Saving Seafood

CONNECTICUT: State’s fishing fleet facing potentially ‘disastrous’ quota cuts for fluke

January 19, 2017 — Reductions that took effect Jan. 1 in federal quotas for the commercial fluke catch could have a “disastrous” effect on the Connecticut’s small remaining fishing fleet, unless action being advocated to undo the cut is taken, the state’s congressional delegation wrote in a letter to the U.S. secretary of commerce.

“It’s going to put us out of business,” Stonington fisherman Robert Guzzo, vice president of the Southern New England Fishermen and Lobstermen’s Association, said Wednesday. “I’ve never seen so many fish in the ocean. The fish are out there, but the science and the regulators haven’t caught up with what’s actually out there.”

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., pressed commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross to use his authority to change how quotas for fish species including fluke — also called summer flounder — are allocated among states from the mid-Atlantic to New England.

Species such as fluke have been migrating into New England waters in greater numbers in recent years, Blumenthal and fishermen contend. But the regulatory system used by the National Marine Fisheries Service uses an outdated system that favors the mid-Atlantic states at New England’s expense, they say.

“The system is broken … from an environmental and economic standpoint, and it’s costing jobs, and it is preventing the United States from using its fish stocks and instead has resulted in importing, which destroys livelihoods and economic well-being in the New England states,” Blumenthal told Ross during the confirmation hearing. He urged Ross to use his emergency powers to reform the system.

In response, Ross said he is interested in helping the fisheries and ensuring quotas are allocated properly. The Department of Commerce includes the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full story at The Day

JOHN SACKTON: Are the Big NGO’s Winning the Marine Monument Battle, But Losing the War

September 15, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Coinciding with the opening of the Our Oceans conference in Washington, DC today, President Obama announced a new 5000 square mile marine monument on the southeast corner of George’s Bank, encompassing three submarine canyons and some seamounts further off the continental shelf.

The map of the monument closely hews to the proposed map put out by Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal in a letter to Obama in July.  It follows a letter at the end of June from the six senators representing Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, along with a host of environmental NGOs.

The argument is simple:  America has created a series of national parks on land.  It should offer the same protections in the marine environment.

NGOs have been urging Obama to use executive authority to create marine monuments under the antiquities act, which are designated as areas with no human economic activity except recreational fishing. (click image for larger version)

The Oceans Conference hosted by Secretary of State John Kerry has the same goal:  to put aside large areas  of the global marine ecosystem in a series of reserves or marine protected areas.

This is not a goal opposed by fishery managers or the industry.

You might be surprised to learn that currently 32% of US marine waters are in marine protected areas.  3% of US waters are in fully protected no-take reserves, such as the monument just created today.

The State Dept. says that at the inaugural 2014 Our Ocean conference, President Obama announced our intent to expand the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.  This expansion – to over 1.2 million sq km, or about three times the size of California – was finalized September 26, 2014, creating the world’s largest MPA that is off limits to commercial extractive uses, including commercial fishing.

Last month, the US expanded this monument by five times, to an area the size of the Gulf of Mexico.

“In total, governments attending the 2014 and 2015 Our Ocean conferences announced new commitments to protect nearly 6 million square kilometers of the ocean – an area more than twice the size of India.  NGOs and philanthropies attending the conferences also announced significant commitments to help establish and implement these and other MPAs.”

“The world has agreed to a target of conserving at least 10 percent of coastal and marine areas, including through effectively managed protected areas, by 2020.  Through the Our Ocean conferences, we seek to help achieve and even surpass this goal. ”

The reason that all of the fishery management councils, most state fishery managers, and a majority of the US seafood industry recently wrote Obama pleading to stop the expansion of protected areas without scientific review is that these managers and the industry already work with large areas that are protected, and yet also allow for non-destructive economic activity.

Furthermore, the people involved in creating the protected areas often know nothing about them.  For example, the Boston Globe this morning reports “Administration officials said that a study from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration showed waters in the Northeast are projected to rise three times faster than the global average.  In addition, officials said, climate change is threatening fish stocks in the region — such as salmon, lobster, and scallops — and the monument will provide a refuge for at-risk species.”

Lets unpack this absurdity.  Global warming is causing species to move, so they will move out of the protected areas and into non-protected areas.   Second, the examples given are so uninformed.  Lobster populations are the highest in a hundred years; scallop populations have rebounded under one of the most successful fisheries management initiatives on the East Coast.  And Salmon?  Why salmon have not been fished in quantity in New England for hundreds of years, and the designation of part of the continental shelf for protection has nothing to do whatsoever with salmon habitat.  They are not there, and never have been.   It is this level of ignorance that makes the fishery councils throw up their hands in despair.

Given the ease with which the NGOs can communicate the desire for no-take reserves, they demonize the alternative, which is managed areas for protection.  This is the way most of the US protected areas have been created: through a review and nomination process that is scientifically vetted, and through use of the essential habitat laws that are part of Magnuson.  In fact, in the examples above, it is precisely managed protection that has led to a huge abundance of scallops, lobsters, and preserved salmon runs.

NGOs are winning the battle on creating no-take marine monuments.  But to do this, they have to deny the validity of the scientific and public review that has led to the dramatic changes in global fisheries sustainability over the past twenty years.  It is no mystery why many wild fish stocks are rebounding.  It is because managers imposed the correct science of harvest control and protection of spawning areas.

It is precisely when they abandon arguments based on science-driven actions to protect areas where the NGOs may lose us the war.

By encouraging their supporters to devalue the existing protections (32% of US waters) because only 10% are full no-take zones, the NGOs also deny the validity of the scientific review process which fishery managers have used to bring back global fish stocks.

Protecting marine environments should be a joint goal our entire country, including the seafood industry, environmental activists, and the public at large.  The most effective way to do that is to constantly support the application of science driven decision making to questions about marine habitats and resources.

By undermining that approach, NGOs risk advancing those who will claim their uses of the marine environment don’t have to be analyzed for impacts.

Today, the political powers broadly support more marine protection.  In the future, political powers may broadly support increased jobs in the arctic or wherever needed, without regard to the impact on marine ecosystems.

It was the North Pacific Council, who put in place a moratorium on fishing in the arctic ocean, that took one of the most dramatic steps for marine protection in a changing environment.  They did this in the context of making the best scientific decisions possible, and they set up a review process that would curtail any reckless or damaging approaches to that marine environment.

The NGO’s, by failing to recognize the strong advancement of protections already in place, may end up weakening these protections in a future of warmer waters and fisheries crisis.  That will be precisely when we may need them the most.

Abandoning a public process of scientific review is a dangerous game because we do not know what the future will bring.  Yet the NGO’s are arguing that their emotional approach leads to the strongest long-term protection.

The actual results may be the opposite.

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

Undersea monument plan advocates hear fishermen’s concerns

August 31, 2016 — MYSTIC, Conn. — One hundred and fifty miles east of Cape Cod, a unique undersea landscape of deep canyons and high mountains supports a diverse ecosystem, abundant with colorful corals, fragile sponges, beaked whales, dragonfish and mussels adapted to living in methane hydrate seeps, that is being considered for protection as a National Monument.

Two leading advocates for the designation, which would be given by President Barack Obama under the American Antiquities Act before he leaves office in January, explained why they are lobbying for the designation Tuesday to an audience of both conservation advocates and commercial fishing representatives concerned about losing valuable fishing grounds.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Peter Auster, retired University of Connecticut marine science professor and currently the senior research scientist at the Mystic Aquarium, made their case for declaring the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts as a Marine National Monument during a program Tuesday evening at the aquarium.

But commercial fishing groups say the designation would cut off their access to productive areas for red crab, swordfish, tuna and offshore lobster harvests, among other species.

“Those areas have been used for hundreds of years,” said Joe Gilbert, owner of Empire Fisheries, which has operations in southeastern Connecticut and elsewhere along Long Island Sound.

He and other fishing representatives argued that if Obama uses the executive authority afforded him in the Antiquities Act to designate the area a monument, the federal and regional fisheries regulatory processes that require public input would be circumvented.

“We feel disenfranchised at this point,” Gilbert said.

Eric Reid of North Kingstown, R.I., who represents commercial fishing interests on the New England Fishery Management Council, said creating the monument would cause “localized economic damage” to the already stressed fishing industry, and advocated for a compromise being recommended by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Read the full story at The Day

 

Environmentalists push for Atlantic Marine Monument

August 30, 2016 — President Obama made history last week when he more than quadrupled the size of a protected marine area off the coast of Hawaii, safeguarding fragile coral reefs and thousands of species that depend on the Pacific Ocean habitat.

Now conservationists hope the administration will protect the Atlantic Ocean’s deep-sea treasures.

Conservationists have called on the president to use his executive power to designate 6,180 square miles encompassing eight canyons and four seamounts as the New England Coral and Seamounts National Monument.

If the president heeds their advice, fishing groups warn the move would shut down portions of a productive $15 million lobster and crab fishery along the edges of the offshore canyons—and unnecessarily outlaw fishing within the zone’s borders for tuna and other open-ocean species that pass through the water column but don’t dwell on the seabed.

“What’s at issue is the lack of transparency in establishing a national monument,” said Robert Beal, executive director of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which is in charge of managing near-shore fishery resources for 15 coastal states. “If these large boxes are drawn and large areas of the ocean are deemed off-limits, than there is going to be a lot of fishing opportunities displaced or stopped altogether.”

Typically, state and interstate fishing councils are part of the public debate on determining fishery closures and habitat protection zones. That’s how the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council moved to ban bottom trawling in 2015 along more than 35,000 square miles of seafloor from Long Island to North Carolina, just south of the proposed national monument area.

But with the Antiquities Act—a law presidents since Theodore Roosevelt have used to protect iconic landscapes such as Mount Olympus in Washington, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and Muir Woods in California—Obama could decide to fully protect the region without input from the fishing industry.

Past presidents have mostly used the authority to preserve land from development. The first president to use the power offshore was George W. Bush, who established the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in 2006.

“It’s frustrating because that power is meant to close off the smallest amount of area as possible that needs protecting, and that’s not the case here,” said Robert Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, a fishing industry advocacy group.

He said the proposed national monument boundaries outlined by Connecticut’s congressional delegation and led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., bans fishing far away from the most sensitive coral habitat and could unnecessarily hinder fishing industries that don’t target bottom-dwelling species. Vanasse’s group, along with the fisheries commission, is asking that if the regions are declared a national monument, fishing be allowed up to depths of 3,000 feet.

“If they really just want to protect the seamounts and the canyons, why would you want to stop fishing over them?” Vanasse said. “You don’t tell planes to stop flying over Yosemite.”

Read the full story at Take Part

New England Fishing Groups Oppose Use of Antiquities Act for Atlantic Marine Monument as Requested by Connecticut Lawmakers

August 4, 2016 — The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

WASHINGTON (NCFC) – August 4, 2016 – Led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Congressional Delegation today asked President Obama to use executive authority under the Antiquities Act to designate the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts as a Marine National Monument. The Connecticut Congressional Delegation is comprised of Sen. Blumenthal, Sen. Chris Murphy, Rep. John Larson, Rep. Joe Courtney, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Rep. Jim Himes, and Rep. Elizabeth Esty.

Members of the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC) have previously expressed opposition to the misuse of the Antiquities Act to designate an Atlantic Marine Monument. A monument designation would subvert the open and transparent process for fisheries management currently in place under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and threatens the jobs and livelihoods of hardworking fishermen.

Below are statements from NCFC members on their opposition to an Atlantic Marine Monument designation.

David Frulla and Andrew Minkiewicz, Fisheries Survival Fund (Atlantic Scallops):

“A monument designation, with its unilateral implementation and opaque process, is the exact opposite of the fisheries management process in which we participate. Public areas and public resources should be managed in an open and transparent manner, not an imperial stroke of the pen.”

Jon Williams, New England Red Crab Harvesters’ Association:

“The red crab fishing business I’ve been operating for twenty years is active in some of the areas under the proposal. Not only has our fishery complied with every regulation, but we have expended significant resources and time to ensure the health of the resource we fish. These efforts to both understand and minimize our impact on the environment have been so successful that after forty years of red crab fishing, our fishing grounds are described as ‘pristine’ by the same environmental groups who seek the monument designation. If these habitats are still ‘pristine’ after forty years of fishing, how can a serious argument be made that the area is in imminent danger and in need of immediate, unilateral protection by presidential fiat?”

Greg DiDomenico, Garden State Seafood Association:

“The Antiquities Act was perhaps a necessary tool to protect sensitive areas in 1906, but with our increased technological capabilities, knowledge, and an all-encompassing regulatory system, it is an unnecessary and blunt tool for 2016. It is time that the years of on-the-water experience possessed by the commercial fishing industry be acknowledged, especially in the context of this issue.”

Richard P. Ruais, American Bluefin Tuna Association:

“Given that our fishing gear has no negative impact on deep sea coral, a proposed prohibition on the fishing methods we employ would be arbitrary, completely unnecessary and would result in significant negative economic consequences.”

Statements from more NCFC members on their opposition to an Atlantic Marine Monument are available here.

Connecticut Congressional Members Call For Federal Probe Into “Unfair” Commercial Fishing Quotas

June 15, 2016 — Members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation are stepping up the pressure to reform federal rules for this state’s commercial fishermen, calling Tuesday for a U.S. Commerce Department investigation into “unfair quotas.”

U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2, demanded that the department’s inspector general investigate a quota system they said disadvantages Connecticut fishing operators and is putting them under “extreme economic hardship.”

Connecticut’s delegation and those from other New England states have frequently criticized the existing federal quota system.

Read the full story at the Hartford Courant

Connecticut & Massachusetts Congressional Delegations Advocate for Changes in Fisheries Management to Level the Playing Field for New England Fishermen

May 24, 2016 — The following was released by the office of Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT):

WASHINGTON, D.C. —Today, U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with Representatives Joe Courtney (CT-02), John B. Larson (CT-1) Rosa DeLauro (CT-3), Jim Himes (CT-4), and Elizabeth Esty (CT-5) sent a letter along with nine Massachusetts delegation members to the U.S. Department of Commerce asking for changes to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC), which sets fishing quotas for many fish species caught by New England fishermen. Specifically, the letter asks that MAFMC to work in coordination with the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC)on a joint management plan for black sea bass, summer flounder, and scup fisheries. Under current laws, mid-Atlantic fishermen harvesting fish off the coast of New England can at times legally take more than ten times that of New England vessels.

“As Members of Congress from states with rich fishing heritage and storied maritime industries, we write today to voice our concerns about the current fishery management structure for the black sea bass, summer flounder, and scup fish stocks,” wrote the delegation members.  “As fluctuations in ocean temperatures shift fish populations northward, New England fishermen are unfairly shortchanged when bountiful stocks managed by a Fishery Management Council outside of their region allocates local states low catch quotas.

“Looking at the current trend of northward movement of fish stocks, we urge the Department of Commerce to direct the MAFMC to work in coordination with the NEFMC on a joint management plan for the black sea bass, summer flounder, and scup fisheries. Until NEFMC member states’ interests are officially considered when negotiating fishery management plans through joint management, our fishing communities will continue to suffer from the existing out-of-date allocation formula.”

Warming ocean temperatures are causing some fish stocks that had formerly been more prevalent in the mid-Atlantic to migrate further north than they had before, including popular targets for fishermen such as summer flounder, black seabass and scup. The changing migration patterns of fish stocks mean that many fishermen from mid-Atlantic states, such as North Carolina, are now regularly venturing further north from their traditional fishing grounds, bringing them into direct competition with New England vessels operating off the coasts of Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Fishing regulations for different fish stocks in U.S. waters are managed by a series of Regional Fishery Management Councils. Among the specific items that these councils regulate are the fishing quotas, or amount of a specific fish species that a fishing boat may catch. The mid-Atlantic fishermen, under the jurisdiction of MAFMC, are allowed to harvest substantially more summer flounder, black seabass, and scup than the northeast fisherman who are a part of NEFMC. While New England fishermen are catching more and more of these species in their nets, they are forced to continually throw many of these fish back into the water. The mid-Atlantic fishermen operating in the same area can at times legally take more than ten times the catch of the New England vessels.

Full letter below

May 23, 2016

The Honorable Penny Pritzker
Secretary
U.S. Department of Commerce
1401 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20230
Dear Secretary Pritzker:

As Members of Congress from states with rich fishing heritage and storied maritime industries, we write today to voice our concerns about the current fishery management structure for the black sea bass, summer flounder, and scup fish stocks. As fluctuations in ocean temperatures shift fish populations northward, New England fishermen are unfairly shortchanged when bountiful stocks managed by a Fishery Management Council outside of their region allocates local states low catch quotas.

It has long been acknowledged that changes in our oceans’ ecosystems would require greater coordination among Regional Fishery Management Councils established through the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA). In fact, in a 2007 report to Congress on council management coordination required by the 2006 MSA reauthorization, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) stated that “issues arise when overlapping species are managed exclusively by one Council.” However, there are several overlapping species that we believe would be most prudently managed jointly by the MAFMC and the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) rather than exclusively through the MAFMC.

Since the aforementioned 2007 report, New England fishermen have consistently voiced their concerns regarding black sea bass, summer flounder, and scup quotas set by the MAFMC. New England states are noticing these fish stocks moving northward into traditional New England fishing grounds, yet state-by-state commercial allocations remain so low that our fishermen continue to throw catch overboard as fishermen coming from as far away as North Carolina can legally take sometimes more than ten times that of New England vessels in the same waters. Using summer flounder as an example, the MAFMC June 2015 summer flounder assessment state-by-state allocations provided New England states a combined quota of less than 25 percent share, while North Carolina had a share of over 27 percent. Furthermore, that same assessment noted that 24 percent of all commercial summer flounder caught in 2014 were in Statistical Area 537—a zone just to the east of Long Island Sound and south of Cape Cod.

Looking at the current trend of northward movement of fish stocks, we urge the Department of Commerce to direct the MAFMC to work in coordination with the NEFMC on a joint management plan for the black sea bass, summer flounder, and scup fisheries. Until NEFMC member states’ interests are officially considered when negotiating fishery management plans through joint management, our fishing communities will continue to suffer from the existing out-of-date allocation formula. We sincerely request that you take these considerations into account look forward to greater coordination among the coastal Atlantic states. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,

REP. JOE COURTNEY
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL
SEN. CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY
SEN. EDWARD J. MARKEY
REP. ROSA L. DeLAURO
REP. JOHN B. LARSON
REP. RICHARD E. NEAL
REP. WILLIAM R. KEATING
REP. MICHAEL E. CAPUANO
REP. STEPHEN F. LYNCH
REP. NIKI TSONGAS
REP. JAMES A. HIMES
REP. ELIZABETH H. ESTY
REP. KATHERINE M. CLARK
REP. JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III
REP. SETH MOULTON

Congressmen complain that New England fishermen are being shortchanged

May 24, 2016 — Fishing quotas on black sea bass, summer flounder and scup are unfairly limiting the catch of New England fishermen, U.S. congressmen from the region said in a letter Monday to the U.S. Department of Commerce that complained about the current “out-of-date allocation formula.”

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, was joined by Connecticut’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, in the letter that was also signed by 13 other members of the Connecticut and Massachusetts congressional delegations. They noted that these fish species are heading north, looking for cooler water, yet New England states have been thwarted in cashing in on the bounty.

Read the full story at The Day

Sens. Blumenthal and Portman ask president to expand seafood traceability rule

May 17, 2016 — U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rob Portman (R-OH), co-chairs of the Senate Caucus to End Human Trafficking, sent a letter to the president today asking that he expand a proposed rule on seafood traceability.

“We welcome the Administration’s proposed rule on seafood traceability as a further step in combatting illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and seafood fraud,” the Senators wrote. “However, we remain concerned that the steps outlined will not adequately address these problems and do little to confront human trafficking within the seafood supply chain.”

The letter urged the Administration to ensure the final version of the rule enhances enforcement requirements on the high seas to prevent human trafficking on vessels, expands seafood traceability to all species, and strengthens tracking requirements beyond the first point of entry into U.S. commerce.

“As a world leader, the U.S. must do all within its power to provide adequate safeguards against illegal and exploitative seafood supply chains,” the Senators concluded.

Read the full letter here

 

Senator Richard Blumenthal, Fishermen Decry Catch Rules at Seaside Summit

February 16, 2016 — STONINGTON — U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal met with a group of local commercial fishermen at the Portuguese Holy Ghost Society club Monday afternoon to discuss the challenges they face from seasonal regulations governing the amount and type of fish they are allowed to catch.

The regulations, which are intended to restore fish stocks, are the result of an outdated system, Blumenthal said.

“I don’t need to tell anyone here how antiquated and byzantine the system is,” he said to the group of more than 30 fishermen at the Main Street club. “The bottom line is fishermen are increasingly underrepresented and unrespected. Many of you are having to discard fish that are already dead before they hit the water again.”

Blumenthal said his reason for convening the meeting, which was sponsored by the Connecticut Seafood Council, was to listen to the fishermen, as they are the group that is most immediately affected by the rules.

“If the conversation is confined to this room, then we lose,” he said. “This is all about increasing public awareness. People’s voices need to be heard.”

Many of the fishermen who attended the meeting shared their opinions and concerns.

Chuck Fellow said the rules don’t just affect the Stonington fishing community, but also every fishing community across the nation as well as consumers.

“The people who made the decisions about the regulations are so misinformed and weren’t fishermen,” he said. “We’re hard workers and we’re doing this for our families and our communities. We need our fish back and don’t want to throw away any more fish that come across our docks.”

The issues include limits on catches, restrictions on gear, state quotas, rules intended to limit the mortality of bycatch, and seasonal closures of fishing grounds.

Fisherman Joel Hovanesian of Narragansett said if something isn’t done about the regulations, many fishermen might be forced to close up shop.

“I don’t often use this word, but what’s happening to us from the heads of these government agencies has become tyrannical,” he said. “It’s infuriating. Why are fishermen and farmers under attack from the federal government?”

Read the full story at The Westerly Sun