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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 3
November 2007
NE council preps to set ’08-’09 scallop specs
PLYMOUTH, MA – In preparation for its final decision-making meeting on Oct. 25, the New England Fishery Management Council took several actions in mid-September regarding Framework 19 to the scallop plan.
The framework will set specifications for the next two scallop fishing years – 2008 and 2009 – and will contain:
Open-area days-at-sea allocations for the limited-access fleet;
A new area rotation schedule for scallop access areas;
Measures for general category vessels based on Amendment 11, which, if approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), will bring this fleet under a limited-entry program with individual fishing quotas;
Adjustments to the industry-funded observer program; and
An allowance for a 30-day vessel monitoring system power-down for nonactive vessels.
While final numbers were still being calculated, Deirdre Boelke, the council’s scallop plan coordinator and chair of the scallop plan development team (PDT), said, “We are expecting a moderate decrease in the number of open-area days-at-sea for both 2008 and 2009.”
During 2007, full-time limited-access scallopers were allocated 51 open-area days, while part-time and occasional scallopers were allocated 20 and four days respectively.
Furthermore, based on new survey data, the PDT has identified two new “hot spots” of small scallops – one in the general Hudson Canyon area and another in the Great South Channel abutting Closed Area I. Should the council decide to take action, these areas could be closed and then reopened a few years down the road under the rotational access-area program.
The council initially was scheduled to cast final votes on Framework 19 at its Sept. 18-19 meeting. But instead, it scheduled a special, one-day Oct. 25 meeting to complete the document because more work needed to be done on several fronts.
That special meeting took place just after Commercial Fisheries News went to press.
The council did, however, pass several motions in September that set the general course for Framework 19. Here’s a re-cap of what happened.
Implementation
One benefit of the five-week delay was that the PDT was able to use the latest survey information to develop recommendations for days-at-sea specifications and the area rotation schedule.
However, the delay also means that NMFS will have less time to review the framework and might not be able to implement the measures by March 1, the start of the 2008 scallop fishing year.
Given this possibility, the council voted to include several back-up measures in the framework to ensure that any fishing activity between March 1 and the framework’s implementation will be accounted for.
In short, the council agreed that:
Any open-area days used in 2008 above the number allocated will be deducted from 2009;
Any general category Elephant Trunk Area trips taken in 2008 above the number allocated will be deducted from 2009;
Any overage of the general category hard total allowable catch (TAC) for Quarter 1, which runs March 1-May 31, will be deducted from Quarter 3 and/or Quarter 4;
Any fishing activity that takes place in the Hudson Canyon area, which will revert to an open area on March 1, will “have to be considered;” and
Any landings from within the Northern Gulf of Maine area caught in fishing year 2008 above the hard TAC will be deducted from the following year’s TAC.
Hudson Canyon
Possibly the most controversial decision made by the council related to Hudson Canyon, which was first closed in 1998 to protect small scallops and then was reopened as a controlled access area in 2001.
The biomass of large scallops in the area didn’t turn out to be as high as initially projected, and scallopers had a hard time making economical trips a few years into the rotation, especially in 2005.
The area was supposed to revert to an open area in 2006, but the council extended the access-area provisions to allow fishermen with unused 2005 trips to continue making them in the Hudson Canyon area in 2006 and/or 2007.
Despite this extension, approximately 2 million pounds of scallops remain unharvested from allocated 2005 trips. Over 900 trips were allocated. As of Sept. 10, roughly 116 trips had yet to be taken.
Framework 19 initially proposed extending the deadline once again – or allowing scallopers to take unused trips at a reduced level in either the Elephant Trunk Area or open areas.
Ron Smolowitz of the Fisheries Survival Fund argued against the latter approach.
“The Fisheries Survival Fund is adamantly opposed to this,” he said. “This is tremendously unfair to the people who abided by the agreement and it would add a lot of controversy. This is just wrong and it should not be done.”
NMFS Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul didn’t support the option either.
“We don’t think this is a good alternative,” she said. “It gives the impression that people are guaranteed trips when we really don’t want to give that impression at all.”
The council voted to remove the Elephant Trunk Area/open area option from Framework 19 but kept alive consideration of an alternative to extend the deadline for using Hudson Canyon trips by an additional three months – until May 1, 2008.
The other option is “no action,” which would allow the Hudson Canyon area to revert to an open area and all unused trips would expire. Under this option, anyone with unused Hudson Canyon trips could still make those trips through Feb. 28, 2008, the last day of the 2007 fishing year.
“A promise”
New Bedford vessel owner Harriet Didriksen was stunned by the decision to delete the Elephant Trunk Area/open area option and asked the council to reconsider. She argued that limited-access permit holders had 12 open-area days deducted from potential allocations in 2005 in exchange for each Hudson Canyon trip.
“To me that’s a quota,” she said. “We have open days, and we have quota days. Now to take those trips away and not give people an opportunity to get them – I don’t know how you can do that. It was a promise.”
Didriksen said her own boat tried to make a trip in the area.
“I called them home,” she said. “The product is small. With the 4" rings, it’s hard to catch.”
However, Didriksen said she and others wanted the opportunity to go back to the area once the scallops got bigger and fishing became profitable again.
“I don’t know anybody fishing who if they can get a trip wouldn’t go there and get their money,” she said. “I would ask that this be reconsidered and that it be an option.”
The council did not reconsider its decision.
Georges Bank access
After reviewing available data, the PDT preliminarily determined that only one access-area trip should be allocated on Georges Bank during each of the next two fishing years – possibly one trip into the Nantucket Lightship area in 2008 and then one trip into Closed Area II in 2009.
The PDT did not support access into Closed Area I, especially since the allowable fishing bottom within the area was significantly reduced to accommodate a habitat closure.
Smolowitz, who recently conducted research in Closed Area I, disagreed.
“I just think there needs to be some access into Closed Area I, even if at a reduced level,” he said.
Many of the scallops there were U-10s, he said.
“They might not be there in three years. It would be a total waste to not have access to that area,” Smolowitz said.
Since the PDT’s rotational area schedule had not been completed, the council took no action on this subject.
Delmarva
The council did, however, make one decision about the Delmarva area, which closed in 2007 and was set to reopen as a controlled access area in 2010.
After reviewing new survey information and growth rate data indicating that scallops in the Mid-Atlantic grow faster than on Georges Bank, the PDT determined that the Delmarva area should be able to support one full trip at the 18,000-pound level during 2009.
The council voted that if a trip is allowed, the same seasonal September/October sea turtle closure that applies to the Elephant Trunk Area also would apply to Delmarva, as would a new “notice action procedure” to allow the NMFS regional administrator to adjust trips downward if updated biomass information suggests that fishing mortality is too high.
Regarding the turtle closure, Boelke explained, “This area is not meant to be a closure to protect sea turtles. This is a scallop rotation area, and the seasonal closure would just reduce the potential interactions with sea turtles.”
Fishing mortality
Even though the council had a chance to increase the fishing mortality rate on scallops based on the recently released stock assessment, it opted to pursue a more conservative line.
Scientists used a new model to conduct the assessment and concluded that the fishing mortality threshold for scallops could be revised from 0.24 to 0.29, which could allow for more effort. However, they did not revise the fishing mortality “target,” which is considered to be a safer and more desirable level than the threshold. That target is 0.20.
The council, which already has the 0.20 target in place, voted to maintain it in Framework 19.
Smolowitz said, “We realize it’s conservative and restricts our catch, but the Fisheries Survival Fund supports this option, as long as the council understands this is a conservative strategy and may need to change in the future.”
Janice M. Plante
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