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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 4
December 2005
NE council cuts haddock cap for herring fleet
HYANNIS, MA – Vessels participating in the directed herring fishery will have to work under a more restrictive haddock bycatch cap in the future if Amendment 1 to the federal herring plan is approved as it stands now.
At its Nov. 15-17 meeting here, the New England Fishery Management Council voted to cap haddock bycatch at 0.2 percent of the combined Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine haddock total allowable catch (TAC).
The cap will apply to all midwater trawl, pair trawl, and purse seine limited-access permit holders. Discarding of any haddock at sea will be prohibited.
When 90 percent of the 0.2 percent bycatch cap is reached, 90 percent of the haddock stock area will be closed to directed herring fishing.
The council’s action was an unexpected and rather remarkable variation of the one percent bycatch cap identified as a “preferred alternative” in the Amendment 1 public hearing document.
However, according to Connecticut council member David Simpson, who proposed the reduction, the 0.2 percent cap more appropriately reflects the council’s intent because only 20 percent of the herring limited-access trips at best will be monitored by observers. Twenty percent of one percent is 0.2.
Supporters argued that herring vessels could far exceed the higher cap if the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) waited until 90 percent of one percent had been harvested based primarily on data from observed trips.
Going too far?
Maine council member Jim Salisbury expressed concern about the change in direction.
“We have a haddock TAC we’re not even close to reaching. If we were up against reaching the haddock TAC, these discussions might be more appropriate,” he said.
Council member George Lapointe, also of Maine, said, “I’m afraid we’ll have unintended consequences to this that we won’t be able to see our way through.”
Rhode Island council member Phil Ruhle was troubled as well.
Referencing the council’s previous decision to ban midwater trawling from June through September in Area 1A, he said, “We just threw them out of the Gulf of Maine for four months and drove them offshore to the area where the haddock are.”
Ruhle believed coupling the Area 1A seasonal midwater trawl ban with a 0.2 percent haddock bycatch cap simply pushed things too far.
“If we want to drive them out of business, this is a damn good way to do it,” he said.
Massachusetts council member Tom Hill wanted the council to be upfront about the action.
“I think we need to ask the question: Is this to ensure we don’t exceed the TAC for haddock or is this a way of enforcing some discipline on the herring fleet to ensure they don’t continue fishing practices that are inappropriate with a gear that’s supposed to be incapable of catching groundfish?” he said.
Several council members said it was the latter since the haddock TAC, in all likelihood, won’t be attained in the near future.
The joint US/Canada Transboundary Management Guidance Committee (TMGC) has yet to develop final recommendations for Georges Bank groundfish stocks for 2007. However, according to preliminary reports, the very large 2003 haddock year class on both Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine means that a combined haddock TAC could be on the order of 50,000 mt.
For the herring fleet, 0.2 percent of that total would equate to 100 mt or 2.2 million pounds in 2007, though exact numbers won’t be known for a while.
Herring fishermen became less concerned about the 0.2 percent cap after being made aware of the size of the haddock TAC.
The council voted 11-to-4 with two abstentions to adopt the 0.2 percent cap.
Under this alternative, directed herring vessels will be allowed to possess up to 100 pounds of all other regulated groundfish species combined. Minimum fish sizes for all groundfish stocks will be suspended for the herring fleet, and the sale of groundfish regulated species for human consumption will be prohibited.
Since the haddock bycatch cap involves groundfish stocks, the council is simultaneously developing Framework Adjustment 43 to the groundfish plan to address the issue. The framework will be submitted to NMFS in conjunction with herring Amendment 1.
As a unit, however, the two actions won’t be implemented until 2007.
Mary Beth Tooley of the East Coast Pelagic Association urged the council to put Framework 43 on a faster track than Amendment 1 so that haddock bycatch measures could be implemented in 2006.
The emergency action that’s in place right now to address haddock bycatch is scheduled to expire in December. Even if NMFS extends it for an additional 180 days, the extension will expire in June, right about the time herring fishermen most need a haddock allowance.
“I’m very concerned about the timing,” said Tooley. “These (bycatch provisions) are a separate action from the limited-access measures. If they are submitted through Framework 43, then there is a possibility we could have the measures in place for 2006,” she said.
The council did not act to separate Framework 43 from Amendment 1, so the issue of what will happen in 2006 remained unresolved.
Janice M. Plante
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