SEAFOODNEWS.COM [SeafoodNews] (Opinion) By Ken Coons — August 6, 2015 — One of the striking things about fishery management here in the Atlantic Region is how often the academics, the regulators, and the fishing and seafood industry talk past each other.

The folks with scientific expertise often speak a language that’s difficult for the layman to understand. Regulators, for their part, are in a defensive crouch distracted by endless litigation and whipsawed by recreational and commercial fishing groups along with their elected state and Congressional representatives and often the media as well. The fishing and seafood industry, for its part, wants cost effective timely research results. Commercial and recreational groups are united in their call for “better science” to address regulatory restrictions.

Too often these three sectors – academics, regulators and the fishing and seafood industry – are classic examples of stovepipes, not collaboration.

It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, a bold and expanding model of collaboration is happening right now. It is an industry-led collaborative research program that addresses urgent scientific problems. Specifically, the work is focused on reducing the uncertainties in fisheries assessments. The goal is to achieve both sustainable fisheries and a sustainable fishing and seafood industry.

This new program, the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCeMFiS), is one of the Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) supported by the prestigious National Science Foundation. These partnerships are specifically designed by the NSF to promote cooperative research between the academic community and industry. (SCeMFiS is the only fisheries-oriented IUCRC.)

In addition to providing an important imprimatur of legitimacy onto the cooperative research work SCeMFiS is doing under an initial five-year program, NSF’s funding largely covers administrative costs so that industry investments in research flow directly through to actual work and results.

Research institutions that participate in SCeMFiS projects are restricted to a 10 percent indirect cost allowance factor which is way below common practice. The result is a very cost-effective research program for industry sponsors.

The industry sponsors provide critical financial support. All decisions about which research projects to pursue are guided by an Industry Advisory Board (IAB) comprised of industry partners with voting rights. The IAB functions like a Board of Directors. Membership is open to any company or group that is interested in improving science for fisheries management.

Full Partners have two votes on the Industry Advisory Board at an annual cost of $50,000; Associate Partners, at $25,000, have one IAB vote.

To date, the full industry partners on the IAB are the NFI Clam Committee along with the NFI Scientific Monitoring Committee and the NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

Associate Partners are: Atlantic Capes Fisheries, Inc.; Garden State Seafood Association; LaMonica Fine Foods; Lunds Fisheries Inc.; Surfside Seafood Products.

The Advisory Board is fortunate to have the guidance of Russ Brown of the NOAA Fisheries Northeast Science Center in Woods Hole and John Boreman, SSC Chair of the Mid- Atlantic Fishery Management Council, to ensure, insofar as possible, that data developed by a given project will be used in future assessments (otherwise the project does not go forward).

The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) and the College of William and Mary Virginia Institute of Maine Science (VIMS) collaborated to form the Science Center with USM as the lead institution.

Eric Powell, PhD, is the Principal Investigator at USM and Roger Mann, PhD, is the Principal Investigator at VIMS. Dr. Powell was previously at
Rutgers and he and Dr. Mann had worked together with the surf clam/ocean quahog industry on urgent issues. It’s not surprising, therefore, that a good deal of the early research work of the Science Center for Marine Fisheries has focused on research important to the continued viability and employment capacity of the surf clam/ocean quahog industry.

For example, federal clam assessment has now moved to an industry vessel rather than a NOAA vessel. The clam dredges in commercial use are designed to allow juvenile clams to escape, so to conduct a proper resource assessment, a research dredge with a liner was developed to capture juvenile clams. A subsequent project developed an innovative research dredge with adjustable bars in order to capture juvenile clams. (The industry paid the $75K required to develop, fabricate and test this research dredge.)

To allow for accurate assessment despite broken shells a related VIMS project determined how the overall dimensions of an intact clam shell could be reliably inferred from a portion of the broken shell – this was possible since most shells break along the same lateral line.

The ocean quahog is believed to be the oldest living animal on earth. The resource is not classified as “overfished,” but an important project is underway to estimate age and frequency of recruitment. This project is also being used as a teaching tool to demonstrate effects of climate change.

Dr.Powell has also established an advisory team for marine mammal assessment which includes the University of Washington and two other
groups. Marine mammal interactions are a serious concern of fishery management in most coastal regions. There are currently uncertainties in marine mammal stock abundance and bycatch estimates that urgently need to be addressed.

The SCeMFiS is also working with a distinguished team of independent scientists who aren’t affiliated with either USM or VIMS to bring their expertise to bear on important assessment issues. They include Steven Cadrin, PhD, a former stock assessment scientist for 20 years with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and currently at SMAST and Jean-Jacques Maguire, with a lifetime career in international fisheries management issues with DFO, ICES, ICCAT, and the SSC of the NEFMC. He is currently a consultant to a wide range of international clients.

At USM, and also part of the team, is Robert Leaf, PhD, with a background in modeling to achieve effective conservation and management of fisheries. His current work is on stock assessment of Gulf menhaden blue crab and Mississippi red drum.

From all of the above it is clear that this is a new day in fisheries management research. The research capabilities of the Science Center are already lined up and demonstrating results. Future work will be set by those who have invested in partnerships with the assurance that only work which is likely to be influential in regulatory decisions will be funded and go forward.

Now is the time for companies, associations and other entities to step up and fill out the industry leadership role.

By collaborating with others, partners gain access to work that would be cost prohibitive on an individual basis. Accurate resource assessments are vital to protecting access to fisheries while promoting sustainability. This cost effective industry-led collaborative research program, endorsed and supported by the National Science Foundation, is a unique opportunity for industry participation.

For more information go to: scemfis.org [2]

To join the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCeMFiS) contact:

Jeff Kaelin, SCeMFiS Chair at jkaelin@lundsfish.com

Guy Simmons, SCeMFiS Vice-Chair at guy@seaclam.com|

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