Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: New herring rules prompt angst at dock

September 27, 2018 — The protections for the Northeast herring fishery enacted this week by the New England Fishery Management Council are not welcome news for Cape Seafoods and could force the Gloucester-based seafood company to change the way it fishes.

The council, meeting this week in Plymouth, voted to supplement severe rollbacks of herring quotas with a new inshore buffer zone aimed specifically at preventing mid-water trawlers — such as Cape Seafoods’ 141-foot boats, Challenger and Endeavour — from fishing within 12 miles of shore in most areas of the Northeast.

In some areas around Cape Cod, the buffer zone expands to 20 to 25 miles.

The council also voted for cuts in catch levels for the next three years. In 2019, catch levels will be capped at 21,226 metric tons — less than half of the 50,000 metric tons allowed in 2018. Those catch-level reductions and the creation of the buffer zone still must be approved by NOAA Fisheries.

“It’s not good,” Gerry O’Neill, president of Cape Seafoods, said Wednesday. “The majority of fish we catch every year are caught inside that 12-mile buffer. The long and short of it is this is going to have a serious impact on our business and I’m not really sure what we will do to survive it.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Maine Fishermen Worry That New Regulations on Herring Will Hurt Small Businesses, Lobstermen

September 27, 2018 — A day after fishing regulators adopted strict new measures to prevent herring stocks from collapsing, some New England fishermen say they fear for their own survival.

Herring are a crucial forage fish for whales, seabirds and other predators. But they’re also the primary bait fish for lobstermen around New England. And, in the face of bleak stock assessments, there’s disagreement about the best way forward for the fish and fishermen.

At the New England Fish Company on Portland’s waterfront, Ryan Raber and his sister, Susanna, say they will likely have to lay off some crew and staff to keep their second generation bait business going. They have 25 employees. Herring and mackerel are the primary species the company targets for bait, but if the rules adopted by the New England Fishery Management Council are approved, the Rabers and others won’t be able to catch herring the way they used to or catch as much.

“Last year we had a quota of about 100,000 metric tons,” says Ryan Raber. “This year industry worked with NOAA to reduce it to about half that to 55,000 tons. Next year’s quota will be down to around 15-thousand tons.”

Read the full story at Maine Public

New England Fishery Regulators Approve More-Conservative Management Of Atlantic Herring

September 27, 2018 — The New England Fishery Management Council approved Tuesday a more conservative formula used to set catch limits for Atlantic herring.

The formula, known as the acceptable biological catch, will more explicitly take into account herring’s ecological role as a fish eaten by bigger fish and marine birds and mammals.

The Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit based in Philadelphia, estimates the new rule will keep an additional 31 million pounds of herring in the water over the next three years.

Council members also banned commercial fishermen from using large fishing nets called mid-water trawls within 12 miles of New England’s coastline.

Atlantic herring are a small, schooling fish primarily caught to be used as bait for tuna and lobster. A recent stock assessment shows the population has reached historic lows over the past five years.

The changes to the management plan have been submitted to the National Marine Fisheries Service for final approval.

Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio

NEFMC Reelects Dr. John Quinn as Chair and Terry Stockwell as Vice Chair

September 27, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

At the start of its September 24 -27, 2018 meeting in Plymouth, MA, the New England Fishery Management Council reelected Dr. John Quinn of Massachusetts and Terry Stockwell of Maine to serve as Council chair and vice chair for another term. The two ran unopposed and were ushered in unanimously.

This marks Dr. Quinn’s third consecutive year as chairman. Prior to that, he served three years as Council
vice chair under Stockwell. The two switched leadership positions during 2016 but continued to work
together as a team to direct the Council’s management and policy initiatives. “I appreciate the confidence the Council has shown in me over the past couple of years,” said Dr. Quinn. “I look forward to doing more good work with all of our Council members and stakeholders.”

Dr. Quinn recently was promoted to Assistant Dean of Public Interest Law and External Relations at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) School of Law. He is a former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he spent 18 years. He also represented many fishing interests while practicing law in private practice for over two decades in New Bedford before joining UMass.

Read the full release here

New England regulators scale back Atlantic herring catch

September 26, 2018 — Regulators on Tuesday tightened restrictions on the fishing of Atlantic herring but didn’t go as far as some groups wanted to help rebuild declining stocks of the small, oily fish that’s not only important to New England fishermen but is also a critical link in the marine food chain.

The New England Fishery Management Council unanimously approved a new management approach that will dramatically cut the catch limits for herring over the next three years, but the regulatory board stopped short of temporarily shutting down the fishery, as one option on the table would have required.

The new rules adopted by the council, which put in place a formula for setting annual catch limits, were applauded by some environmental advocates as recognition of the fish’s key role in the larger ocean ecosystem.

“The population is stressed, and we really need to start building resiliency,” Erica Fuller, senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, told the council.

But the decision was made over the objections of groups representing commercial fishing boats that catch herring and lobstermen who use the fish as bait. They argue that the herring population goes through natural ups and downs influenced more by environmental factors than fishing pressure.

Read the full story at The Providence Journal

 

Fishing regulators approve measures to conserve Atlantic herring

September 26, 2018 — New England fishing regulators on Tuesday approved two measures aimed at conserving the dwindling Atlantic herring stock.

The New England Fishery Management Council approved a rule that “establishes a long-term policy that will guide the council in setting catch limits into the future” at a meeting in Plymouth.

Such an option will result in more herring being left in the water “to serve as forage and be part of the overall ecosystem,” according to the council. Under that proposal, catch limits can be adjusted based on new information.

Additionally, the council approved a measure aimed at preventing midwater trawlers from fishing too close to shore for herring. The boats are banned from fishing within 12 miles of shore, an area stretching from the Canadian border through Rhode Island, that includes areas east and southeast of Cape Cod, according to the council.

Recent surveys have found that the Atlantic herring population in the Gulf of Maine is at risk of collapse. The fish provide a crucial source of food to species that include cod, striped bass, and humpback whales.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

 

Maine lobstermen say move to avert collapse of herring fishery will have dire consequences

September 26, 2018 — Regulators are taking drastic steps to avert a collapse of the herring fishery, adopting trawling bans and proposing rock-bottom quotas.

While environmental groups and those who fish species that rely on herring for food, like striped bass and tuna, cheered the action, the Maine lobster industry was left wondering how it will survive without its favorite bait. Patrice McCarron, the executive director of the Maine Lobstermen Association, predicted it will force some lobstermen off the water.

“It is going to be really devastating,” McCarron told the New England Fisheries Management Council on Tuesday. “People aren’t going to be able to fish. There’s just not going to be enough bait. If you do get bait, you’re going to be on rations. The price of bait is going to skyrocket. … A lot of people are going to go out of business.”

About 70 percent of all herring landed in the U.S. ends up as bait, mostly for the lobster industry. In the last five years, as lobster hauls increased, the demand for herring went up, too, just as herring landings began to fall, McCarron said. That has driven up the bait price. In 2013, Maine lobstermen were paying $30 a bushel. Now, a bushel costs $45 on the coast, or $60 on the islands.

McCarron expects the price of bait to double next year, which would be a disaster for Maine lobstermen, she said. Her organization has been meeting with Maine bait dealers to talk about their storage capability, which she said was limited, and herring alternatives such as pogeys and redfish, whose prices likely will rise as lobstermen are forced to abandon herring as bait.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

NOAA invites more comment on access to whiting fishery

September 26, 2018 — The New England Fishery Management Council is reopening the public comment period for the proposal to potentially limit access to the whiting fishery.

The council, meeting in Plymouth, said discrepancies of the estimated number of qualifying vessels in two of the proposed alternatives led the council to add an additional hearing via webinar “to explain the discrepancy and solicit additional comments from all interested stakeholders.”

Details on the date and format of the webinar are not yet available.

The council also said it expects to take final action on the proposed whiting amendment during its December meeting in Newport, Rhode Island.

The amendment, referred to as Amendment 22, proposes a limited access plan for the three stocks collectively regarded as whiting — northern silver hake, southern silver hake and offshore hake — as well as northern red hake and southern red hake.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Whiting: NEFMC Agrees to Reopen Comment Period on Amendment 22; Receives Monitoring Report

September 25, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council has decided to reopen the public comment period for
Whiting Amendment 22, which is being developed to potentially limit access to the small-mesh
multispecies fishery. The amendment contains several alternatives related to: (1) limited access
qualification criteria; (2) possession limits by permit type; and (3) permit conditions.

The Council held five public hearings on the amendment in July but then discovered a discrepancy between the number of estimated qualifying vessels cited in the amendment’s Draft Environmental Impact
Statement (DEIS) versus the public hearing document itself. The DEIS contains the correct number of
estimated qualifiers. Those numbers are lower than those listed in the original public hearing document.

Read the full release here

Drastic measures considered to arrest plunge in herring population

September 25, 2018 — The small, silver fish that teem in large schools in the waters off New England are vital to the marine ecosystem, providing a crucial source of food to many of the region’s iconic species, including cod, striped bass, humpback whales, and seabirds such as puffins.

But recent surveys have found that the Atlantic herring population in the Gulf of Maine is at risk of collapse, with so few being born that federal officials have slashed fishing quotas and are now considering even more draconian steps to reduce the catch.

The proposed measures, which the New England Fishery Management Council is slated to take up on Tuesday, are so controversial that they have pitted fishermen against each other and have raised concerns about the future of the region’s lucrative lobster fishery, which mainly uses herring as bait.

“The decline of Atlantic herring represents an existential threat to many New England fisheries and the fishing families who depend on them for their livelihoods,” said Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, an advocacy group that promotes sustainable fishing. “Without food in the ocean, without bait in the traps, the ecosystem and the entire fishing economy of New England begins to crumble.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe