Saving Seafood

Fishing communities call on Biden-Harris Administration to update National Standard guidelines

October 15, 2024 — We have a simple message: it’s time for the Biden-Harris Administration to update the National Standard 4, 8, and 9 guidelines. The next step is to publish the Proposed Rule developed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to update the guidelines. The Administration should move this forward as soon as possible.

Across the country, fishermen are grappling with shifting stocks, collapsing markets, and vanishing opportunity. It’s not all doom and gloom, but there’s plenty of both to be found walking the docks in 2024. What we see on the water and in our communities makes clear that the ways federal fishery management allocates access to resources, treats communities, and stops bycatch in one fishery from impacting another must be modernized.

To build climate resilience and ensure that coastal communities maintain access to their local fisheries, action is needed now. As a recent study from the Government Accountability Office (the leading federal watchdog) points out, there’s a serious need to build in measurable goals and objectives for bycatch accountability, with enforceable timelines for their achievement. And as we have emphasized to NMFS, updating the National Standard guidelines represents a key opportunity for substantial progress. Congress has explicitly authorized NMFS to make these updates, and the agency must take the opportunity.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

US fishery management council’s structure is unconstitutional, court rules

September 26, 2024 —   A divided federal appeals court on Wednesday stripped a regional fishery management council of its ability to block the U.S. Secretary of Commerce from taking actions to manage fisheries that the panel does not support, after finding the council’s members were unconstitutionally appointed.

The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on 2-1 vote sided with two commercial fishermen who had sued after Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council amended a fishery-management plan to lower how much scup, summer flounder and black sea bass could be caught in their region.

The fishermen, Raymond Lofstad and Gus Lovgren, challenged the constitutionality of the structure of the body, one of eight regional councils nationally tasked with developing fishery management plans, in their lawsuit. They are being represented by the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation in their lawsuit.

That 21-member council oversees the waters from New York down through Virginia. Seven of its members are appointed by state governors and 13 are appointed by the commerce secretary and the regional director of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full article at Reuters

Top oil trade group warns court order could shut down Gulf of Mexico production

September 10, 2024 — The American Petroleum Institute, the largest oil trade group in the United States, is warning that a court order issued last month could shut down all oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

The oil industry group sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Friday, saying that the decision issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland could put the country’s “economic security in jeopardy.”

It comes just weeks after the district court ruled in favor of a number of environmental groups that filed a lawsuit after the National Marine Fisheries Service issued its 2020 Biological Opinion on offshore oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read the full article at The Washington Examiner

CAPE WIND; Fishermen blast feds over turbines

July 29, 2024 — Fishermen are blasting the feds for suggesting they don ’t care about the ocean ecosystem and have no interest in the protection of the endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The claim came during a hearing yesterday in Boston federal appeals court as two fishing groups look to toss Vineyard Wind’s underlying permit, arguing regulators failed to analyze how the project would impact the environment and fishermen.

The alliance, as a trade association representing the fishing industry, does not have any interest in protecting right whales,” said attorney Thekla Hansen-Young, representing the Department of the Interior, the National Marine Fisheries Service, among other federal agencies, in the dispute.

Hansen-Young was referring to the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, one of the groups fighting the feds and Vineyard Wind. Seafreeze Shoreside Inc. is the other.

Annie Hawkins, the coalition’s executive director, shot back at Hansen-Young’s “repugnant” assertions after the hearing in which judges took no action.

“We take extreme offense to the government’s claim that our fishermen members have even less environmental interest in our oceans than recreational hobbyists because fishermen just want to ‘kill’ fish,” Hawkins said. “This statement erases generations of history, tradition, and knowledge.”

“Fishermen are faithful stewards of the ocean because their relationship with the sea forms the very fabric of coastal culture, supports their businesses, jobs, and communities,” she added. “The government’s repugnant position reveals a hostility to our iconic industry that is sadly common in its dealings with us.”

Hawkins’ alliance challenged the $4 billion Vineyard Wind project in January 2022 before the case waded through the courts, and U.S. District Judge Inditra Talwani dismissed the suit last October.

Responsible Offshore Development Alliance and Seafreeze Shoreside claimed the 62-turbine, 806-megawatt wind farm would harm fishermen and the North Atlantic right whale.

The National Marine Fisheries Service determined that Vineyard Wind was“not likely to jeopardize the continued existence” of right whales and other endangered species  an opinion they maintained in 2020 and 2021.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

Ninth Circuit unsure of court’s efficacy in Alaska killer whale conservation case

July 19, 2024 — The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing how effective its opinion will be in a lawsuit over how Chinook salmon fishing affects Southern Resident killer whales — and judges on Thursday wondered whether the effort would be rendered moot by a pending government agency action.

The Wild Fish Conservancy sued the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2020, accusing the agency of violating the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act in its 2019 Southeast Alaska Biological Opinion and incidental take statement by bypassing public notice and opportunity to comment on the actions.

Alaska and the Alaska Trollers Association, a representative of the commercial fishing industry in the state, intervened as codefendants.

Chinook salmon are the primary food source for Southern Resident killer whales, which were placed on the endangered species list in 2005.

U.S. District Judge Richard Jones remanded the biological opinion and vacated the portions of it that authorized commercial harvest of Chinook salmon during winter and summer seasons. The ruling would have prevented Southeast Alaskan trollers from fishing for Chinook salmon, but the Ninth Circuit issued a stay, allowing commercial fisheries to continue harvest while the parties appealed.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

Watchdog agency highlights shortcomings in federal fisheries management

July 17, 2024 — A congressional watchdog agency says that serious improvements are needed in the way the federal government manages observers and bycatch in the nation’s fisheries.

A recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) calls on the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to bolster observers on fishing vessels and develop better ways to track and monitor bycatch.

The July 10 report is based on interviews with NMFS officials. It looks at the agency through the lens of five specific fisheries across the country.

For the Alaska region, the report looked at the Bering Sea pollock trawl fishery, the largest single-species fishery in the world.

The Alaska pollock fishery is among a relatively small number of high-value federal fisheries able to afford having at least one observer aboard vessels at all times while fishing.

Read the full article at KYUK

US Government Accountability Office report finds NFMS bycatch monitoring doesn’t meet standards

July 15, 2024 — A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is not measuring up to bycatch-monitoring standards.

In its 60-page report, GAO outlined a number of ways in which NFMS has failed to adequately tackle bycatch issues and harm to marine mammals and other species. According to the report, a central failing from the NMFS was a lack of observer coverage of fisheries.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

This Florida fisherman worries about industry’s future

July 15, 2024 — Commercial fishing is vital to Florida’s culture and identity.  Today, Florida fishermen like me land $209 million worth of fish and shellfish in dock-side value alone. The economic impact of the commercial fishing industry ripples up the supply chain generating $8.7 billion. Hundreds of millions of tourists travel to Florida to enjoy fresh seafood in the Sunshine State.

Critical to Florida’s seafood economy is a steady (and growing) supply of fresh, domestic fish and shellfish.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) “Status of the Stocks” report that was recently released would have you believe that everything is rosy.  In some isolated cases, it may be – fishermen should be proud when their sustainability efforts pay off. When overfishing is reduced, fish stocks rebuild, and more fish support more fishing businesses and seafood dinners.

Read the full article at the Tallahassee Democrat 

ALASKA: Draft plan published for disbursement of $11.5 million in 2021 and 2022 ESSN disasters

July 12, 2024 — A draft spend plan was published Tuesday, July 9 by the State Department of Fish and Game for the allocation of around $11.5 million in federal funds in response to a disaster determination for the 2021 and 2022 Upper Cook Inlet east side setnet fisheries.

A public notice from the department says that the National Marine Fisheries Service allocated $11,484,675 to address losses from the 2021 and 2022 fisheries. The U.S. Secretary of Commerce made the disaster determination in April, responding to an October request from Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

The draft spend plan of those dollars by the department says that funds will be disbursed to achieve two objectives: to assist fishery participants harmed by the disasters and to improve fishery information to avoid or mitigate the impacts of future disasters.

The draft plan says that 62% of the money, around $7 million, will be dispersed to harvesters. Around $3 million will go to processors, $1 million to research, $300,000 to communities and $11,000 for program support.

Read the full article at the Peninsula Clarion 

US judge overturns closure of Massachusetts Restricted Area Wedge to commercial fishing

March 19, 2024 — A federal judge has overturned restrictions on lobster and Jonah crab fishing off the U.S. state of Massachusetts, ruling that a 2023 law restricting fishing gear to protect whales applies to an emergency rule enacted by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

That emergency rule entailed NMFS seeking to extend 2022-23 area closures in the Massachusetts Restricted Area Wedge, making late winter and spring gear restrictions permanent when endangered North Atlantic right whales are often in the area.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource