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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 2
October 2009
Grave future for groundfish common pool boats
PLYMOUTH, MA – The preliminary numbers are in, and now the New England Fishery Management Council is extremely concerned that, even though the vast majority of active groundfish vessels have enrolled in sectors, there may still be too much effort in the “common pool,” raising fears that those vessels will exceed their extremely small annual catch limits (ACLs) on numerous stocks, especially Gulf of Maine cod and pollock.
In response, the council voted during its Sept. 22-24 meeting here to direct its groundfish plan development team to come up with measures to “slow the catch” of common pool vessels through trip limit adjustments and/or differential days-at-sea counting. These measures would go into the Amendment 16 ACL specification package.
Furthermore, the council voted to give the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) regional administrator authority to make further “in-season” adjustments as needed.
These additional restrictions – by all accounts – will be devastating for common pool fishermen, who are now in the minority.
According to NMFS Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul, 723 vessels, representing well over 90% of groundfish catch history and 82% of all days-at-sea in the fishery, had decided to join sectors as of the Sept. 1 deadline.
“The majority of the active vessels at this point are signed up for sectors,” Kurkul said, adding that roughly 600 boats have been actively fishing for groundfish over the past few years.
“Over before it starts”
Here’s an early look at the numbers.
Preliminary ACLs, which won’t be finalized by the council until November, indicate that fishermen who enrolled in 17 different sectors will receive 92% to 97% of the ACLs for almost all groundfish stocks. The exceptions are Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder and Gulf of Maine winter flounder, of which sector boats will get 72.6% and 83.5% respectively.
That means the entire common pool could be left with only 3% to 8% of most ACLs, which, tonnage wise, translates into about 337 metric tons (mt) of Gulf of Maine cod, 38 mt of Gulf of Maine haddock, and 118 mt of pollock. That is for the entire 2010 fishing year for all common pool boats collectively.
“This is over before it starts. We won’t be going for a week before exceeding these ACLs,” said New Hampshire council member David Goethel.
Goethel said he knew of several fishermen who were considering dropping out of sectors because they thought they’d catch more fish in the common pool given the sector ACLs, which also don’t provide enough fish to go around.
But now it appears that common pool boats may have the worst of it.
“I want to make sure the common pool and the people who are thinking of bailing out of sectors have a very clear picture of how dire the consequences are going to be,” he said.
Chance to join
In light of this new development, several council members wanted to give common pool fishermen one more chance to join a sector.
The council approved 19 sectors in Amendment 16, and since only 17 met the Sept. 1 deadline, two more remain on the table.
The council and NMFS agreed to send a joint letter to all groundfish permit holders who had not yet signed into a sector saying they could still join one of the remaining two. The Northeast Seafood Coalition is sponsoring one, and the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association, which combined its two existing Georges Bank cod sectors, is sponsoring the other left by the merge.
NMFS said it would not be able to authorize these sectors by May 1 if either decides to submit membership rosters and operations plans, but it would move as quickly as possible. Members would not be able to fish for groundfish in 2010 until the sector was authorized.
Janice M. Plante
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