Severe Herring Fishery Cuts on Tap as
Young Fish Remain Elusive

Continued from September 2018 Homepage

Based on the results of the 2018 assessment, fishery managers are recommending severe cuts in catch for 2019-2021.

“Recruitment over the last few years has been pretty low,” Matt Cieri, a marine resource scientist and herring expert with the Maine Department of Marine Resources, told the ASMFC, adding that 2016 showed the lowest recruitment on record.

At its June meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) projected large quota reductions for the fishery from 2019 through 2021. According to a NEFMC news release, NEFMC’s Atlantic Herring Stock Assessment Working Group expressed concern that the population now contains more age 6 fish than age 1 and age 2 fish combined.

“If these estimates hold true, then the spawning stock biomass of Atlantic herring is apt to remain relatively low without improved recruitment,” the release said. “The Council recognized that very large quota reductions may be inevitable in the 2019-2021 specifications package given the preliminary assessment results.”

The stock assessment indicates that recruitment – incoming year classes of newly born fish – has been poor for several years. Four of the six lowest recruitment years occurred in 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017.

“This means very few young fish have been added to the resource in recent years,” according to the release.

Projections suggest that, if the full 2018 allowable biological catch (ABC) of 111,000 metric tons (mt) is harvested, the 2019 catch could be limited to 13,700 mt. In contrast, if half of the 2018 ABC is harvested (55,000 mt), the 2019 catch could be set at 28,900 mt. In short, reducing the 2018 catch could lessen the severity of cuts implemented in 2019.

In light of that information, NEFMC passed a motion regarding the 2018 herring fishery that asked the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) regional administrator to cap the 2018 harvest at the 2017 catch levels

in management areas 1A, 1B, and 3; and to set the Area 2 sub-ACL (allowable catch limit) at 8,200 mt. Area 2 has already surpassed 2017 landings; NEFMC recommended the cap of an additional 8,200 mt in order to provide some quota for the early winter small-mesh bottom trawl fishery.

Those numbers would be as follow:

• Area 1A: current sub-ACL 32,084; NEFMC’s recommended sub-ACL 28,682; % of Current 2018 Sub-ACL 89.40%

• Area 1B: current sub-ACL 3,552; NEFMC’s recommended sub-ACL 2,639; % of Current 2018 Sub-ACL 74.30%

• Area 2: current sub-ACL 31,137; NEFMC’s recommended sub-ACL 8,200; % of Current 2018 Sub-ACL 26.34%

• Area 3: current sub-ACL 43,763; NEFMC’s recommended sub-ACL 14,134; % of Current 2018 Sub-ACL 32.30%

If NMFS adopts NEFMC’s recommendation, the ASFMC would have different specifications in place in state waters for the 2018 fishery than those in federal waters. That left it to ASFMC to decide whether to change is specifications to conform with NEFMC’s.

Cieri said that biomass declined through the 1970s and 1980s, increased in the 1990s into the 2000s, then declined in recent years. Surveys today shows that most of the total biomass consists of mature spawning stock biomass, thus indicating a lack of recruitment.

Projections of two scenarios result in different risk levels for overfishing, he said.

The scenarios used the existing 2018 ABC of 111,000 mt, compared with an ABC of 55,000 mt, which was actually caught in 2017.

Setting an 111,000 mt resulted in a 95 percent chance of overfishing and a 96 percent chance of being overfished.

The 55,000 mt ABC would be more realistic, he said. For 2018, it would result in a 70 percent chance of overfishing and a 76 percent chance of being overfished. There would still be a greater than 50 percent chance of being overfished by 2021.

“The good thing is that the fishery is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring,” Cieri said of the fishery’s current status. However, he said, lower recruitment has led to the erosion of spawning stock biomass over the last few years, and will more than likely lead to being overfished in a short amount of time.

“Would a layman’s takeaway be that we’ll have to drastically cut quotas for a minimum of four years?” one ASFMC member asked Cieri. “And if we do not return to more normal recruitment, this is going to be a fairly long-term problem?”

“Yes,” responded Cieri. “If your levels of recruitment don’t increase, the stock will be in a low state. You can’t take fish that aren’t there.”

“Why are we getting such poor recruitment from a sizeable spawning stock biomass?” another ASMFC member asked. “Is it traceable to fishing pressure, to environmental issues? What do you feel is the driver in the continuing drop in recruitment?”

“The answer is complex,” said Cieri. “You’ve got spawning stock biomass, which is capable of producing next to no recruitment or a whole lot of recruitment. There’s no easy answer. We don’t know if there’s an environmental drive, or whether there’s simply a match or mismatch—whether larvae is not in the water column at the right time. It’s been four years in a row. That’s concerning.”

“Looking at spawning stock biomass going back over time, and reflecting back on the 1970s, we concluded then that the sea herring fishery had collapsed,” said ASFMC member David Pierce. “That led to the decimation of Massachusetts’ herring fishery. I see we’re at about that same spawning stock biomass. So I conclude we’re pretty much collapsed….In 2015, 2016, 2107, age 1 recruitment was extremely low.”

Pierce wanted to know what methods were used to determine that recruitment was low. In the past, he said, fixed gear was an important tool for judging the strength of year classes, but those have largely disappeared. “So what do we now use to get this conclusion that we’re going to hell in a hand basket, that age 1 fish are pretty much not there?” he asked.

Cieri said some fixed gear fisheries still exist and provide reliable information on class strength.

The ASMFC also considered modified sub-ACLs for the fishery, given the projection of severe ACL cuts for 2019 through 2021. The goal was to align sub-ACLs in state water with those that were requested for federal waters by NEFMC. NEFMC’s recommendations been approved by NMFS. That left ASFMC to decide whether to take no action for now, to adopt the projected sub-ACLs and make them conditional on NMFS’ action, or to wait on NMFS’ decision and then address the question of changing the sub-ACLs in state waters via conference call.

NMFS Regional Administrator Michael Pentony told the ASMFC that NMFS was awaiting the final results of the herring stock assessment while it considered NEFMC’s recommendation.

However, he added, the in-season adjustment regulation that NEFMC was referring to says that adjustments must be consistent with fishery management plan objectives.

“Generally, the golden rule is that we not set any catch levels that would have more than a 50 percent probability of resulting in overfishing,” Pentony said. That compares with NEFMC’s recommendation of 55,000 mt, which results in a 69 percent probability of overfishing. “So the challenge for us, as we look at the recommendation and weigh what to do, is we feel we cannot make adjustments that will result in higher than 50 percent probability of overfishing,” he continued. “What you don’t have is—what is that number?”

In a June 21 memo to Petony, NEFMC Executive Director Tom Nies wrote that annual quotas of about 50,000 mt “would be a much better place to start the 2019 fishing year compared to over 100,000 mt, in light of anticipated reductions ahead that will potentially be even lower than 50,000 mt.”

Interstate Fisheries Management Program Director Toni Kerns told the ASMFC that new projections show a catch of not quite 50,000 mt would lead to the 50 percent probability figure.