Saving Seafood

AL DUDLEY: Stock Assessments Overwhelmingly Support Raising Atlantic Menhaden Quotas

August 2, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — This week, fisheries managers have the chance to expand opportunities for fishermen as they consider a scientifically supported increase in the coastwide menhaden quota. Although generally not consumed in their own right, menhaden are the bait of choice for both commercial and recreational fishermen and are prominent producers of the Omega-3 nutrients often used in health supplements.

In recent years, commercial fishing of menhaden has been needlessly restricted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), the regulatory body charged with managing the species and maintaining the health of the stock. In 2012, based on the results of a stock assessment that was later found to have inaccurately underestimated the strength of the menhaden population, the ASMFC cut the annual menhaden harvest by a deeply felt 20 percent.

This year, as the ASMFC discusses potentially raising the quota, the science clearly and without a doubt demonstrates the menhaden stock is healthy, vibrant, and not in any conceivable danger of becoming overfished.

In an analysis earlier this summer produced by the ASMFC’s Menhaden Technical Committee, scientists analyzed the potential results of an increase in the menhaden quota for the 2017 fishing season. The Committee experimented with nine different potential increases, from simply maintaining the menhaden quota at its current level to increasing it by 40 percent. For each increase, the Committee ran 1,000 separate simulations, to ensure the data were accurate and all variables possible were accounted for. After this thorough and exhaustive study, the Committee concluded that increasing the menhaden quota for the 2017 fishing season poses a zero percent chance of resulting in overfishing.

These results build upon the positive findings of the 2015 menhaden assessment, which overturned the inaccurate results of the previous assessment when it found the stock to be sustainably managed, neither overfished nor subject to overfishing.

The Committee was comprised of 21 different scientists, representing 13 different states up and down the Eastern Seaboard. In addition, the Committee had representatives from the National Marine Fisheries Service, which has been in favor of limiting menhaden fishing in the past. That such a diverse wealth of scientists and regulators agreed raising the quota would have virtually no likelihood of overfishing is testament to the exhaustive and rigorous nature of their efforts.

When the ASMFC meets this week, they intend to discuss the motion for a raise in the annual menhaden quota. Now it is time for them to either fish or to cut bait. The evidence does not lie – menhaden are not at risk of overfishing with a raised quota.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Latest Scientific Analysis Supports Increased Atlantic Menhaden Quota

Aug 1, 2016 – The following was released by the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition:

WASHINGTON (MFC) – An analysis conducted by scientists at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) finds that the coastwide Atlantic menhaden quota can be substantially raised without impacting the sustainability of the species.

In a memo by the ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Technical Committee on June 22, the Committee described projections it ran using nine different potential quota levels for the 2017 fishing season. These projections found a 0 percent chance of overfishing menhaden in 2017, even when menhaden quota was increased by up to 40 percent. Projections were run 1,000 times for each potential quota level to ensure that a full range of potential scenarios were accounted for in the estimates.

The Atlantic Menhaden Technical Committee is composed of 21 scientists from 13 states along the U.S. Atlantic coast and the National Marine Fisheries Service. The Committee’s projections were short-term (2014-2017) to eliminate uncertainty inherent in longer-term projections.

The ASMFC will hold its summer meeting August 2-4 in Alexandria, Va., where it will discuss, among other topics, Atlantic menhaden, and the possibility of raising its quota for 2017.

Atlantic menhaden catch totaled 171,900 mt tons in 2014. The ASMFC set menhaden quota at 187,800 mt for 2015 and 2016.

In 2015, the ASMFC’s Atlantic menhaden stock assessment found that the menhaden stock was healthy and sustainably managed, with the species neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing. It also found that fishing mortality is at an all-time low, and that menhaden fecundity (egg production) has been strong in recent years. Based on these findings, the ASMFC raised the menhaden quota by 10 percent last year.

Menhaden are used to produce fishmeal, fish oil, and fish solubles due to their high concentration of healthy Omega-3 fatty acids. They are also prized for their use as bait in other fisheries.

About the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition

The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition is a collective of menhaden fishermen, related businesses, and supporting industries. Comprised of over 30 businesses along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition conducts media and public outreach on behalf of the menhaden industry to ensure that members of the public, media, and government are informed of important issues, events, and facts about the fishery.

View the release here

Plan Wants to Shift Mid-Atlantic Scallop Season Start Date to April 1 to Get Stock Data in Time

July 22, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The New England Fishery Management Council submitted a proposal to NMFS that asks to shift the start to commercial scallop fishing in the Mid-Atlantic fishery one month to April 1.

According to the Council’s plan, moving the start of the fishing season is so federal and third party researchers have more time to submit stock assessment findings so a comprehensive fishery management plan can be agreed upon prior to the season.

It would also reduce the need to for mid-season adjustments, which happens when stock data is submitted past deadline.

“The combined measures are expected to improve the overall timing of scallop fishery specifications so that final measures are available for the fishery at the start of the fishing year,” the Council’s proposal said.

The plan is the result of ongoing discussions among industry stakeholders, third-party research firms and state and federal fishing authorities on how to effectively produce the most comprehensive scallop management plan each season.

All scallop fishery data is supposed to be submitted by August 1 of each year so a management plan can be finalized for the next fishing season. Since several state and federal agencies are involved in setting allocations and days –at-sea,  even a one week delay can grind the process to a halt.

And in recent seasons late data submissions, mostly by federal fishery authorities, did result in mid-season adjustments to the scallop management plan.

The hope now is to approve the one month delay, which will give all scientists enough time to submit data on time.

The one month shift is not likely to have a large impact on the Mid-Atlantic scallop fishery since most major industry stakeholders have been aware of that the shift could happen. Additionally, historical data shows that March and April are generally low producing months for a majority of Mid-Atlantic scallopers.

Still, some boats that do fish in March will have to adjust their plans for the delay, likely by conserving days-at-sea to last throughout the fishing year. There is also the possibility of declines in the meat fill ratios in the scallops depending on when the spring spawning season starts.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

HAWAII: Longliners Have Nearly Pulled In Their 2016 Limit Of Bigeye Tuna

July 14, 2016 — Hawaii’s longline fleet is about to hit its 3,554-ton limit for bigeye tuna in the Western and Central Pacific, prompting a closure date for the fishery of July 22, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The longliners had caught an estimated 98 percent of their annual quota by Wednesday, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service reported. The feds had been predicting longliners would hit their bigeye tuna limit by Aug. 14.

But the closure will likely be short-lived thanks to a federal rule that proposes, like in years past, allowing U.S. Pacific Island territories — American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands — to each allocate up to 1,000 tons of their 2,000-ton quotas to U.S. longliners under a “specified fishing agreement.”

In April, the Hawaii Longline Association reached such an agreement with the Marianas that involves paying the territory $250,000 in each of the next three years for up to half of its quota. That’s $50,000 more than the association paid the territory last year.

The money is deposited into the Western Pacific Sustainable Fisheries Fund, which the territories use for fishery development projects approved by their respective governors, according to Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council spokeswoman Sylvia Spalding. These includes boat ramps, fish markets, processing facilities, training programs and loan programs.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

Surveys off Alaska lead to new types of soft-bodied fish

July 13, 2016 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Federal biologist Jay Orr never knows what’s going to come up in nets lowered to the ocean floor off Alaska’s remote Aleutian Islands, which separate the Bering Sea from the rest of the Pacific Ocean. Sometimes it’s stuff he has to name.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration biologist is part of a group that uses trawl nets to survey commercially important fish species such as cod in waters off Alaska. Sometimes those nets come up with things no one has seen before.

With co-authors, Orr has discovered 14 kinds of new snailfish, a creature that can be found in tide pools but also in the deepest parts of the ocean. A dozen more new snailfish are waiting to be named. Additional species are likely to be found as scientists expand their time investigating areas such as the Bering Sea Slope, in water 800 to 5,200 feet deep, or the 25,663-foot deep Aleutian Trench.

“I suspect we are just scraping the top of the distributions of some of these deep-water groups,” Orr said from his office in Seattle.

Orr and his colleagues measure the abundance of rockfish, flatfish and other “bottom fish” for the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, the research arm of the NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. The center studies marine resources off Alaska and parts of the West Coast.

Five boats with six researchers each surveyed Alaska waters in late June. The teams trawl on the Bering Shelf every summer and in either Aleutian waters or the Gulf of Alaska every other year.

Their findings on fish abundance are fed into models for managing fish populations.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Miami Herald

Ocean Plans In New England And Mid-Atlantic Released

July 12, 2016 — Both the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Ocean Plans have been released and are open for public comment

Back in May, Rip Cunningham wrote that the soon-to-be-released ocean plans for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic are about ‘doing the best job possible of coordinating all the previously independent ocean development regulations [and giving] concerned citizens a process to make sure that they are recognized in the development process.’ Rip’s article called on the fishing community to have an open mind about the planning processes and to take the time to read and comment on them. Simply put, he asks people to give the plans a chance and to be active participants.

Now that both plans are released and open for public comment, let’s take a look at what’s in them.

The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic plans have the same basic framework. Using interactive maps and narrative text, they describe the region’s major ocean resources and uses, and lay out actions and commitments to consider and engage those users when decisions are being made that might affect them. For commercial and recreational fisheries, both plans contain a dedicated subchapter describing the industry and a series of maps developed in consultation with fisheries representatives that should help decision-makers understand current fishing uses and trends, the potential impacts proposed development projects would have on fishermen, and which agencies should be reaching out to when potential conflicts arise. Here are some more specifics on each of the two plans:

Northeast Regional Ocean Plan was released on May 25th and public comments are due on July 25th. Click here to read the plan or to submit a comment.

Read the full story at On the Water

Senators Pass Bill out of Committee to Give Fishermen Voice in Grant Process, Boost U.S. Seafood

July 1, 2016 — WASHINGTON — Today, S. 3087, the American Fisheries Advisory Committee Act, introduced by Senators Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), passed unanimously out of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

The Saltonstall Kennedy (SK) Act, enacted in 1954, provides funding for fisheries research and development. These funds are derived from a portion of fishery import duties. To inform how these funds are allocated, Congress authorized a group of experts from different segments of the fishing industry to advise on commercial fishing problems and needs. Following a 1972 law, the original American Fisheries Advisory Committee was disbanded.

As part of the S-K Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) administers a grant program. In the Committee’s absence, the National Marine Fisheries Service decides, by its own criteria, who receives grants. In some cases, the priorities of the fishing industry do not match those of NMFS. The American Fisheries Advisory Committee Act would bring back the board of experts, with members chosen regionally and across all sectors of the fishing industry, to bring the industry back into the process of identifying needs and funding priorities.

In 2016, NMFS issued 50 grants worth $11 million.

Read the full story at Alaska Business Monthly

In Shift, NOAA Says Fish Fleets Will Be Reimbursed For Monitoring Costs

June 24, 2016 — Deviating from plans that had caused an uproar, federal fishing regulators plan to announce Thursday that some of the fishing industry’s costs for groundfish monitoring will be reimbursed this year.

The at-sea monitoring program places regulators onboard vessels and in March the federal government started shifting the cost for the monitoring onto the fishing industry, according to Northeast Seafood Coalition Executive Director Jackie Odell.

“The fishery’s just not in a profitable place to be taking on this additional burden,” Odell told the News Service. She said, “There are some boats that are going out, but it’s a mixed bag.”

A memo dated Thursday from a National Marine Fisheries Service official sent to congressional offices and obtained by the News Service said the federal regulators anticipate federal funds can cover at-sea monitoring for about 85 percent of the days at sea for the current fishing year. The memo cautioned that the agency does not “expect this situation to recur in future fishing years.”

“Beginning July 1, groundfish fishermen will be reimbursed for their at-sea monitoring costs through an arrangement with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission,” the federal memo stated. “The arrangement will last until funds are expended, and is not expected to cover costs for the entire year or be repeated in the future.”

Read the full story from the State House News Service at WBUR

NOAA Fisheries Announces Proposed Management Measures for the Monkfish Fishery

June 23, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries is requesting comments on a proposed rule to implement Framework Adjustment 9 to the Monkfish Fishery Management Plan.

We are proposing to:

  • Allow certain monkfish vessels enrolled in a Northeast multispecies sector to declare a groundfish day-at-sea while at sea;
  • Eliminate monkfish possession limits for some vessels fishing in the Northern Fishery Management Area; and
  • Allow vessels to use smaller mesh gillnets to target dogfish and monkfish in the Southern Fishery Management Area.

These proposed management measures are designed to further increase monkfish landings, provide operational flexibility, and increase economic efficiency.

To get all the details on these proposed measures, read the proposed rule as published in the Federal Register today and the background documents posted on our website.

We are accepting comments through July 8.

You may submit comments by any one of the following methods:

  • Electronic Submission: Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal eRulemaking Portal. Click the “Comment Now!” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments.
  • Mail: NMFS, Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930. Mark the outside of the envelope “Comments on the Proposed Rule for Monkfish Framework 9.”

Cutback mulled for herring catch

June 23, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — Federal regulators are considering a slight cut to commercial fishermen’s catch limit for Atlantic herring, a fish that is important both to the industry and the ocean’s food web.

The small fish gather in schools that can number in the millions, and are a critical food source for bigger fish, seals and whales. They also are important to humans as food and bait.

The National Marine Fisheries Service might reduce the herring catch limit by about 3 percent to slightly less than 105,000 metric tons. The limit was a little less than 108,000 metric tons for the 2013 to 2015 period; any new limit would apply to the years 2016 to 2018.

The proposal is up for public comment until July 21.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald