Herring vs. Haddock in Data Debate

continued from February 2016 Homepage

unbelievably abundant. It’s two-pronged: Let’s get groundfishermen catching haddock, and not close the herring fishery.”

Tooley said the herring industry agrees that there should be a limit on what the herring fishery takes from the haddock resource, and that accountability measures to enforce the limit are needed. But the methodology currently used to extrapolate estimates of how much haddock the herring fleet incidentally catches isn’t accurate, she said, and monitoring of harvesting operations, through observer or electronic programs, is inadequate for providing an accurate count of haddock catch.

“We need to have accountability,” Tooley said. “But with our current level of [observer] coverage…it’s become a real issue.”

In an action that became effective Oct. 22, 2015, herring midwater trawl vessels were prohibited from fishing for more than 2,000 pounds of herring per trip or day in the “Herring Georges Bank Haddock Accountability Measure Area,” a limit that will remain in place until the quota becomes available for the 2016 fishing year, on May 1.

The action effectively limited the midwater trawl fishery in Herring Management Area 3, because Area 3 falls within the Georges Bank Haddock Accountability Management Area.

Federally permitted herring vessels, all together, are allowed to catch 1 percent of the Georges Bank haddock resource. The overall allowable haddock catch on Georges Bank for 2015 was 53.7 million pounds (24.3 metric tons); 1 percent, which is further reduced a bit to account for management uncertainty, is 500,449 pounds (227 mt), according to NMFS.

According to data reported on Dec. 21, 2015, based on estimated haddock catches, the herring midwater fleet had reached 93.09 percent of its quota by September, and 104.49 percent by October.

The amount of haddock caught by the herring fleet is extrapolated from the amount of haddock caught on observer trips.

The action pushed the herring fleet into other areas.

“In the last five days, I’ve gotten communications from the presidents of four recreational fishing organizations wanting to know why industrial fishing gear is still within one mile of their shoreline,” Patrick Paquette, a recreational fishing advocate from Massachusetts, told NEFMC. “This gear is too close. It’s affecting us.” Paquette said, the trawl fleet “pretty much stops” the recreational charter fishing fleet for several weeks and contributes to localized depletion of the herring resource.

Tooley said the methodology used “to close a large swath of the fishery for seven months has a significant impact to the fishery.” She called for an adjustment in the accountability measure that closed the area this year. “We need to do a better job of getting groundfishermen catching haddock. We’re not doing a good job of that,” Tooley said. “And it’s extremely constraining to the herring fishery.”

Chris Weiner, with CHOIR and the American Bluefin Tuna Association, along with others, renewed the call for increased observer coverage on the midwater trawl fleet so that the amount of bycatch could be counted rather than estimated. An actual count could go either way, potentially demonstrating that the fleet is not catching as much haddock as extrapolated.

“These boats need observers so they can prove they’re not catching haddock,” said NEFMC member Terry Alexander. “The extrapolation kills them all.”

“I’m not sure that a review of accountability measures is going to result in more observers,” responded NEFMC executive director Tom Nies. “So if the issue is more observers, that’s a different question, which is in part being discussed in the industry-funded monitoring amendment.”

“I don’t want to see any fishery get shut down for any period of time,” said NEFMC member Vincent Balzano. “But I also don’t believe that just changing the accountability measure is the answer. I agree with Terry: We’ve got to get more observers on these boats….We don’t have enough data to make these decisions.”

Another NEFMC member said there were three elements to the issue. Two were the number of observed trips and the accountability measures that trigger a closure. “The key middle part is the methodology used to extrapolate from the observed catch to the total catch,” he said. That methodology will be reviewed next fall, which might influence the way the haddock catch cap is calculated, he said.

NEFMC debated whether the matter should be more properly considered as part of the development of new management measures in Amendment 8 to the Herring Management Plan. The amendment includes proposed long-term control rules for the herring fishery, in consideration of herring as a key forage species within a broad ecosystem context.

The amendment seeks to stabilize landings at a level designed to achieve optimum yield, and also addresses localized depletion in inshore waters.

NEFMC member David Pierce said there’s a link between Amendment 8’s goal to address localized depletion and the haddock catch cap. Potentially, he said, Amendment 8 could include certain closures to remediate localized depletion without closing down the fishery everywhere, particularly where haddock is abundant.

Another NEFMC member, Eric Reid, said he suspected that giving the herring fleet access to the closed area would solve the inshore localized depletion issue.

“I agree,” said another NEFMC member, who noted that the massive Georges Bank closure, sending the herring fleet closer to shore, could have unknown ramifications with the spring run of river herring and shad.

NEFMC discussed beginning the review process in 2016, with the goal of completing it over several years, rather than in 2016. But Tooley said the issue needed resolution as soon as possible.

“I don’t know what part of ‘seven-month closure’ people don’t get,” Tooley said. “That is really significant….This is where we need to fish….There’s zero connection to Amendment 8 on this particular issue. People say, ‘Stay offshore. We don’t want to see you.’ We can’t fish offshore if it’s closed. It’s pretty simple. Doing it two years from now—that’s no help. You’re talking about extensive closures in this fishery, in a place everyone says they want us to go….Either you let the fishery fish, or not. As far as observers go, we agree. We’ve been supportive of having an affordable program. But [NMFS] has no money to implement it. So it doesn’t change a thing.”

Tooley said O’Hara has worked with NMFS to develop monitoring programs. “But it’s not happening very fast,” she said. “In the meantime, you want us to stay tied to the dock? I think that’s ridiculous.”

“I agree the closure is a steep penalty to pay,” said another NEFMC member. “I agree there have been a lot of complications to getting accountability into the fishery. And I agree there are actors in this fishery who want accountability and are trying. But…if you want to address this issue, you work through Amendment 8 and deal with the control rule and the inshore discussion. Or this motion should be amended to say, ‘Take an action to increase the haddock cap for the herring fishery such that it’s not restrictive to the fishery.’ Just increase it….Let’s just say that we’re not utilizing haddock in the groundfish fishery, and we have a herring fishery that’s constrained by it, and we want to make sure that we don’t shut down one fishery because of something like haddock. There’s plenty of it to go around.”

Paquette said increasing the haddock quota for the herring fleet would be a mistake.

“You’re in the process of considering the decision that a portion of the haddock quota is more important as lobster bait than it is as groundfish that feeds the citizens of the United States,” Paquette said. “That’s the tradeoff. We’re talking about groundfish that could be worth a lot more money. And instead, you’re going to turn it into lobster bait for pennies on the pound.”

In the end, NEFMC agreed to review catch accounting methodologies of the Georges Bank haddock catch cap in the herring fishery, with the goals being the realization of optimum yield in the Atlantic herring and mackerel fisheries, while also minimizing the mortality of Georges Bank haddock, and also establishing vessel-specific catch cap accountability.