Saving Seafood

$2.5 Million Available from NOAA for Bycatch Reduction Solutions

February 17, 2016 — NOAA Fisheries’ Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program supports the development of technological solutions and changes in fishing practices designed to minimize bycatch. Our mission is to find creative approaches and strategies for reducing bycatch, seabird interactions, and post-release mortality in federally managed fisheries.

$2.5 Million Available For Innovative Bycatch Solutions

NOAA Fisheries is now accepting applications for the Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program.

Projects must address bycatch research priorities by:

Developing innovative and effective technologies, gear modifications, and/or improving fishing practices in commercial and recreational fisheries to reduce bycatch impacts. Proposals that specifically reduce impacts to catch share fisheries, protected species (those species listed as part of the NOAA “Species in the Spotlight” campaign), highly migratory species, fish stocks that are overfished, where overfishing is occurring, or are under prohibited species catch limits, or seabirds are particularly encouraged.

Improving understanding and reduction of post-release and other indirect mortality, including barotrauma, predation, and unaccounted mortality in commercial and recreational fisheries including target and non-target species.

Determining the degree and nature of interactions and developing techniques to reduce interactions between fishing gears and corals, sponges, and other structure-forming invertebrates.

Read the full story from The Outdoor Wire

States Schedule Hearings on Jonah Crab Draft Addendum I

February 11, 2015 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC):

The states of Maine through Maryland have scheduled their hearings to gather public comment on Draft Addendum I to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan  for Jonah Crab (FMP). The details of those hearings follow.

Maine Dept. of Marine Resources
March 17, 2016; 6-8 PM
Casco Bay Lines Conference Room
56 Commercial Street
Portland, Maine
Contact: Terry Stockwell at 207.624.6553
 
Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries
March 14, 2016; 5:30 PM
New Bedford Fairfield Inn and Suites
185 McArthur Drive
New Bedford, Massachusetts
Contact: Dan McKiernan at 617.626.1536

March 15, 2016; 6:00 PM
MA DMF Annisquam River Field Station
30 Emerson Avenue
Gloucester, Massachusetts
Contact: Dan McKiernan at 617.626.1536

Rhode Island Dept. of Environmental Management
March 16, 2016; 6-9 PM
University of Rhode Island Bay Campus
Corliss Auditorium
South Ferry Road
Narragansett, Rhode Island
Contact: Scott Olszewski at 401.423.1934

New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation
March 23, 2016; 6:30 PM
New York State Dept. of Enviro Conservation
205 North Belle Mead Road, Suite 1
East Setauket, New York
Contact: Rachel Sysak at 631.444.0469

Maryland Department of Natural Resources
April 4, 2016; 2-4 PM
Greater Ocean City Chamber of Commerce
12320 Ocean Gateway
Ocean City, Maryland
Contact: Craig Weedon at 410.643.4601 ext. 2113

The Draft Addendum proposes changes to the incidental bycatch limits for non-trap gear (e.g., otter trawls, gillnets) and non-lobster trap gear (e.g., fish, crab, and whelk pots). For non-trap gear, the Draft Addendum includes options to maintain, increase, or eliminate the bycatch limit, while options for non-lobster traps include establishing bycatch limits of varying size or maintaining no limit on these gears. The intent of the Draft Addendum is to cap incidental landings of Jonah crab while ensuring the inclusion of current participants in the Jonah crab fishery.

The FMP currently prescribes a 200 crab per calendar day/500 crab per trip incidental bycatch limit for non-trap gear; however, concerns were expressed over the appropriateness of these limits. Data submitted by the New England Fishery Management Council and NOAA Fisheries illustrate while 97-99% of trips from 2010 through 2014 were within the current limit, there were several trips above the limit. Furthermore, current bycatch landings were sufficiently low, accounting for approximately 0.1% of total landings.

Bycatch limits for non-lobster trap gear were added as a second issue for consideration in the Draft Addendum to address concerns regarding the lack of effort controls on non-lobster traps and the potential for trap proliferation. Data submitted by NOAA Fisheries show between May 1, 2013 and August 31, 2015, 194 trips landed Jonah crab with whelk pots, crab pots, and fish pots. Of these, 80 trips landed 100 crab or fewer and 115 trips landed 200 crab or fewer.  Approximately 45 trips landed between 200 and 500 crab and 40 trips landed more than 450 crab.  Landings from Maryland show between 2012 and 2015, 33 trips landed Jonah crab with fish pots. All of these trips were under 200 pounds. Reports also indicated from 2014-2015, 36 trips landed Jonah crab with whelk pots. Average landings per trip with whelk pots were under 500 pounds; however, there is concern that these whelk pot landings may in fact be rock crab, a closely related species which is often misreported as Jonah crab.

Fishermen and other interested groups are encouraged to provide input on the Draft Addendum either by attending state public hearings or providing written comment. The Draft Addendum can be obtained at http://www.asmfc.org/files/PublicInput/JonahCrabDraftAddendumI_PublicComment_Feb2016.pdf or via the Commission’s website, www.asmfc.org, under Public Input. Public comment will be accepted until 5:00 PM (EST) on April 18, 2016 and should be forwarded to Megan Ware, FMP Coordinator, 1050 N. Highland St, Suite A-N, Arlington, VA 22201; 703.842.0741 (FAX) or at mware@asmfc.org (Subject line: Draft Addendum I).

Ocean Trust Endorsement of NOAA Assessment

February 1, 2016 – The following was released by Ocean Trust:

Ocean Trust strongly endorsed the recent release of NOAA’s peer-reviewed self-assessment that shows the standards of the United States fishery management system under the Magnuson-Stevens Act more than meet the criteria of the United Nation’s Food And Agriculture Organization’s ecolabelling guidelines. These same guidelines serve as a basis for many consumer seafood certification and ranking schemes.

“The NOAA assessment offers a model for assessing the sustainability of fishery management systems,” noted Thor Lassen, President of Ocean Trust and co-developer of the assessment methodology. “The thoroughness of the assessment by NOAA validates not only the sustainability of US fisheries, but the potential to move towards certification of management systems instead of individual fisheries.”

The assessment evaluated the US management system using the “FAO Evaluation Framework to Assess the Conformity of Public and Private Ecolabelling Schemes with the FAO Guidelines for the Ecolabelling of Fish and Fishery Products from Marine Capture Fisheries,” but focused on the conformance of management systems as a whole rather than that of individual fisheries.

The initiative to assess fish management systems was based on discussions and finding from a series of “Science & Sustainability Forums” (2010-2014) convened by Ocean Trust and the American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists which concluded that:

  • Sustainability is best defined by the management system, not a snapshot of the stock status (overfished) or fishing level (overfishing) at any point in time, but the capacity of the system to respond to changes in stock levels or impacts via management measures.
  • Effective management systems will include adequate responsive action to end overfishing, avoid irreversible harm, and produce sustainable fisheries, and
  • Sustainability, although often gauged on a fishery-by-fishery basis, is actually the result of a well-designed and implemented management system.

NOAA Fisheries staff participated in the Science and Sustainability Forum in Reston, Virginia in February 2012. Following the forum, NOAA Fisheries initiated a project to evaluate the U.S. federal fishery management system against the U.N. Food & Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Guidelines for the Ecolabelling of Fish & Fishery Products from Marine Capture Fisheries.

2012 Knauss Fellow Dr. Michelle Walsh led the NOAA Fisheries effort and collaborated closely with Thor Lassen of Ocean Trust.

The assessment examined three forms of evidence for management program conformance with twenty-four key criteria that addressed the management structure, status of stocks and ecosystem impacts as dictated by “FAO Guidelines.” The structure and methodology of the framework approach was developed in collaboration with Ocean Trust and guidance from former FAO Directors to ensure conformance with “FAO’s guidelines.”

The evaluation process was presented at the American Fisheries Society, Managing Our Nations Fisheries Conference, Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee Meeting, and at the 2014 FAO Committee on Fisheries Meeting in Rome. The process was also peer-reviewed by the Center for Independent Experts (CIE) and published as a NOAA Technical Memorandum on January 28, 2016. www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/publications/feature_stories/2016/fisheries_assessment.html

During this same time period Ocean Trust worked with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and later the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission to assess management systems in the Gulf of Mexico. The results of both assessments demonstrate that:

1. Management systems can be assessed to FAO standards providing major efficiencies in assuring the sustainability of products from those systems. When serious issues arise or as warranted, fishery-by fishery assessments can be conducted as needed.

2. The assessment process can address both national and state programs. For the Gulf, the assessment confirmed the use of adaptive management practices with modern and well-accepted management techniques to sustain its key fisheries over multiple generations.

3. If the processes within a management system are deemed to be adequate to sustain individual fisheries, then the products from those fisheries should be deemed sustainable (i.e., recognized in the market-place) as is often stated by NOAA regarding US fisheries.

“We need to be realistic when looking at fisheries in the US and abroad, the vast majority of which have not been certified because of the impractically and cost under the current certification programs,” concluded Lassen. “We have to rationalize the process and be open to efficiencies offered by a broader approach that focuses on evaluating management systems.”

Ocean Trust will moderate a panel on “Rationalizing Seafood Sustainability” during the 2016 North American Seafood Expo Conference Session Tuesday, March 8th 10:30-12:00 where representatives from Ocean Trust, NOAA, American Institute of Fishery Biologists and others will present their findings and conclusions regarding the sustainable management of seafood.

View a PDF of the release

ASMFC Approves Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Herring

February 8, 2016 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission approved Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Atlantic Herring. The Amendment refines the spawning closure system, modifies the fixed gear set-aside, and includes an empty fish hold provision contingent on federal adoption. The Amendment consolidates prior amendments (and associated addenda) and recent management decisions into a single document; it is now the comprehensive document for Atlantic herring management in state waters.

The Amendment allows for the use of a modified GSI-based spawning monitoring system to track reproductive maturity in an effort to better align the timing of spawning area closures with the onset of spawning. This new method will be tested and evaluated for effectiveness during the 2016 fishing season. If found to be ineffective the Section has the option to revert back to using the prior monitoring system. Default closure dates have been modified to late August or early October depending on the area. The spawning closure period remains four weeks.

Previously, the fixed gear set-aside was available to fixed gear fishermen through November 1, after this date the remaining set-aside became available to the rest of the Area 1A fishery. The November 1 date had been established because, typically, herring have migrated out of the Gulf of Maine by that time. Anecdotal evidence suggests herring are in the Gulf of Maine after November 1, therefore, fixed gear fishermen requested the set-aside be made available to them for the remainder of the calendar year. Under Amendment 3, fixed gear fishermen will now have access to the quota as long as the directed fishery is open.

Amendment 3 also requires fish holds to be empty of fish prior to trip departures. This measure, which is contingent on adoption in federal waters, seeks to minimize wasteful fishing practices and encourage harvest based on market demand. The New England Fishery Management Council has included a similar provision in its Framework Adjustment 4 to the Federal Atlantic Herring FMP. Framework Adjustment 4 is currently under review by NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office.

For more information, please contact Ashton Harp, at aharp@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

Climate change poses threat to fish stocks, study finds

February 3, 2016 — Over the coming decades, dozens of marine species from the Carolinas to New England will be threatened by the warming, changing currents and the increased acidity expected to alter the region’s waters, according to a new study by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Atlantic salmon, winter flounder, bay scallops, ocean quahogs, and other species may face the kind of trouble from climate change that has been linked in previous research to the decline of Atlantic cod, which has lost an estimated 90 percent of its population over the past three decades, the study found.

The authors of the study, released Wednesday by the journal Plos One, found that half of the 82 species they evaluated along the northeastern coast are “highly” or “very highly” vulnerable to the effects of climate change, meaning their populations and ability to reproduce are likely to decline.

“The results show that climate change presents significant challenges to the region’s fishery management and to its ability to sustain fishing communities,” said Jonathan Hare, a NOAA oceanographer who was the lead author of study.

The study also found that 80 percent of the species studied are likely to move beyond their normal habitats.

Read the full story from the Boston Globe

 

Fish Farming In Gulf Poses Questions And Opportunities

February 3, 2016 — Most of the fish we eat in the U.S. comes from other countries. Fishermen in Louisiana have long sought to displace some of those imports but the industry has faced challenges like hurricanes and the 2010 BP oil spill.

Now, a new source of fish in the gulf offers promise — but also raises questions.

For the first time, the Gulf of Mexico is open for fish farming.

Companies can apply for permits through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency. Then they can install floating fish cages — like those already in place in state waters off the coasts of Maine, Washington and Hawaii.

Harlon Pearce owns Harlon’s LA Fish, which sells local fish to restaurants and grocery stores across the south. On a recent afternoon his refrigerated warehouse in Kenner was full of them. He pointed to yellowfin tuna, snapper, black drum and sheep’s head. It doesn’t always look this way.

Pearce, who is on the board of the Gulf Seafood Institute, says he freezes a lot of his fish in order to meet continuous demand, but ultimately always runs out. He wants to sell nationwide and contract with big chains, like Red Lobster, but he says, “We never have enough fish to supply the markets. Never.”

That’s true for a couple of reasons – the seafood industry in the Gulf still hasn’t bounced back from the 2010 BP oil spill, but it’s always fluctuated due to hurricanes and pollution.

Read the full story at New Orleans Public Radio

 

New quotas cut deep for fishing industry

February 3, 2016 — Fishermen and fishing stakeholders say the darkness that has descended on the Northeast groundfish fishery over the past three years is only going to grow deeper in 2016, with some fishing stakeholders envisioning the final collapse of the small-boat industry due to slashed quotas for species they believe are abundant.

“With these cuts, we will not have a fishery as we know it anymore,” said Vito Giacalone, the manager of Gloucester-based Northeast Fishing Sector 4 and the policy director at the Northeast Seafood Coalition. “The great shame to this is we’re going to have this entirely detrimental economic impact while the stocks are in great shape and no one in the government is listening. There is just no leadership.”

At the heart of the issue is the expanding difference between what fishermen say they are seeing on the water and the results from NOAA stock assessments used to produce the annual fishing quotas. Call it a watery Great Divide.

“The fish are in great shape and the only real constraint on catch is quota,” Giacalone said. “Fishermen are seeing that across the board on a lot of the species.”

The quotas, set for 2016 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the final groundfish framework, reflect a far different analysis by NOAA and its scientists. They include savage cuts to gray sole (55 percent), Georges Bank cod (66 percent), northern windowpane flounder (33 percent) and Gulf of Maine yellowtail flounder (26 percent).

“We’ve never had a greater gap between what the fishermen are seeing on the water and what the scientists are saying,” Giacalone said. “Never.”

Gloucester fisherman Al Cottone said his personal sector contribution (PSC) for 2016 includes a slight increase in Gulf of Maine cod from the 1,800 pounds he was allotted in 2015, but cuts in several other species such as yellowtail flounder (down 25 percent to 2,400 pounds); American plaice (down 17.6 percent to 2,800 pounds) and gray sole (down 6 percent to 2,800 pounds).

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times

 

Whale habitat change concerns fishermen

February 2, 2016 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — NOAA Fisheries announced last week that it was expanding the critical habitat for endangered North Atlantic right whales to cover its northeast feeding areas in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank. The designated area is much larger than the one it replaces, and now includes all of the Gulf of Maine on the U.S. side of the national boundary with Canada.

The designation also was applied to an expanded area of the whales’ southeast calving grounds from North Carolina to Florida.

Under the Endangered Species Act, critical habitat within the range of the species consists of areas that contain physical or biological features essential to conservation of the species.

The final rule, which was first proposed in February 2015 and received 261 general comments over a 60-day comment period, does not include any new restrictions or management measures for commercial fishing operations. It does not create preserves or refuges.

However, federal agencies conducting, funding or permitting activities in these areas are required to work with NOAA Fisheries to avoid or reduce impacts on critical habitat.

The announcement has sparked long-standing disagreements between environmental and animal organizations and commercial fisheries.

Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle called the decision “a lifeline” for right whales in a blog post published Friday. “The HSUS and its allies have been fighting for an expansion of protected habitat since 2009, and it’s a victory for us over commercial fishermen and shipping interests that have irresponsibly downplayed their role in driving down the numbers of these mammoth creatures,” he wrote.

Read the full story at Mount Desert Islander

 

Fishermen await trial on NOAA monitors mandate

February 2, 2016 — HAMPTON — Local fisherman David Goethel said he hopes a court ruling comes soon to determine the legality of a new federal mandate, as he and other fishermen are fearful they will go under before the trial begins.

Goethel said he may sell his fishing boat after this summer if the trial isn’t resolved by then. He filed the lawsuit causing the trial, challenging the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s plan to make fishermen pay for their own policing. He filed it in conjunction with a fishing sector based in Massachusetts.

Industry members estimate the observers would cost a given fisherman $700 for each day the observer joined them at sea. Observers are mandated to go with fishermen on 24 percent of their fishing days. Fishermen say their industry was already being devastated by strict restrictions on catch limits.

“I will not be able to pay for this,” Goethel said. “I keep saying over and over: This is the straw that will break the camel’s back.”

Read the full story at the Portsmouth Herald

Why the U.S. East Coast could be a major ‘hotspot’ for rising seas

February 1, 2016 — New research published Monday adds to a body of evidence suggesting that a warming climate may have particularly marked effects for some citizens of the country most responsible for global warming in the first place — namely, U.S. East Coasters.

Writing in Nature Geoscience, John Krasting and three colleagues from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration find that “Atlantic coastal areas may be particularly vulnerable to near-future sea-level rise from present-day high greenhouse gas emission rates.” The research adds to recent studies that have found strong warming of ocean waters in the U.S. Gulf of Maine, a phenomenon that is not only upending fisheries but could be worsening the risk of extreme weather in storms like Winter Storm Jonas.

“When carbon emission rates are at present day levels and higher, we see greater basin average sea level rise in the Atlantic relative to the Pacific,” says Krasting. “This also means that single global average measures of sea level rise become less representative of the regional scale changes that we show in the study.”

In the new research, the scientists used a high powered climate change model based at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., that simulates the ocean, the atmosphere and the cycling of carbon throughout the Earth system. The goal was to determine how much sea level rise would occur in the Atlantic, versus the Pacific, under a variety of global carbon emissions scenarios.

Read the full story at The Washington Post