Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Northeast Seafood Coalition seeks support for monitoring plan

January 1, 2015 — The Northeast Seafood Coalition is seeking the city Fisheries Commission’s support for the New England Fishery Management Council’s recent vote to reduce the mandated level of at-sea monitoring for groundfish boats when the 2016 fishing season opens May 1.

Jackie Odell, NSC executive director, said she will make a formal request for a letter of support from the commission at its yet-to-be scheduled January meeting to begin building public and industry support for the actions the council took at its December meetings in Portland, Maine.

With the prospect of groundfishermen forced to assume the hefty cost of at-sea monitoring at some point within the first quarter of 2016, the council voted to reduce the level of mandated monitoring from approximately 24 percent of all groundfish trips to about 13 percent to help ease the additional financial burden looming on the horizon.

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

New England States Schedule Hearings on the Public Hearing Document for Draft Amendment 3 to the Atlantic Herring FMP

New England states of Maine through Massachusetts have scheduled their hearings to gather public comment on the Public Hearing Document for Draft Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Herring. The dates, times, and locations of the scheduled hearings follow.

Maine Department of Marine Resources

Wednesday, January 6th at 1 p.m.

Marquardt Building

Conference Room 118

32 Blossom Lane

Augusta, ME

Contact: Terry Stockwell at 207.624.6553

New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game

Tuesday, January 5th at 7 p.m.

Urban Forestry Center

45 Elwyn Road

Portsmouth, NH

Contact: Doug Grout at 603.868.1095

Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries

Tuesday, January 5th at 2 p.m.

Annisquam River Station

30 Emerson Avenue

Gloucester, MA

Contact: David Pierce at 617.626.1532 

Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management

Monday, January 4th from 6 – 9 PM

University of Rhode Island Bay Campus

Corless Auditorium

South Ferry Road

Narragansett, RI

Contact: John Lake at 401.423.1942

Draft Amendment 3 was initiated to propose management measures in Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine) which reflect changes in the stock structure, integrate recent data into management decisions, and respond to changes in the fishery. The Public Hearing Document proposes (1) alternatives to the spawning monitoring program (protocol, default start dates, area boundaries, and length of the closure period); (2) removing the fixed gear set‐aside rollover provision, and (3) requiring a vessel’s fish hold to be emptied before leaving on a fishing trip.

Today’s rebuilt herring population is comprised of a broader range of age classes with older and larger fish compared to the population during overfished conditions. Analysis of more than a decade’s worth of data suggests larger herring spawn first and the timing of the start of spawning varies from year-to-year. Proposed alternatives to the current spawning monitoring program address inter-annual differences and provide additional measures to more adequately protect spawning fish in the areas where they spawn.

At the request of the fishing industry, the Public Hearing Document includes an option to adjust the fixed gear set-aside rollover provision. Currently, the set-aside of 295 mt is available to fixed gear fishermen through November 1, after which the remaining set-aside becomes available to the rest of the Area 1A fishery. The November 1 date was set because, typically, herring have migrated out of the Gulf of Maine by that time. Anecdotal evidence suggests herring are in the Gulf of Maine after November 1, therefore, fixed gear fishermen requested the set-aside be made available to them for the remainder of the calendar year.

Members of industry also suggested a requirement for fish holds to be empty of fish prior to trip departures. This provision would allow for full accountability and encourage less wasteful fishing practices by creating an incentive to catch herring which meet market demands. The New England Fishery Management Council included a complementary provision in its Framework Adjustment 4 to the Federal Atlantic Herring FMP.

Fishermen and other interested groups are encouraged to provide input on the Public Hearing Document either by attending state public hearings or providing written comment. The document is available here and can also be accessed on the Commission website (www.asmfc.org) under Public Input. Public comment will be accepted until 5:00 PM (EST) on January 20, 2015 and should be forwarded to Ashton Harp, FMP Coordinator, 1050 N. Highland St., Suite A-N, Arlington, VA 22201; 703.842.0741 (FAX) or at aharp@asmfc.org (Subject line: Draft Amendment 3). For more information, please contact Ashton Harp, at aharp@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

NOAA outlines enforcement efforts

December 31, 2015 — Nearly six years after being savaged by a Commerce Department investigation that portrayed it as a department basically run amuck, the NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement has issued its first public annual report.

The report, released Dec. 17, is “part of our effort for more transparency,” Casey Brennan, chief of staff at the Office of Law Enforcement (OLE), said Wednesday.

The report, which does not reference the documented abuses by NOAA law enforcement agents at the heart of the 2010 investigation by the Commerce Department’s inspector general, portrays an agency grappling with the challenge of fulfilling its expanding mandate despite shrinking resources, budgetary constraints and declining staff at its headquarters, as well as its five divisional offices and 53 field offices.

“As we continue to navigate the challenges of resource management and budgetary constraints while adapting to new and expanded missions, we have not lost sight of our core priorities,” OLE Director James Landon wrote in his director’s message introducing the report.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times

 

States prepare to review new rules for herring fishery

ELLSWORTH, Maine — December 28, 2015 — The new year will soon be here, and with it comes a new round of significant changes to the rules governing the herring fishery.

Next week, the Department of Marine Resources will hold a public hearing on what is known as “Draft Amendment 3 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Herring.”

Hearings are also scheduled in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The new rules proposed by the interstate Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will bring big changes to the fishery that is the primary supplier of bait to Maine’s lobster industry. In 2014, the last year for which DMR has data, still preliminary figures show that fishermen landed just over 104 million pounds of herring, worth some $16.3 million, in Maine. Scientists from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute have determined that about 70 percent of that herring (some 70 million pounds) is used by Maine lobstermen as bait.

According to the ASMFC, the new rules would affect the inshore Gulf of Maine — called Area 1A — herring fishery to reflect changes in both the herring resource and the fishery itself. The key changes deal with the closure of the fishery during spawning season and would impose a requirement that herring boats completely empty their fish holds before starting each fishing trip.

Regulators generally consider the herring stock to be abundant, especially compared with just a few years ago when overfishing had seriously depleted the fish population.

The herring stock in Area 1A now includes more fish that are larger and older compared with the time when overfishing was a problem. The evidence suggests that the larger fish spawn earlier than smaller herring, and that the start of the spawning season varies from year to year.

Read the full story from the Mount Desert Islander

Statement from Paul Doremus, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Operations at NOAA Fisheries on Recent Press Regarding Relocation of NOAA Fisheries Woods Hole Laboratory

December 24, 2015 — The following was released from NOAA Fisheries:

On December 23, 2015, the Falmouth Enterprise published a story that NOAA “is exploring the possibility of relocating the Northeast Fisheries Science Center to a new facility outside of Woods Hole.” While the story suggests that relocation may be imminent, we are in fact very early in the process of considering how best to update the buildings and associated operations of the 54-year-old Woods Hole complex. The Enterprise story also contains statements from a Science Center employee that do not represent the views of the agency. At this point, NOAA has not made a decision to relocate the laboratory and will only pursue a recapitalization option after extensive analysis and consultations with the Administration and Congress.

Right now, NOAA is conducting a large-scale study that will evaluate all of our options for upgrading the Woods Hole complex. Studies like this are a normal business practice for long-term planning. This type of study requires the agency to evaluate multiple options to inform the overall decision-making process.

While NOAA Fisheries is fully committed to maintaining its scientific capabilities in the Northeast, the condition of that laboratory, built in 1961, will make it increasingly difficult for NOAA to continue its tradition of world-class fisheries science in the region into the future.

The current study will be completed sometime in the spring. Starting with this study, Fisheries will continue to work with NOAA and the Department of Commerce to ensure they have everything they need to evaluate our options, including information on potential community impacts, costs and benefits to our mission, and the ability for our Agency to continue to do our scientific work in the Woods Hole area.

We look forward to working further with the Administration, with Congress, and with all of our partners in the region as we evaluate our options for upgrading our facilities and providing the best long-term support for our scientific work in the Northeast.

 

Could invasive lionfish end up in Chesapeake Bay?

December 29, 2015 — Few fish are as lovely as the lionfish. Few are as venomous.

A frilly, colorful native of the clear tropical waters and reefs of the South Pacific and Indian oceans, the lionfish has been a favorite of aquarium hobbyists for years.

In the Atlantic, however, it was unknown.

Then in the 1980s genetic researchers believe a handful of hobbyists in Florida, perhaps thinking it a kindness, released their aquarium pets into the wild ocean.

At that point, the lionfish proved they aren’t just lovely and venomous — they also breed like rabbits on Viagra. Ravenous eaters, they gobble up any smaller fish they spot and easily displace native species. And because nothing in this part of the Atlantic recognizes them as prey, their population has exploded into a serious and unfortunate marine invasion.

“It’s gotten really bad,” said Richard Brill, fishery biologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point.

“There’ve been some efforts in Florida and some parts of the Caribbean to get people to eat them. And there’s been some efforts — and this is pretty crazy — but groups of recreational spear fishermen have been spearing them and then feeding what they catch to sharks, trying to convince the local shark population to eat these things.”

The hardy little invaders have established year-round populations from the Gulf of Mexico to the Outer Banks. They’ve been spotted in warmer months as far north as Massachusetts, although they can’t survive the northern winters.

Read the full story at the Hampton Roads Daily Press

 

Federal government should fully fund fisherman safety programs

December 28, 2015 —  Commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs in America. Groundfishermen in the Northeast are 37 times more likely to die on the job than police officers, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics. They are 171 times more likely to die on the job than that average American worker.

As Massachusetts lawmakers noted in a joint letter to the president earlier this year, “If our school teachers died on the job at the same rate as our fishermen in Massachusetts, we would lose 400 public school teachers each year.”

Because there is no controlling the open ocean and offshore weather is difficult to impossible to consistently predict, fishing will always carry an element of danger.

It can, however, be safer. Only 10 percent of New England’s offshore fishermen have been through safety training. Raising that percentage will save lives.

Congress decided as much in 2010, when it passed the Coast Guard Authorization Act, which among other things required additional safety and survival training for those operating commercial fishing boats more than 3 nautical miles from shore.

The act established two competitive grant programs to help pay for the needed training; $3 million was to be set aside for fishing safety training, with another $3 million for fishing safety research grant programs and safety equipment.

Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Fisheries Center Might Move Out Of Woods Hole

December 23, 2015 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is exploring the possibility of relocating the Northeast Fisheries Science Center to a new facility outside of Woods Hole.

NOAA’s chief of research communications Teri Frady said Monday that the United States Department of Commerce, which oversees the NEFSC, has been evaluating the feasibility of the existing facility for about a year. She said a report will be completed by spring 2016 outlining options for the facility, which could include moving operations to a new building outside of Woods Hole.

The fisheries center, which operates as a research division of NOAA Fisheries, was founded by Spencer Fullerton Baird upon his appointment by President Ulysses S. Grant as the country’s first fisheries commissioner in 1871. The original facility was built on Water Street in 1885. After the facility was destroyed during Hurricane Carol, the current building was constructed in the same location in 1961.

Today, the Woods Hole branch manages operations of four other fisheries laboratories in the northeast, including those in Sandy Hook, New Jersey; Milford, Connecticut; Narragansett, Rhode Island; and Orono, Maine.

Ms. Frady said NOAA sees relocating as a way of possibly bringing all the fisheries operations together. In addition to its headquarters on Water Street, the fisheries houses its observer program on Carlson Lane, while its social sciences department operates out of leased space in the Falmouth Technology Park. The organization also operates a warehouse in Pocasset.

Read the full story at The Falmouth Enterprise

Scallop Industry Fights Early Access To Nantucket Lightship Area

December 22, 2015 – Last week, The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), represented by Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, wrote NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard, urging him to disapprove a December 3rd vote at the New England Fishery Management Council that would allow certain vessels early entry into the Nantucket Lightship area in violation of the principles of rotational closure system that has made the scallop fishery sustainable and profitable.

The vote would allow General Category scallopers access to the Nantucket Lightship area, and disallow access by Limited Access vessels. FSF says that allowing different access for different types of vessels in the scallop fleet violates laws, regulations, and the Atlantic Scallop Fishery Management Plan. FSF also argues that the vote failed to meet public notice requirements, failed to provide analysis of effects for public comment, and, as an allocation issue, requires an amendment of the Fisheries Management Plan.

Administrator Bullard himself spoke in opposition to the vote, stating “What I’m worried about is a motion like this … [takes] a chink out ofthis rotational closure and allows one group in early. And so next year, what’s the justification for someone to come in early, and the year after, what’s the rationale? And at what point do we not have the system that created the nation’s most profitable, most productive, most sustainable fishery? At what point do we look and say ‘it really isn’t a rotational closure system anymore, it’s a system where we decide who goes where at what time.'”

View the letter as a PDF

Does fishing have a future in New England?

December 22, 2015 — Cod have been disappearing from the waters between Massachusetts and Maine, and shrimp populations are so depleted that the commercial shrimp season in the Gulf of Maine has been cancelled for the last three years.

At the same time, lobster are flourishing — alongside a host of species that have never before thrived in New England waters.

Why the wild ups and downs? One reason is that nearby waters are warming much faster than the rest of the ocean, making the environment newly unbearable for some longtime residents — and newly appealing for others. But overfishing has played a role as well, disrupting the balance of the watery ecosystem in unexpected ways.

It’s hard to predict where all this is headed, whether for individual species or local fishing communities. But it needn’t be a story of doom and gloom. These undersea changes may well dampen the prospects of the cod industry, but they will also bring new opportunities.

What’s happening in nearby waters?

Rapid and unusual warming.

Temperatures in the Gulf of Maine have been increasing faster than just about every other blue spot on the planet. According to a recent report in Science, Maine’s waters are in the top 0.1 percent when it comes to rapid warming.

While that team focused on the waters to the east and north of Massachusetts, that superwarm area they reported on actually extends significantly south, surrounding the Bay State.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe