Saving Seafood

West Coast Whiting Season to Open May 15; Pandemic Creating Uncertainties

April 20, 2020 — This year’s high-volume Pacific hake fishery will open on time, but it’s already been a rocky road to set the coastwide total allowable catch for the U.S. and Canada.

Fishery managers, scientists and industry representatives from both countries met in March, as usual, to review the stock assessment and negotiate a coastwide TAC that would support fisheries in both areas. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, negotiations were held via webinar. This year, for the first time in the history of the whiting treaty, the countries couldn’t agree.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Camera Systems Offer New Option for Tracking West Coast Groundfish Catches

June 21, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Two types of fishing vessels in the West Coast groundfish fleet will have the option of installing cameras beginning in 2021 to monitor their catch as a less costly alternative to human observers who have long filled that role, under a new rule adopted by NOAA Fisheries this week.

The final rule establishes standards for the video camera systems, which are typically activated automatically whenever fishing crews use equipment such as winches to haul in their gear.

The option to switch to electronic monitoring applies to vessels in the Pacific whiting fishery and fixed-gear vessels in the groundfish catch-share fishery, two sectors where analyses showed that it would save fishermen money.

West Coast fishermen pay about $500 per day for a fisheries observer stationed aboard their vessel. Camera systems cost about $10,000 to install, but can save vessels money in the longer term. NOAA Fisheries estimates that electronic monitoring would save fishermen anywhere from about $100 to more than $300 a day, and from $3,000 to $24,000 per year, depending on the fishery and type of vessel.

“Electronic monitoring is not suitable for all fisheries, but there are fisheries where we think it can work and give the fleet another option,” said Melissa Hooper, Permits and Monitoring Branch Chief for NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region. The cameras work well for vessels that catch large numbers of a few kinds of fish, for example.

Read the full release here

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.

New England Council Discusses Whiting, Enforcement, Dogfish, Herring, Ecosystem Management, and More at December Meeting

December 14, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council covered numerous issues during its December 4-6 meeting in Newport, RI. In addition to taking final action on Scallop Framework 30, Groundfish Framework 58, and the Clam Dredge Framework, the Council discussed a slate of other topics. Here are a few highlights.

WHITING: The Council took final action on Whiting Amendment 22, which was developed to consider limited access options for the small-mesh multispecies fishery. After reviewing all public comment and available analyses and considering a recommendation from its Whiting Committee, the Council selected the alternative called “status quo/no action.” As such, the whiting/small-mesh multispecies fishery will remain an open access fishery and no changes will be made to existing regulatory measures. More information, including summaries of public hearing comments, is available at December 3 Committee Meeting and December 4, 2018 Council Meeting Materials.

ENFORCEMENT: The Council adopted several consensus statements drafted by its Enforcement Committee. One of these pertained to use of the OMEGA Mesh Gauge® to measure fishing nets. The Coast Guard extensively tested the OMEGA gauge and concluded that it has notable benefits over the weight-and-spade tools currently being used to measure webbing. Coast Guard representatives provided a demonstration for Council members comparing the OMEGA gauge versus the weight-and-spade. The Council recommended that NOAA, under existing authority, adopt the OMEGA gauge to measure mesh size once the Enforcement Section of NOAA General Counsel determines that all legal requirements have been met.

Read the full release at the New England Fishery Management Council

 

NEFMC votes against limiting access to whiting fishery

December 5, 2018 — New England Fishery Management Council members have shown little collective enthusiasm for limiting access to the Northeast small-mesh whiting fishery and the great majority followed through on that sentiment Tuesday.

Convening in Newport, Rhode Island, in the first of its three days of meetings, the council took final action on the measure known as Amendment 22 by voting 13-1 with one abstention to sustain the small-mesh fishery’s status quo as an open fishery.

The vote defeated a proposal to establish requirements for limiting the access to the small-mesh multispecies fishery that has grown in popularity among local groundfishermen as other stocks have become less abundant or been subject to stricter management policies.

The proposal targeted three stocks collectively considered whiting — northern silver hake, southern silver hake and offshore hake — as well as norther red hake and southern red hake.

The proponents of the measure to limit access cited the need for the measure to help combat bycatch issues, saying that limiting access to the fishery is necessary to “freeze the footprint of the fishery” until the council can get a firmer handle on the true scope of the bycatch problem.

“If you freeze the footprint of this fishery, you place these fishermen in blocks of ice,” said David Pierce, executive director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, in explaining his vote against limiting access to the fishery.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NEFMC December 4-6, 2018, Newport, RI, Listen Live, View Documents

November 27, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council will hold a three-day meeting from Tuesday, December 4 through Thursday, December 6, 2018. The public is invited to listen-in via webinar or telephone. Here are the details.

MEETING LOCATION: Hotel Viking, One Bellevue Avenue, Newport, RI 02840; Hotel Viking.

START TIME: The webinar will be activated at 8:00 a.m. each day. However, please note that the meeting is scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday and 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday and Thursday. The webinar will end at approximately 6:00 p.m. EST or shortly after the Council adjourns each day.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION: Online access to the meeting is available at Listen Live. There is no charge to access the meeting through this webinar.

CALL-IN OPTION: To listen by telephone, dial +1 (562) 247-8422. The access code is 301-888-168. Please be aware that if you dial in, your regular phone charges will apply.

AGENDA: The agenda and all meeting materials are available on the Council’s website at December 4-6, 2018 NEFMC Newport, RI.

WHITING: The Council’s Whiting Committee and Advisory Panel will meet jointly on Monday, December 3, 2018 at the Hotel Viking to review public comments and develop recommendations on Amendment 22 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan. The full Council will take final action on the amendment the following day and decide whether or not to limit access to five stocks of small-mesh multispecies. More information is available at Whiting Committee/AP meeting.

SPECIAL EVENT: Following the close of Council business on Tuesday, December 4 and Wednesday, December 5, NOAA Fisheries will hold feedback sessions to solicit suggestions for improving communication and utilization of results achieved by the Saltonstall-Kennedy (S-K) Grant Program. For more information, contact S-K National Program Manager Cliff Cosgrove at (301) 427-8736, clifford.cosgrove@noaa.gov. View the invitation at attend a feedback session.

THREE MEETING OUTLOOK: A copy of the New England Council’s Three Meeting Outlook is available HERE.

COUNCIL MEETING QUESTIONS: Anyone with questions prior to or during the Council meeting should contact Janice Plante at (607) 592-4817, jplante@nefmc.org.

Whiting webinar to address limiting fishery access

November 14, 2018 — The New England Fishery Management Council has reopened the comment period on the proposal that could establish limited entry into the whiting fishery and is holding a webinar Wednesday for interested stakeholders.

The extended comment period, necessitated by discrepancies in early draft documents, will close on Nov. 23. The council expects to take final action on the amendment at its meetings Dec. 4 to 6 in Newport, Rhode Island, according to Janice Plante, council spokeswoman.

The amendment, referred to as Amendment 22, proposes a limited access plan for the small-mesh, multispecies fishery. It targets three stocks collectively considered whiting — northern silver hake, southern silver hake and offshore hake — as well as northern red hake and southern red hake.

The amendment delves into three areas: limited access qualification criteria; whiting and red hake possession limits; and permit conditions that would apply if the council approved a limited access program.

The council, however, has made clear its lack of enthusiasm for restricting access to the fishery. Last December, it voted for “no action” as its preferred alternative when the proposal initially went out for public comment.

Stakeholders interested in participating in the webinar, which is set to run 3 to 5 p.m., may do so online or via telephone.

The online link may be accessed through the council’s website or directly at https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/843126117. The phone number is 872-240-3311, with an access code of 843-126-117.

Comments also will be accepted by email at comments@nefmc.org or by traditional mail to Tom Nies, executive director, New England Fishery Management Council, 50 Water St., Mill 2, Newburyport, MA 01950.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NEFMC Update – October 31, 2018

October 31, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council will hold several committee and advisory panel (AP) meetings in November, as well as a webinar for Whiting Amendment 22.  Here’s a run-down of what’s happening.  Committee and AP meeting presentations and documents will be posted on the Council website as they become available.  Two additional events that pertain to Council activities also are listed.

The full Council will meet December 4-6, 2018 at the Hotel Viking in Newport, RI.  An agenda will be posted in the near future at NEFMC Newport, RI 2018 meeting webpage.

 

Whiting Amendment 22 Comment Period Reopens; Council to Host November 14 Informational Webinar

October 25, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council has reopened the public comment period on Whiting
Amendment 22 and will host an informational webinar on Wednesday, November 14 at 3 p.m. The webinar will cover the amendment’s proposed alternatives, as well as pertinent information in the accompanying Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). Written comments are welcome until November 23, 2018.

The Whiting Amendment – officially called Amendment 22 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan –proposes to limit access to the small-mesh multispecies fishery. The five impacted stocks are northern silver hake, southern silver hake, and offshore hake, which collectively are referred to as whiting, and northern and southern red hake. The draft amendment contains three sections, which cover:

  • Limited access qualification criteria;
  • Whiting and red hake possession limits by permit type; and
  • Permit conditions, which would apply only if the Council decides to approve a limited access program.

Read the full release here