishery disasters must meet specific requirements under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and/or the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act, such as causing economic impacts to a commercial fishery and declines in fishery access or available catch resulting from specific allowable causes.

Positive determinations make this fishery eligible for disaster assistance from NOAA. Some fishery-related businesses impacted by this fishery disaster may also qualify for certain Small Business Administration loans. The allocation of funds will be determined in the near future.

The Secretary has received additional requests for fishery disaster determinations from several other states and Tribes. NOAA Fisheries is currently working with the requesters to finalize those evaluations.

Learn more about fishery disaster assistance.