Saving Seafood

Changes could be coming to America’s flounder harvest

April 3, 2018 — BOSTON — Interstate fishing managers are considering changing the rules governing the fishery for a popular species of flounder.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says managers are seeking comments about possible changes to the summer flounder fishery. The fish has been brought to land from Maine to Florida over the years and the catch was worth more than $30 million in 2016.

An entry in the Federal Register about the proposal says it concerns revisions to commercial and recreational quotas for the fish. Comments are due by April 30.

Fishermen caught a little less than 7.8 million pounds of summer flounder in 2016. That was the lowest total since 1972.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Greensboro News & Record

 

State files petition with federal bodies that set commercial fluke fishing quotas

April 3, 2018 — Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned the U.S. Secretary of Commerce in October that if changes weren’t made to fluke quotas to be fair to New York’s economy and commercial fishing families, the state would take legal action.

Last week, that threat became more real as the governor and state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the filing of a petition with the federal government to establish fair quota allocations for the state’s commercial harvest of fluke, or summer flounder.

In a March 23 statement, Mr. Cuomo said the federal government can’t rely on “decades-old data to uphold the fluke quotas, which put New York at a disadvantage compared to other states.”

“New York’s commercial fishing industry has been held back by archaic federal restrictions for too long, and by taking action to defend fair treatment of our fishers, we will help this valuable industry reach its full potential,” he said.

The state Department of Conservation petitioned for revised allocations with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

“New York’s commercial fishing industry deserves a fair shake — not the back of the hand — from the federal government,” Mr. Schneiderman said. “Federal law requires that our nation’s marine fisheries be managed according to the best available science, and in a fair, efficient, and safe way. Simply put, perpetuating New York’s undersized, outdated share of the commercial summer flounder fishery does not meet the requirements of the law.”

Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner Basil Seggos also said changes need to be made.

Local fishermen have long felt they’re left short-changed while other East Coast states have higher quotas. Some are skeptical of what will come next, as they’ve dealt with restrictions on fluke fishing since 1992, which state officials and fishermen say were based on inaccurate or outdated data on the fish population.

Read the full story at the Suffolk Times

 

Word of Gloucester Seafood Processing reopening catches city leaders by surprise

April 3, 2018 — The comments last week by the founder of the Mazzetta Company that the seafood processor will resume processing fresh fish at its largely dormant Gloucester Seafood Processing plant caught many by surprise — including city officials.

Tom Mazzetta, the chief executive officer of the Illinois-based seafood conglomerate that bears his family’s name, told a respected fishing website that the Gloucester Seafood Processing plant in the Blackburn Industrial Park will resume operations before the year is out.

“We’ll be processing the finest fish in New England before the end of the year,” Mazzetta was quoted as saying in the Undercurrentnews.com piece.

On Monday morning, Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken said the city has not heard a peep from anyone at the Mazzetta Company about re-firing daily operations at Gloucester Seafood Processing which the company unexpectedly — and without explanation — shuttered in December 2016, a little more than a year after it first opened.

“We haven’t heard a word, not from anyone in Illinois or from anyone associated with the plant here,” Romeo Theken said during an event Monday with NOAA Regional Administrator Mike Pentony at the city’s alewife fishway in West Gloucester.

According to the online story posted late last week, Mazzetta declined to expand on the company’s plans beyond his simple statement.

He wouldn’t say if Gloucester Seafood Processing also would be processing lobsters, as it did when it first opened in 2015, or what the size and composition of the new work force will be following the re-opening.

He didn’t reveal whether the property at 21-29 Great Republic Drive, which was listed online for sale last December (with an asking price of $17 million) will be coming off the market. He also refused to shed any light on why Gloucester Seafood Processing was closed in the first place.

Mazzetta did not respond Monday to phone calls from the Gloucester Daily Times seeking clarification and amplification on his comments to the website.

Mazzetta, with the assistance of city and state tax sweeteners, bought the former Good Harbor Fillet property in the industrial park for about $5 million in 2014 from High Liner Foods.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Sustainable shark bill nets solutions for overfishing

April 2, 2018 — A new bipartisan bill introduced in U.S. Congress this month encourages a science-based approach to significantly reduce the overfishing and unsustainable trade of sharks, rays and skates around the world and prevent shark finning.

The Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act of 2018 was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Daniel Webster, R-FL, and Rep. Ted Lieu, D-CA, along with co-sponsors Rep. Bill Posey, R-FL, Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-MO, and Rep. Walter Jones, R-NC.

The Act would require that shark, ray and skate parts and products imported into the U.S. be permitted only from countries certified by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as having in place and enforcing management and conservation policies for these species comparable to the U.S., including science-based measures to prevent overfishing and provide for recovery of shark stocks. A comparable prohibition on shark finning — the wasteful and inhumane practice of cutting off a shark’s fins and discarding the carcass at sea — would also be required.

Scientists recognize more than 1,250 species of cartilaginous fishes — sharks and related skates and rays. Of these, as many as one-quarter are estimated to be threatened with extinction, and the conservation status of nearly half is poorly known. These fishes play important ecological roles in their marine and freshwater ecosystems, and many species are culturally and economically important. These fishes are particularly vulnerable to over-exploitation — most grow slowly, mature late and produce few young. Overfishing, through targeted fisheries and incidental catch, is the primary threat to sharks and their relatives, which are harvested for fins, meat, oil, cartilage and other products.

Mote Marine Laboratory Senior Scientist Dr. Robert Hueter served as a scientific reviewer for the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act text, providing feedback based on published research and his decades of experience as a shark scientist to inform policymakers who ultimately determined the content of the legislation.

Read the full story at Longboat Key News

 

Don Cuddy: Proposed Magnuson Stevens changes are reasonable

April 2, 2018 — I am wondering how much commercial fishermen know about acting? At a guess I’d say probably as much, or as little, as most actors know about commercial fishing, even award-winning ones. This thought arose following the recent appearance in these pages of an opinion piece on fishery management by a member of the acting profession in an attempt to wield political influence.

The thespian in question is also an Oceana board member, a well-funded environmental group antithetical to America’s oldest industry. This group has been known to advance claims which fail to resonate with real scientists. One particularly misleading report ‘Wasted Catch,’ launched by Oceana on a credulous public in 2014, drew a letter of censure from all eight of our nation’s regional Fishery Management Councils. Among other things the letter stated:

“While we acknowledge that there are no laws requiring Oceana reports to accurately represent the best available scientific information or to undergo peer review, to do so would be in the best interest of all involved parties. This is why we suggest that you retract the report until it is reviewed and corrected.” http://www.mafmc.org/newsfeed/wasted-catch

The Magnuson Stevens Act which governs fisheries in federal waters requires reauthorization and it is currently under review. Changes proposed in a bill now before Congress were denounced by this Oceana advocate as “counter factual, anti-science, anti-conservation.”

The frothy plea to our congressman is for maintenance of the status quo in fishery management. And the argument carries weight because it comes from a well-known actor? Well sir, Nature isn’t listening. And the modest proposals in H.R 200, intended to remove some of the onerous provisions burdening our fishermen, have generated a predictable response from environmentalists who dismiss realities which do not fit their agenda. Change is needed.

The act as written, for example, calls for rebuilding all stocks to maximum sustainable yield simultaneously and imposes timeline to achieve that. I called my friend Dave Goethel for his take on that. “That ignores Nature. It’s a biological impossibility,” he said. “Something will always be overfished. The reason haddock are up and cod are down now is because they occupy the same ecological niche.”

Dave is a working commercial fisherman with a degree in marine biology who served two terms on the New England Fishery Management Council. He doesn’t act but he has been fishing for 50 years. Fishermen, he said, are simply hoping to introduce a little flexibility on these rigid rebuilding timelines which were imposed more or less arbitrarily when the act was written.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Sector IX vessels make a move to lease quota

March 30, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Fifty-five vessels have left Sector IX, but they still can’t fish. However, they can lease their groundfish quota.

The 55, including four Carlos Rafael vessels subject to forfeiture, were submitted to be included in Sector VII for the 2018-19 fishing season, according to NOAA and Sector VII.

The move comes after six months of negotiations with NOAA in trying to get an operational plan approved, which would have lifted the groundfishing ban.

Had a move not been made, the vessels would have remained in Sector IX without the ability to lease quota. Three Sector IX vessels will remain in the sector.

The deadline for vessels to change sectors was Monday.

“What are we supposed to do,” Sector VII President Richie Canastra said. “The enrollment was Monday where you have to choose your sector for the 2018 and 2019 fishing season. No answer (from NOAA) was there yet. So those vessels and the permits owned by Carlos went to Sector VII.”

Canastra said the vessels affected by NOAA’s ban can only return to fishing with authorization from the agency or if they are sold to an independent party.

“It’s really straight forward. None of this was done to try to pull the wool over someone’s eyes or being sneaky,” Canastra said. “I just think it’s the right thing to do. I really believe the people in the industry will understand it’s the best move for everyone.”

The shift in sectors also included the additions of Richie Canastra as President, Tor Bendiksen as Treasurer and Cassie Canstra as Clerk to Sector VII.

In a letter from NOAA’s Regional Administrator Michael Pentony to the Chair of the New England Fishery Management Council John Quinn, he confirmed that the vessels would be allowed to transfer quota. He also confirmed that all vessels owned by Rafael would be inactive, unless they are sold to in independent party.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Massachusetts: A shell game in New Bedford? 55 boats scramble out of Sector IX, catching NOAA by surprise

March 30, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Something fishy is going on in New Bedford (excuse the terrible pun).

On March 26, the final day for sectors to confirm their rosters and membership for the 2018 fishing season, NOAA got letters from sector VII saying that no vessels will remain in Sector VII who were there last year, and that 16 of these vessels are joining sector VIII.

Then they were told that 55 vessels from sector IX are joining sector VII, including the 4 vessels owned by Carlos Rafael that have been judged subject to forfeiture.

Meanwhile, a separate letter from sector IX said that only three vessels would remain in that sector, that it would operate solely as a lease sector and those vessels would not fish.

What is going on here?

First, all three sectors VII,VIII, and IX are New Bedford groundfish sectors approved under the Northeast Groundfish management plan.

Each year, these sectors have to submit operation plans to NOAA, including the roster of vessels and the rules under which the vessels in the sector will fish.

After the guilty plea by Carlos Rafael, and the admission last fall by sector IX that its vessels, primarily associated with Rafael, had engaged in overfishing, NOAA suspended the operating permit for that sector.  That meant no vessels in that sector could continue to fish.

Since the fall negotiations have been going on between NOAA and Sector IX over how Sector IX might return to operations.  The primary obstacle is that NOAA has required the Sector to account for its overfishing, and to calculate how much fish must be deducted from its current allotments in order to pay back fish illegally harvested.

Secondly, NOAA has insisted on Sector IX developing a monitoring and catch reporting plan that would prevent illegal fishing.

By March, neither side had reached an agreement, and the issue of Sector IX was going to be a prominent part of the New England Fishery Management Council Meeting next week.

NOAA was blindsided by the switcheroo.

Much of what is going on in New Bedford is with the same actors.  Three Board Members from Sector IX would join the Board of Sector VII.  Meanwhile, the manager of Sector IX, Stephanie Rafael-DeMello, has said she would be moving to fleet operations management for Rafael’s vessels, instead of continuing full time as the manager of Sector IX.

One interpretation of this switch is that Sector IX is being effectively disbanded.

However, not all the promises made by Sector IX to NOAA are being carried over as the vessels move to sector VII.

One point mentioned in NOAA’s letter to the council is that Sector VII has requested that vessels owned by Carlos Rafael remain inactive in the fishery, although with rights to lease their quotas to other sectors or intra-sector, unless they are sold to another party.

But the 55 vessels transferring to Sector VII, including all those currently listed as inactive, could become operational within Sector VII with no changes to existing ownership.

Under NOAA rules, if a sector disbands after having overfished, the overfishing penalty is allocated among the vessels that had previously been in the sector, and deducted from their new sector allocation.

As Sector IX was unable to provide information about the overages of specific vessels, the time and cost of allocating the overages to the remaining vessels transferring out of the sector may be substantial.

The three inactive vessels remaining in Sector IX appear to be willing to shoulder the penalty, once it is agreed upon, and to pay it by having the overages deducted from the amount of their quotas that are leased. The move appears to be an attempt to get the other Sector IX vessels out from under the obligation to payback the sector overages.

All of this will be discussed at the council meeting, which promises to be interesting.

The driving factor here is that the New Bedford Auction, owned by the Canastra Brothers, needs to get some volume of groundfish back.  This has been greatly reduced by the suspension of sector IX.  Rafael vessels represented the largest source of groundfish for the private New Bedford auction.

The Canastras first tried to buy Rafael’s boats.  This did not go anywhere, as NOAA needs to give its approval.  Then they tried to set up a way to satisfy NOAA on Sector IX overages without providing a detailed accounting.  This was not accepted either.

Now they have participated in a wholesale abandonment of Sector IX and moved vessels to Sector VII, with the aim of first, hoping the vessels will be allowed to fish, or that in this situation inactive vessels can become active though still owned by their original Rafael connected owners.

Secondly, they may be hoping to clear the way for a sale of these vessels who are now potentially operating in a less tainted sector.

There has been a continuing political effort in New Bedford to try and keep the groundfish volumes that had been part of Rafael’s fishing operations within the port.

All of this maneuvering avoids the basic question before NOAA and the Council, which is whether the permits for the vessels that are now suspended will simply be allocated to New Bedford, or will they be subject to distribution to the rest of the New England groundfish fishery that was harmed by the rampant overfishing taking place in New Bedford.

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

 

NOAA: Georges Bank Ecosystem Strategy Peer Review

March 29, 2018 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The New England Fishery Management Council is exploring options for ecosystem-based fishery management. An ecosystem-based approach to management would allow a variety of factors — from fishery stock status to ecosystem conditions to human dimensions — to be considered in developing fishery management decisions.

The council requested peer review of a proposed ecosystem management procedure and the models used to test that procedure. The federal government furlough earlier this year forced a delay of this review, now rescheduled for April 30-May 4 at the NEFSC Woods Hole Laboratory.

More details on the meeting logistics and the peer reviewers are now posted.

Learn more about NOAA Fisheries’ Northeast Science Center by visiting their site here.

 

Alaska: Halibut faces headwinds as catches drop 10%

March 29, 2018 — Pacific halibut catches for 2018 won’t decline as severely as initially feared, but the fishery faces headwinds from several directions.

Federal fishery managers announced just a few days before the March 24 start of the halibut opener that commercial catches for Alaska will be down 10 percent for a total of 17.5 million pounds.

The industry was on tenterhooks awaiting the catch information, which typically is announced by the International Pacific Halibut Commission in late January. However, representatives from the U.S. and Canada could not agree on how to apportion the halibut catches in fishing regions that stretch from the west coast and British Columbia to the Bering Sea.

“The Canadians felt there was justification in the survey and commercial fishery data that, in concert with a long-held position that the IPHC’s apportionment scheme was not accurate, supported a higher catch limit. They were also opposed to the slow pace the U.S. has taken in reducing its bycatch of halibut in the Bering Sea,” said Peggy Parker of Seafoodnews.com.

The impasse put the decision in the laps of federal managers at NOAA Fisheries in Washington, D.C., who were pushed to the wire to get the halibut catch limits and regulations on the rule books in time for the fishery start.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

 

NOAA to foot monitoring costs

March 29, 2018 — Timing may not be everything, but it sure counts for a lot. Just ask New Hampshire groundfisherman David Goethel.

Goethel, who had persevered through cascading years of escalating regulation, slashed fishing quotas, a failed lawsuit and, more recently, the prospect of paying the full cost of at-sea monitoring, was ready to get out of commercial groundfishing.

“I had planned to sell my boat this summer,” Goethel said Wednesday, referring to his 44-foot, Hampton, New Hampshire-ported Ellen Diane. “I was done.”

But not now.

Last week, following a full year of working behind the scenes with U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Goethel got the news he and other groundfishermen wanted to hear:

Shaheen, the lead Democrat on a pivotal Senate appropriation subcommittee, was able to insert language and secure $10.3 million in additional funding that directs — some fishing stakeholders would say forces — NOAA Fisheries to fully fund at-sea monitoring in 2018 for the first time in three years.

“All of the credit should go to Sen. Shaheen,” Goethel said. “She just wouldn’t give up on this. She personally took it and guided it through the byzantine and frustrating budget process.”

Jackie Odell, executive director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, echoed Goethel’s comments about Shaheen’s leadership and also said the full funding comes at a critical time for the Northeast groundfish fleet.

“Sen. Shaheen and her office are really the ones who spearheaded this,” Odell said. “She really knows how important this is for fishermen. Viability continues to be a concern for many fishing interests and at-sea monitoring is a huge burden on the fishery.”

In January, NOAA Fisheries said it would mandate at-sea monitoring coverage on 15 percent of the Northeast multispecies groundfish trips in 2018 — down from 16 percent in 2017. The agency, however, did not say whether it would reimburse monitoring costs or leave them entirely to fishermen.

NOAA Fisheries reimbursed groundfishermen for 60 percent of their montitoring costs in 2017, down from 80 percent in 2016. Prior to 2016, NOAA Fisheries assumed all at-sea monitoring costs.

But the writing seemed to be on the wall.

Odell said NOAA Fisheries told industry stakeholders a couple months ago the agency did not envision reimbursing any of the monitoring costs in 2018, increasing the likelihood that more groundfish dayboats would be forced out of active fishing.

Longtime Gloucester fisherman Al Cottone, who also serves as executive director of the city’s Fisheries Commission, said the new at-sea monitoring funding could help convince some fishermen to return to more active fishing or allow others to continue apace without having to foot the bill.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times