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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 4
December 2006
ASMFC votes to reduce Area 1A herring TAC
ATLANTIC BEACH, NC – Garnering the necessary two-thirds majority required to overturn a previous action, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlantic Herring Section voted on Oct. 24 to reduce the total allowable catch (TAC) in Area 1A – the inshore Gulf of Maine – to 50,000 metric tons (mt).
Back on Sept. 12, the section set herring specifications for the 2007-2009 fishing years that included a 60,000 mt TAC for Area 1A.
However, the New England Fishery Management Council voted on Sept. 28 to reduce the TAC to 50,000 mt (see CFN November 2006 for details).
Well aware of the political, bureaucratic, and enforcement difficulties that result when ASMFC and the New England and/or Mid-Atlantic councils recommend different fishery specifications to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the ASMFC herring section decided to hold another meeting to determine whether section members wanted to reconsider their previous decision.
Under ASMFC operating rules, a two-thirds majority vote of all section members was required to overturn the final action that ASMFC took on Sept. 12.
In the end, the section approved the Area 1A reduction by a vote of five “yes,” one “no” coming from Massachusetts, and one “null” vote coming from Maine, meaning the state’s commissioners couldn’t agree to cast a single united vote of either yes or no.
The five “yes” votes from the states of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey represented a two-thirds majority of section-member states.
Although set for three years, the section will review the specifications annually.
Opposition
As happened at the New England council meeting, several ASMFC members voiced strongly held viewpoints about everything from the commission process to the impacts of a reduced Area 1A TAC on lobster bait.
Massachusetts Commissioner Bill Adler said, “Why do we bother sitting around making a decision if every time the federal agency decision is different, we have to change our minds? We always change to go with them. They never change to our position.”
Vito Calomo, an ASMFC proxy for Massachusetts Rep. Tony Verga, adamantly opposed the reduction.
“I think we’re going down the wrong track just because the council went one way,” he said. “Overfishing is not occurring. The stock is not overfished. We should all be joyous and happy for once. I’m fighting for what I think is right. The section voted for 60,000 mt after great deliberation. We listened to everyone.”
Some commission members who either attended the council meeting or sat on the council when it voted for 50,000 mt viewed it as a compromise that many people found acceptable given the circumstances.
But Calomo disagreed.
“No industry person left that room happy with 50,000 mt,” he said, adding, “I didn’t see or hear any reason to substantiate reducing the fishery from 60,000 mt except concerns that may have been in people’s own minds.”
No GOM assessment
Jeff Kaelin, representing Ocean Spray Partnership and the vessels Providian, AJ, and Atlantic Frost, echoed Calomo’s point.
“We are totally opposed to the 50,000 mt,” he said. “We’ve spent a lot of time analyzing the new assessment and we feel 60,000 mt for 1A continues to be very conservative.”
Referring to a number in the stock assessment report produced by the joint US/Canada Transboundary Resource Assessment Committee indicating that roughly 18% of the overall herring stock complex makes up the inshore component of the resource, Kaelin said, “The 18% was derived from very limited information. There was never any intention that this 18% be used to assess the Gulf of Maine component. We still have not done a Gulf of Maine assessment.”
Support
New Hampshire Commissioner John Nelson said the New England council was greatly influenced by a “risk analysis” conducted by its herring plan development team.
The analysis indicated that 60,000 mt for Area 1A was the riskiest option before the council and 45,000 mt was the least risky, with the 50,000-mt compromise falling somewhere in-between.
“We’re not trying to decide whether the council is right or the feds are right,” he said. “The council made a decision based on the scientific information put before it.”
Even though the 45,000-mt alternative was the least risky, the council adopted 50,000 mt as a compromise because of social and economic considerations in the fishery, said Nelson.
Area 1A shuts down
On Oct. 21, just three days before the ASMFC herring section met in Atlantic Beach, NMFS shut down the directed herring fishery in Area 1A after projecting that 95% of the 60,000-mt TAC for the 2006 fishing year had been caught.
For the rest of this year, vessels cannot “fish for, catch, possess, transfer, or land” more than 2,000 pounds of herring in or from Area 1A on any trip or calendar day.
“We’re at the height of the lobster season and the fishery for herring is closed in the Gulf of Maine,” said Calomo.
Given the early closure with a 60,000-mt TAC, Calomo expressed his worries about what would happen next year under 50,000 mt. He urged the commission to beginning talking about ways to stretch out the fishery in 2007, noting that Massachusetts dealers were already expressing concerns about being able to supply sufficient lobster bait.
“Maybe we should have a plan to take more days out of the fishery,” Calomo said.
Section members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts agreed to begin discussions as soon as possible, recognizing that the talks would be complicated by the fact that NMFS has yet to announce whether it will approve the June-September purse seine/fixed gear only season proposed for Area 1A under Amendment 1 to federal herring plan.
Scientist Matt Cieri of the Maine Department of Marine Resources agreed to run model projections under various days-out scenarios both with and without the purse seine/fixed gear only season. He also agreed to run potential projections for Area 1B since the 10,000-mt TAC for that area could be utilized much more quickly with a reduced Area 1A quota.
Janice M. Plante
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