Council Moves Forward on Localized Depletion of Herring

continued from June 2016 Homepage

“In effect, we’re making judgments on which side we want to err. I’m willing to err in favor that there is localized depletion….I do think there’s probably more data to further describe local depletion.” – Dr. Mike Sissenwine, NEFMC Member. Fishermen’s Voice photo

interests both at sea and on shore. The Council intends to further explore these concerns through examination of the best available science on localized depletion, the spatial nature of the fisheries, reported conflicts amongst users of the resources and the concerns of the herring fishery and other stakeholders.”

At an earlier meeting, in January, NEFMC defined localized depletion as “a reduction of population size, independent of the overall status of the stock, over a relatively small spatial area as a result of intensive fishing.”

Scoping comments for Amendment 8 identified concerns with concentrated, intense commercial fishing of Atlantic herring in specific areas and at certain times that has caused detrimental socioeconomic impacts on other user groups—commercial, recreational, and ecotourism—that depend on adequate local availability of herring to support business and recreational interests both at sea and on shore.

According to a summary of comments made available by NEFMC, commenters commonly said that declines in the herring resource have negative impacts on other species that rely on herring as prey, and in turn, the associated industries that rely on predators, such as tuna, groundfish, and whale-watching.

Suggested remedies included a year-round inshore buffer area in herring management area 1A, a 12-mile inshore buffer year-round south of herring management Area 1A year, a 35-mile inshore buffer year-round south of herring management Area 1A, a year-round purse-seine-only area with a 50-mile inshore buffer south of 1A, or a year-round closure of certain areas.

Concerns center on intense commercial fishing that results in impacts on other users. But limited data has hampered a full understanding of the problem.

“We continue to caution that, relying on existing data, it will be difficult to identify if any correlations are due specifically to localized depletion or some other factor going on in one or the other of those fisheries,” said NEFMC staffer Rachel Feeney.

Lack of data has made it difficult to specifically prove or disprove that localized depletion is occurring, said council members. So, they said, NEFMC must consider whether it must prove it’s occurring prior to taking action, or whether to take a precautionary approach. The discussion pertains not only to biological impacts of herring depletion as a keystone species in the ecosystem, but on socioeconomic impacts to other interests, such as the whalewatch industry and the bluefin fishery. NEFMC’s Plan Development Team has been tasked with identifying specifics about the herring fishery, since it relates to the well-being of the herring resource and could help to understand the issue of localized depletion.

“As far as localized depletion, I can paint a quick picture of the situation on the back side of the Cape,” said one man. For five or six years, he said, the big midwater trawlers caught most of the herring, and herring predators such as whales and tuna also disappeared. But last year, the trawlers were not in the area.

“We saw a big change,” he said. “It was world-class—whales, herring—it was phenomenal….Striped bass started showing up, whales, gannets by the hundreds….If that doesn’t paint a picture of localized depletion, I don’t know what can.”

Rich Ruais, executive director of the American Bluefin Tuna Association, told NEFMC that localized depletion is occurring.

“Is that still an open issue?” Ruais said. “I thought that was pretty much already well established. In prior discussion, we’ve talked about it for at least 20 years.”

Patrick Paquette, a recreational fishing advocate from Massachusetts, said the situation pertains as much to the health of the ecosystem as it does to user conflicts.

“Whether I be a tuna fisherman on the North Shore of Massachusetts or a striped bass fishermen on the back side of Cape Cod, when a body of herring is depleted by large-scale industrial fishing and it changes the ecosystem and the predators I’m fishing on, how is that not biological?” said Paquette.

“What I’m seeing, I believe, is that it’s tough for the PDT to prove or disprove” the question of localized depletion, said Steve Weiner, chairman of the Chatham, Mass.-based CHOIR Coalition. “But clearly the bluefin fishery is a pretty good example of how intensive fishing hurts” the herring resource. “A number of people, at CHOIR especially, asked for a buffer. I don’t see that being analyzed.”

Erica Fuller, an attorney for the Boston-based Herring Alliance, said scoping sessions on Amendment 8 yielded a lot of proposed actions, including one by the Herring Alliance for a 50-mile buffer offshore. She wanted to know when NEFMC would develop a range of alternatives for the amendment. NEFMC Herring Committee chairman Peter Kendall said the committee would start to develop alternatives this summer.

Peter Auster, a senior research scientist at the Mystic (Conn.) Aquarium, said that localized depletion has been shown to occur via acoustic survey data.

“The threshold for a reasonable judgment on these things is not very high and it really gets down to the council’s inclination as to which side to give the benefit of the doubt, which is part of the decision-making we do every day,” said NEFMC member Michael Sissenwine. “We make decisions about where we put buffers in to account for scientific uncertainty all the time. In effect, we’re making judgments on which side we want to err. I’m willing to err in favor that there is localized depletion….I do think there’s probably more data to further describe local depletion. There are probably lots of records kept by the whalewatch industry and bluefin tuna associations, and so on. Those interest groups might be able to contribute quite a lot. At the end of the day, we’ll have to make a decision in a very uncertain environment about this particular process, as to which side we want to err on. That will depend on how much impact the various alternatives have on the viability of the herring fishery.”

But one speaker, who works for a herring processor, said he didn’t accept the idea that localized depletion is occurring. Boats on the back of the Cape may be overfishing herring, he said, but the fact that they’re catching all those fish means there’s no depletion.

“If there were localized depletion, the fish wouldn’t be available,” he said. “If you want to call it too much fishing, fair enough. But catching fish is proof positive there’s no local depletion occurring.”

Chris Weiner, a member of CHOIR and the American Bluefin Tuna Association, reminded NEFMC that the original scoping comments specifically identified concern midwater trawlers as a source of depletion.

“The comments were clear: It’s one gear type,” he said. However, he said, although the problem statement doesn’t specifically mention midwater trawling, it’s enough to move forward with.