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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 2
October 2005
NE council holds off on GC scallop action
PROVIDENCE, RI – General category (GC) scallopers will not be subjected to new regulations during the 2006 fishing year.
However, at its Sept. 13-15 meeting here, the New England Fishery Management Council strongly suggested that it intends to begin work very soon on a focused amendment to the federal scallop plan to seriously curb effort in this rapidly expanding fishery.
 The measures we’re discussing are not addressing the critical issue of growth in the fishery. They’re fiddling around the edges.
—George Lapointe
The council also reiterated its intent to stick by the published control date for determining future access to the fishery. The general category control date is Nov. 1, 2004.
The status quo decision came as a shock to many people given that the council opened its meeting with three significant proposals on the table to put some restraints on the general category fishery. The proposals were part of Framework Adjustment 18, which will regulate the 2006 and 2007 scallop fishing years.
Up for immediate consideration were actions to restrict dredges throughout the range of the resource to a maximum of 10.5' in width and possibly eliminate or seriously curtail the general category net fishery.
I don’t understand your concerns about the trawl fishery, at least out of our port. If these rules are passed, you will most likely stop the fishery for scallops out of Shinnecock.
—Jeff Kraus
Furthermore, based on a recommendation from its scallop committee, the council was considering imposing a four-man crew size limit and reducing the possession limit for general category permit holders to 350 pounds, down from the current 400 pounds.
But Maine council member George Lapointe said he didn’t believe any of the suggested general category actions would be effective.
“The measures we’re discussing are not addressing the critical issue of growth in the fishery. They’re fiddling around the edges,” he said.
Lapointe then led the charge to maintain “status quo” in Framework 18 and have the council address the general category fishery in a more comprehensive way in a full amendment.
As part of this strategy, the council voted to designate all Framework 18 general category measures as “considered but rejected.” That means the items can’t come up again for consideration in November when the council casts its final vote on the framework.
Framework vs. amendment
General category scallopers from Maine to New Jersey turned out for the meeting. They and their representatives urged the council to not take action that would hurt long-standing participants in the fishery without getting at the root of the problem, which some described as burgeoning — and at times illegal – landings by new participants in the fishery.
Attorney Stephen Ouellette spoke on behalf of roughly 20 general category scallopers from Barnegat Light, NJ and other Mid-Atlantic ports.
“You’re in the process of completely reshaping the general category fishery,” he told the council. “That may be needed, but the question is whether it’s appropriate to be making decisions in a framework that are going to profoundly affect a fishery. It probably requires a full range of public hearings to go down that path.”
Net boats
Jeff Kraus of Shinnecock, NY made the trip to Providence on behalf of close to 20 vessels in his own home port that net fish for scallops and depend on the general category fishery for parts of the year when not working on squid, groundfish, or other species.
“We were very disturbed to hear about the council’s proposals,” he said. “Our fishery is very clean and efficient.”
According to Kraus, Shinnecock scallopers primarily tow nets with 6-1/2" square mesh codends and catch scallops in the 20-to-30-count range.
“We get virtually zero scallops under that size and our groundfish bycatch is infinitesimal,” he said.
Kraus characterized the council’s proposed actions as extreme.
“I don’t understand your concerns about the trawl fishery, at least out of our port,” he said. “If these rules are passed, you will most likely stop the fishery for scallops out of Shinnecock. These will keep us out of the fishery.”
Scallop committee Chairman and council Vice Chair Tom Hill of Massachusetts, however, said numerous scientific studies indicated that the selectivity of fishing for scallops with a net wasn’t as good as with a dredge.
“Most of the people in the fishery thought we were making a transition from the net fishery to the dredge fishery,” he said. “I do think this is appropriate for the council to consider.”
Massachusetts council member David Pierce also supported a net restriction.
“We need to protect small scallops. That will be the future of this fishery,” he said.
Landings could soar
Hill furthermore expressed concern that the council was underestimating the impact of general category landings.
To illustrate the point, he said, “There are roughly 2,800 general category permits out there. If 10 percent of them fish 100 days each and get 40,000 pounds per boat, that’s almost 11.2 million pounds of scallops. This is a significant issue.”
But several council members, as well as attorney Ouellette, expressed reservations about making what they considered to be “allocative decisions” through a framework adjustment.
Hill wasn’t swayed and said, “I believe every management action we take has some form of allocation in it.”
Pierce, too, continued to push for action, stating that Framework 18 contained adequate justification for slowing down general category growth.
“We’ll be going with status quo for how many more years? What will general category landings be by then?” he asked.
Amendment wins out
Despite these arguments, it soon became evident that the council would adopt status quo for now and commit itself to developing a new, all-inclusive general category amendment.
Hill expressed deep disappointment.
“It’s inappropriate to presume that because we can’t fix the entire problem we shouldn’t take some action to ameliorate the problem. We are basically laying to waste the ability of the council to take incremental action. It is fundamentally wrong from a process standpoint,” he said.
Lapointe, on the other hand, said he was convinced the proposed general category actions would do nothing to stop growth in the fishery.
“I would argue that the 280 permits and 100 days and 11 million pounds would not change materially based on the measures we’re talking about,” he said.
National Marine Fisheries Service Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul voiced support for the amendment approach.
“I do think we’ve let the general category fishery go unconstrained for too long. But we need to address it in a comprehensive way,” she said.
Limited-access fleet
Limited-access scallopers in the audience were angry and frustrated over the council’s actions, arguing that unchecked general category activity was undermining efforts by the full-time fleet to rebuild and properly manage the fishery.
Attorney David Frulla of the Fisheries Survival Fund said, “We’ve come before this council for years now talking about the general category and no one believed us.”
Referring to the limited-access fishery, he said, “You ought to think about protecting one of your success stories.”
Dennis Spitsburgen of North Carolina, the Mid-Atlantic council’s nonvoting liaison to the New England council, urged the council to make the scallop amendment a workload priority for 2006.
“I would certainly hope all efforts could be made to have this amendment done for the start of the 2007 season,” he said.
Finally, vessel owner Dan Cohen of New Jersey asked the council to “clarify the focus” of the amendment and plainly indicate that it will be reserved for general category issues only.
“You need to say you will have an amendment for one purpose and then get it done in one year,” he said. “Otherwise, everyone is going to try to glom on to it and it’ll take two-to-three years.”
Janice M. Plante
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