Saving Seafood

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

ASMFC 2017 Spring Meeting Final Agenda and Meeting

April 26, 2017 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The final agenda and meeting materials for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s 2017 Spring Meeting can be obtained at http://www.asmfc.org/home/2017-spring-meeting; click on the relevant Board/Committee name to access the documents for that Board/Committee. Please note there are two links for the American Lobster Board meeting – the first link is for the main materials and the second link is to the NEFMC’s Deep-Sea Coral Amendment. For ease of access, all Board/Section meeting documents, with the exception of the American Lobster Board materials, have been combined into one document – Main Meeting Materials. 

The agenda is subject to change. The agenda reflects the current estimate of time required for scheduled meetings. The Commission may adjust this agenda in accordance with the actual duration of meetings. Interested parties should anticipate meetings starting earlier or later than indicated herein.

Board/Section meeting proceedings will be broadcast daily via webinar beginning May 8th at 1:00 p.m.  and continuing daily until the conclusion of the meeting (expected to be 3:00 p.m.) on Thursday May 11th. The webinar will allow registrants to listen to board/section deliberations and view presentations and motions as they occur. No comments or questions will be accepted via the webinar. Should technical difficulties arise while streaming the broadcast, the boards/sections will continue their deliberations without interruption. We will attempt to resume the broadcast as soon as possible. Please go tohttps://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/936308200287732994 to register.

As a reminder, the guidelines for submission of written comment for issues for which the Commission has NOT established a specific public comment period (i.e., in response to proposed management action) are as follows: 

1.   Comments received 3 weeks prior to the start of a meeting week will be included with the main meeting materials.

2.   Comments received by 5:00 PM on the Tuesday immediately preceding the scheduled ASMFC Meeting (in this case, the Tuesday deadline will be May 2, 2017) will be distributed electronically to Commissioners/Board members prior to the meeting and a limited number of copies will be provided at the meeting.

3.   Following the Tuesday, May 2, 2017 5:00 PM deadline, the commenter will be responsible for distributing the information to the management board prior to the board meeting or providing enough copies for the management board consideration at the meeting (a minimum of 50 copies).

The submitted comments must clearly indicate the commenter’s expectation from the ASMFC staff regarding distribution.  As with other public comment, it will be accepted via mail, fax, and email.

NEFMC Approves Atlantic Herring Alternatives for Analysis

April 24, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

During its April 18-20 meeting in Mystic, CT, the New England Fishery Management Council reviewed Draft Amendment 8 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan (FMP) and subsequently approved a wide range of alternatives for further analysis. The alternatives fall into two categories: (1) proposals to address potential localized depletion and user conflicts in the fishery; and (2) options to establish an acceptable biological catch (ABC) control rule that would be used when setting specifications and catch limits. The Council advanced nine primary localized depletion/user conflicts alternatives for additional development:

  • Alternative 1 – No action, meaning no new measures would be implemented;
  • Alternative 2 – A June 1-August 31 closure to all vessels and gear types fishing for Atlantic herring within 6 nautical miles (nm) from shore in Area 114 (solid green area off the back of Cape Cod in map at right);
  • Alternative 3 – A year-round prohibition on using midwater trawl gear in Atlantic Herring Management Area 1A (red hatching in map);
  • Alternatives 4, 5, and 6 – Three “buffer zone” proposals that would prohibit midwater trawl gear inside of 12 nm, 25 nm, and 50 nm respectively in Herring Management Areas 1B, 2, and 3 year-round from Cape Cod to the North/South Carolina border (see map next page);
  • Alternative 7 – A prohibition on midwater trawl gear year-round within five different thirty minute squares – 99, 100, 114, 115, and 123 (green outlined blocks in map at right);
  • Alternative 8 – Revert to original boundary line between Area 1B and 3 (see map page 3);
  • Alternative 9 – Modify the Area 1B seasonal closure to open January 1 instead of May 1.

Read the full release here

NOAA limits permits fisherman can own

April 21, 2017 — NOAA has approved a new rule to limit the number of permits and the amount of groundfish allocation any individual or entity can own in the Northeast multispecies fishery.

The rule is an attempt to create more diversity in the fishery by stemming the tide of consolidation. It prohibits any single ownership entity from acquiring an “excessive share of fishing privileges” or an unfair economic advantage over the groundfish market.

The rule precludes any ownership entity from possessing more than 5 percent of the total of limited access permits in the groundfishery. As of Feb. 21, there were 1,335 active permits in the fishery, which means no individual or entity can own more than 67 permits.

“The most permits held by any entity was 50,” the rule states. “Based on this information, this permit cap is unlikely to immediately restrict any entity.”

The rule, also known as Amendment 18 to the Northeast multispecies fishery management plan, also caps potential sector contributions (PSC). However, it removes several fishing restrictions “to increase operational flexibility for fishermen on limited access handgear vessels.”

“The combination of the PSC limit and 5 percent permit cap raises the difficulty and cost of acquiring enough permits and PSC for any one entity in the groundfish fishery to exert market power over the fishery,” the rule stated.

The rule, published Thursday in the Federal Register and principally effective May 20,  has been long in the making.

The New England Fishery Management Council first started work on it in 2011. It approved the measure last August and submitted it to NOAA for public comment and final approval.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times