Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Seafood Coalition planning gala

May 30, 2017 — The Northeast Seafood Coalition will hold its annual fundraiser in July, but with a twist: This year’s event has a specific theme tied to elevating the group’s role in improving groundfish stock assessments.

The Gloucester-based fishing advocate’s gala, set for July 27 at The Gloucester House restaurant, is flying under the banner of “Know Fish: Better Science” and will include big-money raffles, a celebrity seafood cooking demonstration, an auction, live music and a seafood buffet.

Beyond the festivities, the event will underscore the need to improve the science that serves as the foundation for the stock assessments and potentially bridge the discrepancies between what the current science shows and what the fishermen are seeing on the water. 

“We decided to do a larger theme this year than just center the event around fundraising,” said Jackie Odell, NSC executive director. “We’re raising money from the event to allow us to better engage in the scientific process and better engage in the science of assessments.”

The coalition has established several levels of financial support. The event, scheduled to begin at 6 p.m., will be limited to 500 attendees.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

JACKIE ODELL: Controversy over region’s cod population

April 11, 2017 — RE “DWINDLING cod population no fluke in Mass.” (Editorial, April 5): Small family-owned fishing businesses operating in New England rely upon sound science. In recent years, reports for stocks like Gulf of Maine cod have gone from being overly optimistic to overly pessimistic, seemingly overnight. This flip-flop has justifiably created doubt and suspicion among those who participate in the fishery.

Further contributing to this skepticism has been the remarkable abundance of codfish observed by both commercial and recreational fishermen on the water over the past three years, as environmental conditions and oceanographic cycles have shifted. Today, fishermen spend more time avoiding these fish than catching them.

The Gulf of Maine cod stock, assessed to be reportedly near collapse, is instead becoming more and more difficult to avoid across a wide region. This is the case for many fish stocks in New England, not just cod. Many in the fishery today are left with questions about the limitations of the data sets, models, and processes that are used to assess stocks today.

Read the full opinion piece at the Boston Globe

What’s Happening To Cod In New England?

April 4, 2017 — Cod stocks in New England are at an historic low, down 80 percent from a decade ago, according to new data from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

Those findings are contested by some in the fishing community.

Vito Giacalone, policy director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition in Gloucester, said, “Everyone that fishes the Gulf of Maine, amateur fishermen that go out for the first time — no one can believe that someone can actually say that this cod stock is not in good shape.”

Listen to the interview at WBUR

MASSACHUSETTS: A milestone in the war over the true state of cod

April 3, 2017 — For years, fishermen from Gloucester to New Bedford have accused the federal government of relying on faulty science to assess the health of the region’s cod population, a fundamental flaw that has greatly exaggerated its demise, they say, and led officials to wrongly ban nearly all fishing of the iconic species.

The fishermen’s concerns resonated with Governor Charlie Baker, so last year he commissioned his own survey of the waters off New England, where cod were once so abundant that fishermen would say they could walk across the Atlantic on their backs.

Now, in a milestone in the war over the true state of cod in the Gulf of Maine, Massachusetts scientists have reached the same dismal conclusion that their federal counterparts did: The region’s cod are at a historic low — about 80 percent less than the population from just a decade ago.

“The bottom line is that the outlook of Gulf of Maine cod is not good,” said Micah Dean, a scientist who oversaw the survey for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. “What we’ve seen is a warning sign about the future of the fishery, and it’s a stark change from what we saw a decade ago.”

The state’s surveys, conducted on an industry trawler, also found a dearth of juvenile cod and large cod, suggesting that the population could remain in distress for years. The lack of small cod reflects limited reproduction, while the absence of the larger fish is a problem because they’re capable of prolific spawning. 

Dean said he hoped fishermen would find the results credible, given that the survey sought to accommodate their concerns about the federal survey, conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

To address their concerns, the state spent more than $500,000 to trawl for cod in 10 times as many locations. Rather than sampling the waters twice a year, as NOAA does, the state cast its nets every month from last April to January, and kept them in the water about 50 percent longer. They also searched for the fish in deeper waters, where fishermen have said they tend to congregate.

“It was an exhaustive survey meant to provide an answer to the questions that the fishermen were posing,” Dean said. “But the fish weren’t there.”

Some longtime cod fishermen remain unconvinced. They say the historic fishery has been fully rebuilt, although the federal and state surveys estimate it is only about 6 percent of the level needed to sustain a healthy population.

Vito Giacalone, policy director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition in Gloucester, which represents many of the region’s commercial fishermen, maintained that the state surveys had some of the same flaws as the federal surveys. Rather than conducting random sampling throughout the Gulf of Maine, the researchers should have trawled for cod in areas where fishermen are finding them, he and other critics said.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

In boon for Gloucester fleet, flounder limits doubled

January 26, 2017 — In a victory for the local inshore dayboat fleet, fishing regulators on Wednesday approved new specifications for witch flounder that will nearly double the annual catch limit for the species in 2017.

Meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the New England Fishery Management Council approved an acceptable biological catch of 878 metric tons of witch flounder, also known as grey sole, for 2017. When adjusted for management uncertainty, the move will result in a 2017 annual catch limit of 839 metric tons — nearly twice the 2016 annual catch limit of 441 metric tons.

“I think the council was compelled by the industry’s own observation that we have a pretty strong witch flounder stock,” said Vito Giacalone, policy director for the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition.

The council action on witch flounder should provide a significant boost to the local dayboat fleet and the fortunes of the fishermen that are immutably tied to the stock.

“It’s huge,” Giacalone said. “Everybody who is left fishes for it. The inshore dayboat fleet is almost entirely dependent on this stock.”

The spike in the 2017 annual catch limit should provide a double-edged benefit, according to Giacalone.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishing in 2016: The year didn’t go swimmingly for industry

December 28, 2016 — The past year in the commercial fishing industry and along the city’s waterfront has been one of battles, as the city’s legendary fishing industry has fought to remain viable in the midst of regulatory, economic and environmental pressures.

Groundfishermen spent much of the year dueling with NOAA Fisheries over who should pay for mandated at-sea monitoring. And fishing advocates, led by the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, continued their crusade questioning the quality of the science NOAA uses in its stock assessments.

Lobstermen, NOAA scientists and elected representatives such as U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, took on Sweden over the Scandinavian country’s attempt to convince the European Union to list American lobsters as an invasive species and ban their importation.

Those skirmishes have taken place against the backdrop of the most disturbing and over-arching single piece of information to emerge in 2016 — the Gulf of Maine, already effectively shuttered to cod fishing and shrimping, is warming faster than 99.9 percent of the rest of the planet’s oceans and doing so at an accelerated rate.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

National Marine Monument off New England coast?

September 12, 2016 — The third installment of the Our Ocean forum will convene in Washington, D.C., this week and the betting window is open on whether the Obama administration will use the event to announce the designation of new National Marine Monuments.

No one — neither conservationists nor fishing stakeholders — claims to know exactly what will happen when the two-day, international event opens Thursday. But it has not escaped anyone’s attention that the Obama administration has used the same forum in the past to make similar announcements.

[In March], in a victory for fishing stakeholders, the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality removed Cashes Ledge, which sits about 80 miles off of Gloucester, from consideration as a possible site for a new National Marine Monument.

The Obama administration’s decision not to use the Antiquities Act to designate any portion of Cashes Ledge as a monument validated fishing stakeholders and others who characterized the proposal — which originated with the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Pew Charitable Trusts — as an end-run around the existing fisheries management system and wholly unnecessary given the existing protections already afforded the area.

Cashes Ledge currently is closed to commercial fishing.

In the wake of that defeat, conservationists redoubled their lobbying efforts, urging Obama to invoke the 1906 Antiquities Act to unilaterally designate a number of potential sites, including canyons and seamounts off southern New England and off the coast of Monterey, California, as Maritime National Monuments.

“All eyes are on the canyons and seamounts,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Battle over Cashes Ledge continues between fishermen, environmentalists

August 29, 2016 — Despite the Obama administration’s declaration that Cashes Ledge has been taken off the table as a possible location for a marine national monument, the divisive issue of the monuments continues to percolate nationally between fishermen and conservationists.

From Hawaii to New England, the lines are clearly drawn.

Conservation groups have sustained a steady lobbying campaign to convince President Obama to employ the Antiquities Act to create new marine national monuments in the waters around Cashes Ledge, about 80 miles off Gloucester, and the seamounts off southern New England and Monterey, California.

On Friday, Obama ended a contentious process in the Pacific Ocean when he expanded an existing marine national monument area in the northwest Hawaiian Islands to create the largest protected area on Earth — 582,578 square miles.

Fishing stakeholders and fishing communities have countered with their own public campaign that sharply criticizes the collateral impact of closing more areas to commercial and recreational fishing, as well as the method of using the Antiquities Act as an end-run around the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act.

“The Antiquities Act does not require transparency or a robust analysis of the science,” the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition said in a statement. “It does not require any socioeconomic considerations be taken into account. No process is required other than an executive action by the president of the United States.”

The coalition and others, including several members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation and Gov. Charlie Baker, have tried to drive home the point that the current system of federal ocean management requires fishing businesses and communities to follow the established and intricate regulatory procedures established under Magnuson-Stevens.

To allow the creation of marine national monuments by what amounts to presidential fiat, they say, is unfair to those who have operated under the established rules and makes a mockery of Magnuson-Stevens.

“The New England Fishery Management Council is in charge of carrying out this requirement in our region,” the NSC said. “Last year, the council approved Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2 and is presently working on an Omnibus Deep Coral Amendment. These areas include the very areas now proposed and under consideration for a national monument.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

In Shift, NOAA Says Fish Fleets Will Be Reimbursed For Monitoring Costs

June 24, 2016 — Deviating from plans that had caused an uproar, federal fishing regulators plan to announce Thursday that some of the fishing industry’s costs for groundfish monitoring will be reimbursed this year.

The at-sea monitoring program places regulators onboard vessels and in March the federal government started shifting the cost for the monitoring onto the fishing industry, according to Northeast Seafood Coalition Executive Director Jackie Odell.

“The fishery’s just not in a profitable place to be taking on this additional burden,” Odell told the News Service. She said, “There are some boats that are going out, but it’s a mixed bag.”

A memo dated Thursday from a National Marine Fisheries Service official sent to congressional offices and obtained by the News Service said the federal regulators anticipate federal funds can cover at-sea monitoring for about 85 percent of the days at sea for the current fishing year. The memo cautioned that the agency does not “expect this situation to recur in future fishing years.”

“Beginning July 1, groundfish fishermen will be reimbursed for their at-sea monitoring costs through an arrangement with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission,” the federal memo stated. “The arrangement will last until funds are expended, and is not expected to cover costs for the entire year or be repeated in the future.”

Read the full story from the State House News Service at WBUR

US offers fishermen help in paying monitors

June 24, 2016 — Over the past year, the region’s groundfishermen have argued that the federal government was jeopardizing their livelihoods by forcing them to pay for a controversial program that requires government-trained monitors to observe their catch.

On Thursday, after months of heated debates with fishermen, officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that they have found money to cover most of the observer costs for the rest of the fishing year.

NOAA officials said that a contractor they hired to place observers aboard fishing vessels failed to do so for about one-third of the total number of days that they were expected to accompany fishermen to sea. As a result, NOAA has enough money to cover an estimated 85 percent of the rest of the so-called at-sea monitoring program.

“That’s an estimate because it depends on how much fishing occurs over the year,” said Samuel D. Rauch, deputy assistant administrator for regulatory programs at NOAA Fisheries.

Groups representing groundfishermen, who have been required since March to pay hundreds of dollars every time an observer accompanies them to sea, have argued that the costs were too much to bear and would put many of them out of business. NOAA estimates it costs $710 every time an observer joins them, though most fishermen have negotiated lower fees.

But many groundfishermen, who catch cod, flounder, and other bottom-dwelling fish, have already been suffering from major quota cuts. NOAA last year, for example, cut the region’s cod quota by 75 percent.

“This will definitely lessen the economic burden on small, family-owned fishing businesses, and will allow time to address many logistical issues that have surfaced since industry payments began,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, an advocacy group for groundfishermen in Gloucester.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe