Saving Seafood

MAFMC: Upcoming Council Meetings: August 6, 2020 and August 10-13, 2020

July 21, 2020 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC or Council) has two upcoming meetings in August. Both meetings will be conducted by webinar.

August 6, 2020: ASMFC Summer 2020 Meeting

On Thursday, August 6, the Council will meet jointly with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board and Bluefish Management Board. This joint meeting will be held on the last day of the ASMFC’s Summer 2020 Meeting. Topics to be addressed include the Bluefish Allocation and Rebuilding Amendment, Black Sea Bass Commercial State Allocation Amendment, Recreational Reform Initiative, and Massachusetts 2020 Black Sea Bass Recreational Proposal. An agenda and other details related to the joint portion of the meeting are available on the August 6, 2020 Joint MAFMC/ASMFC Meeting Page. Additional details and updates will be posted on the ASMFC Summer 2020 Meeting page.

August 10-13, 2020: MAFMC August 2020 Meeting

The Council will meet again via webinar on August 10-13, 2020. A portion of the meeting will be conducted jointly with the ASMFC’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board and Bluefish Management Board. During this meeting, the Council (and Board, as applicable) will develop or review specifications for butterfish, longfin squid, Atlantic mackerel, bluefish, summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, surfclams, and ocean quahogs. Other agenda items include development of a river herring and shad cap for the Atlantic mackerel fishery, review of commercial scup discards, review of the range of alternatives for the Summer Flounder/Scup/Black Sea Bass Commercial/Recreational Allocation Amendment, swearing in of new and reappointed Council members, and election of officers. An agenda and webinar connection information is available on the August 2020 Council Meeting Page. Briefing materials will be posted as they become available.

Questions? Contact Mary Sabo, msabo@mafmc.org, (302) 518-1143.

Council Approves Changes to Management of Illex Squid Fishery

July 20, 2020 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

Last week the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council approved an amendment that proposes modifications to the permitting and management of the Illex squid fishery. These changes are intended to both reduce excess capacity in the fishery and mitigate the rapid use of the quota seen in recent years. The amendment also revises the goals and objectives of the Mackerel, Squid, Butterfish (MSB) Fishery Management Plan (FMP). After considerable discussion and consideration of public comments, the Council selected preferred alternatives and adopted the amendment for Secretarial review and implementation. Below are summaries of the issues and the Council’s preferred alternatives.

Illex Permitting

In June 2017, the Council considered, but did not adopt, revisions to Illex squid permits as part of Amendment 20 to the MSB FMP. Since then, effort and landings have substantially increased, and the fishery closed early in 2017-2019 after harvesting the Illex squid quota. Given recent fishery performance, the Council initiated this amendment to evaluate whether permitted access to the Illex fishery should be modified based on present and historical participation, and/or other considerations. The amendment considered a range of permitting alternatives, including various time periods and thresholds for permit re-qualification and options for a tiered permitting system.

Read the full release here

NOAA Fisheries Proposes Electronic Vessel Trip Reporting for Commercial and For-Hire Vessels

July 17, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is proposing a recommendation from both the Mid-Atlantic and New England Fishery Management Councils to require federally permitted commercial fishing vessels to submit vessel trip reports electronically within 48 hours of the end of a trip.

Upon request of the New England Council, we are also proposing to extend this requirement to vessels issued for-hire (charter/party) permits for New England Council-managed fisheries (i.e., Northeast multispecies).  Vessels issued a Mid-Atlantic Council for-hire permit have been required to submit vessel trip reports electronically since March 2019.  Note, reporting requirements for vessels issued only a federal lobster permit are being addressed in a separate rulemaking.

For more details, please read the rule as filed in the Federal Register.  Comments must be submitted by August 17, 2020 through our online e-rulemaking portal.

Mid-Atlantic Council Webinar – July 16, 2020

July 10, 2020 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council will meet via webinar on Thursday, July 16, 2020, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The purpose of this meeting is to consider final action on the Mackerel, Squid, Butterfish FMP Goals/Objectives and Illex Permits Amendment. An agenda, briefing materials, and webinar connection instructions are available on the July 16, 2020 Council Meeting web page.

Public comments must be submitted by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, July 13, 2020, in order to be posted as supplemental materials on the meeting web page. After that deadline, comments may only be submitted via the online comment form and will automatically be added to a spreadsheet linked from the meeting page. See the “Public Comments” section on the meeting page for additional details.

For general questions about the meeting, contact Mary Sabo (msabo@mafmc.org, 302-528-1143). For questions related to the Mackerel, Squid, Butterfish FMP Goals/Objectives and Illex Permits Amendment, contact Jason Didden at jdidden@mafmc.org, (302) 526-5254.

Summer flounder: good news on quota, but waiting for restaurants’ return

July 7, 2020 — The $25.2 million East Coast market for summer flounder — although a reliable bread-and-butter fish — has faced ups and downs in quotas over the years.

The 2020 commercial quota is 11.53 million pounds, while the recreational harvest limit is 7.69 million pounds. The highest percent of commercial allocation goes to Virginia (21.32 percent) and North Carolina (27.44 percent) while Delaware, Maine and New Hampshire have the smallest allocations.

Anecdotally, in the last few years, the price per pound for jumbo summer flounder (4 pounds or larger) decreased, with some vessels getting around 50 cents less per pound for jumbos compared to smaller sizes. As market conditions have shifted relative to quotas over the past few years, there is some speculation that markets prefer smaller product that fits better on a plate.

Now 2020 is the first full year with higher quotas for the fishery — but with the covid-19 crisis and its impact on markets globally, it remains to be seen if quotas will be fully utilized.

“It’s going to be very hard to predict summer flounder landings for 2020 at this point. Last year, the quotas were revised upward by about 50 percent, based on the new stock assessment, but that change wasn’t implemented until midyear,” says Kiley Dancy of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council staff.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NOAA Fisheries Announces Revised 2020-2021 Bluefish Specifications and Recreational Management Measures

June 26, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is implementing the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s recommended revised bluefish specifications and recreational management measures for 2020 and 2021. These catch limits are reduced to account for the results of the recent operational assessment and prevent overfishing on the now overfished bluefish stock.

The commercial total allowable landings are reduced by 25 percent, from 3.71 to 2.77 million pounds, and the recreational total allowable landings are reduced by 39 percent, from 15.62 to 9.48 million pounds. There is no sector transfer this year because the recreational fishery is expected to fully attain its harvest limit.

Table 1 (below) provides the commercial fishery state allocations for 2020 based on the final coast-wide commercial quota, and the allocated percentages defined in the Bluefish Fishery Management Plan. No states exceeded their state allocated quota in 2019; therefore, no accountability measures are necessary for the 2020 commercial fishery.

This action also permanently implements the reduced federal bluefish recreational fishery daily bag limit from 15 to 3 fish per person for private anglers and to 5 fish per person for for-hire (charter/party) vessels as established through recent interim measures. All other recreational management measures and commercial management measures remain unchanged.

For more details, please read the rule as filed in the Federal Register, or the bulletin posted on our website.

Read the full release here

NOAA Announces Resumption of Greater Atlantic Fisheries Observer Requirements; Fishery Management Councils Object to Decision

June 23, 2020 — Yesterday, NOAA Fisheries announced that vessels in the Greater Atlantic region will once again be required to carry fishery observers and at-sea monitors beginning July 1. The agency had previously waived the requirements since the start of the COVID-19 crisis in March.

While the agency, in its letter to stakeholders, stated that “Observers and at-sea monitors are an essential component of commercial fishing operations,” the decision was opposed by Fishery Management Councils in the region. In its own letter to NOAA Fisheries, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) called on the agency “to extend the observer coverage waiver until the number of active COVID-19 cases in the region has been substantially reduced and the number of new cases is steadily declining.”

“Although some states are beginning to slowly reopen, social distancing protocols are still almost universally recommended or required. However, the close living quarters on most fishing vessels would make social distancing virtually impossible,” the Council’s letter states. “Recognizing that the virus could spread rapidly within these environments, many fishing crews have been self-quarantining before fishing trips. Unless observers are subject to mandatory 14-day quarantine periods between assignments, we are concerned that they could unknowingly become vectors for transmission of the virus between fishing vessels.”

In addition to expressing concern over the safety of reallowing observers on fishing vessels, the Council also noted that the resumption of onboard observers and monitors goes against the telework policies implemented by both the Council and NOAA during the ongoing COVID-19 related shutdown.

“It is our understanding that NOAA, like the Council, continues to operate under a maximum telework policy. Also, we believe that NOAA staff such as Northeast Fisheries Science Center employees are currently prohibited from participating in on-board cooperative research,” the letter stated. “During our June Council Meeting, which was conducted entirely by webinar, we discussed plans for how and when to resume in-person meetings. The Council was generally in agreement that at this time the public health risks outweigh the benefits of face-to-face meetings and that we should continue to utilize virtual meetings for the near term. Considering these steps that have been taken to minimize health risks for fishery scientists and managers, why should the same consideration not be extended to the fishing industry?”

At its meeting today, the New England Fishery Management Council approved a motion “to task Council staff to write a letter expressing the Council’s concern regarding the redeployment of the observer program on July 1.” The motion was agreed to by consensus with 3 abstentions.

Read NOAA’s announcement here

Read the Council’s letter here

Meeting Summaries and Motions from the Joint ASMFC/MAFMC June Meeting Webinar; NOAA Approves Conservation Equivalency for the 2020 Summer Flounder Recreational Season

June 19, 2020 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Meeting summaries and motions from the Joint meeting of the MAFMC and ASMFC Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass and Bluefish Boards are now available athttp://www.asmfc.org/files/Meetings/ASMFC_MAFMCSFlounderScupBSB_Bluefish_June2020.pdf.  The document can also be obtained on the Commission website on the Meeting Archives page athttp://www.asmfc.org/home/meeting-archive.  Presentations, briefing materials, and webinar recordings are available on the MAFMC website at: http://www.mafmc.org/briefing/june-2020

Additionally, for those interested summer flounder management, NOAA Fisheries has approved conservation equivalency for the 2020 summer flounder recreational fishing season. The federal recreational bag limit, minimum fish size, and fishing season are waived and anglers are subject to the regulations of the state where they land when fishing in federal waters. The state measures were approved by the Board following the Joint December Commission/Council meeting. The state measures can be found on the Commission’s website at the following link:http://www.asmfc.org/uploads/file/5e6954df2020SummerFlounderRecreationalMeasures.pdf. NOAA Fisheries’ final rule became effective June 17, 2020. More information can be found at the following link:https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/recreational-management-measures-summer-flounder-fishery-fishing-year-2020