Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: Bill asks NOAA to rethink increased flounder restrictions

January 19, 2017 — A South Jersey lawmaker introduced a bill Tuesday that would urge the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to halt proposed reductions to this year’s summer flounder catch.

Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo, D-Atlantic, introduced a resolution asking NOAA to conduct a new summer flounder assessment before implementing the proposed regulations, which would cut the flounder catch by 40 percent.

The reduction plan was advanced at a Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council meeting last month but has been roundly condemned by recreational fishermen and prominent state leaders, including U.S. Sen. Cory Booker and U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd.

Federal officials say the cuts are necessary because a recent NOAA report concluded the flounder fishery is overfished.

Recreational fishermen at a hearing earlier this month in Galloway Township questioned NOAA’s methods for measuring flounder, and Mazzeo’s resolution, a draft of which was sent to The Press of Atlantic City, asks the agency to take another look at the stock.

Read the full story at Press of Atlantic City

Mid-Atlantic Council Seeking Applications for Interim Advisory Panel Members

January 18, 2017 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council is soliciting applications from qualified individuals to serve on several advisory panels that currently have vacancies.  Advisory panels provide information and recommendations to the Council during the development of fishery management actions. One of the chief responsibilities of advisory panels is the development of annual Fishery Performance Reports, which provide the Council and SSC with information on why catches may have fluctuated from year to year.

Advisory panels are composed of individuals with diverse experience and interest in Mid-Atlantic fisheries. Members include commercial fishermen, recreational anglers, for-hire operators, dealers, scientists, environmentalists, and other interested members of the public. Most advisory panels meet 1 – 2 times per year. Members are compensated for travel and per diem expenses for advisory panel meetings.  Individuals appointed under this notice would serve on an interim basis and could re-apply during the next general application window in early 2018.

The Council is accepting applications for the following advisory panels:

  • Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish (1 vacancy)
  • Spiny Dogfish (2 vacancies)
  • Surfclam/Ocean Quahog (1 vacancy)

Anyone interested in serving on one of these advisory panels may apply online or download an application at www.mafmc.org/forms/advisory-panel-application. Applications can also be obtained by calling the Council office at (877) 446-2362 or emailing jsaunders@mafmc.org. Completed applications should be submitted using one of the following methods:

  • Online using the form at the web address above;
  • Mail to Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, 800 N. State Street, Suite 201, Dover, DE 19901;
  • Email to jsaunders@mafmc.org; or
  • Fax to (302) 674-5399.

Please include “ADVISORY PANEL” in the subject of your fax or email.

See the full release at the MAFMC

NOAA slashes recreational, commercial limits for flounder, black sea bass

December 27, 2016 — NOAA Fisheries is slashing 2017 and 2018 recreational and commercial catch limits for summer flounder and the 2017 commercial quota for black sea bass.

The sweeping cuts will impact both the commercial and recreational harvesting of the summer flounder. The cuts, based on the recommendations of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, will be most severe in 2017, when the commercial and recreational quota for the species is cut by 30 percent from current levels.

Those reductions will set the set the commercial quota at 5.66 million pounds and the recreational at 3.77 million pounds in 2017.

The 2018 reduction summer flounder catch limits is projected to be 16 percent below current levels, setting the commercial quota at 6.63 million pounds and the recreational catch limits at 4.42 million pounds.

The federal fishing regulator is cutting the commercial black sea bass quota by 31 percent in 2017 to 1.86 million pounds as “an automatic accountability measure” because the fishery exceeded its annual catch limit in 2015.

“In 2015, the commercial annual catch limit was exceeded due to both a 4 percent overage of the commercial quota and higher-than-anticipated estimated discards of black sea bass,” NOAA Fisheries said in announcing the cuts.

The agency, however, said it is possible that a final report on the black sea bass stock assessment, due in early 2017, might provide the impetus for increasing recreational and commercial catch limits in the midst of the next fishing season.

“It is possible that the next black sea bass assessment will provide justification for increasing the 2017 black sea bass catch limits for both the commercial and recreational fisheries,” NOAA Fisheries said. “If that is the case, we will work with the (Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council) to quickly implement revised catch limits mid-year. A final report for the assessment is expected in early 2017.”

The 2017 recreational harvest limit for black sea bass will hold steady at about 2.82 million pounds, according to NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman Jennifer Goebel.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Mid-Atlantic Council Initiates Action in Response to Overage of Black Sea Bass Catch Limit

December 21st, 2016 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council: 

On December 15, 2016, at their meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council initiated a framework action to review and modify accountability measures (AMs) for the commercial black sea bass fishery. The Council initiated this action in response to new information from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) indicating that commercial catch in 2015 exceeded the annual catch limit due to higher than anticipated discards. On December 21, NMFS announced a rule which reduced the 2017 commercial quota by 34% in response to this overage, as required by the Council’s AMs.

AMs are measures that are implemented if annual catch targets are exceeded and are intended to mitigate the negative biological impacts of such overages. Commercial AMs for black sea bass currently require pound for pound paybacks through quota deductions in following years, regardless of the circumstances of the overages. The Council initiated a framework action to consider adding flexibility in the commercial AMs based on stock status. The Council intends to develop and implement this framework by mid-2017.

Black sea bass management measures for 2017 may also be modified as a result of a new benchmark stock assessment, which was peer-reviewed this month. According to this assessment, black sea bass are not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. The Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) will meet in January 2017 to review the assessment and determine if it can be used to inform the Council’s management decisions. If so, the SSC will recommend acceptable biological catch limits for black sea bass for 2017-2019. At their February 2017 meeting in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Council plans to recommend commercial and recreational black sea bass catch and landings limits for 2017-2019 based on this new information. These recommendations are expected to result in a revised 2017 commercial quota that could reduce the magnitude of the reduction needed to address the overage of the 2015 annual catch target.

Coral plan threatens fishing grounds

December 21st, 2016 — Area lobstermen could lose valuable fishing grounds if a federal proposal to close four areas of Gulf of Maine waters comes to fruition.

The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) has drafted a plan that would close a span of 161 square miles offshore to commercial fishing in an effort to conserve deep-sea coral there.

Two of those areas, Mount Desert Rock in Lobster Management Zone B and Outer Schoodic Ridge in Lobster Management Zone A, are preferred fishing grounds for local fishermen when lobster head further offshore in the winter. The other proposed offshore closure areas lie in Jordan Basin and Lindenkohl Knoll to the south.

The Mount Desert Rock and Outer Schoodic Ridge areas are prime for lobster fishing, while Jordan Basin and Lindenkohl Knoll see a mix of groundfish, monkfish, pollock and lobster.

The NEFMC is working with the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council to preserve deep-sea corals from the Canadian border to Virginia.

According to the NEFMC, the fragile and slow-growing corals are vulnerable to damage by fishing gear.

“While the extent of deep-sea coral habitat degradation has not been quantified in most areas, bottom tending fishing gear has been known to cause significant disturbance in many locations and is considered to be the major threat to deep-sea corals in areas where such fishing occurs,” read a recent NEFMC memorandum.

Fishermen must hold federal permits to fish in offshore waters. According to NEFMC data, 31 percent of Zone B fishermen hold federal permits.

Read the full story at Mount Desert Islander

Party boat captains irate over summer flounder cuts

December 20th, 2016 — Few things are causing more ire among recreational fishermen than the summer flounder cuts.

Some party boat captains have called it “nail in the coffin” measures that are being taken by fishery management that starts from the top down with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It seems that every time we make a sacrifice there ends up being less boats on the water. It seems like they want us off the water,” said Gambler party boat owner and captain Bob Bogan.

Bogan’s summer flounder business depends on tourists. He said they will be less likely to pay a fare if they can keep very little or none of the fish they catch.

Also of concern to him are the party boat customers who come out to fish for table food. They are being shut out, he said.

“People will spend $50 if they can catch $25 or $50 worth of fish. They’re not going to pay to come home with nothing,” he said.

What New Jersey’s recreational season length, bag and size limit will be is still to be decided. But it’s looking like it will be amount to less fish in the cooler for anglers, and fewer trips on the water.

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council is recommending a 3.77 million pound recreational harvest limit for 2017. That’s down from 5.42 million in 2016.

The council said states or multi-state regions will have to develop customized measures that will achieve the coastwide recreational harvest limit. New Jersey has in the past got the largest share of that harvest limit.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press 

Flounder controls set to tighten, despite South Jersey pleas

December 19th, 2016 — A federal regulatory council voted this week in favor of drastically cutting next summer’s flounder harvest, despite strong protest from South Jersey fishermen and politicians.

No final state bag or size limits were decided at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council meetings in Baltimore, but the organization did approve a 40 percent reduction in the coast-wide summer flounder catch for 2017.

The number is subject to change pending data still coming in from this season’s catch, but fishermen targeting fluke will likely face much stricter controls on the fish they can keep next summer.

“The stock is currently in a state of overfishing,” said Kiley Dancy, a fishery management specialist at the council. “It’s not looking great right now.”

Local government leaders and fishing-related business owners fear the new regulations could hurt South Jersey’s economy.

“Basically, I came out of there understanding that they want to shut down fishing,” said Robin Scott, owner of Ray Scott’s Dock in Margate, who attended the meetings.

Jim Donofrio, executive director of the New Gretna-based Recreational Fishing Alliance, has even vowed to appeal the decision by asking President-elect Donald J. Trump’s incoming administration to strike down the restrictions.

Bob Martin, the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said he was “greatly disappointed” by the decision to tighten controls on flounder.

“In effect, these actions will result in a moratorium on one of our most important recreational fish species,” Martin said in a statement Thursday.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City 

Atlantic Ocean Area The Size Of Virginia Protected From Deep-Water Fishing

December 19, 2016 — Coral in an area in the Atlantic Ocean stretching from Connecticut to Virginia has been protected from deep-sea commercial fishing gear, by a new rule issued this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The protected area covers some 38,000 square miles of federal waters, NOAA says, which is about the size of Virginia. It’s the “largest area in the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico protected from a range of destructive fishing gear,” according to the NRDC, an environmental advocacy group.

The new regulations prohibit the use of bottom-tending fishing gear at depths below 1,470 feet. Boats are allowed to cross the protected area as long as they bring the banned heavy gear on board while they do so, according to the text of the rule. It is set to go into effect on Jan. 13.

It’s named the Frank R. Lautenberg Deep Sea Coral Protection Area, in honor the former New Jersey senator who was an advocate for marine conservation.

Coral grows extremely slowly and is vulnerable to damage from this kind of heavy equipment that drags along the sea floor. As the NRDC put it: “One pass of a weighted fishing trawl net can destroy coral colonies as old as the California redwoods in seconds.”

“They’ve lived a long time but they live in an environment that is cold, with huge pressure, without light,” Joseph Gordon, Pew Charitable Trust’s manager of U.S. northeast oceans, told Delaware Public Media. “And so fishing technology could damage them in a way that could take centuries to recover from.”

The area is also home to many other animals, the NRDC adds, “including the endangered sperm whale, as well as sea birds, sea turtles, tunas, sharks, billfish, and countless other species.”

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council began to look into setting up a protected area here in 2013, and NOAA issued a proposed federal rule in September 2016. It was finalized on Wednesday.

John Bullard, Regional Administrator for the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, hailed this rule as a “great story of regional collaboration among the fishing industry, the Mid-Atlantic Council, the research community, and environmental organizations to protect what we all agree is a valuable ecological resource.”

And Bob Vanasse, the executive director of Saving Seafood, which represents the commercial fishing industry, told Virginia’s Daily Press that he thinks this is “the right way to protect these resources.”

Read the full story at NPR

NOAA approves Mid-Atlantic deep-sea coral canyons for protection

December 16, 2016 — Vulnerable deep-sea corals off Virginia and along the Mid-Atlantic just got final approval for federal environmental protection by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The move will protect a 38,000-square-mile swath of sea bottom from New York to the North Carolina border, or an area roughly the size of the state of Virginia. The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council initiated the action for the deep-sea coral zone in 2015.

 Many of these corals grow in underwater canyons, including Norfolk Canyon — a steep gouge in the side of the Continental Slope about 70 miles off Virginia Beach.

John Bullard, administrator for NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, said the action represents the efforts of a wide variety of stakeholders.

“This is a great story of regional collaboration among the fishing industry, the Mid-Atlantic Council, the research community and environmental organizations to protect what we all agree is a valuable ecological resource,” Bullard said in a statement.

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional bodies empowered by Congress in the 1970s to manage fisheries off the U.S. coast. It moved in June 2015 to adopt the Deep Sea Corals Amendment.

Bob Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, a D.C.-based group that represents the commercial fishing industry, also praised the final designation Thursday as an example “of the right way to protect these resources.”

“This is a situation where the industry came together with the council, with NOAA and with environmentalists and came up with a plan that created a compromise that everyone could live with,” Vanasse said in a phone interview. “It’s a bright, shining example of how to do it right.”

Read the full story at The Daily Press

Pallone, New Jersey DEP push back against summer flounder cuts

December 16th, 2016 — This was one of the more consequential Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council meetings in recent memory.

The council’s decisions that were made this week in Baltimore will have a major impact on fishermen, starting with recommendations for cuts to summer flounder, special management zones for artificial reefs, and final rules for a coral protection on the Continental Shelf.

SUMMER FLOUNDER

Anglers are facing the most restrictive fluke regulations yet as a 40-percent cut in the allowable coastwide harvest is being recommended.

It’s based on models that show summer flounder was overfished this year and its biomass is on the decline. Fishermen and legislatures refute that science.

Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) is asking NOAA to postpone any cuts until a benchmark assessment is complete. He said there continues to be legitimate concerns that the random sampling heavily relied upon by NOAA and the estimates produced are inaccurate.

The state Department of Environmental Protection is also taking a strong position against the reductions, which it said will cripple recreational and commercial fishing in New Jersey and be felt sharply throughout the Shore economy.

On Wednesday the council approved a non-preferred coastwide measure for a 19–inch minimum size limit, a four-fish bag limit and a season from June 1 – Sept. 15.

Read the full story at The Ashbury Park Press