Saving Seafood

Genetic Evidence Points to Rapid, Large-Scale Northward Shift of Pacific Cod During Recent Climate Changes

October 10, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

New genetic research suggests that unprecedented summer abundances of Pacific cod in the northern Bering Sea were due to escalating movement from their core habitat under recent warm conditions.

Until recently, Pacific cod were rarely encountered in the northern Bering Sea. Fishery surveys in the 1970s reported “trace amounts” of cod there. A 2010 Alaska Fisheries Science Center survey estimated that the entire northern population amounted to about 3% of the large southeastern Bering Sea stock that supported a valuable commercial fishery.

Then in 2017, the summer survey recorded dramatically higher abundances in the north: a 900-fold increase since 2010. In the same year, southeastern Bering Sea abundances were down 37% from 2016. Strikingly, the increase in the north nearly matched the decrease in the southeastern Bering Sea.

A 2018 survey revealed an even more remarkable shift: there were more cod in the northern than southeastern Bering Sea.

Read the full release here

NOAA: Overfished cod not on target to rebuild by 2024

October 10, 2019 — Cod stocks in the area remain overfished and are not on target to be rebuilt by 2024, according to new federal data. In its latest stock status for the Gulf of Maine Atlantic cod, NOAA Fisheries also reported that “overfishing is occurring” among an already-depleted population. The status is unchanged from NOAA’s 2017 assessment.

“The Gulf of Maine Atlantic cod shows a truncated size and age structure, consistent with a population experiencing high mortality,” researchers wrote in a 208-page report released Wednesday. “Additionally, there are only limited signs of incoming recruitment, continued low survey indices, and the current spatial distribution of the stock is considerably less than its historical range within the Gulf of Maine.”

The cod assessment is part of an operational assessment, updated through 2018, of 14 Northeast groundfish stocks by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. Cod was identified as a stock that is experiencing overfishing, and the report categorizes eight groundfish stocks as having been overfished.

Read the full story at The Daily News

NOAA Fisheries Announces Final 2020 Golden Tilefish Commercial Fishery Specifications

October 10, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is implementing golden tilefish quotas for the 2020 fishing year that we previously announced as projected on November 7, 2017. There have been no overages in 2019, and there is no new biological information, so we are now finalizing the 2020 quotas. The quotas are the same as in 2019.

Approved measures include acceptable biological catch (ABC), annual catch limit (ACL), and total allowable landings (TAL) for the individual fishing quota (IFQ) and incidental components of the commercial fishery.

All other requirements remain the same.

 For more details, read the final rule as filed in the Federal Register today and the permit holder bulletin posted on our website.

Read the full release here

Devastating Collapse of Groundfish Fishery Forces a More Sustainable Future

October 9, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The groundfish fishery closures in 2002 were sweeping. Hundreds of thousands of square miles of West Coast waters shut off to the very same bottom fishing that had many fishing ports booming in the previous decade. The Secretary of Commerce declared the 2000 groundfish fishery a failure, with losses to fishermen estimated at $11 million.

The rockfish boom was going bust.

“Behind the sweeping action is a reluctant realization that the vast ocean has limits and cannot, as was long believed, provide an inexhaustible supply of fish,” the Los Angeles Times said in announcing the closures that in effect created the largest marine reserve ever off the West Coast. The closures covered most of the continental shelf, home to nearly 100 different species of rockfish.

Scientists estimated that some of those fish could take nearly a century to rebuild.

“It was devastating,” said Jason Cope, a research fish biologist at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle who worked on teams assessing the decline of groundfish. “It radically altered people’s expectations of their livelihood. Suddenly a future they thought was reliable turned out to be anything but.”

Read the full release here

Improving Safety Before a Trip Benefits Everyone on Commercial Fishing Vessels

October 9, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Ensuring a safety culture is critical to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s Fisheries Sampling Branch mission. The branch manages fisheries observer and monitoring programs in the Greater Atlantic region from North Carolina to Maine. Assessing observer practices and procedures is an ongoing effort. That was reflected in a summer workshop organized by the branch to evaluate the process of completing the required observer’s pre-trip vessel safety checklist.

The August workshop brought together a diverse group of professionals. The 24 people who attended have a combined 440 years of experience working with observer programs and/or commercial fishing vessels. A report on the workshop is now available.

Participants came from the U.S. Coast Guard enforcement and vessel safety offices in two districts, the fishing industry, NOAA’s National Observer Coordination office, regional observer programs, observer provider companies, and the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office. There were groundfish sector managers, observers, safety trainers, and gear specialists.

“The top nine life-saving items listed in our workshop report need to be present and operable every trip,” said Amy Martins, chief of the Fisheries Sampling Branch. “Observers and fishermen have offered suggestions for improvements to the safety checklist to make it safer and more efficient for everyone, plus we all benefit by cooperative efforts and shared expert advice.”

The Fisheries Sampling Branch plans to start testing and incorporating improvements to the safety checklist process beginning in the fall of 2019 and continuing into the spring of 2020. The proposed changes developed at the workshop will be evaluated to assess their effectiveness and may be changed if safety is thought to be compromised.

Read the full release here

NOAA Fisheries Seeks Comments on Amendment 8 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan

October 10, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries proposes establishing an Atlantic herring acceptable biological catch (ABC) control rule and prohibiting the use of midwater trawl gear in inshore waters from Canada to Connecticut.

Acceptable Biological Catch

The proposed ABC control rule is intended to ensure sustainable harvest of the Atlantic herring resource and account for Atlantic herring’s role as forage in the ecosystem. The control rule would limit fishing mortality to 80 percent of the fishing mortality rate to support maximum sustainable yield when Atlantic herring biomass is high and restrict fishing even further when biomass is low. The control rule would set Atlantic herring ABC for three years but would allow ABC to vary year-to-year with projected estimates of biomass.

Prohibiting Midwater Trawl Gear Inshore

This amendment would prohibit the use of midwater trawl gear inshore of the 12-nautical mile territorial sea boundary from Canada to Connecticut and inshore of 20 nautical miles off the east coast of Cape Cod (see below).

The proposed inshore midwater trawl restricted area is intended to minimize user group conflict as midwater trawl vessels overlap with other user groups (i.e., commercial fisheries, recreational fisheries, ecotourism) that rely on herring as forage. Moving midwater trawl effort offshore is intended to mitigate potential negative socioeconomic impacts on other user groups resulting from short duration, high volume herring removals by midwater trawl vessels and help ensure herring is available inshore for other users groups and predators of herring.

The proposed inshore restricted area may also have biological benefits if it minimizes catch of river herring and shad, reduces fishing pressure on the inshore component of the herring stock, and helps ensure herring are available to predators.

Read the full release here

West Coast Fisheries “Comeback of the Century”

October 8, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

With help from rebounding West Coast rockfish, Giuseppe “Joe” Pennisi has put the fisherman back in San Francisco’s famed Fisherman’s Wharf.

Pennisi is the first fisherman to sell freshly caught fish off his boat at Fisherman’s Wharf in many years. He has reintroduced locals to the flaky white fish that was once a mainstay of West Coast seafood. Most weekends when the fishing is good, crowds form early at the dock next to his boat, the Pioneer, and continue all day. Some wait for hours to buy chilipepper rockfish, rose fish, boccacio and other deep-water species Pennisi brings up in his nets.

“You can’t help but be excited when you get to the dock and all these people are waiting for their fish,” he said.

The reemerging demand for rockfish reflects what may be the West Coast fisheries comeback of the century. Rapidly rebuilding stocks are reviving opportunities for determined fishermen such as Pennisi and customers of his Pioneer Seafoods. From Washington to California, a fishing fleet that sacrificed heavily while groundfish stocks rebuilt are now beginning to harvest the results.

“It really does seem like we’re turning an important corner,” said Shems Jud, who has long tracked the groundfish fishery for the Environmental Defense Fund. The rebuilding of groundfish represents a rarity among environmental issues. Fishermen, environmental groups, fisheries managers, and others replaced contention and controversy with lasting collaboration.

Read the full release here

NOAA Fisheries report identifies IUU in Ecuador, Mexico, South Korea

October 8, 2019 — NOAA Fisheries has released its 2019 report to the U.S. Congress, identifying the organization’s efforts to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing internationally while also rebuking three countries for lack of sufficient enforcement against IUU.

The biennial report on improving international fisheries management – made to Congress as part of the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act – identified Ecuador, Mexico, and the Republic of Korea has three countries that failed to sufficiently comply with agreed-upon regulations related to IUU. The report also credited Ecuador, Mexico, and the Russian Federation for earlier work to react to IUU allegations made in NOAA’s 2017 report to congress.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NOAA Fisheries Announces 2020-2021 Summer Flounder Specifications and Interim 2020 Scup, Black Sea Bass, and Bluefish Specification

October 8, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

We are implementing the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s recommended 2020-2021 summer flounder specifications and initial 2020 specifications for the scup, black sea bass, and bluefish fisheries. The initial 2020 specifications for scup, black sea bass, and bluefish will be re-evaluated early in the fishing year to address the results of an operational assessment for all three species.

Read the final rule as published in the Federal Register, and our permit holder bulletin.

NOAA Fisheries Evaluates Role of Opt-in Angler Reporting Apps in Recreational Fisheries

October 11, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

In a new report, NOAA Fisheries describes how electronic technologies, including web and app-based data collection programs, may improve the agency’s estimates of marine recreational catch. The report finds “opt-in,” or non-mandatory, angler reporting apps to be appropriate for collecting qualitative data that support citizen science-based studies. But for these apps to produce population-level estimates of recreational catch, a large proportion of anglers would have to consistently use them to report accurate information about their fishing trips, and a statistically valid probability-based sampling survey would have to validate self-reported data, monitor the extent of reporting, and account for unreported trips.

The report (PDF, 12 pages) is part of the MRIP Action Plan on Implementing Electronic Reporting. Its recommendations are based on an external review of electronic reporting options for recreational fishing surveys, as well as our own assessment of two projects that evaluate the use of iAngler and iSnapper to collect recreational fisheries data.

Electronic reporting is a method of data collection that can include smartphones, tablets, and other technologies used to record, send, and store data. When electronic reporting is part of a probability-based sampling survey design, it has the potential to reduce data collection costs and improve the quality of reported information. But when recreational catch estimates are produced with only those data collected through an opt-in website or mobile app, the estimates are likely to be biased.

Read the full release here