2014 Shrimp Season Quashed

by Laurie Schreiber

PORTLAND – Overfishing and worrisome environmental trends were cited when interstate regulators shut down the Gulf of Maine shrimp fishery for 2014.

In early December, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Northern Shrimp Section approved a moratorium for the 2014 fishing season.

“I’m not surprised,” said Port Clyde fisherman Glen Libby, a founder of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association. “The guys who went groundfishing in the summertime, usually they’ll see some shrimp in the twine, and they’ve not been seeing anything.”

“The groundfish fishermen MCFA [Maine Coast Fishermen’s Associaton] works with who target shrimp were hopeful for a shrimp season because it makes up a large piece of their annual business,” said MCFA fisheries program coordinator Lucy Van Hook. “However, with the low percentage of allocation caught last season and very few shrimp seen on the water this summer, bad news was expected. The moratorium is a huge economic blow, but to give the shrimp stock the best chance for recovery, we need to allow the adult shrimp a chance to spawn successfully and produce abundant and viable offspring for a fishery in the future.”

MCFA represents about a dozen shrimp fishermen, although the number varies each season. The importance of the shrimp fishery varies, Van hook said, “but as the groundfish fishery has declined in the last few years, the reliance on shrimp has increased. For some member fishermen, shrimp comprises about 50 percent of their income. For others it is around 20 percent.”

The past season, from January to April 2013, was not good for fishermen, she said. “There were few shrimp in the water, and catch rates were low,” she said. “Some fishermen did all right since the low volume resulted in a higher than usual market price. However, for many trips, landing over 100 pounds was considered a good day. With the high cost of fuel and nets coming up with few shrimp, many trips were not profitable.

For the years of 2009-2011, the fishery was in a boom period and landings were high and prices were stable. Shrimp was a dependable fishery. However, in these years the total allowable catch was exceeded by 50-100 percent, which most likely contributed to the low status of the stock this season.”

The MCFA considers the moratorium to be a harsh management decision, and severe economic repercussions to fishermen, processors, retailers and restaurants are expected, Van Hook said.

“However, the stock assessment and observations from the water suggest very low abundance of adult shrimp and provide evidence that recruitment has been almost non-existence the past three years,” she said. “To give the shrimp population the best chance for recovery especially with warming waters and ocean acidification, the moratorium is the responsible management decision.”

The Northern Shrimp Section comprises Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. The section based its decision on an assessment conducted in 2013, published in November, on the status of the northern shrimp stock in the Gulf of Maine.

The moratorium will have greatest impact on Maine fishermen. In 2013, Maine landed 83 percent of the catch, New Hampshire followed with 10 percent and Massachusetts landed 7 percent. The assessment cites the current condition of the resource as collapsed and overfished, with overfishing occurring and poor prospects for the near future.

The decision is the final nail to similar deliberations that occurred in 2012, when regulators considered quashing the 2013 season. At the time, the idea was set aside, and instead drastic cuts on the catch quota were imposed for the season, which ran about four months from January to mid-April. At the time, the ASMFC had the same concerns regarding downward trends in abundance, poor recruitment (shrimp entering into the fishery), and the stock’s status as overfished, with overfishing occurring. The catch for 2013 was set at 625 metric tons (mt) – a 72 percent reduction from the 2012 quota.

At the end of the season, regulators considered the development of a limited entry program.

According to the assessment:

• Since the fishery targets female shrimp age 4 and 5, the 2013 fishery targeted the 2008 and 2009 year classes.

• But the age classes had declined to very low levels, and the size of individuals was relatively small.

• Projecting this forward, the 2014 fishery would have fished on the 2010-2011 year classes.

• But the 2013 assessment found abundance and recruitment for those year classes were still on the decline. Recruitment indices for the 2011 and 2012 year classes were the lowest on record.

According to the assessment, recruitment is related both to spawning biomass and ocean temperatures, with higher spawning biomass and colder temperatures producing stronger recruitment; and ocean temperatures in the western Gulf of Maine shrimp habitat has been increasing in recent years and reached or approached unprecedented highs in the past three years.

“This suggested an increasingly inhospitable environment for northern shrimp and indicated the critical need for protecting spawning biomass,” the assessment says, adding the stock has “little prospect of recovery in the near future.”

In 2013, the March-April average sea surface temperature of 41 degrees Fahrenheit was cooler than in 2012 (44.42 degrees F), but still well above the 20th century average (38.12 degrees F).

The tasty phytoplankton that shrimp like to eat has also declined, and the number of shrimp predators, such as spiny dogfish, redfish and silver hake, has increased, the assessment says.

The assessment says the goal of the moratorium in 2014 is to maximize spawning potential; and it might be necessary to extend the moratorium beyond 2014.

The fishery has seen ups and downs before, although this is the first time in 36 years, since 1978, that fishing has been shut down.

Recent history

At one time, from 1969 to 1972, landings averaged 11,400 mt. The fishery closed in 1978 because landings plummeted to 400 mt in 1977.

Landings fluctuated between 2,000 mt and 9,500 mt through the 1980s and 1990s. There was another plummet in 2002, when the catch was 450 mt. Landings since then have ranged from 2,000 mt to more than 6,000 mt, in 2010.

The 2011 season landed 6,397 mt, exceeding a catch cap of 4,000 mt. In 2012, landings were 2,476 mt.

In 2013, the TAC was set at 625 mt.

The number of vessels participating in the fishery in recent years has varied from a high of 347 in 1996 to a low of 144 in 2006. In 2013, there were 198 vessels; 122 from Maine, 16 from Massachusetts, and 14 from New Hampshire.

When the stock was in good shape, said Libby, shrimping would earn perhaps half his yearly income. That’s declined in recent years, but it was still significant.

“I’m hopeful,” Libby said of the prospects of a turnaround. “I think we need the cold weather, and we certainly have that.”