Saving Seafood

Texas charter captains use loophole to get around federal red snapper limits

April 8, 2016 — The future of recreational fishing in the Gulf of Mexico is for sale in Texas.

While charter boats and private recreational anglers in the Gulf were only allowed to catch red snapper in federal waters on 10 days last year, two companies in Galveston, Texas have been taking recreational anglers red snapper fishing all year round.

What’s more, the companies allow the fishermen to keep as many red snapper as they want each day, blowing past the two-fish-per-day federal limit.

The only thing limiting how many snapper the customers are allowed to keep is how much they are willing to pay.

The Texas companies have been getting around the federal limits and seasons by selling the “Catch Shares Fishing Experience.” The Texas companies involved own “catch shares” of the commercial red snapper fishery that allow them to harvest a set number of pounds per year for commercial sale.

Instead of catching those fish with a professional crew and selling them to a fish house, the captains are taking recreational anglers fishing and letting them buy the fish afterward.

For the customers, the catch share experience represents the ultimate fishing trip, where they can keep many more snapper than the two per person per day allowed under federal law. Meanwhile, the boat captains running the trips are able to market the fish as “fresh fish caught that day,” which command a much higher price at the dock than most commercially caught snapper.

Read the full story at Al.com

Are “Strongly Protected” MPAs the Future of Ocean Conservation?

November 19, 205 — A new paper in science by Jane Lubchenco and Kirsten Grorud-Colvert discusses the recent progress and advocates for creating and enforcing “strongly protected” marine protected areas (MPAs). For the purposes of this paper, strongly protected MPAs are those that restrict all commercial activity and allow only light recreational or subsistence fishing. Today only 3.5% of the ocean is protected but only 1.6% is strongly protected. The 10% protection goal for coastal marine areas by 2020 decided recently at the Convention on Biological Diversity is too loosely defined and should be specific to strongly protected MPAs or marine reserves. However it should be noted that significant progress has been made in establishing more strongly protected MPAs in the past decade, which, “reflects increasingly strong scientific evidence about the social, economic and environmental benefits of full protection.”

The authors highlight seven key findings suggesting that such MPAs are indeed needed in a greater percentage of global oceans. Successful MPA programs must be integrated across political boundaries but also with the ecosystems they assist – an ecosystem-based management approach is essential. Engaging users almost always improves outcomes. MPAs may improve resilience to future effects of climate change, but there is no question that, “Full protection works,” such that primary ecological goals are almost always met with strongly protected MPAs.

In conclusion, six political recommendations are outlined. An integrated approach is equally important in the political balance for successful MPAs – other management schemes must be considered and dynamic planning is most effective in preparation for changing ecological systems. There is no one-size-fits-all method for MPAs. Top-down or bottom-up approaches have been successful and to determine the right strategy stakeholders should always be involved in the process. Perhaps most importantly, user incentives need to be changed in order to alleviate the economic trauma of short-term losers.

Read the full story at CFOOD

 

 

NORTH CAROLINA: Disputed fisheries studies: Politics or inexact science?

September 27, 2015 — Science plays a big role in managing fisheries.

Scientists assess fish stocks, migration patterns, environmental issues — useful data that allow regulators to set policy.

We expect our science to be accurate and unaffected by politics, and as citizens, we expect political actors to treat science in the same manner.

Even Robert Fritchey, the author of Wetland Riders, a history of the Coastal Conservation Association, acknowledges that size limits, creel limits and other restrictions are necessary, and that “the science of estimating recreational discards and mortality is vastly improved.” Which would suggest that if interest groups are put aside, there is some hope science could be used in an unbiased manner to help manage fisheries.

Yet a series of e-mails found their way into the public domain from a 2007 round-robin discussion among several N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries scientists trying to peg a mortality rate for speckled seatrout caught by recreational anglers. See video

It would take a few hundred words to demonstrate where science goes off the rails and how other factors, including interest group reactions, exert an influence on what is expected to be an unbiased, fact-driven process.

The mortality rate is important because it is applied to the estimated landings of recreationally caught species and used to assign “catch quotas” for recreational and commercial interests.

The group of six scientists struggled. They questioned even the scope of the studies. “I have a problem with the adjusted values. The handling effect is a real phenomenon with recreational fishing and is definitely a cause for release mortality . . . this study wasn’t designed to look at stress-related mortality . . . ” said one team member.

Read the full story at The Outer Banks Voice

 

Keep America Fishing Expresses Concern on Vast “No Fishing” Proposals for New England Waters

September 11, 2015 — Do you believe that the only way to conserve our public lands and waters is to lock recreational fishermen out? Do you view recreational fishing as an extractive activity on par with oil drilling and commercial bottom trawling?

Of course you don’t.

But right now, that’s what some anti-fishing organizations are actively accusing us of. When demanding areas off the New England coast be designated as “fully protected” marine monuments, their real agenda is to set up no-fishing zones.

The federal government is currently exploring this issue. There is the potential for all recreational fishing to be banned, even though there’s no evidence to suggest we pose a threat to the habitat or fish populations in these areas.

Read the full story from The Fishing Wire

New restrictions set for recreational fishing for cod, haddock in Maine

August 15, 2015 — Maine fishing regulators are enacting new restrictions on recreational fishermen who fish for cod and haddock.

Maine’s new rules went into effect on Aug. 8 and apply to charter, party and recreational fishing vessels in state waters. Cod fishing in the state is now closed, and it is unlawful for recreational fishermen to take or possess cod in state waters. The minimum size for haddock caught by recreational fishermen is being reduced to 17 inches.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald