Catch-monitoring Program Weighed for Herring Fishery

by Laurie Schreiber

The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) held one of seven public hearings on March 2, at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum, to receive comment on Amendment 5 to the Herring Fishery Management Plan.

The NEFMC will accept comments through April 9.

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Amendment 5 is still under review by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Once the document is approved by NMFS and published for review, NMFS will begin an additional 45-day comment period.

It is expected that the NEFMC will review comments at its April 24-26 meeting, and that the NEFMC will select final management measures at its June 19-21 meeting in Portland.

According to NEFMC information, the need to develop Amendment 5 arose shortly after the development of Amendment 1, which included a limited access program for the herring fishery and established a seasonal purse seine/fixed gear area in the inshore Gulf of Maine, along with implementing other measures to address the long-term management of the fishery.

“Since the implementation of Amendments 1, 2, and 4, concerns about the fishery have led the council to determine that additional action is warranted to further address issues related to the long-term health of the herring resource, how the resource is harvested, how catch/bycatch in the fishery are accounted for, and the important role of herring as a forage fish in the Northeast region,” according to NEFMC.

“These concerns are reflected in the unprecedented level of interest in managing this fishery by New England’s commercial and recreational fishermen, eco-tourism and shoreside businesses, and the general public,” NEFMC information added. “The primary purpose of this amendment, therefore, is to improve catch monitoring and ensure compliance with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA)….Additionally, a purpose of this amendment is to specifically address river herring bycatch.”

Under consideration are:
• Measures to address/prioritize the allocation of NMFS-approved observers for at-sea sampling on limited access herring vessels;

• Provisions to enhance NMFS-approved observers’ ability to maximize sampling at-sea;

• Measures to address/minimize net slippage by limited access herring vessels;

• Monitoring, avoidance, and protection alternatives to address river herring bycatch; and

• Criteria for midwater trawl vessel access to the year-round groundfish closed areas.
The herring fishery is divided into four categories.

• Category A limited-access permit has no possession limit and may fish in all herring management areas.

• Category B limited-access permit has no possession limit and may fish in Areas 2 and 3.

• Category C limited-access is for the incidental catch of herring, and has a possession limit of 55,000 pounds per day.

• Category D is an open access permit and has a 3-metric-ton possession limit.

According to NEFMC information, the NEFMC intends for the major elements of the proposed catch monitoring program to apply to the limited access herring fishery – the 100 or so Category A/B/C vessels that catch more than 99 percent of Atlantic herring in a given year.

Because Category A/B boats catch the vast majority of herring (about 97-98 percent), the NEFMC may evaluate costs and benefits associated with some of the measures when determining whether or not Category C vessels will be subject to all of the requirements of the catch monitoring program, the NEFMC says.

While Category D vessels are not proposed to be subject to the Amendment 5 catch monitoring program, there are other measures under consideration that could affect these vessels and increase the scope of the impacts of this amendment, the NEFMC says. For example, the NEFMC is considering an option that would require Category D vessels to adhere to the management measures to address river herring bycatch.

At the March 2 hearing, many spoke in support of a management measure that would require 100 percent observer coverage, a ban on allowing herring vessels into groundfish closed areas, trip termination after net “slippage” events, and protection of river herring.

Most of those supporters discussed their concerns with the annual arrival of midwater trawl vessels in the Gulf of Maine.

“As a young fisherman, I promise you I’m not going to inherit any money from the midwater boats. But I will inherit what they leave behind,” said Ed Snow, a fisherman from southern Maine.

“The amount of discards these boats are capable of warrant [100 percent] observer coverage,” said Barry Gibson, the New England regional director for the New Gretna, N.J.-based Recreational Fishing Alliance. “We support the implementation of trip termination after 10 dumpings or slippage events, to disincentivize dumping incidents. We feel the council should implement measures to require actual weighing of catch rather than estimates. And access by midwater vessels to groundfish closed areas should be prohibited. We’ve worked hard to have restricted areas. Especially given results of latest cod assessment and the projected assessment of haddock and other species. We simply have to do everything we can to protect groundfish.”

One speaker, in support of 100 percent observer coverage and other retrictions, asked listeners to imagine what the ocean would look like without any herring—or fishermen.

“Fishermen were not included in regulation and science until recently,” she said. “And then what fishermen and what fish were left? The fishermen who used to see herring used to talk about being able to walk across the coves on top of them. The other thing that’s completely astonishing is that fisheries are still being managed by species instead of by a holistic, bioregion approach. This is 2012 and we know that everything is connected to everything.”

She said the most stringent of the proposed restrictions, while seemingly severe, instead represented a compromise.

“There are many people who would ban big trawlers altogether, and that isn’t even on the table,” she said. “It’s also a compromise because all the data we’re using is based on what fish we have left and not on what we had before the fishery got to this stage.”

Zack Klyver, who runs the Bar Harbor Whale Watch Company, spoke in support of 100 percent observer coverage and other restrictions. Data collected by observer coverage, he said, was essential for future stock assessments, both for herring and other fisheries.

“For a long time, we heard from midwater and pair trawlers boats that they don’t want to catch groundfish, they don’t want to occasionally catch marine mammals, they don’t want to dump fish—but that it was the price of doing business,” Klyver said.

“I think that kind of mentality has to end….To me, 100 percent coverage is the compromise. This is because these large boats are so mobile. Without observers, they can fish close to the bottom, they can be more aggressive in pursuing fish, they can fish closer to whales and porpoises and dolphins. They can dump fish. So having observers, I think, will bring transparency to this process….I think if the industry really believes that they have a very clean fishery and can fish clean, then they should be in support of 100 percent coverage, because then that will clear up the questions.

“To me, the bigger boats, if it turns out that they need to pay for observers, I think that’s fair. That should be the price of doing business. They’re the ones reaping the benefit. If they have a sustainable fishery that’s managed well, then they’re going to get the windfall for that. Having an observer is not too much to ask.”

A couple of fishermen said they’ve seen evidence of vast quantities of dead bycatch floating on the water, and they attributed those instances to midwater trawlers.

Kim Libby of Port Clyde said the problem is complicated by questions regarding the range in the water column that is fished by midwater trawlers.

“There are documented instances where they’ve interacted with bottom groundfish,” Libby said. “One man said bottom sensors wouldn’t be fit for his boat because he’d keep breaking them. If you’re towing in midwater, it doesn’t make sense that you’d break a bottom sensor. A rhetorical question—in pretty much rest of U.S., midwater pair trawlers are banned. Why is it okay to have them in the Northeast?”

Libby said that, given the sacrifice of fishermen in all sectors under mounting regulations, it was unfair to allow midwater trawlers into the region and risk localized depletion and large-scale ecosystem impacts.

Chris Weiner, a third-generation commercial bluefin tuna harpoon-fisherman, said he objected to the idea that just “a few” boats are “catching almost all the fish.”

“I think it would be smart for that part of the industry to realize that you’ve got a whole area that’s out to try to get rid of this gear,” Weiner said. “If we thought things were looking good, we wouldn’t be at these meetings.”