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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 3
November 2009
Yellowtail ACL could crush scallop fleet
PLYMOUTH, MA – Scallopers have known for months that the situation could be grim, but during the New England Fishery Management Council’s mid-September meeting here, the reality became all too clear. There will not – absolutely will not – be enough yellowtail flounder quota available to fill the needs of both the Atlantic sea scallop and Northeast multispecies fisheries.
That means the council will be confronted with possibly its most difficult allocation decision ever – divvying up extremely small yellowtail quotas between the region’s healthy, multimillion dollar scallop fishery and its treasured, age-old groundfish fishery.
“This is pitting fishermen against fishermen here with these extremely limited resources,” said New Hampshire council member David Goethel. “You’re going to have to decide whose fish these are.”
Maine council member Terry Stockwell added, “We need to be looking at measures to support both fisheries without gut-shooting either of them.”
The yellowtail problem came to the forefront when the council began earnestly working on annual catch limits (ACLs) and accountability measures (AMs) for Amendment 15 to the scallop plan.
Beginning in 2011, the scallop fishery will be bound by ACLs, which is really another term for hard quotas. The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) now requires ACLs for all fisheries around the country, and they must account for all catch and bycatch.
ACLs stem from each fishery’s acceptable biological catch (ABC). ABCs are determined by the council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC).
Under the reauthorized MSA, it’s almost impossible to change an SSC-recommended ABC, a hard fact that both industry and council members are still trying to get used to.
AM options
Scallopers do encounter yellowtail as bycatch in certain areas, which means the fleet will need yellowtail ACLs for different stock areas in addition to its scallop ACL. Exact ACLs have yet to be finalized, but it’s already known that, in the case of yellowtail, the numbers will be low.
What makes the size of the yellowtail allocation so critical is that the MSA now also requires AMs – accountability measures that are automatically triggered when a catch limit is exceeded.
So if scallopers exceed a yellowtail ACL, there will be consequences. In a worst-case scenario, the scallop fishery could be shut down in a given yellowtail stock area.
Amendment 15 proposes several AM alternatives for yellowtail, all of which are unpalatable to scallopers, who have argued against them.
One AM proposes to close a particular portion of a yellowtail stock area where high yellowtail catches occur, possibly a statistical block within a bigger stock area, for example. Another proposes to close the entire yellowtail stock area if yellowtail catches are too high.
Other options vary between the limited-access fleet and the general category individual fishing quota (IFQ) fleet and center around days-at-sea and IFQ reductions per stock area. All will be aired during public hearings in March or April.
Drew Minkiewicz of the Fisheries Survival Fund strongly opposed the use of such drastic and blunt AMs for yellowtail.
“There are so many other things this council could do,” he said. “Let us into areas where there are a lot of scallops and very little yellowtail. Right there you’ll relieve a lot of steam from this issue.”
Minkiewicz also stressed that industry was working hard on gear modifications and other potential solutions, as well as seeking changes to the opening date of rotational access-areas, which could significantly reduce yellowtail bycatch.
“The scallop industry is absolutely committed to bringing down our yellowtail bycatch. We are continuing to work on it,” he said.
Big numbers
The council extensively debated the problem after hearing a joint report from groundfish plan development team (PDT) Chair Tom Nies and scallop PDT Chair Deirdre Boelke, who are both council staffers.
The two PDTs estimated that scallopers would need the following yellowtail allocations to successfully prosecute their fishery:
Between 11% and 29% of the Georges Bank yellowtail ACL;
Between 14% and 41% of the Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail ACL; and
Less than 5% of the Cape Cod/Gulf of Maine yellowtail flounder ACL.
The percentage range is large because the amount of yellowtail will vary under different scallop allocation scenarios.
How much is fair?
According to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Atlantic sea scallop landings in 2008 were valued at almost $370 million. Recognizing the enormous economic value of this fishery, the council first considered a motion to allocate scallopers the full amount of yellowtail they needed.
But several council members quickly objected to making such a pivotal decision without first obtaining more information about the needs of the groundfish fishery.
Maine council member Jim Odlin said, “I fully recognize the importance of the scallop fleet and I always try to support them, but now we’re looking at allocating less and less resource. These types of decisions can make a difference as to whether an individual stays in business.”
The council then considered a motion to allocate scallopers 5% of the yellowtail ACLs, which some considered to be far too low.
Mid-Atlantic council Chairman Rick Robins, who sits on the New England council’s scallop committee, said, “What we do need is a comprehensive solution to try to minimize interactions and maximize yield across all of these fisheries.”
Robins further expressed concern about locking the scallop fleet into a fixed percentage.
“We’re going to need some flexibility to deal with the rotational nature of the fishery and other variables,” he said.
Try again
On its third try, the council approved a motion asking its PDTs to “develop an analysis of groundfish/scallop revenue impacts under the different scenarios and the effects on fishing opportunities” and to “determine the management uncertainty” associated with the yellowtail ACLs to the different fisheries.
NMFS Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul strongly supported the motion.
“This is clearly an allocation decision and this is the kind of information the council needs to make this allocation decision,” she said. “It’s a public resource and you need to make the best use of the resource.”
Council Chairman John Pappalardo said he recognized the council currently was limited in the tools it could use to address the yellowtail problem, but he was convinced that broader solutions existed.
“It’s unfortunate we’re only looking at this from one side – ‘How much are we willing to take away from the groundfish fishery to give to the scallop fishery?’” he said.
“There are other ways. There are market-based solutions where groundfish fishermen could lease allocation to scallopers,” he said. “I really think that’s the way this council is going to have to deal with these resource issues in the long term.”
The council will review the PDT analysis and make its final yellowtail ACL decisions at its Nov. 17-19 meeting in Newport, RI.
Janice M. Plante
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