Saving Seafood

North Pacific Fishery Management Council June Agenda

April 26, 2018 — The following was released by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council:   

The Council will meet June 4-11, 2018 at the Best Western Convention Center in Kodiak, Alaska.  The Agenda and Schedule are available, as well as the list of documents for review. Public comments on all agenda items will be accepted until 12 noon (Alaska time) on Friday, June 1, 2018.

Other meeting information follows:

  • Submit and review comments at comments.npfmc.org
  • Public comment deadline is June 1, 2018 at 12 noon (AST)
  • Alaska Airlines discount code: ECMZ244

IFQ Outreach Meeting

The Council will hold a public outreach session concurrent with its June 2018 meeting in Kodiak, Alaska. The session will be Tuesday, June 5, from 5:00-6:30 pm in the Pavilion Room, and will provide an open forum for stakeholders to give insight on the present state of the halibut and sablefish IFQ Program and provide direction for future actions that might be considered by the Council and its IFQ Committee. The Council is particularly seeking input on issues related to entry level opportunities and rural participation in the fishery.

More Information is available here

 

After decades of facing off against each other, fishermen and conservationists team up.

April 19, 2018 — History was made April 9 when the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a 14-member body that regulates fisheries on the entire U.S. West Coast, voted unanimously to protect more than 136,000 square miles of seafloor habitat that includes corals, sponges, rocky reefs and undersea canyons from bottom trawl fishing.

Those fragile, slow-growing habitats are important to species like rockfish, sablefish and octopus, and when they become damaged by bottom trawl fishing gear, whether by being toppled or crushed, the habitat can take centuries to recover, if ever.

In that same vote, the council also reopened 3,000 square miles of historical fishing grounds that were closed to allow depleted rockfish stocks to recover.

Read the full story at the Monterey County Weekly 

 

PFMC Opens Areas Formerly Closed to Trawling; Permanently Protects 135,000 Square Miles

April 13, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — This week the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) adopted major changes to the West Coast groundfish fishery after more than 30 meetings with industry members and ENGOs. The Council announced Wednesday that 135,000 square miles of ocean off the West Coast will be permanently protected, while a previously closed area of roughly 3,000 square miles will be reopened to commercial fishing.

“The decision demonstrates the Council’s commitment to protecting important fish habitats including rocky reefs, corals, and sponges,” said Council Chair Phil Anderson. “The decision was informed by sound science and further informed by the fishing industry and environmental community who are to be commended for their important contribution to the Council’s decision. The result provides an increase in habitat protection while providing greater opportunity for our trawl fleet to more efficiently harvest target stocks. The West Coast trawl fishery has been reduced in size and transformed into a sustainable fishery including full accountability that provides that public with high quality fish products.”

Much of the area that has been reopened was closed in 2002 — the Rockfish Conservation Area, a strip of area from the Canada to Mexico borders — to minimize catch of rockfish stocks listed as overfished at the time. While the RCA covered areas of sensitive, high value habitat like underwater cliffs, rock piles and pinnacles where several of the depleted species congregate and reproduce, it also prevented access to vast areas of sandy, soft-bottom seafloor where more plentiful target species like Dover sole and sablefish are found.

Most of those overfished rockfish stocks have since been rebuilt to sustainable population levels, which allowed for the reopening, Environmental Defense Fund said in a press release.

PFMC’s decision was backed by the EDF, as well as the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Nature Conservancy, who worked with fishermen such as Oregon Trawl Commission Director Brad Pettinger and California Shellfish Company’s Special Projects Leader Tom Libby to compile data to identify currently unprotected areas of sensitive habitat and protected areas that could be reopened.

“This was an amazing team effort, with fishermen and environmentalists focused on the goal of opening up closed fishing grounds and carving out the areas that really need protection,” said Ralph Brown, a fisherman from Brookings, Oregon. “I’m looking forward to going back to some of my old favorite fishing grounds.”
The new closure will protect corals off the coast of California while also giving new opportunities for the bottom trawl fleet.

“This is compelling conservation because it recognizes that teamwork between conservationists and fishermen, coupled with strong science, can lead to major changes that make our West Coast groundfish industry more sustainable, resilient and profitable over the long term,” Environmental Defense Fund’s Oceans Program West Coast Director Shems Jud said.

When the fishery adopted catch shares in 2011 discarding of bycatch dropped 80 percent and it became clear it was time to update the RCA, because the new system strongly incentivizes fishermen to avoid overfished species.

“We knew that if we could identify currently unprotected areas of sensitive habitat, including areas inside the RCA, the Council could protect those areas while opening up valuable fishing grounds,” said Jud. “We worked together to combine information from new academic studies, fisheries observer data, and modeling with fishermen’s logbooks, charts and knowledge gained from decades of combined fishing experience.”

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, it is republished with permission.   

 

Pacific Fishery Management Council Adopts Major Changes to West Coast Groundfish Fishery

April 12, 2018 — PORTLAND, Ore. — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

On Monday the Pacific Fishery Management Council added new protections for deep sea coral areas, modified areas that protect priority bottom habitat areas for groundfish, and reopened fishing in some areas that have been closed to groundfish fishing.

The Council is required by Federal law to identify and protect important fish habitat, while balancing the needs of coastal communities and the fishing industry.

The actions span the Federal waters off the U.S. West Coast. They establish protection for over 136,000 square miles of corals, rocky reefs and undersea canyons important to over 100 groundfish species such as rockfish, flatfish, and sablefish. The new protections include 135,000 square miles of deep water habitat to protect corals off the coast of California, in depths too great for most bottom fishing activities. The actions also reopen over 3,000 square miles of historical fishing grounds that were established to reduce harvest on overfished rockfish stocks. Nearly all of those stocks have subsequently been rebuilt to sustainable population levels, and the remaining stocks are rebuilding quickly. The combination of new closures and reopenings ensures important habitat protections while allowing added fishing opportunity for the bottom trawl fleet.

“This decision demonstrates the Council’s commitment to protecting important fish habitats including rocky reefs, corals, and sponges. The decision was informed by sound science and further informed by the fishing industry and environmental community who are to be commended for their important contribution to the Council’s decision. The result provides an increase in habitat protection while providing greater opportunity for our trawl fleet to more efficiently harvest target stocks,” said Council Chair Phil Anderson. “The West Coast trawl fishery has been reduced in size and transformed into a sustainable fishery including full accountability that provides the public with high quality fish products.”

The changes were made as part of a review which the Council and NOAA Fisheries initiated seven years ago. Many of the selected changes originated in a unique collaboration of fishing industry members and environmental advocates working together.

Seth Atkinson, a collaborative group member representing the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “By listening to each other and building trust, we worked together to improve fishing opportunity and increase protection for sensitive habitat areas. We built on fishermen’s deep knowledge of the seafloor, cross-referencing it with the latest scientific data, and pulled together a package of changes that would achieve both goals. This was possible only because of fishermen’s willingness to sit down and share their knowledge.”

The decision also considered input from Federal, Tribal and State agencies, and the general public. It included extensive analysis of the biological, social, and economic effects of the actions.

Bottom trawling is the practice of using a vessel to drag a net through the water, close to the seafloor, in order to catch fish. Most groundfish trawlers off the West Coast are relatively small, family-owned vessels. Trawling differs from trolling, which uses hooks and lines and is typically used to target salmon and tuna on the West Coast.

View the release in its entirety here.

 

Fishermen, researchers try to outsmart bait-robbing seabirds to save them

October 24, 2017 — When commercial fishermen spool out long lines in pursuit of sablefish— better known to consumers as black cod — seabirds looking for an easy meal dive to steal the bait off the series of hooks.

Some unlucky birds get hooked and drown as the line sinks to the deep. And when the drowned bird is an endangered species such as the short-tailed albatross, it triggers scrutiny.

“Just one was all it took. Yeah, just one,” said Amanda Gladics, a coastal fisheries specialist with Oregon Sea Grant. “Because they are endangered there is a lot of scrutiny on every single time any of those albatrosses are caught in a fishery.”

Gladics and colleagues from Oregon and Washington went to sea to determine the best tactics to avoid bycatch and published those in the journal Fisheries Research.

The paper recommends either fishing at night or deploying bird-scaring streamers on a line towed from a mast.

Read the full story at KTOO Public Media 

 

In Their Own Words: Sablefish Gear Switching in the West Coast Trawl Quota Program

October 23, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The West Coast trawl catch shares program (individual fishing quota/IFQ program) was implemented in 2011 for the groundfish fishery — but it’s not without its problems. One provision rose to the top during the current five-year review as the most controversial: gear switching.

Sablefish is the most valuable groundfish, on a per-pound basis, on the West Coast. It is often graded on quality and at least five different sizes. Most sablefish is sold to Japan and a few other countries, but domestic markets have been in expanding for a few years. Whereas most other groundfish species have ex-vessel prices of cents per pound, sablefish frequently goes for dollars per pound. Better quality fish, i.e., those that are caught by longline or pots, typically fetch higher prices.

On the West Coast, sablefish — or blackcod — are caught in a mixed species fishery by trawl and are targeted by longline and pots. The species is an important component of the trawl “deepwater complex” that includes Dover sole, thornyhead rockfish and sablefish. Dover sole is a low price/high-volume species for trawlers but access may be limited if a trawler has insufficient sablefish quota.

Proponents of the trawl catch shares program in the late 2000s included an option to be able to switch gears to catch sablefish. That is, a trawler could use any legal groundfish gear, including pots and longline, to catch the valuable species if they so desired. Some fishermen say this was intended to allow trawlers to catch smaller amounts of sablefish that may be leftover from harvesting their deepwater complex. Other fishermen say it was intended to allow a switch to what some claim is an environmentally cleaner harvesting method. Because a single provision may have multiple purposes, both may be correct.

Regardless, the effect of the provision was that some fixed-gear vessels purchased trawl permits and quota and are now harvesting sablefish. Sablefish quota prices increased to the point where some trawlers could not afford to buy or lease it on the open market in order to access their Dover sole quota. Others may have simply chosen not to buy or lease the quota. A limited supply of sablefish quota overall may also have been the culprit for some trawlers not being able to access their Dover sole. In some years, the quota went quickly and less than five percent was available by year’s end. At the same time, fixed-gear vessels have made significant investments in gear and equipment to access trawl sablefish quota. Processors are concerned blackcod will continue to act as a choke species, limiting access to the volumes of groundfish necessary to keep processing crews working.

But there’s another wrinkle. Sablefish quota is available in two distributions: north or south of 36 degrees N. Latitude — near Point Conception in southern California. A handful of fixed-gear vessels using trawl quota have traveled from Oregon and Washington to fish the southern area. Southern California fixed-gear fishermen found themselves with new entrants on their traditional fishing grounds.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council in September took the first step at making the gear-switching provision work for everyone. One of the proposals includes eliminating the management line at 36 degrees north latitude, thereby creating one coastwide pool of quota. The Council also proposed mitigation measures to limit gear switching.

Seafood News talked with four people representing the major factions concerned about the sablefish gear-switching provision:

  • Jeff Lackey, a trawl vessel manager from Newport, Ore.
  • Michele Longo Eder, whose family members are fixed gear fishermen who have made investments in the trawl program
  • Mike Okoniewski, who works for a processor that depends on trawl groundfish
  • Chris Hoeflinger, representing Southern California traditional fixed-gear fishermen

Seafood News will run their perspectives, in their own words, of the gear-switching issue this week. The Pacific Fishery Management Council will be wrestling with this issue over the coming months.

— Susan Chambers

In his own words: Jeff Lackey, trawl vessel manager from Newport, Ore.:

The trawl catch shares program that began in 2011 has some positive elements. However, it has also led to operational difficulties that have significantly decreased catch for bottom trawlers.

The unintended consequence of the catch shares program was that a significant fixed-gear fishery for sablefish sprang up almost literally overnight within the trawl fishery. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of sablefish quota a year were going to fixed gear vessels and then coming to the dock without the associated catch of other groundfish species.

So by 2016, five years later, the species that trawl catch of sablefish helps get to the dock had seen their coastwide annual catch drop by about a third compared to pre-catch shares capacity. That’s roughly 14 million pounds a year in lost catch and corresponding seafood available to the consumer. This translates to dozens of lost full time jobs in the processing sector alone, as well as dozens of trawl vessels that left the fishery.

In 2011, some trawlers left the fishery altogether and some switched to the shrimp fishery rather than compete with fixed gear boats that were buying trawl permits and entering the trawl individual fishing quota (IFQ) fishery. It is difficult to generalize the business plan of each individual trawl vessel as each has a different set of circumstances, such as the amount of quota they have and the other fisheries they participate in.

However, when you match the individual stories of difficulty in executing a viable fishery given sablefish limitations with the overall data of a diminished fishery, a clear picture emerges. The lost yearly bottom trawl catch is about what one would expect for the amount of sablefish that has been lost from the trawl fishery. To return the fishery to pre-IFQ program catch levels and allow the stability the program affords to make even more gains, the coastwide sablefish quota allocated to the trawl IFQ program would need to be caught by trawl vessels to facilitate the catch of other groundfish species.

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission

Adak’s Seafood Plant Not Processing Bering Sea Cod Because of Damage, Not Over Deliveries Lawsuit

February 24, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Yesterday morning National Marine Fisheries Service closed the “A” season for Pacific cod in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) effective today at noon, Alaska time. The TAC had been reached which prompted the closure on the earliest date ever for the “A” season. In 2016, the A season trawl P-cod fishery remained open until March 9.

The early closure is a defining note in a fishery that has historically included deliveries to Adak’s cod processing plant since it opened in 1999.

Those years were also marked by the American Fisheries Act, the BSAI crab rationalization program, and Amendment 80 to the BSAI groundfish plan, actions that changed the face of Alaska fisheries. Each of those landmark laws rationalized vast sections of pollock, cod, and crab fisheries. All three species have been delivered to and processed at the Adak plant over the years.

Rationalizing a fishery means putting management tools in place that, among other goals, eliminate the race for fish and protect historic users both onshore and offshore. But until last fall, shoreplants in the Aleutians west of 170 degrees longitude were not included in any of the rationalization plans in the area.

There are only two plants in the area: Atka and Adak. Atka has only processed halibut and sablefish.  Adak, which since it opened in 1999 has been reliant on cod, but has also processed crab, halibut and sablefish and limited amounts of pollock.

Since 2008, the North Pacific Council has been aware of the need for “fishing community protections in the Aleutian Islands” precisely because of the rationalization schemes.

Then last October, the Council passed Amendment 113 to respond to the issue, noting the “…increased risk that the historical share of BSAI cod of other industry participants and communities that depend on shoreplant processing in the region may be diminished. The BSAI Pacific cod TAC split and relatively low Pacific cod stock abundance n the Aleutian Islands further increase the need for community protections.”

Amendment 113 set aside 5,000 mt of Pacific cod for delivery to the Adak plant, but it is not a ‘guarantee’ of deliveries.  AM 113 creates a time-limited priority for shoreside processing in the Aleutians until March 15, but only if the Aleutian shoreside processors have taken at least 1,000 tons by Feb. 28.

Prior to the rationalization of the AI cod fishery, Adak processed on average 8,000 – 10,000 mt of cod per year, but the ability to plan for even 5,000 tons has been made difficult by factors related to fishing behavior that eventually led the Council to adopt AM 113.

One of the factors is that catcher processors who are part of the rationalized fisheries can also act as motherships and accept deliveries from other catcher vessels to process only. AM 113 does not prohibit this, but obligates deliveries under certain conditions to shoreplants during the A season.

There are three triggers in the amendment that would relieve vessels of the obligation. First, if the plants notify NMFS by December 1 that they will not be taking deliveries, catcher boats can deliver anywhere. Second, if the plants have not taken at least 1,000 mt by February 28, then the 5,000 mt set-aside will become available for any other processors, including motherships. Third, by March 15 the restriction to deliver shoreside is lifted.

Shortly after the amendment was adopted, The Groundfish Forum, representing six companies and 20 trawl catcher processors, along with United Catcher Boats, B and N Fisheries, and the Katie Ann LLC, filed suit against NOAA Fisheries saying the amendment violated national standards and other laws. Part of their position is the “harvest set-aside” part of the amendment is unlawful.

“There are trawl catcher vessel owners, who have delivered a fair amount of cod to the Adak plant over the years when it was operating, that would be willing to deliver to another renovated shore plant if it was in operation,” said Brent Paine, executive director of the United Catcher Boats, a plaintiff in the suit. “They just want the option to deliver their catch to multiple markets, onshore or offshore.”

Since the filing, the Adak Community Development Corporation (ACDC), the Aleutian-Pribilof Island Community Development Association (APICDA), and the city of Adak have joined as intervenors in the lawsuit, supporting AM113. The cities of Adak and Atka may also join as intervenors.

“NMFS did an excellent job in responding to comments on national standards in the Federal Register comments,” said Dave Fraser, board member for ADCD. “I think the record is good.”

The amendment is the result of nearly a decade of consideration, during which Amendment 80 and 85 were passed. Those regulations created community development quota entities and cooperatives in the groundfish fisheries and amended cod allocations in the BSAI. It was also the time of sea lion protection measures, and a version of AM 113 was included in the proposed mitigation regulation. In the end, Fraser believes the process has developed an amendment that has “passed muster” on all the national standards and requirements.

“Amendment 113 does not change by a single pound any of the fish allocated under AM 85,” said Fraser. “The only thing that will change is who processes it.

“The set aside for Adak is less than our historic average annual plant production,” he noted. Prior to 2010, Adak received 3-6 percent of the total BSAI allocation, with an average of 4.7 percent. Figuring 4.3 percent of the aggregate of 2015’s TAC, according to NMFS analysis, is 10,836 mt.

“It’s a minimal program because the Council had to balance competing interests,” Fraser notes.

The Adak plant has been out of commission since a severe 2015 winter storm damaged portions of the roof. The city sent a letter to NMFS, according to AM 113 protocol, notifying them they would not be buying cod this winter, last fall. The plant is expected to be in full operation by 2018.

The lawsuit was filed in the D.C. District Court.

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

Study: Program To Protect Fish Is Saving Fishermen’s Lives, Too

February 16, 2016 — A program used in many U.S. fisheries to protect the marine environment and maintain healthy fish populations may have an immensely important added benefit: preserving the lives of American fishermen.

That’s according to a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers found that catch share programs (where fishermen are allotted a set quota of the catch) reduce some of the notoriously risky behavior fishermen are known for, such as fishing in stormy weather, delaying vessel maintenance, or heading out to sea in a boat laden with too much heavy fishing gear.

Traditional fishery-management programs open and close fishing seasons on specific days. By contrast, catch shares work on a quota system, under which fishermen have a longer window to harvest their predetermined share. That gives fishermen the luxury (and perhaps the life-saving option) of time.

The findings don’t surprise Scott Campbell Sr., who spent most of his 35-year career fishing the Bering Sea for king crab the way it used to be done: derby-style. Crab season would open, and regardless of weather, Campbell and his crew would be on the water, hoping to nab enough crab during the season’s brief window to keep his business afloat.

“If you can picture a four-day season for crab — and that’s the only four days you’re going to get — and a 50-knot storm blows in for 24 to 48 hours of that four days, well, a lot of boats didn’t stop fishing, because that was their only revenue stream for the whole year,” says Campbell. “It forced us to take unnecessary risks for financial survival.” (His son, Scott Campbell Jr., is a former star of Discovery Channel’sDeadliest Catch, about the hazards of the fishing industry.)

That kind of risk-taking has historically made fishing one of the nation’s most dangerous professions, with a fatality rate more than 30 times the U.S. average, according to the new report.

Today there are approximately two dozen state and federal catch share programs in the U.S. Most launched in the last decade. However, derby-style fishing still exists in many U.S. regions, including the Pacific and Atlantic swordfish fisheries, the Northeast’s monkfish and herring fisheries, and the West Coast dungeness crab fishery.

Plenty of studies have looked at the environmental benefits of catch share programs — such as the reduction of bycatch, the ability to maximize the value of the catch, and direct impacts on the way fisheries are managed. But what makes this paper innovative is that it’s looking at actual risk-taking data, says the study’s author, Lisa Pfeiffer, an economist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center.

Pfeiffer examined the impact a catch share management program had on fishing safety by looking at the particularly data-rich West Coast sablefish fishery.

Read the full story at National Public Radio

Alaska Sablefish Fishery Completes 4th Alaska RFM Annual Audit

SEAFOODNEWS.COM  By Peggy Parker — October 19, 2015 — The fourth annual audit for Alaska Responsible Fisheries Management (RFM) certification has been completed for sablefish (black cod), Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) announced this morning.

ASMI requested assessment of the sablefish fisheries to the FAO-based standard first in April 2010. Final certification was given in October 2011. Last May the Fishing Vessels Owners Association became the new client holding the certificate for this fishery.

The audit covers changes to the management regime, regulations and their implementation since the previous assessment, in September 2014. The report determines whether these changes and current practices remain consistent with the overall scorings of the fishery allocated during initial certification.

Within the report are descriptions of how the sablefish fishery conforms to 13 standards, called clauses from the RFM framework, that range from data collection to fishermen’s competence, to ecosystem impacts. In all cases, the fishery was rated “high”, the best mark given.

Details of meetings with managers, law enforcement, biologists, and fishermen and processors, are included in the report.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It has been reprinted with permission.