Saving Seafood

NOAA Fisheries Proposes State Water Exemptions for Scallop Fisheries in Maine and Massachusetts

June 29, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries is seeking comment on a proposed rule that would revise the State Waters Exemption Program under the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan.

Under this proposed rule, vessels holding both a Massachusetts state scallop permit and either a Limited Access General Category (LAGC) Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) or LAGC Northern Gulf of Maine (NGOM) Federal scallop permit could continue to fish in state waters once the Federal Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for the NGOM Management Area has been fully harvested.

This action would also modify the State Waters Exemption for Maine, which already has this exemption for vessels holding state scallop permits and LAGC NGOM permits, to include vessels that have both a state scallop permit and an LAGC IFQ permit.

Read the proposed rule as published in the Federal Register.

We will be accepting public comment on this proposed rule through July 14.

Please submit comments through our e-rulemaking portal or by sending your comments to: John Bullard, Regional Administrator, Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930. Please make the outside of the envelope “Comments on Maine and Massachusetts State Waters Exemption Program.”

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel at 978-281-9175 or jennifer.goebel@noaa.gov

Hawaii Loses A Fishery Council Seat After Governor’s Fumble

June 29, 2017 — Hawaii managed to hold onto one of the two at-large seats it has historically held on the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council thanks to the governor of the Northern Mariana Islands nominating someone from the Aloha State.

Edwin Ebisui, a lawyer, part-time commercial fisherman and the council’s current chair, has been appointed to serve another three-year term, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Wednesday.

The other at-large seat will go to commercial tuna fisherman Eo Mokoma of American Samoa, who will replace Kona charter fisherman McGrew Rice after his term ends Aug. 11. Mokoma operates the only active longline boat in the territory, an alia catamaran, according to the nomination letter American Samoa Gov. Lolo Moliga sent to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Gov. David Ige’s administration twice missed deadlines to submit to federal officials a list of nominees to fill two of the at-large seats that are expiring on the council, which manages fish stocks in nearly 1.5 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean.

The Commerce Department, which oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was left to choose from the lists of nominees provided by the governors of American Samoa and the Northern Marianas. Guam, the other U.S. territory represented on the council, which has 13 voting members, did not nominate anyone.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

U.S. Commerce Department Announces Appointments to Regional Fishery Management Councils for 2017

June 29, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

The U.S. Commerce Department today announced the appointment of 22 new and returning members to the eight regional fishery management councils that partner with NOAA Fisheries to manage ocean fish stocks. The new and reappointed council members begin their three-year terms on August 12.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act established the councils to prepare fishery management plans for their regions. NOAA Fisheries works closely with the councils through this process and then reviews, approves and implements the plans. Council members represent diverse groups, including commercial and recreational fishing industries, environmental organizations and academia. They are vital to fulfilling the act’s requirements to end overfishing, rebuild fish stocks and manage them sustainably.

Each year, the Secretary of Commerce appoints approximately one-third of the total 72 appointed members to the eight regional councils. The Secretary selects members from nominations submitted by the governors of fishing states, territories and tribal governments.

Council members are appointed to both obligatory (state-specific) and at-large (regional) seats. Council members serve a three-year term and can be reappointed to serve three consecutive terms. Asterisks preceding a member’s name indicate a reappointment.

New England Council (*denotes reappointment)

The New England Council includes members from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. 2017 appointees will fill four at-large seats.

  • Peter Kendall* (New Hampshire)
  • Elizabeth Etrie* (Massachusetts)
  • John Pappalardo* (Massachusetts)
  • Ernest F. Stockwell (Maine)

Mid-Atlantic Council

The Mid-Atlantic Council includes members from the states of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. 2017 appointees will fill obligatory seats for Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania and one at-large seat.

Obligatory seats:

  • Earl Gwin (Maryland)
  • Francis Hemilright* (North Carolina)
  • Steven Heins (New York)
  • G. Warren Elliott* (Pennsylvania)

At-large seat:

  • Laurie A. Nolan* (New York)

Jellied sea creatures confound scientists, fishermen on U.S. Pacific Coast

June 28, 2017 — Drifting throngs of jelly-like, glowing organisms native to tropical seas far from shore have invaded Pacific coastal waters from Southern California to the Gulf of Alaska this year, baffling researchers and frustrating fishing crews.

Known as pyrosomes, they are tubular colonies of hundreds or thousands of tiny individual creatures called zooids, enmeshed together in a gelatinous tunic roughly the consistency of gummy bear candy.

No relation to jellyfish, they resemble bumpy, opaque pickles in the water, typically a few centimeters or inches long, though some grow 1 or 2 feet (30cm or 60cm) in length.

They feed by filtering microscopic algae, or phytoplankton, as they float with the current, and are known to glow in the dark – a bioluminescent characteristic that gives the organism its scientific name — Pyrosoma, Greek for “fire body.”

Pyrosomes have rarely if ever been seen along the U.S. West Coast until 2012, when first spotted in California waters. Since then, they have gradually multiplied and spread north, before exploding in numbers this spring, according to scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Although harmless to humans, they have been especially troublesome to the commercial salmon catch in Oregon, with large globs of the rubbery critters clogging fishing gear by the thousands in recent months. Some have even washed ashore.

“It gets to a point where they’re so abundant, you can’t even fish out there, so you have to pick up your gear and move elsewhere,” Nancy Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Oregon Salmon Commission, said on Monday.

A single five-minute trawl with a research net by scientists off the Columbia River in late May scooped up roughly 60,000 pyrosomes, NOAA reported.

Fishermen were also hit in southeastern Alaska, where some crews suspended operations earlier this year when pyrosome densities were at their height, said Aaron Baldwin, a fishery biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Read the full story at Reuters

A Staggering Amount of Fish Is Wasted Each Year

June 28, 2017 — New research shows that industrial fisheries are responsible for dumping nearly 10 million tons of perfectly good fish back into the ocean each year—enough to fill 4,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools. This news comes at a time when nearly 90 percent of the world’s fish stocks are threatened by overfishing.

The research, published in the science journal Fish and Fisheries, shows that roughly 10 percent of the world’s annual catch is tossed back in the ocean. This waste happens for a number of reasons, including fishing practices that damage fish (making them unmarketable), throwing back fish that are too small or out of season, or because only part of the fish needs to be harvested (e.g. Alaska pollock roe). In some cases, fishers caught species they weren’t targeting (called bycatch), or they continue to catch fish even though they’ve caught enough, which they do in hopes of scooping up bigger fish (called high-grading).

“In the current era of increasing food insecurity and human nutritional health concerns, these findings are important,” noted Dirk Zeller, a researcher at the University of Western Australia, a senior research Partner with the Sea Around Us, and the lead author of the new study, in a statement. “The discarded fish could have been put to better use.”

For the study, the researchers examined the amount of fish that has been discarded over the past six decades. Estimates were made for all major fisheries around the world relying on, in the words of the authors, “a wide variety of data and information sources and on conservative assumptions to ensure comprehensive and complete time-series coverage.” Their analysis shows that five million tons of fish were discarded annually in the 1950s, a figure that skyrocketed to 18 tons annually by the late 1980s. This figure dropped to less than 10 million tons over the last decade.

Read the full story at Gizmodo

NOAA Establishes Voluntary Speed Restriction Zone South of Nantucket

June 28, 2017 — A voluntary speed restriction zone about 15 miles south of Nantucket has been established by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries division.

It comes after three right whales were spotted in the area recently.

According to researchers, there are only about 400 North Atlantic right whales still in existence.

Those who approach a right whale closer than 500 yards will be in violation of federal and state law and could lead to criminal charges.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Seafood Traceability Rule to Remain in Place, Says Court

June 28, 2017 — As reported previously on this blog, concerns about illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) seafood fraud, led to a proposed rule to establish a traceability program for certain seafood species. The final rule establishing the Seafood Import Monitoring Program was published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Department of Commerce, in the December 9, 2016 Federal Register.

The Program established permitting, data reporting and recordkeeping requirements for the importation of certain priority fish and fish products—including abalone, several types of cod and tuna, red snapper, shrimp and swordfish—that were identified as being especially vulnerable to seafood fraud. The rule requires seafood importers to trace the origin of the fish they import to either the specific boat that caught the full fish or a “single collection point,” to the day the fish was caught, and to the sector of the specific ocean where the fish was caught.

On January 6, 2017, the National Fisheries Institute, Alfa International Seafood, Inc. and others filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging what they called a “Midnight Final Rule.” In the suit, the plaintiffs questioned whether the Department of Commerce cut corners by, among other things, refusing to disclose for public comment the data that it relied on to identify the seafood species subject to the rule and by allowing “a low-level bureaucrat to issue a binding final rule absent a valid delegation of authority from the Secretary.”

In a June 22, 2017 ruling, Judge Amit P. Mehta did not overturn the final rule establishing the Seafood Import Monitoring Program. Rather, Judge Mehta wrote: “The proper course at this juncture—just months before the rule goes into effect—is to defer ruling on Plaintiffs’ broader challenge to the agency’s authority to engage in rule-making and, instead, afford the federal defendants an opportunity to submit a signed statement from a principal officer within the Department of Commerce that ratifies the rule.”

Read the full story at The National Law Review

NOAA Seeks Comments on Proposed Rule Adding Blueline Tilefish to Golden TIlefish Management Plan

June 28, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries is asking for comments on a proposed rule to add blueline tilefish to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Golden Tilefish Fishery Management Plan.

Blueline tilefish have been managed for many years under the South Atlantic Council’s Snapper Grouper Fishery Management Plan, whose measures only apply south of the Virginia/North Carolina border. The fishery in the Mid-Atlantic was considered very small and remained unregulated until recently.

Recreational and commercial blueline tilefish catch has been increasing steadily in the Greater Atlantic Region (Virginia to Maine) since 2011. In 2014, commercial landings increased more than 20-fold from the previous several years’ average. This rapid increase in unregulated harvest represented a risk to the long-term sustainability of the stock, and triggered the Mid-Atlantic Council to request emergency management measures in 2015. Interim management measures took effect in June 2016, while the Council developed this proposed amendment.

Amendment 6 to the Tilefish Fishery Management Plan would manage the federal waters blueline tilefish fishery north of the Virginia/North Carolina border. We are proposing these management measures for blueline tilefish as part of the Tilefish Fishery Management Plan.

Through this action, we are proposing a commercial possession limit of 300 pounds per trip. 

We are also proposing a recreational season from May 1-October 31 and limits of:

  • 7 fish per person on Coast Guard inspected for-hire vessels (party boats)
  • 5 fish per person on uninspected for-hire vessels (charter boats), and
  • 3 fish per person on private recreational vessels.

The proposed rule would require fishermen to hold a valid Greater Atlantic Region open access tilefish commercial or charter/party permit to ensure adequate reporting and monitoring of blueline tilefish fishing activity. We also recommend requirements for new permits and catch reporting for private recreational fishermen.

More information is available in the proposed rule and Notice of Availability, along with the draft Environmental Assessment and preliminary Regulatory Impact Review. 

You may submit comments on either through the e-rulemaking portal or by mailing your comments to: John Bullard, Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930. Please mark the outside of the envelope: “Comments on Blueline Tilefish Amendment.”

The comment period closes for the proposed rule on July 28, 2017 and for the Notice of Availability on August 14, 2017.

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel at 978-281-9175 or jennifer.goebel@noaa.gov

NOAA study: Locally caught fish lands on plates locally

June 28, 2017 — It’s like Las Vegas, only colder: Groundfish landed in the Northeast generally stay in the Northeast.

NOAA Fisheries this week released a study tracing the ultimate destination of seafood landed in the Northeast that concluded that most of the groundfish landed in this region is consumed as food by consumers in the region.

According to the study, other species, such as scallops, are processed for wider domestic and international distribution, while some — such as monkfish — are sold in parts or whole in more limited markets.

The study said only a small percentage of the scallops landed in the region remain here. Most are sold to large industrial food companies and transported throughout the country or flash-frozen and transported to Europe or elsewhere.

Groundfish, it said, is one of the few fisheries that is primarily consumed regionally.

Using data from the New England Fishery Management Council and other stakeholders, the study traced the region’s boat-to-consumer supply chain, of which Gloucester plays a pivotal role along with New Bedford, Boston and Portland, Maine.

“This study is a first step in characterizing New England fisheries, including where fish are caught, what they are used for, and where they go once they are landed,” Patricia Pinto da Silva, a social policy specialist at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center and one of the study’s author, said in a statement accompanying the release. “We did not include aquaculture or the regional recreational harvest, which is something we would like to do in the future.”

The study showed the seafood species landed in the Northeast “vary widely in where they are sold and how they are used.”

Much of the groundfish landed within the region — including cod, haddock, pollock and several flounders — ends up sold as food fish to local restaurants, fishmongers and domestic supermarkets, the study stated.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Public health could – and should – play bigger role in US fisheries policy

June 26, 2017 — U.S. dietary guidelines call for Americans to eat more fish. But fishery managers don’t usually manage stocks with this goal in mind, according to a recent study.

Fisheries policy is essentially part of the nation’s food policy, which affects public health. So, fishery managers, whether they mean to or not, affect the availability, access and distribution of healthy seafood for Americans nationwide.

Despite this intrinsic link, fishery managers don’t usually take public health into account, the researchers said.

The primary authors of the study published in June were Dave Love, an associate scientist at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for a Livable Future, and Patricia Pinto da Silva, a social scientist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Fisheries managers should consider how management decisions affect markets, access and use of seafood,” the researchers told SeafoodSource in an email.

The Magnuson-Stevens Act, which is the main fisheries management law in the U.S., requires fisheries to be managed to produce the greatest benefits to the nation in terms of food production, within environmental constraints.

“However, while this is a key component of the [law], fisheries are generally not managed with food production in mind,” the researchers said.

Current fisheries management doesn’t take into account what the fish is used for once it’s caught, or where it goes. This means that it’s impossible to know if the country is meeting optimum yield, the researchers said.

Part of this disconnect comes from the fact that fisheries policymakers and public health officials are literally in different federal departments: Commerce for fisheries and Health and Human Services for public health. Federal agencies do cooperate on seafood inspection.

The researchers recommend fostering better collaboration between fisheries and health agencies.

“The public health and medical community needs to seek out information from the fisheries community about the ecological health of a resource before they make recommendations about what seafood consumers should eat,” they said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source