Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishing closure looms over South Shore lobstermen

January 3, 2019 — The annual fishing closure that forces a halt of the lobstering industry each winter is still a month away, but lobstermen are already pulling their traps out of the water and preparing for a long three months of trying to make ends meet.

For the past four years, federal regulations have forced lobstermen out of the water from Feb. 1 to April 30, an attempt to lessen the number of North Atlantic right whales that die due to fishing gear entanglements. Not only can the fishermen not be in the water, but they also have to pull all of their traps from the ocean floor before Feb. 1 – as many as 800 per commercial license.

“Most people have at least three-fourths of their traps on land by now,” John Haviland, president of the South Shore Lobster Fishermen’s Association, said Tuesday. “It takes multiple boat trips to bring them home, and this is the time of year the weather is starting to fall apart, so you just can’t predict when you’re going to have the days to do that.”

Those who aren’t able to get their traps out by the deadline face massive fines from the National Marine Fisheries Service, and it takes another two to four weeks to get all the traps back into the water once the ban is lifted.

“With that $10,000 fine looming over your head, there’s just no choice,” Haviland said. “It doesn’t make sense to not fish at full capacity every day you can, but it also doesn’t make business sense to risk that fine.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

US government shutdown threatens Alaska cod, pollock, crab harvests

January 2, 2019 — Should the US federal government shutdown continue, it could put a serious clamp on commercial fishing off the coast of Alaska, KTOO reports.

The government will allow fisheries in the Bering Sea to start as scheduled with an initial opening for Pacific cod on Jan. 1 and a second opening for pollock and other species on Jan. 20, the Alaska public radio station explains. However, due to the shutdown, the National Marine Fisheries Service isn’t doing the required inspections of scales for weighing fish on boats or monitoring equipment. And special permits that some boats need are not being issued.

Nearly all of the large boats that fish for cod starting Jan. 1 have already had their required inspections, said Chad See, executive director of the Freezer Longline Coalition. And the more lucrative pollock season is several weeks from restarting.  But blocking only a single fishing trip by a large factory trawler could cost the industry millions of dollars, the article warned.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Government shutdown, if it continues, could cost Alaska’s lucrative Bering Sea fisheries

January 2, 2019 — Even if the shutdown does persist, the federal government will allow the Bering Sea fisheries to start as scheduled, with an initial opening for cod Jan. 1, and a second opening for pollock and other species Jan. 20.

But the fisheries are heavily regulated, and before boats can start fishing, the federal government requires inspections of things like scales — for weighing fish — and monitoring equipment that tracks the number and types of fish being caught. And the National Marine Fisheries Service, which regulates the Bering Sea fisheries, isn’t doing those inspections during the shutdown.

Other boats need special permits before they can start fishing, and those permits aren’t being issued during the shutdown, either.

“My understanding is the vessels that have not been certified yet will not be certified until the government opens up again,” said Haukur Johannesson, whose company, Marel, provides scales to the huge factory vessels that work in the Bering Sea. “And if they don’t get certified, they cannot go fishing.”

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Fishing industry rides out more regulatory, environmental gales in 2018

December 28, 2018 — The fishing year began with a changing of the guard at the helm of the regional headquarters of NOAA Fisheries and ended with a federal government shutdown that halted many of the agency’s administrative tasks.

In between, the local and regional commercial fishing industries were buffeted by the same regulatory and environmental gales that have come to define the current fishing crisis and the livelihood of those harvesting seafood from the oceans.

And this being Gloucester, there was — as always — something of the offbeat worth recalling.

So, here in no particular order are some of our most compelling stories from 2018 that chronicled the activity within the fishery and along Gloucester’s historic waterfront.

The Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute broke ground on its new Main Street research facility and headquarters in February. On Oct. 30, GMGI — with the assistance of Gov. Charlie Baker and other dignitaries — formally opened the new facility along the north channel of the Inner Harbor.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

ALASKA: Work continues on federal plan for Cook Inlet salmon

December 28, 2018 — More than two years after a court ruling ordered the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to develop a management plan for the Cook Inlet salmon fishery, a stakeholder group has made a first set of recommendations.

The council convened a Cook Inlet Salmon Committee last year composed of five stakeholders to meet and offer recommendations before the council officially amends the Fishery Management Plan, or FMP, for the drift gillnet salmon fishery in Upper Cook Inlet, which occurs partially in federal waters.

The committee presented a report with three main findings: first, that the fishery be managed cooperatively with the State of Alaska; second, that the committee schedule another meeting before the April 2019 council meeting; and third, that fishery participants be prohibited from retaining groundfish.

The council went into rewriting the FMP for Cook Inlet unwillingly. The whole battle began in 2012 when the council voted unanimously to pass Amendment 12 to the existing Cook Inlet FMP, which essentially delegated all management authority for the fishery to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, along with the management of two other salmon fisheries in Prince William Sound and the Alaska Peninsula.

The Cook Inlet Fishermen’s Fund and the United Cook Inlet Drift Association, the trade group for the drift gillnet fleet in the area, sued the National Marine Fisheries Service to restore the FMP to the fishery. After losing in the U.S. District Court of Alaska, the groups prevailed at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in fall 2016.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

A look at the federal shutdown’s potential impact on Alaska fisheries

December 27, 2018 — Hundreds of boats are gearing up for the January start of some of Alaska’s largest fisheries in waters managed by the federal government from 3 to 200 miles offshore.

Meanwhile, the government shutdown over President Donald Trump’s demand for $5 billion in funding for a border wall of “artistically designed steel slats” has sent hundreds of thousands of workers home.

Nine of the government’s 15 federal departments and several agencies were shuttered at midnight Friday, and there is no end in sight. That includes the Commerce Department, which houses NOAA Fisheries.

No one at NOAA in Juneau could speak about the impacts a government shutdown might have on upcoming fisheries. All questions were referred “to the White House.”

An emailed response from the White House Office of Management and Budget said that while “it can’t answer agency specific contingency questions,” as it stands now, Alaska’s big winter fisheries will get underway on schedule.

Fisheries management activities — including quota monitoring, observer activities and regulatory actions — are considered “essential activities” that will remain during the shutdown.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

WASHINGTON: 2.75 million salmon fry distributed to Gig Harbor hatchery after 6.2 million died in power outage

December 27, 2018 — Windstorms on Dec. 14 caused the power outage at the Gig Harbor state-run hatchery. A backup generator that would have powered a pump that supplies water to the incubators failed, and 6.2 million chinook salmon fry destined for release in Deschutes, Minter Creek and White River died.

Now, up to 2.75 million excess chinook fry — which accounts for less than half of the fry that were lost — will be transferred to the Minter Creek Hatchery to replace those salmon, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a Monday news release.

“This won’t fully replace the salmon lost last week, but it will allow us to put a significant number of fish into these waters next year,” WDFW Director Kelly Susewind said in the release. “I want to thank our tribal co-managers and federal partners for helping to make this happen.”

The replacement fry came from six other hatcheries. The move was approved by NOAA Fisheries on Friday, and the fish are set to be released in May and June of 2019.

Before the power outage on Dec. 14, 507,000 salmon were set to be released in White River, intended to provide food for Southern Resident orcas. The remaining 5.7 million salmon fry were part of ongoing operations to support state fisheries.

“Losing those fish was a painful setback for state and tribal fishers, for the communities that depend on fishing, and for Southern Resident orcas that feed on chinook,” Susewind said.

Read the full story at SeattlePI

Shutdown has varied effect at NOAA

December 27, 2018 — The partial shutdown of the federal government continued into its fifth day on Wednesday and NOAA Fisheries appears to be operating – or not –  just as it did during the partial shutdown that shuttered much of the government back in January.

No one answered the phones at NOAA Fisheries media relations offices in Washington, D.C., and Gloucester on Wednesday – the first full business day following the partial shutdown – so it was difficult to identify which employees whose duties have been designated as essential while up to one-quarter of the government is closed.

In all, the partial shutdown, initiated by lapsed appropriations and President Donald Trump’s campaign to fund and build a wall along the nation’s southern border with Mexico, is expected to impact about 800,000 of the 2.1 million federal workers.

According to the Department of Commerce’s 177-page plan for an orderly shutdown, staff at NOAA Fisheries’s Office of Law Enforcement, monitors and inspectors will continue working “for the protection of marine fisheries and sustain fisheries management activities.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA issues the most protective authorizations to date on marine mammal impacts from Navy Training and Testing

December 20, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA:

The National Marine Fisheries Service today issued final authorizations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to incidentally, but not intentionally, “take” marine mammals during Naval training and testing in the Pacific. This is the third in a series of five-year incidental take regulations for the Navy’s Hawaii-Southern California Training and Testing activities. The final regulations put in place measures that are more protective and include a larger area than those in the proposed regulations or previous regulations.

“The Navy has balanced our conservation requirements for marine mammals with their critical national security requirements for training and military readiness. As the acting NOAA administrator and a retired Navy admiral, I know this is a win-win for marine mammal protection and national defense,” said retired Navy Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, Ph.D., acting under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere at NOAA.

Under the authority of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, NMFS evaluates the predicted effects of human activities on protected marine species and may require other agencies and entities to modify their activities to reduce those effects. In this instance, NOAA is imposing stringent mitigation measures expected to reduce adverse impacts to marine mammal stocks and their habitats as well as listed species, including:

  • Shutting down sonar when marine mammals are in the area;
  • Waiting for animals to leave the training range prior to use of in-water explosives, and monitoring of the area post-activity to detect potentially affected protected species;
  • Following protocols to reduce the likelihood of ships striking marine mammals;
  • Imposing operational limitations in certain areas and times that are biologically important (for example, reproduction, migration, foraging); and
  • Implementing a Notification and Reporting Plan (for dead, stranded, or struck animals)

“NOAA has been working with the Navy for more than ten years to understand the effects the Navy’s testing and training has on marine mammals and, over time, we have steadily increased the protections in place,” said Donna Weiting, director of NMFS’s office of protected resources.

NOAA and the Navy worked together to develop a robust monitoring plan, with associated strict reporting measures. Additionally, the final rule includes an adaptive management component that allows for timely modification of mitigation or monitoring measures based on new information, when appropriate.

In this authorization, the anticipated “take” of marine mammals over the 5-year period primarily includes disruption of behavioral patterns or temporary hearing impairment, but may also include some significantly lesser number of injuries and a very small number of mortalities. The authorization will be in place through December 2023.

2019 Red Grouper Quota to Drop 60% in Gulf of Mexico

December 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — NOAA Fisheries announced this week that they will withhold nearly 60% of the annual red grouper IFQ commercial allocation on January 1, 2019. That is the amount of an intended cut in the commercial annual catch limit requested by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council at their meeting last October.

During public testimony at the meeting, managers heard from their science advisors, the fishing fleet, and the public that the Gulf’s red grouper stock “is struggling” and “may not be large enough to sustain current harvest levels.”

In 2017, Gulf red grouper landings were the lowest they had been in recent years. Fewer legal-sized red grouper were seen this year, and scientists worry that an extensive red tide off the Florida west coast may hurt the red grouper stock recruitment.

An interim analysis of the stock, a report that updates harvest recommendations while the Council waits for the next stock assessment to be done, had little good news.

The Council asked National Marine Fisheries Service to issue an emergency order cutting the quota from 7.78 mlbs of gutted weight to 3 mlbs, the same level of the 2017 commercial landings.

Withholding distribution of 59.4 percent or 4.78 mlbs of red grouper IFQ commercial allocation will be effective  January 1, 2019.

Meanwhile, the Council will initiate a framework amendment to reduce the catch limits of both commercial and recreational fishermen beyond the expiration of the 180-day period covered by the interim or emergency rule.

If the proposed quota reduction does not occur prior to June 1, 2019, then NOAA Fisheries will distribute the withheld quota back to IFQ shareholders in accordance with the regulations.

Members of the public will be asked to comment on the proposed rule after it is published in the Federal Register, which should happen in the coming weeks.

For more information, contact the SERO Sustainable Fisheries Office at (727) 824-5305, weekdays between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

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