Bluefin Quota & Bycatch

Who Gets What?

by Laurie Schreiber

Cartwheeling school on Mayo Swell, Gulf of Maine in August. The belief is that when bluefin reach the end of their daily migration and don’t want to go any further, it is signaled by swimming in a circle, which allows them to continue breathing. ©WayneDavis/OceanAerials.com

PORTLAND – A proposed reconfiguration of a system of quotas for the western Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery remains the subject of controversy.

The goal of the proposal, in the form of Amendment 7 to the Consolidated Atlantic Highly Migratory Fishery Management Plan, is to more accurately account for “dead discards” – incidental bycatch of bluefin caught by the pelagic longline fleet, which doesn’t directly target this species. The longline fleet has a bluefin quota to account for discards, but managers expect the fleet to exceed the quota, based on past performance.

The topic was discussed by the advisory panel to the International Commission for Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), at the panel’s April meeting in Silver Spring, Md.

A proposed reallocation of quota between fishing categories, with a net increase in the pelagic longline category and a decrease in other categories, “is controversial,” Mike Sissenwine told the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) at its June meeting.

Sissenwine serves as NEFMC representative on the advisory panel.“Part of the controversy clearly is the permanent reallocation from both the commercial sectors as well as recreational sectors,” he said. “It’s not a huge amount, but it is some quota, and every bluefin tuna is worth a lot to somebody. It’s also an interesting precedent, when you consider both reallocation and establishing valuable individual transferable quota (ITQ) simultaneously. It’s one thing to set up ITQs based on historical shares and then allow the reallocation process to take place through the market. But to reallocate and essentially provide something that’s worth a lot without that market process, without it being a historical share, seems to be a historical precedent that should be carefully considered. It’s not the normal situation.”

The proposed reallocation gives the pelagic longline fleet substantially more quota to account for its dead discards. Because the U.S. western Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery must as a whole stay within its overall quota, the additional quota assigned to the longline fleet means it must be subtracted from other categories of tuna users.

The pelagic longline fleet is acknowledged by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) as an environmentally responsible, economically important multispecies fishery. Bluefin fishermen have said they were not against the longline fleet, but against the new accounting scheme.

According to a report provided by Sissenwine, management unit of bluefin tuna has been subject to an ICCAT rebuilding plan since 1998. There is uncertainty in the status of western bluefin tuna “because there are two plausible assessment models,” the report says, “and depending on which scenario is correct, overfishing may or may not be occurring and the management unit may or may not be overfished.”

The types of gear that U.S. fishermen use to harvest bluefin as a directed fishery are purse seines and handgear (rod-and-reel, handline, and harpoon). The U.S. has not exceeded its overall allocation of western bluefin tuna in recent years, but the pelagic longline fishery has exceeded its discard limit.

Highly migratory species in the Atlantic are managed by the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Management Division of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Sustainable Fisheries Office.

Highly migratory species include tuna, large sharks, swordfish and billfish. These species are managed under the Consolidated HMS Fishery Management Plan.

Many of the species covered by the plan are also subject to international management by ICCAT.

NMFS’ Highly Migratory Species Division issued draft Amendment 7 in August 2013. The purpose of the amendment is to control bluefin incidental catch (landings and dead discards) in the pelagic longline fishery, enhance reporting in all categories, and ensure U.S. compliance with the ICCAT-recommended quota.

In addition to shifting quota to the pelagic longline fleet, other alternatives under consideration include requiring electronic monitoring of pelagic longline fishing; and establishing additional controls, such as seasonal area closures, to reduce bycatch. Accurate discard levels in the longline fishery show up because the fishery has reasonable observer coverage,” Sissenwine said.

Tuna mega school, July in Wilkinson’s Basin, Gulf of Maine. Middle area of a school of approximately 5000 bluefin in about the 150lb. range. Shot with a telephoto lens at lower altitude. ©WayneDavis/OceanAerials.com

“The coverage is driven primarily by Endangered Species Act requirements dealing with turtles,” he said. “But because of that coverage, the U.S. longline fleet has pretty good estimates of what the discards are.”

Previously, Sissenwine said, the U.S. allocation was based on U.S. landings and discards as reported in logbooks. Institution of the observer program provided more accurate measurements, and it was found that the U.S. was discarding far more than previous estimates.

“So there was a mismatch, at the international level, of what we were discarding versus our allocation based on logbook reports,” he said. “It took many years of convoluted negotiations to straighten that out. Other countries are now increasingly supposed to report discards. But it varies considerably, between countries, as to whether discard reporting is reliable.”

The comment period on Amendment 7 ended in January. Comments were both in favor and against the reallocation of quota. At its January meeting, NEFMC also expressed concern about the proposed reconfiguration of the quota system, particularly with regard to the scheme’s impact on small vessels in New England, and on groundfish vessels that depend on bluefin tuna for revenue.

Sissenwine said there is no clear schedule on future action on Amendment 7. However, NEFMC will be asked for input at the advisory panel’s October meeting. With regard to finalized shark conservation measures, “I don’t think there’s a huge impact on New England fisheries,” said Sissenwine.

According to Sissenwine’s report, several large pelagic sharks species are considered overfished and/or depleted. Sharks are impacted both by directed fisheries (mostly in the Southeast), and as bycatch primarily by pelagic longline vessels.

The final rule, in the form of Amendment 5a of the Consolidated Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan, was published in July 2013.

The amendment:

• Maintains the rebuilding of sandbar sharks.

• Ends overfishing and initiates rebuilding of scalloped hammerhead and Atlantic blacknose sharks.

• Establishes total allowable catches and commercial quotas for Gulf of Mexico blacknose and blacktip sharks.

• Establishes new recreational shark fishing management measures.

Conservation of dusky sharks was removed from Amendment 5a and will be addressed in Amendment 5b which is intended to:

• End overfishing and achieve optimum yield for dusky sharks;

• Modify the current rebuilding plan for dusky sharks to ensure that fishing mortality levels are maintained at or below levels that would result in a 70 percent probability of rebuilding in the timeframe recommended by the assessment.

Several shark species are under consideration for listing under the Endangered Species Act. These include the scalloped hammerhead shark, great hammerhead shark, and dusky shark. In addition, all international trade of the great scallop shark, smooth hammerhead shark, porbeagle shark, and oceanic whitetip shark is to be documented.