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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 3
November 2007
Diodati to end CCB bluefin seining in 2008
WESTON, MA – Bluefin tuna fishermen crammed a Weston Library conference room for the Oct. 11 meeting of the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Commission following news that a purse seiner had made multiple sets in Cape Cod Bay (CCB) in recent days.
The idea of seining in the bay has been contentious for years with many general and harpoon category fishermen arguing that a seine boat has the capacity to “clean out” the area, denying them opportunity to catch fish. At the same time, the seiners have protested that they have the legal and historical right to fish in the bay and do so only under heavy state restrictions designed to separate them from other user groups.
At a meeting earlier in the summer, the commission rejected a Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) recommendation to extend a one-year ban on purse seining instituted in 2006 in Cape Cod Bay because it concluded that general category representatives had failed to negotiate in good faith a resolution to the problem with the seiners as the commission had requested.
This time around, however, DMF Director Paul Diodati announced that he would take unilateral action to resolve the issue once and for all. Speaking to the commission and the unusually quiet crowd of about 80 fishermen watched over by three armed and uniformed environmental police officers (EPOs), Diodati said that, starting in 2008, he would “condition” bluefin seiner permits to prohibit them from fishing in Cape Cod Bay “until further notice.”
In the meantime, the single seine vessel operating this year would be allowed to continue fishing in the bay through the rest of the season under existing restrictions. Even in a good year, the seine season typically wraps up by the end of October.
In making his announcement, Diodati stressed that the seiner crew had done nothing wrong and nothing illegal by fishing this year.
“The seine operators have operated with expertise and within the laws and rules of the commonwealth,” he said. “With that and with the sentiment of the commission, my intention is to allow them to continue to fish through the end of 2007.”
Authority
Diodati went on to explain that under state licensing rules he has the authority to place conditions on any permit issued by DMF and that he would add a precise Cape Cod Bay prohibition as a condition to bluefin seiner permit renewals in the future, although purse seiners still would be able to fish in other waters of the commonwealth.
He said the ban was warranted because he was convinced that Cape Cod Bay “attracts giants” and they are “vulnerable” in the relatively confined area of the bay.
“And, as multiple sets are made, the catch is diminished for all users,” Diodati said.
Continuing his reasons, the DMF director said that abundance of bluefin is down and, while there have been “no gear conflicts,” there have been “user conflicts,” referring to the intense animosity between handgear fishermen and bluefin tuna seiners in the bay over the years.
Finally, Diodati answered a rumored criticism of his request to have EPOs in the vicinity when the seiner went into the bay to fish this season.
“I have requested the EPOs to be out there not to protect the seiner but to protect the public and ensure the rules and regulations of the commonwealth are followed,” he said.
Quota concerns
Commission member Patsy Frontierro handed out a list of reasons why he felt the seiners should not be banned from the bay. He noted the seine fishery has a 42-year history and has provided “tremendous long-term economic benefit and economic activity to the commonwealth.”
He said the fact that there has been a decline in hook and line effort due to rising fuel costs, fish prices, and reduced fish availability significantly diminished the likelihood of gear conflicts.
Frontierro also noted that the precipitous drop in US bluefin landings in recent years likely would lead to further cuts in US quota when the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) meets in November.
“You’re going to lose all your quota to foreign competitors,” Frontierro said. “If you’re going to close it for conservation reasons then close it to everybody.”
ICCAT
Commission Chairman Vito Calomo called on East Coast Tuna Association Executive Director Rich Ruais, who has served as a member of the US ICCAT delegation since 1991, to explain the international quota allocation situation.
Ruais said ICCAT has long had a “use it or lose it” policy, which recently became even stronger with the adoption of an “allocation document” meant to encourage marginal fishing nations, such as Belize and Honduras, to join ICCAT, comply with its reporting and harvesting rules, and be rewarded with legitimate quota allocations.
“The policy is specific that, over time, quota will be taken from the ‘haves’ and be given to the ‘have-nots,’” Ruais said.
While the US currently has much more quota than it’s been able to catch, once a portion of that allocation is reallocated to another country, the US will have little if any chance of getting the lost quota back when and if the bluefin stock rebounds.
Diodati responded that, regardless of what’s about to happen at ICCAT, the US fishery has been “maximized” in 2007 because the seiners were allowed to fish under current rules and would continue to be through the end of the year.
“We’re talking about (restrictions) for next year,” he said.
Limited comment
Reminding the crowd that they were attending a commission meeting that was open to the public as opposed to a public hearing, Calomo sternly warned the audience that he would accept comments from only two individuals – one from each side of the conflict.
Representing the General Category Tuna Association, Peter Weiss thanked Diodati for “making a decision that’s long over due.”
“There’s plenty of water outside Cape Cod Bay,” he said. “The bay is a fish bowl and seining shouldn’t be allowed there. We hope ‘further notice’ in this case means forever and ever.”
During his remarks, long-time bluefin tuna purse seine boat owner Leonard Ingrande appeared to struggle to come to terms with how bitterly divisive the situation had become.
“What I see here are a lot of hard working fishermen who were one time friends,” he said, naming individuals in the audience who won’t even talk to him any more. “I’ve been in the fishing business since 1942. My father and grandfather were fishermen. My son, grandson, and son-in-law are fishermen. I have never deprived anyone of the right to fish. This is unfair and it is collusion.”
Ingrande added that his boat made a total of three sets this fall in Cape Cod Bay and caught just 109 giants weighing a total of about 31 metric tons – less than 10% of the purse seine quota this year. And he said the EPOs present would confirm that there were only five other boats in the area when the seine operations took place.
“Good luck to you fellows. I’m out of here. You’ve done a good job,” Ingrande said, adding as he looked at the fishermen in the crowded room, “I hold no animosity toward anyone.”
His remarks ended the discussion since Diodati’s statement of his intention to condition seiner permits did not require any action on the part of the commission.
Cod zone
Following the bluefin discussion, most fishermen in the audience left. The exception was a handful of groundfish fishermen and others with an interest in another controversial state regulatory action – the one that established the Cod Conservation Zone (CCZ).
When DMF recommended and the commission endorsed creation of the zone in 2005, they did it with a two-year sunset clause. At the October meeting, Diodati asked the commission to continue the Dec. 1-Feb. 28 closure indefinitely. And he ran into some surprising opposition.
The CCZ first went into effect as an emergency rule in 2003-2004 when Massachusetts came under tremendous pressure to reduce fishing effort on cod aggregations in state waters to prevent an undermining of federal groundfish limits. Those limits included days-at-sea reductions that did not apply to fishermen who either held only a state permit or delayed renewal of their federal permits in order to fish for part of the year under state permit rules.
At the time, there was extensive survey data to indicate spawning cod were congregating outside of Boston Harbor in significant numbers during the winter months not seen anywhere else in the entire range of the stock. There was also concern that fishing effort directed on this aggregation was targeting some of the last substantial breeding concentrations of codfish in the region.
During the last two years, DMF has tracked landings and worked with some gillnetters to conduct surveys in the CCZ to document the presence of cod during the closure months.
Diodati said the closure had achieved the state’s goal of reducing landings from the area by about 30%, which conforms to federal cutback levels, and all the data indicated that continuation of the closure was warranted.
Surprising opposition
Commission member Bill Adler said he would not support the extension because dredging operations to renourish eroded beaches in the town of Winthrop were about to begin and the sand removal would undo any good that preventing fishing in the area would do.
“I am not going to vote for this. They’re going to kick the fishermen out and take the bottom away and put it on a beach,” Adler said. “I have a philosophical problem with this.”
Commission member Mark Amorello said he sympathized with what Adler was saying.
“Bill’s right. It flies in the face of logic that we close it, the fishermen suffer, and then it’s dredged, destroyed as spawning cod ground,” he said.
But Amorello also echoed a point made by commission member Mark Weissman that “two wrongs don’t make a right” and suggested he might vote for a one-year CCZ extension.
Frontierro said he wouldn’t vote for a status quo extension due to plans to put a liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification facility off Cape Ann.
“Once the LNGs get going, their discharge water will be too warm for those fish,” he said.
Frontierro argued for allowing the fishermen at least some access to the area.
“Open it partially so these guys can make some bucks, take a few hundred pounds, that type of fishery,” he said.
Gloucester gillnetter Don King said the closure was unfair to Massachusetts fishermen.
“The codfish can’t read. They don’t know they’re supposed to go up off of Rockland, ME,” he said. “The onus of rebuilding this cod fishery is falling on the shoulders of 27 state-only gillnetters.”
In the end, however, the commission approved the extension in a 4-to-2 vote.
Sectors
Another subject discussed during the meeting was how DMF planned to handle looming quota cuts for several important species, including groundfish, summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass.
The agency recently held a meeting for people in the state intending to pursue setting up sectors through the New England Fishery Management Council groundfish management process.
Diodati explained that DMF’s goal regarding sectors is “the preservation of Massachusetts fishing communities” and that the agency was expecting to receive state funding specifically to help DMF “administer the development of sectors.”
“The purpose of the meeting was to evaluate the pros and cons of sectors and determine how to advocate for the best interest of the commonwealth,” he said.
Amorello, a former New England council member, said he never liked the idea of sectors but now was worried that individual fishermen who didn’t align themselves with a sector would be “left with the crumbs.”
DMF Deputy Director David Pierce, who is heavily involved with groundfish management through the council, agreed there is cause for concern.
“Potentially, common pool participants could be in dire straits,” he said.
Pierce added that DMF is thinking about ways to obtain “specific allocations for state waters,” not necessarily through a sector allocation but in some way.
He added that one big concern over sectors is the redirection of effort on to other species.
Pierce also said the state and its fishermen need to keep tabs on anticipated National Marine Fisheries Service overfishing guidelines for the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act as amended late in 2006.
Of the guidelines, he said, “I suspect they will result in hard quotas.”
ITQs?
Later in the meeting, during a discussion about future limits on state waters gillnetters, Gloucester gillnetter Lou Williams said out loud what some industry people have been thinking lately concerning individual transferable quotas (ITQs).
“I think we’ve wasted a lot of time in the last few years. ITQs are coming and we should get ahead of them in state waters,” he said.
Russ Cleary, acting executive director of the Commercial Anglers Association and a long-time opponent of ITQs, asked for and received the go-ahead to make a comment.
“Many things are supposed to be inevitable, but a lot of freight trains going in one direction can be changed,” he said, such as averting gamefish status for striped bass in Massachusetts.
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