Saving Seafood

Fishing Industry Tells Committee Regulations Go Too Far

March 16, 2017 — Allegations of bad science and lobbying by overzealous environmentalists dominated talks on marine sanctuary and monument designations during a Congressional hearing Wednesday.

The House Committee on Natural Resources met to unpack the pros and cons of such designations with a panel of industry insiders and their supporters called to testify.

Among those who testified were Brian Hallman, executive director of the American Tunaboat Association, and Chett Chiasson, executive director of the Greater Lafourche Port Commission.

Hallman offered a robust defense of watermen and the fishing industry and was quick to remind representatives that tuna profits reel in a half billion dollars annually and serves as a major boon for the U.S. economy.

According to Hallman, his organization represents all U.S. flagged fishing vessels in the Pacific Ocean and trawls the waters there pursuant to three separate treaties.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

NOAA Fisheries Announces 2017 At-Sea Monitoring Coverage Levels for Groundfish Sector Fishery

March 15, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA: 

NOAA Fisheries announces that for fishing year 2017 the total target at-sea monitoring coverage level is 16 percent of all groundfish sector trips. 

This target coverage level is a 2 percentage point increase from the 2016 coverage level (14 percent). As the target coverage level is set based on an average of at-sea monitoring data from the past 3 full groundfish fishing years, this level is set based on data from the 2013-2015 fishing years.

Federally funded observer coverage provided by the Northeast Fishery Observer Program to meet the Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology (SBRM) requirements will partially satisfy the 16 percent coverage requirement. Sectors will therefore actually pay for at-sea monitoring coverage on less than 16 percent of their groundfish trips, but the total will depend on the SBRM coverage rates, which are not yet out.

We expect to be able to reimburse sectors for some portion of their ASM costs. We do not yet have the information we need to determine the reimbursement rate. We were able to reimburse 85 percent of at-sea monitoring costs in 2016, but expect the 2017 reimbursement rate to be lower.

Certain sector groundfish trips, those using gillnets with 10-inch or greater mesh in Southern New England and Inshore Georges Bank, are also excluded from the ASM requirement due to their low catch of groundfish species. This further reduces the portion of sector trips subject to industry-funded monitoring and better focuses monitoring resources.

For more information, please read the Summary of Analysis Conducted to Determine At-Sea Monitoring Requirements for Multispecies Sectors FY 2017available on our website.

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel at 978-281-9175 or jennifer.goebel@noaa.gov

Groundfish Days-at-Sea Leasing Deadline Extended to March 31

March 15, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA: 

NOAA Fisheries announces an extension of the 2016 Days-at-Sea leasing deadline for the northeast multispecies fishery. If you hold a groundfish permit for 2016, you may submit DAS leases through March 31. 

The Groundfish DAS leasing function has been re-opened in Fish Online. Paper DAS lease applications must be received in our office no later than March 31.

Questions? Please contact Mark Grant at mark.grant@noaa.gov.

Could fisheries policy change under Trump and Commerce Secretary Ross?

March 15, 2017 — Since January, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the nation’s fishery regulators, has offered hints that changes to U.S. fishery policy might be in store.

A formal fisheries policy has yet to emerge, and these are, of course, still early days for the Trump Administration. But some observers read in Ross’s recent statements a potential desire to increase fishing.

During the campaign, Trump railed repeatedly against the United States’ trade deficit. And Ross, during his Senate confirmation in January, expressed a wish to reverse the nation’s seafood trade deficit – a tall task given that the U.S. imports 90 percent of the seafood eaten here and has a USD 11 billion (EUR 10.3 billion) seafood trade deficit.

“Given the enormity of our coastlines, given the enormity of our freshwater, I would like to try to figure out how we can become much more self-sufficient in fishing and perhaps even a net exporter,” he said at his confirmation hearing in January, according to Politico.

Then, during his first address to the department’s 47,000 employees, on 1 March, he listed a key challenge for the department of “obtaining maximum sustainable yield.” It was his only reference to the nation’s fisheries during the short speech.

“The Secretary’s remarks reflect the importance our nation’s marine and coastal fisheries resources, and his commitment to ensuring these resources are sustainable for generations to come,” John Ewald, a spokesman for NOAA Fisheries, told SeafoodSource in an email.

How Ross views fisheries matters, since his department oversees both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Ross will make appointments to the nation’s regional fishery management councils, and the policies he advances will have profound effects on recreational and commercial fishermen.

Those policies could mark a sharp departure from the conservation-driven policies of the last eight years. The Recreational Fishing Alliance, an early supporter of Trump’s campaign for president, sees the potential for a new day under Trump, and hopes Ross will reverse the Obama administration’s policies.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell set to testify to Congress about impact of marine monument

March 15, 2017 — Weather permitting, Mayor Jon Mitchell on Wednesday will be in Washington giving testimony to Congress about an underwater marine monument which former President Obama created with a stroke of the pen in 2016 over the protests of the fishing community.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument spans nearly 5,000 square miles 150 miles off Cape Cod, and it was hailed by environmentalists for preserving enormous underwater mountains and vast, deep canyons only now being explored.

Three years earlier, an underwater remotely-operated vehicle sent back pictures of incredible life forms and geological features.

“These images, shared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, demonstrated to the world that this bit of the Atlantic was an ecological hot spot, a veritable underwater Serengeti,” said the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The NRDC was among the leaders of many organizations that jumped at the opportunity to preserve the monument against human activity, fishing in particular.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Winter storm could pack powerful seas

March 14, 2017 — Well, Tuesday’s forecast does not include fishing, unless all weather models are off.

On top of the predicted snow, NOAA’s coastal marine forecast is calling for 30 to 40 knot winds, with gusts up to 55 knots, out of the north. The seas are expected to increase in height and reach peaks of 12 to 17 feet.

It’s not the kind of conditions for a mariner to be out on the water.

Hopefully, this time next week the Shore will be out of the grips of winter weather. The first actual day of spring is Monday.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

MASSACHUSETTS: Cape Cod officials push for Sea Grant program’s survival

March 10, 2017 — Judith McDowell and Bob Rheault were both drawn to Washington this week for the same reason: They wanted to salvage a threatened federal program that plays a key role in Cape Cod’s marine-dependent industries.

McDowell, the director of the Woods Hole Sea Grant program, and Rheault, the executive director of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, were hoping to save the national Sea Grant program from elimination. The Washington Post reported last week that the program’s $73 million budget is part of a proposed 18 percent cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

McDowell said she couldn’t comment on a budget cut she said hadn’t been officially released but was leaked to news organizations. But Rheault, who was making the rounds of congressional offices this week, was highly critical of the proposal to scrap Sea Grant, calling it a “job killer.”

His time in D.C. revealed there might be a chance the program, which President Lyndon Johnson created in 1966, could be saved, Rheault said.

“Most of the people in government who looked at Sea Grant realize it was a tremendous investment for the money,” Rheault said. “The impact (Sea Grant) has on local jobs, food production … it’s hard to say anything bad about it.”

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Portland Press Herald: NOAA budget cuts would have high cost for Maine

March 10, 2017 — Though funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration amounts to less than one-half of 1 percent of discretionary federal spending, it pays outsize dividends for Maine. The people at the center of our state’s $700 million commercial fishing industry depend on NOAA’s weather forecasts, research and fisheries management services. A proposal to slash the agency’s budget is a short-sighted move that would save pennies now only to forfeit dollars later.

The White House plan, first reported last week in The Washington Post, would roll back NOAA’s budget by 17 percent. Among the targeted programs are the National Marine Fisheries Service and National Weather Service, which each would see 5 percent cuts; the satellite division, which would face a 22 percent reduction in funding, and the Sea Grant program, which would be abolished.

None of this is good news for Maine’s marine sector. National Weather Service wind and wave height forecasts are essential to fishermen. So is the research conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which guides decisions about where, how and when to fish and enables fishermen to build business plans around their catch. What’s more, the steep reductions in the satellite division’s budget would deprive the weather and fisheries management offices of data that are crucial to their mission, compounding the harm done by the relatively small direct cuts to the programs themselves.

Read the full opinion piece at the Portland Press Herald

Pair pleads guilty to illegal fishing

March 8, 2017 — The United States Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday in federal court that David Saunders Jr. and Michael Potter pleaded guilty to federal charges regarding the illegal harvest and sale of Atlantic striped bass from federal waters off the coast of North Carolina.

According to the indictments and information in the public records, in February 2010, a special agent with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) received information that commercial trawlers were illegally fishing for Atlantic striped bass in federal waters off the coast of North Carolina.

Upon receiving the information, NOAA engaged the assistance of the U.S. Coast Guard and a patrol vessel in the area intercepted one of 17 commercial trawlers.

Based on its review, NOAA determined that in seven separate fishing trips between Jan. 27, 2009, and Feb. 9, 2010, Saunders, then Captain of the Bridgot Denise, a commercial trawler, harvested approximately 14,579 pounds of Atlantic striped bass from the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). He sold the fish to a fish dealer in Wanchese, NC. The estimated fair market retail value of the 14,579 pounds of illegally harvested fish exceeds $116,000.

Read the full story at WECT

Trump’s proposed cuts to NOAA alarm Maine’s marine community

March 7, 2017 — A Trump administration proposal to slash funding for the federal government’s principal marine agency and eliminate the national Sea Grant program is prompting alarm in Maine’s marine sector because it depends on services provided by both.

President Trump wants to slash the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the agency responsible for fisheries management, weather forecasting, nautical surveys and assisting marine industries – by 17 percent, The Washington Post reported Friday. And he wants to eliminate NOAA’s Sea Grant program, the marine equivalent of the federal agricultural extension and research service, in the fiscal 2018 budget, which begins Oct. 1.

“There was a lot of concern when the news broke, and a flurry of messages went out to our congressional delegation from fishermen and aquaculturists who understand how they benefit from Sea Grant,” said Paul Anderson, director of Maine Sea Grant at the University of Maine in Orono, one of 33 Sea Grant universities in the country. “I don’t now if on October 1st we will all of a sudden not exist.”

The news has sent reverberations across Maine’s marine community, which has long benefited from the partnership between UMaine and the federal government. Sea Grant researchers created the Fishermen’s Forum – the industry’s premier event – in 1976, and also helped found the Portland Fish Exchange and the university’s Lobster Institute, which researches issues of concern to the industry.

Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said the cuts to NOAA would be terrible for fishermen. “The industry relies pretty heavily on their forecast reports on the wind and the wave heights and make decisions day to day if they are going to go out, so those satellites are really important,” she said. “And nobody loves (the National Marine Fisheries Service), but keeping them fully funded and their research going is essential to manage our fisheries.”

She noted that recent cuts to the agency’s right-whale monitoring program had hurt fishermen because if scientists didn’t have time to find the whales, they had to assume they weren’t there, increasing the regulatory burden on lobstermen, whose gear the whales sometimes get entangled in.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald