Saving Seafood

NEFMC Coral Amendment Hearings Begin May 22

May 16, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

This is a reminder that the New England Fishery Management Council will be holding seven public hearings on its Omnibus Deep-Sea Coral Amendment the week of May 22.  Here are the dates, times, and locations:

  • MONDAY, MAY 22 — MONTAUK, NY:  Montauk Playhouse Community Center, 240 Edgemere Street, Montauk, NY 11954, 6 p.m. 
  • TUESDAY, MAY 23 — NARRAGANSETT, RI:  University of Rhode Island Bay Campus, Corless Auditorium, 215 South Ferry Road, Narragansett, RI 02882, 1 p.m.
  • TUESDAY, MAY 23 — NEW BEDFORD, MA:  Fairfield Inn and Suites, 185 MacArthur Drive, New Bedford, MA 02740, 5:30 p.m.
  • WEDNESDAY, MAY 24 — GLOUCESTER, MA:  Mass. DMF Annisquam River Marine Fisheries Field Station, 30 Emerson Ave., Gloucester, MA 01930, 1 p.m. (NOTE:  This is a revised meeting location.)
  • WEDNESDAY, MAY 24 — PORTSMOUTH, NH:  Sheraton Harborside, 250 Market Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801, 5:30 p.m.
  • THURSDAY, MAY 25 — ELLSWORTH, ME:  Ellsworth High School, 299 State Street, Ellsworth, ME 04605, 5 p.m.
  • FRIDAY, MAY 26 — WEBINAR:  Details below, 1 p.m.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION:  Online access to the meeting will be available at:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/98257139389273345.  

There is no charge to access the meeting through this webinar.  Advance registration is encouraged.  Additional webinar details are available in the meeting notice.

CALL-IN OPTION:  To listen by telephone, dial +1 (562) 247-8422.  

The access code is 204-076-626.  Please be aware that if you dial in, your regular phone charges will apply.

COMMENT DEADLINE:  The Council is accepting written comments through 5 p.m. EST, Monday, June 5, 2017.  Mail, fax, or email written comments to:  Thomas A. Nies, Executive Director, New England Fishery Management Council, 50 Water Street, Mill 2, Newburyport, MA 01950, Fax (978) 465–3116, Email: comments@nefmc.org.  Please label written correspondence as “Comments on Deep-Sea Coral Amendment.”

WRITTEN COMMENTS NOTE:  Early submission of written comments is encouraged.  The Council’s Habitat Committee will meet May 30 to consider public hearing testimony and written comments received as of May 24.  The Habitat Committee will formulate recommendations for consideration by the full Council during its June 20-22 meeting in Portsmouth, NH.  The Council is scheduled to take final action on the Coral Amendment at the June meeting. 

MATERIALS:  The public hearing document and other Coral Amendment materials are available on the Council’s website at Coral Amendment hearings.

QUESTIONS:  Email Michelle Bachman at mbachman@nefmc.org.

NEFMC Seeks Contractor for Atlantic Herring MSE Work

May 15, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council is soliciting the services of an independent contractor to assist in developing and communicating the results of a recent Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) of Atlantic herring acceptable biological catch (ABC) control rules.  This is a temporary, three-month position, expected to begin on or around June 1, 2017.

The solicitation notice states, “Effectively communicating MSE output is a recognized challenge.  The New England Council is seeking a contractor to help synthesize data and translate MSE results to different audiences.”

The Council is developing a new Atlantic herring ABC control rule for Amendment 8 to the federal Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan. The independent contractor is expected to:

  • Draft guidance narrative to help stakeholders and the Council understand how MSE results should be interpreted in general;
  • Develop infographics for the Amendment 8 document and meeting materials;
  • Draft detailed narrative describing MSE results, as well as key summery points and findings with captions and text boxes, either independently or with other MSE analysts;
  • Prepare presentation slides that can be used to summarize results at meetings;
  • Prepare detailed appendices of all results to be included in Amendment 8; and
  • Summarize MSE methods and results for general audiences.

POTENTIAL CANDIDATES:  Interested professionals are encouraged to submit a cover letter, current resume or CV, examples of similar work completed for other organizations or publications, and a budget with expected expenses no later than May 30, 2017.  Letters of interest and supporting materials should be addressed or emailed to:  Deirdre Boelke, New England Fishery Management Council, 50 Water Street, Mill 2, Newburyport, MA 01950; dboelke@nefmc.org.

MORE INFORMATION:  Further details about the work statement, desired experience and skills, and expected deliverables are outlined in the solicitation notice, which is available at NEFMC Seeks Atlantic Herring MSE Contractor.

Public invited to meetings of fishing regulators

May 12, 2017 — Gloucester, Massachusetts will sit at the epicenter of the national fishery management universe next week when top regulators from around the country gather here for three days of overviews of the nation’s individual fisheries.

The Council Coordination Committee, which includes chairmen and directors of the eight regional fishery management councils, is set to discuss issues such as national monuments and sanctuaries, habitat, recreational fisheries, enforcement and legislation.

The meetings at the Beauport Hotel Gloucester are being hosted by the New England Fishery Management Council, which was determined to hold them in a working commercial fishing port, according to NEFMC Executive Director Tom Nies.

Nies said the meetings give the geographically diverse regulators — who hale from Alaska to the Caribbean — the chance to discuss issues that cut across all of their councils. It also affords NOAA Fisheries the opportunity speak to the collective councils as a single group.

“We meet twice a year and it’s really the only time all eight council have the chance to discuss national-level policy issues and issues that other councils are facing that we may face ourselves in the future,” Nies said.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Nation’s fish leaders meeting in Gloucester next week

May 10, 2017 — Leadership teams from the nation’s eight regional fishery management councils will convene in Gloucester next week to discuss national marine monuments, habitat and other fishery management issues.

The meeting of the Council Coordination Committee, which includes the chairmen, vice chairmen and executive directors of the eight regional fishery councils, is set for the Beauport Hotel on Commercial Street, May 15 to 18.

The first day is set aside for internal organizational meetings, with the principal agenda items scheduled for the following three days, according to Janice Plante, spokeswoman for the New England Fishery Management Council.

Plante also said the NEFMC plans to have its September meeting at the Beauport Hotel.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Fishermen, Conservationists Go Head To Head Over East Coast Underwater National Monument

May 9, 2017 — New England fishermen are hoping President Donald Trump will reverse an undersea monument designation they say has cut them off from nearly 5,000 square miles of valuable fishing grounds off the coast of Cape Cod.

Trump last month directed the Department of the Interior to conduct a sweeping review of national monument designations over the last two decades, including the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, which President Barack Obama declared the first undersea national monument in the Atlantic Ocean in September.

The area is a “spectacular landscape” home to a “whole diversity of otherwordly creatures that most people are not familiar with,” said Peter Auster, a senior research scientist at Mystic Aquarium who helped secure the designation and has conducted research in the area. There are undersea canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon and extinct underwater volcanoes “taller than anything east of the Rockies” with a variety of species of fragile coral, he said.

But Joseph Gilbert, owner of Stonington-based Empire Fisheries, said since the designation, “we’ve been pushed to other areas” creating unnecessary competition and pressure as more boats are fishing in a smaller area. Fishermen, who have been using the area for 200 years, Gilbert said, were given just two months to get out.

Obama used the Antiquities Act of 1906 to declare the area a national monument, and that’s what’s at the heart of Gilbert’s objections, he said. Using the Antiquities Act circumvented the New England Fishery Management Council, the normal process for fishery management, and allowed for less input from the industry, Gilbert said.

Read the full story at the Hartford Courant

Fishery Management Councils to Meet May 15-18 in Gloucester

May 2, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council: 

Leadership teams from the nation’s eight regional fishery management councils will be gathering in Gloucester, MA for the spring 2017 Council Coordination Committee (CCC) meeting.

The CCC is comprised of the chairs, vice chairs, and executive directors of the New England, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, Western Pacific, and North Pacific Fishery Management Councils. CCC chairmanship rotates annually among the eight Councils.

The committee meets twice each year to discuss issues relevant to all fishery management councils. The National Marine Fisheries Service – often called NOAA Fisheries – annually hosts the first meeting, which for 2017 was held Feb. 28-March 1 in Arlington, VA. The New England Council is serving as this year’s CCC chair and will be hosting the May 15-18 spring meeting at the Beauport Hotel on the Gloucester Harbor waterfront. The public is welcome to attend.

Principal agenda items will be discussed Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, May 16-18, beginning at 8:30 a.m. each day. The eight Councils will take part in a Round Robin on Tuesday morning. Council deputy directors will meet concurrently and report to the full CCC on Thursday, May 18. Copies of the agenda will be available shortly. Hotel information can be found at http://www.beauporthotel.com.

Read the full release here

Series of Coral Protection Hearings Planned for New England

May 1, 2017 — Federal fishery managers will hold a host of public hearings in New England and New York about a plan to protect corals in key East Coast fishing areas.

The New England Fishery Management Council is hosting seven public hearings about alternatives it is considering about the protection of corals in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank.

The hearings will take place from May 22 to 25 in Montauk, New York; Narragansett, Rhode Island; New Bedford, Massachusetts; Gloucester, Massachusetts; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and Ellsworth, Maine.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CapeCod.com

NEFMC Announces Coral Amendment Public Hearing Schedule

May 1, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council will hold seven public hearings on its Draft Omnibus DeepSea Coral Amendment to collect input from fishermen and other stakeholders on the alternatives being considered to protect corals in the inshore and offshore Gulf of Maine and in the offshore canyon/slope region south of Georges Bank.

Hearings will be held May 22 through May 25 in five states – New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine sequentially – and then a webinar hearing will wrap up the series on May 26.

The alternatives in the amendment are designed to reduce potential impacts of fishing activity on corals. Restrictions on bottom-tending mobile and fixed gear are listed among the alternatives. However, the Council is considering possible exemptions for some or all types of fixed gear, such as lobster traps, deepsea red crab pots, and gillnets. At its April 20-22 meeting in Mystic, CT, the Council selected “preferred” alternatives. Some of these selections included fixed gear exemptions.

Read the full release here

New management could be coming to East Coast herring fishery

April 27, 2017 — Federal fishing regulators are considering a host of alternatives about new ways to manage the herring fishery.

Atlantic herring is a major industrial fishery on the East Coast, including in Gloucester, with fishermen frequently bringing more than 200 million pounds of the little fish to shore every year.

Herring are used as human food and bait for other fisheries, such as lobsters. The catch of herring off of New England has been inconsistent in recent years, leading to volatility in the lobster bait market.

The New England Fishery Management Council is considering nine alternatives about how to manage the fishery. The options would allow for measures such as area closures and restrictions on types of gear.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Five options for whiting fishery to be studied this summer

April 27, 2017 — The New England Fishery Management Council will spend much of the summer considering five alternatives to potentially limiting entry into the region’s small-mesh whiting fishery.

The council last week approved the five alternatives as part of Whiting Amendment 22, which includes three major components — limited access qualification criteria, possession limits by permit type and permit characteristics, and conditions that could result from the decision to pursue a limited-access fishery.

The council, following the approval of the five alternatives, said it expects to select preferred alternatives at either of its regularly scheduled meetings in June or September. Those preferred alternatives would go to public comment in the summer or fall (depending on when the preferred measures are identified), with final action anticipated for the fall or early winter.

The fishery includes five stocks: northern silver hake, southern silver hake, offshore hake, northern red hake and southern red hake. The first three fall under the general description of whiting.

Historically, the whiting fishery has been characterized by low effort, with harvesters landing only a fraction of the annual catch limits for the three species that fall within the whiting category.

But, as fishing stakeholders continue to cast about for underutilized species, regulators are concerned that allowing the fishery to remain wide open “could result in effort increases.” They also point out that northern red hake has exceeded its annual catch limit in several recent years and there also is concern that harvesters also have exceeded the sub-annual catch limit for the fishery’s yellowtail flounder.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times