Lobster Fishing Might Continue to Be Allowed in Coral Zones

by Laurie Schreiber

MYSTIC, Conn.—At its April meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) selected preferred alternatives for its Omnibus Deep-Sea Coral Amendment, which contains proposals for protecting corals in the Gulf of Maine and on the Continental Slope south of Georges Bank. Deep-sea corals are important habitat for a variety of species.

According to NEFMC information, the amendment covers:

• The inshore Gulf of Maine – Outer Schoodic Ridge and Mt. Desert Rock;

• The offshore Gulf of Maine – Jordan Basin and Lindenkohl Knoll on the edge of Georges Basin;

• South of Georges Bank – Continental Slope and canyons region.

For the Gulf of Maine, NEFMC is considering multiple boundary alternatives for coral protection zones.

According to NEFMC information, the goal is “to identify and implement measures that reduce, to the extent practicable, impacts of fishing gear on deep sea corals in New England. This amendment contains alternatives that aim to identify and protect concentrations of corals in select areas and restrict the expansion of fishing effort into areas where corals are likely to be present.”

Deep sea corals are fragile, slow-growing organisms that play an important role in the marine ecosystem and are vulnerable to various types of disturbance of the seafloor,” NEFMC said. At the same time, NEFMC said it recognizes the value of commercial fisheries that operate in or near areas of deep sea coral habitat: “As such, measures in this amendment will be considered in light of their benefit to corals as well as their costs to commercial fisheries.”

NEFMC’s preferred alternative for the inshore Gulf of Maine would prohibit mobile bottom-tending gear (trawls and dredges) within the Schoodic Ridge and Mount Desert Rock areas. An option to prohibit all bottom-tending gear, including lobster traps, is still in the amendment.

But according to a NEFMC release, NEFMC “recognized the economic impact associated with preventing the lobster fishery from working within the inshore areas and acknowledged that shifts in effort to other locations could be problematic.

The preferred alternative for the offshore Gulf of Maine would prohibit bottom-tending mobile gear within Jordon Basin and/or Lindenkohl Knoll “if coral zones are adopted” for either or both areas, according to the release. Under the preferred alternative, if offshore Gulf of Maine areas are adopted following public hearings, lobster traps and gillnets could continue to be fished within Jordon Basin and/or Lindenkohl Knoll.

For the Continental Slope/canyons region, south of Georges Bank, NEFMC selected a broad coral protection zone boundary of 600 meters minimum depth, equivalent to roughly 325 fathoms, as its preferred alternative. The use of all bottom-tending gear would be prohibited within the zone. However, the preferred alternative provides a pot gear exemption for the deep-sea red crab fishery, which is the only fishery using bottom-tending gear known to take place deeper than 600 meters.

The amendment also contains 300-, 400-, 500-, and 900-meter broad zone alternatives.

According to the release, NEFMC “is attempting to ‘freeze the footprint’ of fishing activity in designated coral protection zones to prevent the expansion of fisheries in sensitive coral areas that currently are unfished.”

NEFMC has been developing management measures to protect deep-sea corals since 2010. In 2012, the measures were split from a larger plan amendment intended to review and revised essential fish habitat-related provisions of all NEFMC fishery management plans. Development of coral measures was largely set aside during completion of the essential fish habitat amendment, and resumed in late 2015. In April 2016, NEFMC approved an updated range of alternatives for analysis. NEFMC plans to select final alternatives at their upcoming June meeting. The amendment is expected to go into effect in early 2018.

NEFMC held two workshops on the topic, in March, in New Bedford, Mass., and Portsmouth, N.H. The purpose of the workshops was to develop a detailed understanding of fishing practices in and around specific coral zones; and to identify specific ways to modify coral zone boundaries in each location to balance fishing access and coral conservation. The New Bedford workshop focused on the discrete canyon zones and broad zones (300-900 meter starting depths), and the Portsmouth workshop focused on the offshore Gulf of Maine zones in Jordan Basin and at Lindenkohl Knoll (western side of Georges Basin).

At NEFMC’s April meeting, Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO) Regional Administrator John Bullard said the workshops provided plenty of fishing industry input but little from environmental groups.

“I think the process suffered because of that,” said Bullard. “So rather than some kind of consensus view of a plan, we’ve got a good description of an industry plan. That’s nothing to shake a stick at. That’s a good thing to have.” But in terms of the goal of coral protection through freezing the industry footprint, the process would benefit from environmental group input, he said. “So my question is whether or not it still might be considered that there’s room for that process to occur,” he said.

NEFMC Fishery Analyst for Habitat Michelle Bachman said the workshops were held specifically to get industry input, in order to fill in data gaps about where and when fishing occurs in the proposed coral zones.

Oceana Fishery Campaign Manager Gib Brogan said there’s a need for further work to build consensus between all parties in order to move the process forward. “The messaging going on was to collect industry information,” Brogan said of the workshops. “So we felt out of place giving our perspective, because we’re not part of the industry. We were expecting this to be an information-collecting process that would inform the decision made today….Unfortunately, in New Bedford, that workshop quickly devolved from a data-collection meeting to development of an industry alternative. There’s value in that, but as far as the data collection, it just didn’t happen. So we watched as the GIS maps got tinkered with very little information.”

Brogan said further workshops that explore data collected by vessel monitoring and vessel trip report systems would be useful. He said Ocean is in the process of developing another too, with Google, to harness data from automation identification systems that make us of beacons aboard boats over 65 feet. “That has provided a different data set about boats fishing in this area,” Brogan said. “The onus needs to be on industry” to demonstrate fishing patterns.

“It’s clear there’s lot of unmet expectation,” responded NEFMC member Matthew McKenzie. “Maybe we need to do more engaging.”

NEFMC approved a preferred alternative to prohibit mobile bottom-tending gear in the Mount Desert Rock and Outer Schoodic Ridge areas.

During the discussion that led up to the vote, NEFMC member Maggie Raymond expressed skepticism about selecting that alternative without a full understanding of the cumulative impacts in the Gulf of Maine with respect to the groundfish fleet.

“That’s the only bottom tending mobile gear fishery that participates in those areas,” Raymond said. “When does it end? We need to see if that fishery can withstand having additional areas closed to them.”

Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’ Association (MLA), said the MLA supported the action. In her statement, she said, “The MLA supports the establishment of these two coral zones because we believe it is important that the fishing community recognize these areas as unique coral habitats worthy of protection. However, for economic, conservation and operational reasons, it is important that you allow lobster fishing to continue in these two areas.”

While the two proposed areas appear relatively small in size, she said, the impact of excluding lobstermen “would be massive. The lobster fishery is everything to our downeast Maine communities. These coral zones are located off the coasts of Washington and Hancock counties which have very limited economic opportunities. The communities in this part of the coast are quite literally economically dependent on the success of the lobster industry. Any negative economic impact on lobster will hurt not only the families of lobstermen and their crew, but will have far reaching impacts on the many families and businesses that depend on the revenues generated by lobstering.”

MLA estimated a minimum of 100 lobstermen fish across the two proposed coral zones, coming from at least 15 different fishing communities. “These lobstermen have stated that these two fishing grounds are most important to them during the winter and spring months, but many lobstermen fish these areas year-round,” McCarron said.

MLA also heard from many lobstermen who fish the areas adjacent to the proposed coral zones, which are also areas of high gear density. “If lobstermen lose access to the Outer Schoodic Ridge and Mount Desert Rock coral zones, they will not cope by completely removing lobster gear from the water,” she said. “Instead, those traps will be displaced to adjacent areas. Lobstermen fishing in those areas will not be able to absorb the effort from more than 100 lobstermen who would be aggressively searching for productive fishing bottom.”

Gear displacement would also affect endangered North Atlantic right whales that transit the area, she said.

“Shifting gear from the coral zones to adjacent areas would aggregate gear and increase gear density and the probability of a right whale encountering Maine lobster gear,” she said.

Lobster fishermen are already aware of and avoid coral areas, she said.

“To put it simply, due to operational realities, lobster gear and corals do not mix,” she said. Coral is typically found on steep slopes with tremendous depth variation, whereas lobstermen need some conformity of bottom to run the federally mandated minimum 15 traps with sinking groundline. Furthermore, she said,if lobster gear comes in contact with hard corals, the gear will become hung down and the trawl will be lost—a $4,000 investment.

Patrick Shepard, Fisheries Policy Associate for the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries (formerly Penobscot East Resource Center), agreed with the statement. “This has least impact on Maine’s lobster fishery,” Shepard said. “The fishery in fall and winter fishes these areas heavily, and a lot of their income comes from both these areas. They know exactly where the corals are, they stay away from them, so there’s no need to prevent the lobster fishery from having access to those areas.”

NEFMC member Elizabeth Etrie said she was concerned about restrictions being placed on mobile bottom tending gear and not on other types of gear.

“So I’m not going to vote for this because we need more detail in the document to adequately explain, to the people who will be impacted, why this is their gear that will be impacted and not other gear types,” Etrie said.

NEFMC considered another motion, which ultimately failed, to task NEFMC’s plan development team to determine the extent of existing mobile bottom tending gear activity in the discrete canyon zone and broad zone boundaries, using available VMS/VTR data, and to use the analyses to develop an additional discrete zone and an additional broad zone alternatives for analysis in the amendment prior to public hearings.

Brogan said Ocean supported the motion. “This gets at the heart of the issue, defining what the fished versus unfished line is,” he said. “The PDT should be doing this based on the information they have available.” Brogan noted there was no deadline for completing the amendment. “So let’s do it right,” he said. “Let’s slow down, do it correctly, let the PDT have another whack at it.”

But David Borden, executive director of the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s, said his organization opposed the motion. “There’s been ample opportunity for these types of alternatives being presented, and I think the council is at the point where they should authorize something to go out to public hearing,” Borden said.

Bachman said the PDT has been using VTR and VMS data, but it’s limited and not universally deployed by all the fisheries, and so has not been used to work out zone boundaries.

“So the data is good enough to describe existing impacts but might not be good enough to come up with new alternatives?” asked NEFMC member John Pappalardo.

Bachman said the combination of VTR and VMS are a good way to get a sense of what’s happening in the proposed zones, but it’s difficult to get pinpoint data, and that’s why the question was taken to the industry at the workshops.

Etrie wanted to know why the analysis has been limited to mobile bottom tending gear. “I’m concerned about fairness and equity,” Etrie said.

Another NEFMC member said mobile bottom tending gear has the greatest impact on coral.

NEFMC member Terry Stockwell, representing Maine, said his preference was to go to public hearing. “We’ve put a lot of money work and time into getting us this far,” Stockwell said. “To kick the can down the road for one more analysis that might not give us a viable alternative is an unnecessary delay.”

“You’re asking us to show data where we fish,” said NEFMC member Eric Reid. “We use a model for corals: Maybe we should use a model for where industry fishes. And we’ll compare models to models.”

NEFMC member Michael Sissenwine said that, although he had reservations about the motion because of its focus specifically on mobile bottom tending gear and not other gears, he supported the motion.

“I see the benefit in exploring all aspects of the issues in terms of what the stakeholders are asking for,” Sissenwine said. “We’re looking at the issue of how do we freeze the footprint under the inference that freezing the footprint has great benefits to coral and no costs to industry. As long as nobody’s fishing there, there’s no benefit to corals, so that part of it is out of whack with what we’re essentially asserting with respect to the industry. And if we’re going to talk about what is the benefit to corals versus the cost, we need to do it on an equal footing…We’re not doing that by simply freezing the footprint.”

The draft coral amendment is available at: http://s3.amazonaws.com/nefmc.org/2a.-170410_Draft_Coral_Amendment.pdf

For more information, contact Habitat Coordinator Michelle Bachman at (978) 465-0492 ext. 120, mbachman@nefmc.org.