June 1, 2020 — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council hosted leaders from the eight regional fishery management councils this week by video conference.
The first of the Council Coordination Committee’s biannual meetings spanned time zones from New England to American Samoa as the members and NMFS representatives discussed issues relevant to all of the Councils.
May 21, 2020 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:
Leadership teams from the nation’s eight regional fishery management councils will convene by teleconference for the spring 2020 Council Coordination Committee (CCC) meeting. The CCC is comprised of the chairs, vice chairs and executive directors of the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Mid-Atlantic, New England, North Pacific, Pacific, South Atlantic and Western Pacific Fishery Management Councils. CCC chairmanship rotates annually among the eight Councils, which have authority over fisheries seaward of state waters in the US exclusive economic zone.
The committee meets twice each year with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to discuss issues relevant to all fishery management councils. The Western Pacific Council is serving as this year’s CCC chair and will be hosting this year’s first meeting on May 27 and 28. The meeting will be held by teleconference due to COVID-19 travel and quarantine restrictions. The public is welcome to participate.
Agenda items will be discussed between 7:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. (Hawai‘i standard time) each day. Among the scheduled topics are the following:
The complete agendas and conference call-in instructions will be posted at http://www.fisherycouncils.org/ccc-meetings/may-2020.
The meeting notice is available at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-05-11/pdf/2020-10023.pdf.
May 7, 2020 — The Maine Lobstermen’s Association has launched a campaign to raise $500,000 to fund its legal efforts to protect the state’s most valuable fishery from the consequences of a recent federal court ruling that calls for more government protections for the endangered right whale.
Last month, a federal judge found the National Marine Fisheries Service had violated the U.S. Endangered Species Act by its authorization of the U.S. lobster industry – including Maine’s $485 million-a-year fishery – because it failed to report the fishery’s harmful impacts on the endangered right whale.
“This case could lead to closure of the world’s most sustainable fishery,” said executive director Patrice McCarron, whose association is the oldest and biggest lobstering group in Maine. “We cannot let that happen. Right whales are not dying in Maine lobster gear.”
May 7, 2020 — The National Marine Fisheries Service notified permit holders and the public Tuesday that a waiver for observer coverage in some fisheries expired at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, May 4, 2020. As of 12 a.m. Tuesday, May 5, observer coverage was reinstated for those fisheries.
Those permitted fisheries include:
May 4, 2020 — In another shot across the bow of the lobster industry, a federal judge ruled Thursday that state regulators have violated the Endangered Species Act by licensing lobstermen to use fishing gear that entangles North Atlantic right whales.
The ruling requires Massachusetts officials to obtain a permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service to license vertical buoy lines, the ropes that connect lobster traps on the seafloor to buoys at the surface.
Those lines are vital to the fishery but have been the leading cause of death of right whales over the past decade, accounting for more than half of all known causes. In the past three years, 30 right whales have died, reducing their population to around 400.
In her ruling, Judge Indira Talwani of the US District Court in Boston said the continued use of buoy lines was likely to cause further harm to right whales, which scientists say could become functionally extinct within the next 20 years.
May 4, 2020 — At long last, some disaster relief funding is headed to the West Coast for state and tribal salmon industries and the commercial sardine industry.
NMFS notified Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., this week of a more than $18 million award, which was appropriated in 2018. It is now up to the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission to distribute the funds according to state spending plans and in accordance with NMFS guidance and terms of the awards, NMFS said when notifying congressional staff.
April 27, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
As part of the 2020 Interim Final Sector Rule (published today), NOAA Fisheries is announcing changes to the Redfish Exemption Area and gear stowage requirements for sector vessels fishing under the redfish exemption in fishing year 2020.
Vessels were previously required to stow redfish codends below deck prior to fishing under the exemption. Vessels may now stow their redfish codends consistent with existing gear stowage regulations. Also, NMFS is changing the Redfish Exemption Area to minimize catch of non-redfish stocks under the exemption, while still allowing vessels to fish in areas where redfish are abundant and bycatch of other stocks is minimal. The coordinates and a map of the new Redfish Exemption Area are below. All changes will take effect beginning May 1, 2020.
April 23, 2020 — Shelter-in-place requirements in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic areas are making it difficult to deploy observers, the National Marine Fisheries Service said today in a notice to industry. Therefore, observer requirements will be waived through May 4.
Providing seafood to the country remains an essential function even in these extraordinary times. Adequately monitoring U.S. fisheries remains an essential part of that process. However, in recognition of numerous travel or social distancing restrictions or guidance, NMFS continues to temporarily waive the requirement for federally-permitted vessels participating in the following federal fisheries to carry a fishery observer, the notice said:
April 22, 2020 — A regulatory panel that oversees East Coast fishing is requesting the federal government take some emergency actions to benefit the scallop fishery.
Scallops are one of the most valuable seafood items in the U.S. The New England Fishery Management Council has voted to ask the National Marine Fisheries Service to take a series of steps because of the stress the outbreak of coronavirus has caused the scallop fishery.
The recommended changes are technical in nature and concern issues such as how fishing quota can be carried from one year into the next.
April 22, 2020 — A lawsuit against the U.S. government aiming to require it to enforce the Marine Mammal Protect Act in regard to the critically endangered vaquita porpoise has been dismissed after the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service expanded a ban on imports of seafood products caught in the vaquita’s habitat.
U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Gary S. Katzmann dismissed the suit at the request of the plaintiffs, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Animal Welfare Institute, on 22 March.