Saving Seafood

Alaska: Bering Sea Trawl Cod Fishery May Have Been Shortest Ever, as High Prices Attract Effort

February 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Bering Sea federal trawl cod fishery closed in what may be record time on Feb. 11, just 22 days after the Jan. 20 opener, according to National Marine Fisheries Service Biologist Krista Milani in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the shortest ever,” and certainly for as long as she’s had the job going back to 2009.

While the Bering Sea cod quota is down 20 percent from last year, Milani said other factors are at play. She pointed out that in a previous year, with an almost identical quota, the season remained open for about six weeks, ending the second week of March in 2010.

This year, the A season Bering Sea cod trawl quota is 24,768 metric tons, and in 2010 it was 24,640 mt.

“The bigger thing is the price is good, and there’s a lot of interest in it,” Milani said.

“I think there’s a lot of reasons,” including fishermen feeling a need to build catch histories to qualify for future Pacific cod fishing rights, if a rationalization program is adopted for cod in the Bering Sea, she said.

“I think there’s some fear it could go to limited access,” Milani said.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Program is now considering a plan to restrict the number of boats eligible to fish for cod in the Bering Sea.

The fish council floated ideas to limit catcher vessel participation in the Bering Sea cod fishery, including controversial catch shares or individual fishing quotas, during a December meeting in Anchorage.

IFQs are not among alternatives the council is considering. The purpose and need statement, approved unanimously, includes limiting trawling to vessels actually fishing cod in various years between 2010 and 2017.

This would create a limited entry program within a limited entry program. Bering Sea cod fishing is already limited to boats with licenses. Some of those boats don’t usually participate, but can when prices are high or stocks are low in their usual fisheries.

Brent Paine, the executive director of United Catcher Boats, said something needs to be done to regulate fishing in the congested “Cod Alley.” He accurately predicted a three-week season in 2018 in the area offshore of Unimak Island.

“This is the last unrationalized fishery in the eastern Bering Sea,” Paine said. “If you don’t do anything, we’re all going to be losers.”

While Paine said the NPFMC’s present majority is unsympathetic to rationalization, calling it the “R word,” he said that may change in the future.

Rationalization opponents see IFQs as privatization adding another barrier to entry into the fishing world, while supporters call it a reward for investment with benefits including substantial retirement income.

Milani said Tuesday it was still too early to say how many trawlers participated, as there were vessels still delivering cod to processing companies, and perhaps some trawlers delivering loaded nets to offshore motherships. The last count had 55 in the federal cod fishery, compared to 57 last year, she said, expecting this year’s final count will be higher.

The number of boats is hard to track in-season, as many go back and forth between cod, pollock and other fisheries, although there are some that only fish cod, Milani said.

The depressed cod stocks in the Gulf of Alaska probably also contributed to this year’s fast pace, she said. Gulf cod stocks are way down, far worse than the smaller decline in the Bering Sea, an 80 per percent decline from last year.

Earlier in the season, Milani said the number of Gulf boats coming into the federal Bering Sea cod fishery was smaller than expected.

The Gulf cod crash appears to be having a greater impact in the state cod fishery, with 32 small boats registered on Tuesday, up from 24 last year in the Dutch Harbor Subdistrict. The state waters fishery is limited to boats 58 feet or shorter fishing within three miles of shore and using only pot gear.

The Dutch Harbor Subdistrict total catch on Monday was 11.4 million pounds caught in pots from a total quota of 28.4 million pounds. The pot cod fishery is expected to continue for another 14 to 16 days, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game Biologist Asia Beder in Unalaska.

In the Aleutian Islands Subdistrict state waters fishery, with a quota of 12.8 million pounds, Beder couldn’t release precise total catch numbers because of confidentiality rules when there’s fewer than three processors. She said the fleet has caught somewhere between 25 and 50 percent. There’s only one processor, in Adak, Golden Harvest — formerly Premier Harvest, she said. And she could also say there were eight small boats fishing cod in the Aleutian subdistrict, all in the Adak section.

In the Aleutians, cod boats are allowed up to 60 feet in with various gear types, although longliners are limited to 58 feet.

In Bering Sea crab fisheries, the 50 boats dropping pots for opilio snow crab had made 134 landings for 10.9 million pounds or 58 percent of the total quota. The cumulative catch per unit of effort for the season is an average of 161 crab per pot, according to shellfish biologist Ethan Nichols of ADF&G in Unalaska.

In the Western Bering Sea Tanner fishery, 28 vessels had made 66 landings for 2.1 million pounds, with the quota nearly wrapped up at 85 percent.

In the Eastern Aleutian District, two small boats harvesting bairdi Tanner had landed over 75 percent of the total quota of 35,000 pounds, Nichols said.

The EAD is open this year only in the Makushin and Skan Bay area, and that’s where the Tanners are from that sell for $10 each by local fisherman Roger Rowland at the Carl E. Moses Boat Harbor in Unalaska.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

GMFMC approves EFP applications

February 15, 2018 — Any review of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council’s recent meeting in New Orleans begins with the discussion of state recreational red snapper management, and its review of the five Gulf states’ application for exempted fishing permits for 2018 and 2019.

The GMFMC’s first step was to come up with a way to, as the council’s report stated, “to estimate red snapper biomass off each state, which will be used in one of the alternatives for allocating the red snapper quota among the states.”

Briefly, Louisiana has estimated its allocation in the neighborhood of 15 percent of the annual total allowable catch for the recreational sector, a figure state managers have set at slightly more than 1 million pounds.

The council voted to exclude the 2010 landings, the year of the BP-Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, a move which could help Louisiana, since most of the spill affected our offshore waters (and nearshore, too.)

There was debate about how to handle headboats and charterboats under this EFP. From reports, Louisiana’s delegation supports retaining these operations in the recreational sector. It appears two other states want to remove these operations from the recreational umbrella.

In the end, the GMFMC gave its approval for each state’s EFP, “with the condition that if federal for-hire vessels are included in any state’s EFP, it would not shorten the length of the federal for-hire season.”

The council also recommended National Marine Fisheries Service advance the Florida Keys Commercial Fishing Association’s Lionfish EFP request, which modified the sampling area for this invasive species.

Read the full story at the Acadiana Advocate

 

A new study looks at why Pacific Cod stocks are crashing in the Gulf of Alaska

February 14, 2018 — A new study in Kodiak will hopefully shed some light on what Pacific cod go through when they’re young.

“We don’t know how they do in the winter. Where they are. What they are eating. What their energetic requirements are.”

One of the leaders of the project, Mike Litzow is a researcher for the University of Alaska Fairbanks based in Kodiak.

He said the recent crash in the Pacific cod population in the Gulf of Alaska was a wake-up call that there’s a lot to be learned about the early life stages of Pacific cod.

A few years ago a body of warm water settled in the gulf and it may have made it difficult for juvenile cod to survive.

“The operating hypothesis right now is that you can warm the temperatures up and they’ll survive if there’s enough food, but there wasn’t enough food to meet those requirements.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service, according to Litzow, recently found that the Pacific cod population had dropped by about 60 percent since 2015.

The North Pacific Fisheries Pacific Council reduced the amount of Pacific cod that can be caught by commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Alaska by about 80 percent because of the crash.

The decrease in cod will be hard for Kodiak fisherman because Pacific Cod is one of the bigger fisheries in the region.

Litzow thinks Kodiak will have to face the possibility that more fishery disasters could be in its future because of climate change.

Read the full story at KTOO

 

Court approves threatened-species status for ringed seals in Alaska

February 13, 2018 — In a decision based on long-term climate projections, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed ringed seals in Alaska as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The ruling could result in limits on oil and gas projects and other activity in the Arctic. It reverses a 2016 decision by U.S. District Court Anchorage Judge Ralph Beistline.

The National Marine Fisheries Service in 2012 listed the Arctic ringed seal as threatened, based on long-term climate-model projections showing its sea-ice habitat shrinking.

The agency’s finding that the seal “was likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future – was reasonable and supported by the record,” the appeal court’s decision says.

The state of Alaska, the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, and other groups had challenged the listing.

In a related case, the U.S. Supreme Court in January decided not to review the appeals court’s conclusion upholding the threatened listing of Alaska’s bearded seal.

The bearded and ringed seals are “closely related,” the appeals court said Monday. The bearded-seal case adjudicated the same issues, and the court is bound by that precedent, the appeals court said.

The Alaska Oil and Gas Association, the state of Alaska and other plaintiffs had challenged that listing as well.

Kara Moriarty, president of AOGA, called the decisions disappointing. She said there are millions of bearded and ringed seals worldwide.

“The ESA listing was made despite a lack of sufficient scientific evidence to suggest that the species would be threatened any time in the near future,” Moriarty said. “Under such a standard, virtually any and all species could be listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA. All this will do is add additional cost and burden to our industry for seals with extremely healthy populations.”

Kristen Monsell, senior attorney for Center for Biological Diversity, a defendant in the case along with the federal government, said NMFS will implement a recovery plan for the ringed seal and designate critical habitat. The agency in 2014 proposed critical habitat for the seal off Alaska’s northern and western coasts.

To protect the threatened seals, the federal government could set limits affecting industrial activity, Monsell said. Agencies may require, say a re-route of pipeline construction plans, or stopping noisy work during birthing seasons.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

D.B. Pleschner: Is court the right place to determine ‘best available science’?

February 12, 2018 — A U.S. District Court judge recently ruled that the federal government’s catch limit for California’s central stock of anchovy — currently 25,000 metric tons — is far too high.

But instead of weighing all the facts, the judge ignored them, shunned the established precedent of deference to federal agencies’ scientific determinations and instead endorsed the flawed arguments of the advocacy group Oceana.

So what happened?

It’s a well-accepted fact that the anchovy population on the West Coast has extreme natural variations in abundance, even without fishing. To account for these wild swings, scientists reduced the overfishing limit of 100,000 tons by 75 percent, setting the annual catch limit at 25,000 metric tons. The Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Science and Statistical Committee approved the numbers as “best available science” and the National Marine Fisheries Service agreed, recognizing that the anchovy resource ranges from peaks of more than two million tons to orders of magnitude lower and quickly jumps back up again.

In California, the anchovy fishery declined in the 1980s due to adverse market conditions and landings have averaged less than 10,000 tons a year ever since. But this fishery is still important because it keeps the local fleet on the water and processing plant doors open when no other fish are available.

Regardless, environmentalists began lobbying the council in 2015 to curtail California’s anchovy catch limit after one advocacy group funded a new research paper that reassessed the basis for anchovy management — a 1991 study based on egg and larval data that represented long-term average biomass abundance, not a single-year stock assessment. Because the reassessment had virtually no adult anchovy biological data from recent years to correlate, the authors had to make assumptions. They concluded that the anchovy population had collapsed, with current biomass estimated at only about 15,000 tons coast-wide.

But other scientists challenged the findings, in part because the new estimate excluded Mexico where a substantial portion of the stock resides, and it also omitted nearshore waters where fishermen were reporting masses of anchovy.

Richard Parrish, retired from NMFS after decades of experience with anchovy, critiqued the paper and stated, “The biomass estimates in the paper cannot be used to estimate the 2016 biomass of the northern stock of anchovy…” He continued, “Clearly, with northern anchovy a five-year-old biomass estimate is not significantly better at estimating current biomass than a 25-year-old biomass estimate.” That statement was included in the Administrative Record (AR) for the Oceana lawsuit, but the judge ignored it.

In 2016, the council sponsored a data-poor workshop where internationally recognized scientists reviewed the new egg-larval analysis along with other available data and also rejected the study’s findings. As one member said, “The estimate did not pass the straight face test.”

Here’s why: the new assessment did not consider anchovy fishery landings, which in 2015 totaled about 64,000 tons, only 17,000 tons in California (still under the 25,000 ton catch limit) and the rest from Mexico. As Parrish pointed out, “Clearly, the absolute minimum biomass estimate for 2015, assuming that the fishery caught every last anchovy in the population, would be 64,114 tons. If fishermen took 50 percent of the biomass, based on recorded landings, the estimate would be 128,000 tons and if they took only 20 percent of the biomass, the estimate would be 320,000 tons, massively above the study’s assertions.”

Read the full opinion piece at the Santa Cruz Sentinel 

 

Local group seeks lawsuit to aid right whales

February 9, 2018 — After a year of major losses for North Atlantic right whales, a local environmental advocacy group filed a federal lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service Thursday, arguing that the agency should do more to protect the critically endangered mammals.

Over the past year, 18 right whales have died — a grave blow to a species with only about 450 left in the world. Scientists fear they’re not reproducing fast enough and could face extinction as soon as 2040.

In response, federal regulators declared an “unusual mortality event,” triggering an investigation into the deaths and bringing more resources to protect the whales.

But lawyers at the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston, which filed the suit, argued that the agency should be doing more.

“Regulators are not just morally mandated to act . . . they are also legally required to ensure fishing efforts do not cause harm to these animals,” said Emily Green, an attorney at the foundation.

Green noted that the vast majority of right whale deaths have been attributed to entanglements in fishing gear, especially the lines that connect surface buoys to lobster traps.

“Tragically, chronic entanglement is a source of extreme stress, pain, and suffering for right whales, and can interfere with eating, moving, and reproducing,” Green said. “And we know that entanglement can cause long-term adverse health impacts, even for whales that manage to escape the ropes.”

Officials at the National Marine Fisheries Service declined to comment.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

Network seeks to bring together data on harmful algal blooms

February 6, 2018 — A group of scientists is coming together to share information related to harmful algal blooms in Alaska.

Under the umbrella of the Alaska Ocean Observation System, part of the national ocean observation system network, a partnership of state agencies, Alaska Native organizations and the University of Alaska has launched the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network. The intent is to stitch together a statewide approach to researching, monitoring, responding to and spreading information about harmful algal blooms in the state.

Algal blooms are natural processes in the ocean and occur when the population of algae in a certain area increases dramatically. However, they can turn toxic when certain types of algae proliferate and produce chemicals that can be harmful to other plants, animals and people, or consume all the oxygen in the water as they decay. The events, called harmful algal blooms, occur all over the planet, in both freshwater and the ocean, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Over the last 10 years, we’ve been seeing more and more of these bloom events happening,” said Ginny Eckert, a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Juneau and co-chair of the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network’s executive committee. “It’s always a question: Are we seeing more because we’re paying attention more? But … the more information we can get out to people, (the better).”

Harmful algal blooms can have devastating consequences. In 2014, nearly 500,000 Ohio residents had to go without clean drinking water because of harmful algal blooms near a water treatment plant in Lake Erie. A harmful algal bloom in a lake that flowed into the ocean near Monterey Bay, California in 2007 is thought to have killed 11 sea otters with infections of microcystin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Every year in Alaska, a number of alerts go out to shellfish gatherers to be careful because some of the clams, oysters and mussels may have high levels of a toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning, a fatal condition in humans.

Read the full at the Peninsula Clarion

 

Gulf Council recommends new pilots to test state management of recreational red snapper fishing

February 6, 2018 — The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council has recommended that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) approve pilots for all five Gulf States to test state management of recreational fishing for red snapper. The Council’s approval of the pilots, known as Exempted Fishing Permits or EFPs, came with the caveat that the decision by some states to include their federal charter/for-hire vessels (and the corresponding quota allocations that are associated with them) not result in shrinking the federal charter season for the rest of the states.

The following is a statement from Matt Tinning, Senior Director of Environmental Defense Fund’s US Oceans Program:

“EDF has long called for innovations in the way we manage recreational fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, and we applaud those who are considering new approaches. We support this two-year opportunity for the states to show that they can manage their private red snapper anglers under the conservation tenets of the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

“It is important that federal charter boats who do not wish to participate are treated fairly. These captains have worked for years to stabilize their seasons and are now close to finishing development of new federal fishery management plans.

Read the full story at the Orlando Political Observer

 

Deep-sea coral habitat south of Cape slated for protection

February 6, 2018 — The New England Fishery Management Council voted last week to protect deep-sea coral from the effects of fishing across a large stretch of ocean located about 100 miles south of Nantucket.

“The main reason why the council wanted to take this action and protect them from fishing is they are long-lived and very sensitive to disturbance. They can easily be broken and take a long time to recover,” said Michelle Bachman, who works for the council and is the group’s habitat plan development committee chairwoman. “We know they have a special ecological connection to other species like invertebrates and fish.”

Once approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the 25,153 square miles of ocean will join a 38,000-square-mile coral protection area off the Mid-Atlantic, and another protected area off the Southeastern U.S. covering, in total, nearly 100,000 square miles of the Atlantic continental shelf ecosystem.

Deep sea corals are found all over the world at depths of between around 130 to 10,000 feet. Most occur at between 1,000 and 2,600 feet, according to what Florida State University researcher Sandra Brooke told The Pew Charitable Trusts. They exist in a twilight – sometimes pitch black – world where photosynthesis isn’t possible. Northern coral don’t form reef structures, but include individual “plants,” fans, trees, that can be brightly colored, 10 feet across and live hundreds to thousands of years, growing slowly.

“Although the council could have chosen stronger protections, the measure marks a major expansion of coral habitat shielded from dredging and dragging,” said Peter Baker, who directs ocean conservation efforts in the Northeast for The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Few fishermen set pots or tow nets or dredges where coral live on the steep canyon walls that descend from the table top of Georges Bank, but even an accidental jostling by a lobster or crab pot or line or a misplaced tow could cause irrevocable damage. Fishermen told the council they didn’t tow gear below 1,600 feet; the measure protected coral below the 2,000-foot contour established by the New England council last week. The lone exemption was for the red crab fishery, which has relatively few participants, said Bachman.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

North Carolina: Cooper Warns Zinke of Lawsuit Over Drilling

February 6, 2018 — RALEIGH, N.C. — The federal government and Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration remain on course for a legal battle over the push to open the East Coast to offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling.

After a weekend meeting with Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, Cooper said he had reiterated his request for an exemption similar to one given to Florida, telling Zinke the state would sue if the Trump administration moves ahead with oil and gas exploration off North Carolina’s coast. Cooper also called on residents to get involved and keep up the fight.

“I call on the citizens of North Carolina to be loud about this issue,” Cooper said during a press conference after the Saturday morning session with Zinke.

Cooper was joined in the discussion at the executive mansion in Raleigh by representatives of the coastal region, who he said conveyed concerns to Zinke about the potential risks to the coast’s unique environment and an economy based on tourism and fisheries.

“I think he heard loud and clear from a cross section of North Carolina that we do not want offshore oil and gas drilling off the coast of North Carolina,” Cooper said. “We’ve been saying since this summer ‘no way, not off our coast.’”

On Friday, Zinke met with South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who also asked for an exemption to the proposed leasing program. Since the announcement last summer that Atlantic Coast waters would be reopened to oil and gas leasing, states have been lining up to seek exemptions. The pressure grew in January when Zinke granted Florida an exemption on the grounds that the state’s economy was too heavily dependent on coastal tourism.

Cooper said North Carolina deserves the same exemption extended to Florida and said the state would take the federal government to court if it is not granted.

State Attorney General Josh Stein, who also attended the meeting, said Zinke told the group every governor on the East Coast is opposed to the program. Stein echoed the governor’s threat.

“If we are unsuccessful in convincing the secretary to exempt North Carolina from this offshore drilling program, we will take him to court to protect our coast, our coastal economy and our people,” Stein said.

Cooper also asked for the comment period on the Trump administration’s proposed five-year plan announced Jan. 4 that would open almost all U.S. offshore waters to seismic exploration and drilling for oil and natural gas to be open for an additional 60 days and that public hearings in Wilmington, Morehead City and Kill Devil Hills be added to the schedule. The only public meeting planned in North Carolina is set for Feb. 26 in Raleigh as an “open house” information session, not a public hearing.

“He seemed receptive to that,” Cooper said of the request.

Joining Cooper and Stein for the meeting with Zinke were Department of Environment Quality Secretary Michael Regan; Coastal Resources Commission Chair Renee Cahoon; Stan Riggs, coastal and marine geologist at East Carolina University; Nags Head Mayor Pro Tem Susie Walters; Atlantic Beach Mayor Trace Cooper; Dare County Commission chair Bob Woodard; New Hanover County Commissioner Rob Zapple; Tom Kies, president of Carteret County Chamber of Commerce; and Capt. Dave Timpy, a retired Army Corps of Engineers specialist in coastal engineering who runs a charter fishing business in Wilmington.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online