Saving Seafood

Bycatch an Issue in 2018 Pacific Hake Fishery; Uncertainty Lies Ahead Amid Shutdown

January 10, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — None of the three sectors in the U.S. Pacific hake fishery attained its specified sector allocation in 2018 and all reported problems with bycatch — either smaller sizes of whiting or other species.

The catcher-processor sector achieved the highest percentage of its allocation, catching 116,074 mt of its 139, 612 mt allocation, or 85 percent. The shoreside sector harvested 76 percent of its 169,127 mt allocation for a total of 129,180 mt in landings. The mothership sector struggled the most last year and attained only 69 percent of its 96,614 mt allocation for 67,096 mt in landings.

“It was one of our better seasons,” Pacific Seafood’s Mike Okoniewski said, noting that the company’s Newport plant did exceptionally well while the Astoria plant had adequate production. “There was a greater amount of nice fish off of Newport this year, so fishermen didn’t have to travel far.”

Similarly, the Arctic Storm Management Group, a mothership company based out of Seattle, generally had a good season but that was not representative of the whole mothership sector, said Sarah Nayani, Arctic Storm’s director of compliance.

“In 2018 our company processed 38 percent of the mothership catcher vessel catch and 26 percent of the total mothership sector allocation. Unfortunately, 31 percent of the mothership sector allocation went uncaught, which is more than any single company processed,” Nayani said. “For next year we’ve planned additional trips to improve attainment and provide more MSC-certified sustainable product to the market.”

Around the Columbia River and into Washington, particularly near Willapa Bay, fishermen struggled to find larger fish, around 450 to 500 grams. The CPs and motherships, like shoreside fishermen, traveled north or south of the Willapa area to find bigger, more marketable hake.

However, traveling north led to other problems. The CP and mothership sectors said a lot of other species were mixed with whiting schools and many of those other species had hard caps. Pacific ocean perch rockfish bycatch was an issue as was sablefish, so both sectors continually moved their operations to avoid those other species. Southern areas were problematic as well, since Chinook salmon were frequently prevalent. Both of the at-sea sectors stopped fishing in November to avoid bycatch interactions.

“2018 was a good year for Arctic Storm overall,” Nayani said. “We saw demand and prices up for Pacific hake and a strong spring fishery with minimal bycatch. However, even with extra processing capacity from putting Arctic Fjord out on the water this fall (in addition to Arctic Storm) the fall fishery was slow for us due to patchy fishing, higher bycatch rates, and frequent movement to avoid bycatch.”

Now, everyone is looking forward to this year’s season, but any uncertainty now is due to the U.S. government shutdown and the inability of U.S. scientists to contribute to the stock assessment routinely done collaboratively with Canadian scientists. The stock assessment draft is due to be released Feb. 6, so scientists would normally be assimilating data and running models right now.

In an email to some Pacific hake stakeholders and U.S. fishery managers and scientists, Canadian stock assessment author Joint Technical Committee member Chris Grandin wrote Tuesday that Canadian scientists would produce the whiting stock assessment on time — but without the U.S. fishery dependent age composition data.

“If the government comes back online before Jan. 14, and U.S. JTC members are back at work we will be producing the hake assessment as usual without any changes,” Grandin wrote.

“If not, Andy and I will be producing a hake assessment on time for delivery Feb. 6. It will consist of adding 2018 catch to the base model from last year’s assessment, and some common sensitivity cases. Unfortunately, we cannot get access to the U.S. age composition data due to the shutdown and therefore will not include any 2018 age composition data in the models. Note that the assessment will be of the standard format with an executive summary, and all decision tables and projections in place for the base model.

“We realize the importance of this assessment to the fishery, and will endeavour to do as much as is possible given the constraints placed before us.”

U.S. industry representatives and scientists remain hopeful the shutdown will end soon so the stock assessment and management process will get back on track.

“We’re hoping we get a good quota this year, but won’t really know until we see the stock assessment,” Okoniewski said.

This story was originally published by SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission. 

West Coast Whiting Industry Apprehensive About Shutdown’s Effect on Pacific Hake Season, Treaty

January 9, 2019 —  SEAFOOD NEWS — A recent report by KING-5 TV News in Seattle picked up on NOAA Stock Assessment Scientist Ian Taylor’s recent Tweet about his frustration with the government shutdown and how it could affect the Pacific hake fishery.

“I love my U.S. federal job at @NOAAFish_NWFSC but it’s immensely frustrating to have #shutdown be such a common disturbance,” Taylor said in a Dec. 21, 2018 tweet. “Last time it was short, science got done, and U.S. #pacifichake catch was ~300,000 tons in 2018. Now 2019 assessment needs to happen yet here we go again.”

The U.S. whiting fishery caught more than 266,000 mt last year for a value of close to $50 million, about half of the overall West Coast groundfish fishery value.

Taylor is one of the U.S. scientists who works collaboratively with Canadian scientists to develop the hake stock assessment, scheduled for a draft release and review by Feb. 6, 2019. Without the stock assessment on which to base 2019 regulations, a number of options could occur: the season could be delayed or it could be managed very conservatively. The assessment may rely solely on the Canadian scientists’ work, with limited input already done by U.S. advisers. It’s unclear at this point exactly how the season will proceed, but the treaty process is continuing without the scientific input from the U.S.

However, the series of dominoes that make the whiting fishery work starts with getting the assessment done.

Sarah Nayani, Director of Compliance for Arctic Storm Management Group LLC, based in Seattle, said she’s watching the issue closely.

“We are concerned about the impact the government shutdown may have on the hake assessment and the timing of the Pacific Whiting Treaty process,” Nayani said in an email. “We hope that the U.S. scientists and managers may resume their work soon so that our 2019 fishery won’t be impacted or delayed.”

Taylor and other scientists discussed the pending assessment during a Joint Management Committee conference call in early December. The JMC includes industry and managers from both countries. On the call, U.S. scientists told participants that NMFS was prioritizing other species for stock assessment work; Pacific hake was just lower on the list at the time but still scheduled for completion. It’s likely nobody suspected a government shutdown would happen two weeks later, or that it would drag on into the New Year.

The predicament now is that the only new data for an updated stock assessment from the U.S. side is fishery-dependent data, such as age classes, length-at-age data, volumes, etc. Fishery-independent data, in the form of a NOAA Fisheries acoustic research survey, is done once every two years (2018 was an off year). Therefore, complete data from the 2018 U.S. fishery is essential to developing a scientifically-robust stock assessment for managing the 2019 fishery. This data is currently incomplete because of the government shutdown.

Beyond the stock assessment, the seafood industry frequently relies on preliminary scientific data to make business plans and update customers on volumes and product availability.

“What do we tell our markets?” Pacific Seafood’s Mike Okoniewski said. “Our customers want to know that as far in advance as they can. It can have a detrimental effect on our business side, too.”

For Okoniewski, Nayani and others involved in or watching the whiting process, the politics of the government shutdown are frequently secondary to their business considerations. It’s more frustrating to not have access to scientific information that affects the bottom line.

“They’re [scientists/researchers] considered to be nonessential, but they compose the bulk of the work force that we consider essential,” Okoniewski said.

This story was originally published by SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.