Scallopers Grapple with
Yellowtail Limits
by Laurie Schreiber
Dave Goethel, NEFMC: “This is a real problem. It’s a cautionary tale for all fisheries, not just this one. These gentlemen have the deer in the headlight look. They’ve been in the fishery for years. People come, invade their space, get on their boats, and a year or two later come back and say, ‘By the way, we’re going to shut you down if you don’t stop catching these fish.’ ” © Photo by Sam Murfitt.
NEWPORT, R.I. – At its November meeting, the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) reviewed actions to control the rate of yellowtail flounder bycatch in the scallop fishery’s limited-access general-category (LAGC) trawl fishery.
The bycatch rate of yellowtail in the LAGC trawl fishery is substantially higher than the limited access and LAGC dredge fisheries, according to NEFMC information.
But fishermen in this segment of the fleet dispute that finding.
The NEFMC considered specific accountability measures for this segment of the fleet, including possible sub-divisions of the scallop fishery’s sub-annual catch limit (ACL) of yellowtail.
According to NEFMC documents, in 2011 and 2012, the LAGC trawl fishery caught a “substantial percent” of the fishery’s total Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail sub-ACL. In 2011, NEFMC data shows that the trawl fishery caught 17 percent of the yellowtail catch; in 2012, to data, trawlers caught more than 23 percent. By contrast, the LAGC dredge fishery has caught between 1 and 2 percent of the total SNE/MA yellowtail catch.
Trawl vessels landed considerable amounts of scallops in areas 612, 613 and in other Mid-Atlantic areas. In 2011, 26 percent their scallop landings came from area 612 and 52 percent from area 613.
The subject arose as part of the NEFMC’s approval of Framework Adjustment 24 to the Scallop Fishery Management Plan; major decisions involved the following:
• Scallop fishery specifications for fishing years 2013, and potentially for 2014 and 2015;
• A modification of the Georges Bank access area opening dates;
• Measures to address a yellowtail flounder sub-annual catch limit for the limited access general category fishery;
• A change to the effective date of the accountability measures for the yellowtail flounder sub-annual catch limit;
• Measures to promote flexibility in the limited access general category fishery’s individual fishing quota (IFQ) by allowing leasing after the start of the fishing year and once a vessel has begun to fish its IFQ ; and
• An expansion of the observer set-aside program to include limited access general category open area trips.
The scallop fishery is conducted year-round, primarily using offshore dredges. A small percentage of the fishery employs otter trawls, mostly in the Mid-Atlantic, and divers and Digby dredges are sometimes used in nearshore areas in the Gulf of Maine. The principal U.S. commercial fisheries are in the Mid-Atlantic (from Virginia to Long Island, N.Y.) and on Georges Bank and neighboring areas, such as the Great South Channel and Nantucket Shoals. There is also a small, primarily inshore fishery for scallops in the Gulf of Maine.
Yellowtail flounder bycatch in the LAGC arose as an extended discussion due to the interest the topic drew from small-boat fishermen in Southern New England. The NEFMC considered an action to halt LAGC trawl fishing if yellowtail catch exceeds 10 percent of the scallop fishery’s total SNE/MA sub-ACL. Harvesters could switch to dredge gear.
Jeff Kraus, a trawl fisherman from Shinnecock, on the ocean side of Long Island, N.Y., said that a large percentage of the trawl fleet is based there. “We contributed 30 percent of the catch in 2009, 20 percent in 2010, and 18 percent in 2011,” Kraus said. “This fleet has a very large IFQ [individual fishing quota]. One of the reasons for that is we’re a traditional group of fishermen who have harvested scallops with a trawl on a regular basis through the years. So we were able to establish ourselves” as a significant segment of the harvesting fleet.
Kraus said the yellowtail bycatch data related to the trawl fleet is wrong. He said that, from 2006 through 2009, observer data for the trawlers showed that the fleet took on average 75 pounds of yellowtail for the year.
But in 2010, NEFMC data shows, the localized fleet took more than 1,400 pounds of yellowtail. Kraus and others disputed that finding.
Kraus said he had major concerns about sampling techniques in its “volume-to-volume method.” He said the observer program’s use of extrapolations, when they sample a scallop haul, is flawed. “They take a basket or two of scallops, measure the size of the pile, and project what’s in the pile,” he said. He said that fish tend to appear at the top of the pile, and observers project an estimate of how many more fish might be in the pile.
“I requested my observer data to be sent to me,” he said. “I could see what was developing here. I had one trip that they recorded, supposedly, 150 pounds of short yellowtail. It’s just an impossibility to catch that much, even if I were groundfishing. That was a sign that something was wrong.”
Kraus said that he and other captains agreed to record every individual yellowtail, as an alternative to the observers’ use of the extrapolation method.
“I have data from 10 trips made for 2012,” he said. “Total yellowtail landings were 88 pounds for February, March, July, August, September and October. There didn’t seem to be great discrepancy through the months. It seems the landings are pretty low through those months….
“So obviously there is an issue here with the observer coverage. The fleet has taken it upon themselves to make certain we’re getting true values here.”
Kraus also questioned whether the NEFMC had the authority to push through a new sub-ACL through a framework action, as opposed to an amendment.
“The current proposal makes a dramatic change to the fishery and exceeds the authority of the council to pursue this action in an expedited process such as a framework,” Kraus said. “I don’t see the rationale to limiting the trawl fleet to 10 percent of the sub-ACL. Our data supports the fact that this number, that is being said we caught, is an aberration. This motion guarantees that accountability measures will be invoked, closing down fishery.”
“It’s important from a legal standpoint, and also from a standpoint of fairness, that we don’t have to deal with any drastic measures because everything points to this data being erroneous,” Kraus continued. “And given time, we will prove that. So to ram any kind of significant motion to limit the trawl fishery or put us on notice to deal with our overage in yellowtail bycatch, it’s important for the committee to give us time and let the numbers prove that what we’re saying is right.”
Michael Marchetti, president of the Eastern New England Scallop Association in Narragansett, R.I., and a member of the NEFMC’s scallop advisory panel, said the panel “agonized” over the recommendation.
“I recognize the high level of participation of this fleet,” Marchetti said. “We did ask where this data came from, how it could possibly be so high.”
He said the panel considered gear modifications as an option. But he said the panel didn’t want to risk causing problems for the entire scallop fleet, if indeed yellowtail bycatch was a big problem for one segment. “If these catches are as low as they say, we shouldn’t have any problem,” Marchetti said. “We want to make sure we give them as much leeway as possible. But we also said, if this is a problem, these numbers in front of us, this has to be dealt with.”
At the advisory panel’s meeting earlier this year, Amy Van Atten, chief of the observer program, said that, of the trawl trips that were observed in 2010, six out of the total 31 observed trips had relatively high yellowtail bycatch. The six larger trips were on fewer than three vessels.
Van Atten said that some tows were measured using the “volume to volume” method, which measures a sample of a tow and extrapolates it for the full tow, while some of the larger catches were weighed directly.
Scallop fisherman William Reed, from Shinnecock, asked the NEFMC to table the proposed action for a year, in order to give fishermen time to collect new data.
“If this is a true problem, then the proposals are fair,” Reed said. “But I don’t think the data you’re seeing is accurate.”
For the NEFMC, there was some concern that the action would require increased sampling of the fleet, which would mean shifting the already short-staffed observer program.
“I just want to make sure we don’t take resources from monitoring the overall general category fleet,” said one NEFMC representative.
“The problem is, we can’t ignore this,” said NEFMC representative David Preble. “It’s a serious problem and it has to be dealt with.” Preble said that, if the trawl fishery really doesn’t have a yellowtail problem, then it shouldn’t be concerned about the action.
“If you’ve got a speed limit of 70 mile per hour and you go 60, you don’t have a problem,” Preble said.
Northeast Fisheries Science Center director Bill Karp said there are two levels of uncertainty in bycatch estimation based on observer observations. “One is associated with sampling. Clearly there are improvements to be made,” Karp said. “The other is uncertainty associated with variability among vessels, which is only possible to elucidate with a relatively high sampling rate, if we expect bycatch rates to be inconsistent among vessels. We’re looking at very low levels of coverage. So we expect to see low degrees of confidence, in being able to project from low sampling levels, what the actual bycatch rates are across the fleet.”
NEFMC representative David Goethel said that observers need to work up an entire haul in order to get a real understanding of catch and bycatch. Goethel said he was also disturbed by the information that fishermen, apparently, don’t routinely request their observer data.
“This is a real problem,” he said. “It’s a cautionary tale for all fisheries, not just this one. I’m stunned by how few people request information for their boat. You don’t know what’s being recorded if they don’t look at it….Fishermen’s don’t care. They should….These gentlemen have the deer in the headlight look. They’ve been in the fishery for years. People come, invade their space, get on their boats, and a year or two later come back and say, ‘By the way, we’re going to shut you down if you don’t stop catching these fish.’”
Goethel also advised fishermen to require observers to go through their entire haul. NEFMC representative David Pierce pointed out that the action would not shut down the trawl segment entirely; they could switch to dredge gear.
“Yellowtail has taken on such extreme importance that this seems necessary,” Pierce said.
But one fisherman said that the Shinnecock boats are too small – with the majority in 30- and 40-foot length – to take a heavy steel dredge.
In the end, the NEFMC voted to adopt a 10 percent trigger with a seasonal component to the closures.