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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 3
November 2005
Northern shrimp stock looking good; New England catch should go up
WEST BOOTHBAY HARBOR, ME – In a remarkable turn of events, scientists on this summer’s Gloria Michelle shrimp survey came home with some tremendous news.
“We saw shrimp, and I mean a lot of shrimp,” said Dan Schick of the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), who took part in two of the four survey legs.
“This is literally the most shrimp I’ve seen on any survey, and I’ve been going out since 1976,” he said.
With two extraordinary back-to-back year classes bolstering the biomass, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Northern Shrimp Technical Committee quickly realized that landings could significantly – and safely – increase during the upcoming 2006 season, possibly to as much as 5,200 metric tons (mt), which is over 11.4 million pounds.
However, the technical committee considered this number to be the “upper catch limit” to sustain a healthy stock, stressed committee Chair Maggie Hunter, also of the DMR.
Preliminary landings for 2005 indicate that fishermen landed only half that amount last season, so a landings increase of 2,500 mt to 3,000 mt could hugely benefit the fleet.
ASMFC’s shrimp advisory panel was meeting in Portland on Oct. 27 to discuss the technical committee’s harvest limit and hammer out a proposed fishing season.
Both recommendations will be presented to the Northern Shrimp Section on Nov. 8.
Fuel, shrimp price
Across the board, people were buoyed by the greatly improved status of the northern shrimp stock and expected the season to be respectably longer than last year’s 70 days.
“Things look quite good this year, so that’s encouraging,” said DMR Commissioner George Lapointe, who chairs the Northern Shrimp Section.
Fishermen nonetheless had two grave concerns on their minds – the low price of shrimp and the high price of fuel.
“The price was horrible last year, and we’re afraid it’s going to stay horrible,” said Maine fisherman Terry Alexander, chairman of ASMFC’s shrimp advisory panel.
“I saw 50 cents a lot last year, 60 cents some of the time,” he said.
To illustrate the combined fuel/price problem, Alexander said a boat coming in with 2,000 pounds of 50-cent shrimp would get $1,000.
“If you have to spend $350 on fuel, that doesn’t leave much to work with,” he said.
The shrimp price problem is largely due to the fact that many processors got out of the business after weathering several consecutive short seasons that made it impossible to make money, hold a crew, and set up markets.
“We don’t have an infrastructure left. We lost almost everything,” said Alexander.
New Hampshire fisherman Peter Kendall, another ASMFC shrimp adviser, expressed the same concerns about price and limited markets. Kendall owns two vessels and is currently managing the Portsmouth Fish Co-op, which handles shrimp.
“If the price for shrimp is the same as last year and the fuel prices are triple, people aren’t going to go fishing,” he said.
Of the few remaining processors, Kendall said he recognized they were in a tight situation and competing in a tough world market.
“I know the processors need to make money, but there’s a fine line there,” he said. “If the prices aren’t high enough, they’re not going to get any product.”
New process – year two
Despite those worries, fishermen were generally viewing the upcoming season as a welcome opportunity to diversify their operations, assuming the economics even halfway work out. And through ASMFC, they’ll have a chance to determine when and how long they go shrimp fishing.
Last year, the Northern Shrimp Technical Committee stopped issuing season-length recommendations.
Instead, the committee ran the stock assessment, determined a landings cap that was appropriate to safeguard the resource, and then let industry negotiate the season length to best accommodate the needs of fishermen. The only real rule was: keep landings below the technical committee cap.
“I think people were happy with the way we set the season last year,” said Alexander. “We had cooperation between scientists and industry.”
As it turned out, the technical committee recommended a landings cap of 2,500 mt, and industry members figured they could stay within that limit under a 70-day season. The section approved the decision.
Furthermore, industry members negotiated a limited fishery in December, with a handful of days immediately before and after Christmas. The section OK’d this, too, and it marked the fleet’s first December fishery since 1999.
“I think that worked out pretty well,” said Maggie Hunter about the new season-setting format.
Not easy
The fleet did indeed stay below the technical committee’s landing limit, but many said negotiating a season that’s fair to all fishermen and acceptable to processors isn’t easy.
“It’s pretty tricky trying to please everyone,” said Kendall.
Alexander added, “It’s such a wide ranging fishery. We have three states here we’ve got to consider. And what’s good for Massachusetts isn’t necessarily what’s good for Maine.”
Yet Kendall believes industry members throughout the region genuinely try to support each other. Most have long histories in the fishery and know one another well, which makes negotiating face-to-face a little bit easier.
“It comes down to what the majority wants,” he said. “But it’s the same people who have been doing this for so long, so I think it’ll go smoothly again this year. I think we’ll have a decent season.”
Stock status
So what’s going on that’s making things look so good stock wise?
The big news is that the 2004 year class is absolutely enormous. Those shrimp won’t contribute to the fishery for a couple of years yet, but their sheer numbers offer promise for a healthy stock down the road.
“It was off the charts,” said Hunter of the 2004 year class. “We had to adjust the axes to accommodate it. It looked very strong.”
The 2003 year class, which didn’t look all that impressive last year when scientists got their first look during the survey cruise, also came up very strong this summer.
“It apparently wasn’t within the bounds of the survey last year, but this year it did look big,” said Schick.
He also pointed out that 1992/1993 was the last time the resource produced strong year classes back-to-back, and those led to big seasons with high landings in 1995 and 1996 (see graph).
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see some good volumes of shrimp for the next couple of years,” Schick said.
Other year classes
The 2002 year class remains a problem. According to Hunter, it’s still virtually absent, which poses a bit of concern among the scientists.
The 2001 year class, on the other hand, is still “reasonably strong,” she said, but it’s at the end of its line. Shrimp in this year class will be five-year-old females this winter, and they’re on the small side.
In fact, the whole 2001 year class has acted funny from the start. It essentially split into a fast-growing component and a slow one. Scientists think the faster maturing shrimp may have already reproduced and possibly died.
Despite this quirk, the remaining females should contribute nicely to the fishery this year, and the 2003 and 2004 year classes are money in the bank for the future.
Overall, Hunter said, “The summer survey indices were the highest we’ve seen in over 20 years – the highest since the (Gloria Michelle) survey began.”
And Peter Kendall believes the scientists are right.
“I think the shrimp are out there,” he said. “We’re getting them in the big mesh.”
Peter K. Prybot photos
We saw shrimp, and I mean a lot of shrimp. This is literally the most shrimp I’ve seen on any survey, and I’ve been going out since 1976.
– Dan Schick
If the price for shrimp is the same as last year and the fuel prices are triple, people aren’t going to go fishing.
–Peter Kendall
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