Choke Stock: The Yellowtail
Flounder Dilemma
by Laurie Schreiber
PORTLAND – The New England Fisheries Management Council (NEMFC) took action on June 21 to transfer bycatch allocation of Georges Bank yellowtail flounder (GBYT) from the scallop fishery to the groundfish fishery.
The emergency action was taken in light of new information that shows that poor stock conditions of yellowtail have continued because fewer fish are growing to catchable size than previously expected.
As a result, the overall U.S. allocation of the Georges Bank yellowtail flounder stock was reduced by 61 percent this fishing year.
Georges Bank yellowtail is a mid-value fish often caught incidentally while fishermen target high value stocks like cod, haddock and scallops.
According to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the U.S. yellowtail flounder allocation is divided between the scallop and groundfish fisheries. Yellowtail flounder occurs as bycatch in the high-value scallop fishery.
Under existing regulations, the yellowtail flounder allocation to the scallop fishery had increased by 53 percent to approximately 679,024 pounds in 2012. The allocation to the groundfish industry, however, was reduced by 80 percent to roughly 480,608 pounds.
“While this is good for the scallop industry, it’s a challenge for the bigger and some of the smaller groundfish boats that go to Georges Bank,” NMFS acting assistant administrator Sam Rauch said earlier this year.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) instituted actions that “may help mitigate economic loss,” the release said. These include the reallocation of any projected unused portion of the scallop fishery’s Georges Bank yellowtail flounder allocation to groundfish fishing vessels.
At NEFMC’s April 24-26 meeting, groundfishermen raised concerns about the low yellowtail annual catch limit (ACL), which became effective at the start of the new fishing year on May 1.
NEFMC fishery analyst Tom Nies told the NEFMC that a number of factors indicate that GBYT is in poor shape, including recent declines in weights at age, truncated age structure, and poor recruitment, including the lowest on record.
In April, the NEFMC asked NMFS to create a GBYT working group to expedite a transfer of the scallop fishery’s GBYT bycatch allocation to the groundfish fishery, and to consider a modification of the United States/Canada Resource Sharing Understanding to see if Canada would transfer some of its unused GBYT allocation to the U.S.
The working group met in New Bedford, Mass., on May 23. The Groundfish and Scallop Committees held a joint meeting on June 18.
According to Nies’ presentation, the Transboundary Management Guidance Committee (TMGC) agreed to a total catch quota for GBYT of 1,150 mt. The U.S. share of that quota would comprise the bycatch quotas in the groundfish and scallop fisheries.
The TMGC, established in 2000, is a government/industry committee comprised of representatives from Canada and the United States. The committee’s purpose is to develop guidance in the form of harvest strategies, resource sharing and management processes for Canadian and U.S. management authorities for the cod, haddock and yellowtail flounder transboundary resources on Georges Bank.
The allocation for the scallop fishery is based on past catch:kept ratios, and adjusted for projected changes in scallop and yellowtail biomass, and by the expected scallop harvest, said Nies.
The GBYT allocation for the scallop fishery was increased for 2012, from the 2011 level, because the scallop fleet allocates more scallop trips to GB access areas than in 2011, said Nies.
At the same time, he said, groundfish sectors cannot fish in the GBYT stock area without a GBYT annual catch entitlement (ACE). Most groundfish activity now occurs in sectors, he said.
Exceeding the U.S. quota will result in a payback next year, which would immediately reduces sector allocations, he said.
The working group also considered gear modification ideas which would potentially extend the season, Nies said. And the group worked to figure out ways to broadcast areas where GBYT was being found so that fishermen could avoid them.
Scallop fishing began on March 1. A delay in observer data creates fresh uncertainty about current GBYT bycatch rates, he said.
So far this year, from March through May, fishing activity has been far higher than last year, Nies said. Two weeks into June, fishing activity is roughly comparable to last year. Access on Georges Bank opened on June 15, “so we suspect a lot of activity will move into there,” Nies said.
Given the continued bad news for GBYT, the 2013 catch may be less than 500 metric tons (mt) for both the U.S. and Canada, Nies said.
“The situation could recur or worsen,” said NFMS chief Sam Rauch, who participated in the working group. NEFMC will have to figure out how the groundfish fishery will operate in 2013, he said. In the meantime, he said, the measures on the table appeared to be acceptable both to the groundfish and the scallop fleets.
“There are risks on both sides,” he said.
Rauch added, “I appreciate the spirit of the community to look at this as a holistic problem and to approach this as a collaborative solution.”
The NEFMC approved the emergency rule to transfer GBYT bycatch allocation from the scallop fishery to the groundfish fishery, and to transfer any addition allocation that has gone unused by the scallop fleet by Jan. 15, 2013.
Gibb Brogan of Oceana said his organization opposed the action.
“It doesn’t bring the required accountability to these fisheries,” Brogan said. “It doesn’t add up. It seems we’re creating fish out of thin air here.”
Maggie Raymond of the Associated Fisheries of Maine said the current situation, from the groundfishermen’s perspective, was untenable and had to change. “If we have overages of any kind, of one pound, this year, that situation could be even worse,” Raymond said. “And think about the implication of what an overage would do to everyone next year.”
Rich Canastra, New Bedford, Mass., said, “It hurts to speak about yellowtail and the mess science has got us into. It comes down to the survey….No one believes in the science, no one believes in the trawl survey. Fishermen are trying to avoid yellowtail….If the purpose of doing this is to get rid of the fleet, why don’t you just do it really quickly? Put them out of their misery. Yellowtail flounder, the number one species in New Bedford for many years, and we’re fighting about scraps. People are talking about going to zero possession. We haven’t caught a pound in three years.”
Drew Minckiewicz of the Fisheries Survival Fund said of the compromise, “it’s not perfect, but it makes the best of a bad situation. The scallop season for 2012 started March 1. Vessels are in the Georges Bank access areas right now, and they all went out operating under an allocation of 307 metric tons, with no intent of actually catching that much but knowing that’s the number we had to worry about.”
Minckiewicz said the transfer of allocation in the middle of the scallop fishing year is “a drastic step,” even though the scallop fleet would likely not use its allocation. But the scallop fleet supports the groundfish fleet, he said.
“We want to make sure we don’t oversubscribe this fishery,” Minckiewicz said. “Every fish is going to be counted, and every fish is going to be accounted for, and if it’s overharvested, then it’s going to go down, and it’s no one’s desire to go over that. It’s a limited pie; how do we allocate it so both fisheries can maximize the harvest of other species out of Georges Bank? It has become the choke species. That’s something everyone has to deal with.”
Minckiewicz said that scallopers take active measures to avoid GBYT.
“Boats right now are reporting back their catch, and they’re sending out alerts of places to avoid,” he said.
Ron Smolowicz, also with the Fisheries Survival Fund, said that scientists should also consider other possible reasons why GBYT is not rebuilding, such as disease.
“We have a fishery that doesn’t have a lot of fish,” Smolowicz said. “We have a fishery that the fish are underweight, and we have a fishery that’s not replacing itself. There’s something wrong with the fish.”
NEFMC also worked on the development of Amendment 18 to the Groundfish Management Plan, which considers the establishment of accumulation caps for the groundfish fishery; and considers issues associated with fleet diversity.
Scoping hearings for the amendment were held in January.
NEFMC staffer Fiona Hogan presented a summary of public comments.
Among the measures under consideration: any present or future accumulation of fishing privileges may be limited or may not be allowed after or prior to a control date of April 7, 2011; establish individual accumulation caps, or sector accumulation caps, on a stock-specific or fishery-wide level; establish usage caps for vessels fishing on a multispecies permit; other measures to promote diversity within the fleet; establish fleet diversity and accumulation limit measures fleet-wide or separately for inshore and offshore fleets.