Cod Bycatch & MSC Created Uproar

by Fishermen’s Voice Staff

The confluence of the Eastern Gulf of Maine (GOM) Habitat Area closure to groundfish gear, the emergency action on GOM cod and the claims around cod bycatch in lobster traps in recent months has made it all a front-burner issue for a lot of lobstermen. Lobstermen know cod bycatch is minimal and the cod, whn they do come up in a trap, go back overboard. So where did this tempest in a teapot over cod bycatch come from?

Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said the Marine Stewardship Council’s review of the Maine lobster fishery’s sustainability certification released data they were given and that became the source of the bycatch issue picked up at the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) meeting in October.

The Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2 is part of a lengthy plan to meet habitat requirements of the Magnuson Stevens Act. The emergency action on Gulf of Maine cod is rooted in a recalibration of a previously accepted stock assessment in September 2014. That recalibration came up with a lower figure on cod than the original assessment. The original went through the conventional required third-party peer review process. The recalibration was given an in-house Northeast Fishery Science Center (NEFSC) review. NEFSC does the stock assessments for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

At the October NEFMC meeting, an emergency action on Gulf of Maine cod, an action that would not affect other subspecies of cod such as Georges Bank cod, was voted down. NMFS Northeast Regional administrator John Bullard overrode that vote, which meant the emergency action went into effect.

Although this emergency action is separate from the Eastern GOM Habitat area restrictions on groundfish gear, two council members raised the issue of cod bycatch in lobster traps, and presented it to the council as a significant issue. The fact that the Habitat Amendment has an option under consideration to ban any gear that is capable of catching cod in the eastern Maine Habitat area, these two council members argued, meant that therefore lobster traps should also be excluded as gear that can catch cod.

Some others at the council meeting said the amount of cod bycatch “could be significant.”

NEFSC scientist Paul Rago said in a telephone interview that the data on cod bycatch in lobster traps is “scant and anecdotal.” Rago said the little information available came from observers on offshore lobster boats who were looking at other things and may have noticed a cod here or there, but did not make it a part of there tasked data collection on these vessels.

Carl Wilson at the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) said the source of the tempest over cod bycatch in traps was a small quantity of anecdotal information. The source was offshore lobster boat observers doing sea sampling. Their interest was other data but they observed a couple of instances where cod came up in a lobster trap. That information was requested by and given to the MSC project on Maine lobster. The MSC, said Wilson, used unsound analytical practices and extrapolated on that flawed data to generate results that were “way off.” Others, perhaps including the overexuberant council members who called the “cod bycatch very significant,” picked up the MSC misinformation and ran with it.

This continued to be churned up at public hearings on the Omnibus Habitat Amendment in Maine in early January. McCarron said she was concerned about the possibility that lobster traps could be consider gear capable of catching groundfish in the future. She said it is important to work toward preventing traps from being considered gear that catches groundfish and avoid being sucked into the groundfish restrictions.

Federal involvement in lobster regulation in state waters is outside its jurisdiction. McCarron said the council should work with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which does have jurisdiction over American lobster, to develop a database from which to judge the significance of cod bycatch in lobster traps.

Lobstermen have found the occasional groundfish in their traps. Typically they are in good condition and are returned unharmed to the water. Lobsterman Kit Johnson of Winter Harbor recalled that 15 years ago, when cod were more plentiful, he might find five or six cod in his traps for the entire year.

The question remains how the MSC, whose business is to study and assess fisheries data in order to declare a fishery sustainably managed or not, could get the data on cod in lobster traps so wrong. The MSC has made itself the arbiter of who is sustainable in the eyes of the consumer.

Does this say anything about their assessment process? The MSC could not be reached before press time.