Saving Seafood

NOAA Fisheries Proposes Framework Adjustment 12 to the Monkfish Fishery Management Plan

June 30, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries: 

NOAA Fisheries is proposing Framework Adjustment 12 to the Monkfish Fishery Management Plan, including the 2020 annual catch limits and total allowable landings limits for both the Northern and Southern Fishery Management Areas. We are also proposing projected quotas for 2021-2022.

This rule proposes two clarifications:

  1. To the interactive voice response system, requiring vessels to call in a trip no more than an hour in advance of leaving port.
  2. To the monkfish whole weight incidental possessions limits in the Northeast multispecies exempted fisheries.

Read the proposed rule as published in the Federal Register and supporting documents on the e-rulemaking portal (link).

The comment period is open through July 30, 2020.

You may submit comments, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2020-0064, through the e-rulemaking portal (link).

Read the full release here

Fisheries Survival Fund ‘Alarmed’ by Current Protocols for Resumption of At-Sea Monitoring

June 29, 2020 — The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF) has written to NOAA Fisheries, voicing concerns over the agency’s decision to resume at-sea monitoring beginning in July. Specifically, FSF, which represents limited access scallop fishermen in the area covered by the order, is “alarmed” at the protocols the agency currently has in place.

According to the letter, the quarantine protocols for observers are unclear, at best. It notes that, after a required initial 14-day quarantine period, “it is unclear whether that observer will be required to quarantine for an additional 14 days before boarding another vessel.”

“Our country continues to grapple with the impacts and uncertainties of COVID-19’s spread,” the letter states. “Resuming the observer program too quickly and without appropriate protocols in place would put our crewmembers at a heightened and unnecessary risk of exposure to the virus.”

FSF also highlights uncertainty over how vessel captains and owners should respond to an observer displaying symptoms of COVID-19 at the start of a trip. FSF requests that NOAA extend the current waiver on observer coverage, which was implemented in March at the start of the COVID-19 crisis, until it addresses these issues.

The letter to NOAA follows letters from both the New England Fishery Management Council and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which expressed similar concerns about the safety of resuming at-sea monitoring.

The full letter is available here

NEFMC Raises Concerns Over NOAA Decision on At-Sea Monitoring

June 20, 2020 — The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) has written to NOAA Fisheries expressing concern over the agency’s plan to resume at-sea monitoring beginning July 1. The Council voted last week at its June meeting to deliver to NOAA its concerns with the safety and medical impact of the program.

The NEFMC is the second regional Fishery Management Council to express concerns over the observer plan. Last week, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council wrote a letter to the agency expressing similar concerns. Together, the two councils manage the fisheries in NOAA’s Greater Atlantic region, which is the region affected by the observer order.

In its letter, the NEFMC specifically raises the concern that the potential risks of resuming at-sea monitoring—mainly the increased risk of COVID-19 exposure for both fishermen and observers—outweigh any of the program’s benefits.

“The Council understands that – under normal circumstances – observer data provide important information for both monitoring the fishery and assessing fish stocks,” the letter states. “These are not normal times.”

The Council raises further issues, including concerns from many in the industry that they were not consulted on the decision. It also questions the agency on its policy on safety issues surrounding the program, including testing observers for COVID-19; potential medical waivers for boats with at-risk crew members; quarantine practices for observers; and how on-board observer practices will be modified to minimize the risk of virus transmission.

The full letter is available here

NOAA Fisheries Announces Revised 2020-2021 Bluefish Specifications and Recreational Management Measures

June 26, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is implementing the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s recommended revised bluefish specifications and recreational management measures for 2020 and 2021. These catch limits are reduced to account for the results of the recent operational assessment and prevent overfishing on the now overfished bluefish stock.

The commercial total allowable landings are reduced by 25 percent, from 3.71 to 2.77 million pounds, and the recreational total allowable landings are reduced by 39 percent, from 15.62 to 9.48 million pounds. There is no sector transfer this year because the recreational fishery is expected to fully attain its harvest limit.

Table 1 (below) provides the commercial fishery state allocations for 2020 based on the final coast-wide commercial quota, and the allocated percentages defined in the Bluefish Fishery Management Plan. No states exceeded their state allocated quota in 2019; therefore, no accountability measures are necessary for the 2020 commercial fishery.

This action also permanently implements the reduced federal bluefish recreational fishery daily bag limit from 15 to 3 fish per person for private anglers and to 5 fish per person for for-hire (charter/party) vessels as established through recent interim measures. All other recreational management measures and commercial management measures remain unchanged.

For more details, please read the rule as filed in the Federal Register, or the bulletin posted on our website.

Read the full release here

Monitors to return; fishermen critical

June 25, 2020 — NOAA Fisheries’s plan to reinstate at-sea monitoring aboard commercial fishing vessels on July 1 despite the ongoing pandemic prompted withering criticism Tuesday from the region’s fishing industry.

Fishermen and other stakeholders flocked onto the webinar of the New England Fishery Management Council’s June meeting Tuesday morning to voice their displeasure — and perplexity — at the decision by NOAA Fisheries to resume placing monitors aboard vessels despite obvious health risks.

“They’ve offered us no guidelines and protocols for keeping observers and the industry safe,” Gloucester Fisheries Director Al Cottone, a longtime Gloucester fisherman, said in an interview following the webinar. “Basically, NOAA Fisheries has just passed the buck, placing the burden on the industry and (monitoring) providers on how to be safe on a 40-foot boat.”

He said the agency has not provided provisions for mandatory testing of observers, nor will it provide medical exemptions for at-sea monitoring to fishermen who have a pre-existing condition or are at extreme risk because of age.

“We have an elderly working fleet here,” Cottone said.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA Announces Resumption of Greater Atlantic Fisheries Observer Requirements; Fishery Management Councils Object to Decision

June 23, 2020 — Yesterday, NOAA Fisheries announced that vessels in the Greater Atlantic region will once again be required to carry fishery observers and at-sea monitors beginning July 1. The agency had previously waived the requirements since the start of the COVID-19 crisis in March.

While the agency, in its letter to stakeholders, stated that “Observers and at-sea monitors are an essential component of commercial fishing operations,” the decision was opposed by Fishery Management Councils in the region. In its own letter to NOAA Fisheries, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) called on the agency “to extend the observer coverage waiver until the number of active COVID-19 cases in the region has been substantially reduced and the number of new cases is steadily declining.”

“Although some states are beginning to slowly reopen, social distancing protocols are still almost universally recommended or required. However, the close living quarters on most fishing vessels would make social distancing virtually impossible,” the Council’s letter states. “Recognizing that the virus could spread rapidly within these environments, many fishing crews have been self-quarantining before fishing trips. Unless observers are subject to mandatory 14-day quarantine periods between assignments, we are concerned that they could unknowingly become vectors for transmission of the virus between fishing vessels.”

In addition to expressing concern over the safety of reallowing observers on fishing vessels, the Council also noted that the resumption of onboard observers and monitors goes against the telework policies implemented by both the Council and NOAA during the ongoing COVID-19 related shutdown.

“It is our understanding that NOAA, like the Council, continues to operate under a maximum telework policy. Also, we believe that NOAA staff such as Northeast Fisheries Science Center employees are currently prohibited from participating in on-board cooperative research,” the letter stated. “During our June Council Meeting, which was conducted entirely by webinar, we discussed plans for how and when to resume in-person meetings. The Council was generally in agreement that at this time the public health risks outweigh the benefits of face-to-face meetings and that we should continue to utilize virtual meetings for the near term. Considering these steps that have been taken to minimize health risks for fishery scientists and managers, why should the same consideration not be extended to the fishing industry?”

At its meeting today, the New England Fishery Management Council approved a motion “to task Council staff to write a letter expressing the Council’s concern regarding the redeployment of the observer program on July 1.” The motion was agreed to by consensus with 3 abstentions.

Read NOAA’s announcement here

Read the Council’s letter here

Low-Cost Technology Helps Connect Fishermen and Students to Science

June 23, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Northeast Fisheries Science Center oceanographer Jim Manning has spent more than 35 years studying the ocean. He has sought ways to test ocean circulation models with direct observations and helped others use the data collected for a variety of needs.

Collaborations and partnerships have developed along the way. One of his earliest collaborative projects is the Environmental Monitors on Lobster Traps, or eMOLT. The program was initiated by Manning and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in 1995, when he handed a fisherman a temperature probe. Since 2001, when it officially began, and to this day about 50 lobstermen have been installing temperature sensors on their traps. The program is now administered by the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation.

Through the years, eMOLT has expanded to include other gear types like trawls, scallop dredges, and longlines. It remains devoted to monitoring the physical environment of the Gulf of Maine and Southern New England shelf. More than 100 fishermen along the New England coast have worked with Manning and his colleagues in the center’s Oceans and Climate Branch. Together they have developed low-cost strategies to measure physical conditions, primarily bottom temperature, of interest to them and their livelihoods.

“Our primary goal is to supply fishermen with the latest in low-cost instrumentation so they can maintain continuous time series of physical variables throughout their fishing grounds,” Manning said of eMOLT.

Read the full release here

What is Nearshore Habitat and Why Does it Matter to Orcas?

June 23, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

There is an especially valuable environment in Puget Sound made up of the beaches, bluffs, inlets, and river deltas: the nearshore. Nearshore habitat matters to Southern Resident killer whales because their primary prey, Chinook salmon, need them to grow and find safety when they are young. Unfortunately, we have been losing these habitats in Puget Sound to industrial and residential development and agriculture.

Southern Resident Killer Whales eat salmon, primarily Chinook salmon. The whales search out and rely upon the ever-changing abundance of many different Chinook salmon runs up and down the Pacific Coast. Puget Sound Chinook salmon are one of the most important of these for the Southern Residents’ recovery. Puget Sound Chinook salmon, however, are themselves threatened with extinction.

Killer whales eat Chinook salmon when the fish have grown into adults three years old and weighing close to 30 pounds. The salmon are headed back from the ocean through Puget Sound to their home rivers to lay their eggs. To make it to adulthood, though, these fish need to survive their adolescence as “juveniles” or “fry.” That’s where the nearshore zone comes in.

Tiny young Chinook salmon emerge from the gravel where they hatched from eggs in the rivers of Puget Sound and the Salish Sea—the Skagit, Elwha, Nisqually, and others. Then the young fish follow one of several different strategies to grow as juveniles before heading out to the ocean. They can rear in the river and freshwater floodplains or head downstream to the great tidal river deltas. They can also head all the way out into Puget Sound looking for safety along the shore in pocket estuaries, kelp and eelgrass beds, coastal creeks, or lagoons.

Read the full release here

Partnerships Improve the 2020 Atlantic Surfclam Stock Assessment

June 23, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Atlantic surfclams live at depths between 20 and 35 meters, with an optimal temperature range of 16 to 22o C. They are managed as one stock, with two biologically distinct areas. Surfclams in the northern area on Georges Bank are faster growing than southern surfclams, and the populations don’t mix.

Thirty years ago, southern surfclams grew faster than they do now, and lived in shallower waters. They were also bigger than the surfclams on Georges Bank. Now, these dynamics are reversed. Surfclams in the southern areas have moved to deeper waters, and grow more slowly, to a smaller maximum size. These population changes have been observed by fishermen, noted in their logbooks, and appear in research survey data.

In recent assessments, scientists treated the two areas separately, each with its own assessment model. This time, there is one model with two areas. Dan Hennen, lead surfclam assessment scientist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, developed this model. He collaborated closely with the surfclam industry and academic partners, like the Science Center for Marine Fisheries, a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center.

Working together led to a two-area model, which better deals with the challenges of a population with changing dynamics. Understanding how growth is changing led to better diagnostic behavior in our model. This gives fisheries managers more confidence that it accurately reflects what is going on in the population.

Read the full release here

NOAA Fisheries ending Northeast observer waivers, preparing to restart program

June 23, 2020 — NOAA Fisheries and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s (NEFSC) Fisheries Sampling Branch is preparing for a 1 July restart of the Northeast Observer Program.

NOAA Fisheries first announced on 20 March that it was waiving observer requirements in light of the challenges posed by the COVID-19 outbreak. That initial waiver was extended on 29 May, with a planned restart date of 1 July.

Read the full story at Seafood Source