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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 4
December 2007
ASMFC supports 45,000 mt Area 1A herring TAC
ANNAPOLIS, MD – Despite another concerted push by industry to secure a moderately higher 2008 and 2009 herring allocation for Area 1A, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlantic Herring Section voted on Oct. 29 to adopt a 45,000 metric ton (mt) total allowable catch (TAC) to match the TAC approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
The ASMFC vote may have exhausted industry’s last avenue for obtaining a TAC increase for Area 1A – at least for 2008. And it was a particularly disappointing defeat for members of the directed herring fishery because it reversed a previous ASMFC action that had adopted 50,000 mt.
Two section members – both from Massachusetts – expressed outrage over the course change.
“I’m sick of this,” said Commissioner Bill Adler. “Whatever the feds want the feds get. There’s no justification at all for this. We’re not overfishing here. 45,000 mt is just not acceptable.”
Vito Calomo, an ASMFC proxy for Massachusetts Rep. Tony Verga, added, “Something is wrong with this. We had more days out of the fishery this year than ever. We had no midwater trawling in Area 1A for four months. There are small herring from New Hampshire to Massachusetts like we haven’t seen in 20 years. And look at the abundance of fish that was landed in such a short time.”
Calomo concluded, “We should be increasing, not decreasing. I believe that we’re just duplicating the federal process here and the 45,000 mt is not supported by the best available science.”
TC concerns
ASMFC’s herring section, which met during the commission’s annual meeting, based its decision on a recommendation from the Atlantic Herring Technical Committee (TC).
According to TC Chairman Matt Cieri of Maine, committee members emphasized that consistency between state and federal regulations was extremely important, especially since there is no system in place right now to monitor state-only landings.
Furthermore, the technical committee concluded that “the best available science” supported a 45,000 mt TAC for Area 1A, which covers the inshore Gulf of Maine.
Among other things, the TC, in a memo to the section, stated that:
Updated stock assessment information did not warrant “a change in the scheduled decrease” for Area 1A “at this time;”
The 45,000 mt TAC “appears to produce a fishing mortality rate” that’s appropriate for the inshore component of the stock;
The “current concentration of harvest in the inshore Gulf of Maine is of concern and may be excessive;” and
The “strong retrospective pattern” in the stock assessment, where biomass in the most recent years tends to be overestimated and fishing mortality tends to be underestimated, “is a valid concern.”
Section swayed
New Hampshire Commissioner John Nelson was swayed by the advice.
“The technical committee has reviewed the data,” he said. “They are concerned. Their recommendation is that we need to be precautious in Area 1A.”
While saying he understood the economic consequences of a TAC reduction to 45,000 mt, he added, “We have to look at the future, too.”
Nelson furthermore said very few people would be able to harvest the extra 5,000 mt because all federally permitted vessels would be prohibited from fishing for herring in Area 1A once the 45,000 mt was harvested under the NMFS TAC.
“The reality is most people are federally permitted, so it might be a moot point,” he said.
Commissioner Pat Augustine of New York made a motion to accept the technical committee recommendation of 45,000 mt for Area 1A and 60,000 mt for Area 3, which covers Georges Bank.
NMFS action
Last year when ASMFC voted on herring specifications for the 2008 and 2009 fishing years, it adopted 50,000 mt for Area 1A and 55,000 mt for Area 3, as did the New England Fishery Management Council.
NMFS disregarded both the ASMFC’s stance and the New England council’s recommendation and approved 45,000 mt. NMFS then added 5,000 mt to Area 3 in compensation for the Area 1A reduction. The federal agency has final say on the setting of TACs.
This September, industry urged the New England council to ask NMFS for a quota adjustment in hopes of reinstating the 50,000 mt allocation for Area 1A.
Even at that level, the TAC would mark a significant reduction from the 60,000 mt TACs of past years. Except for 2007 when Area 1A was at 50,000 mt, the TAC for this inshore area has been 60,000 mt since the federal herring plan was implemented in 2000.
The council, however, voted against submitting a new specification package to NMFS for further review (see CFN October 2007 for details).
Industry tries again
Viewing ASMFC as the last vehicle for at least keeping Area 1A at 50,000 mt, several industry members traveled to Annapolis for the herring section meeting.
However, outside of the section’s Massachusetts delegation, few ASMFC commissioners appeared willing to go against the technical committee recommendation.
And in the end, even Commissioner David Pierce of Massachusetts, who led the TAC-increase battle in September, expressed frustration over the futility of the effort.
“At the New England council meeting, it became very clear to me that there would not be a change in the NMFS position,” said Pierce.
So he said his biggest concern now was this: If ASMFC adopted 50,000 mt and the whole 50,000 mt was landed in 2008, what if NMFS took the extra 5,000 mt off the top of 2009 and only implemented a 40,000 mt Area 1A TAC in that year?
Pierce viewed such a scenario as the worst of all possible outcomes, and it seemed to bring the discussion to an end.
ASMFC’s Bob Beal reminded section members that they needed to approve the TAC changes by a two-thirds majority because the section already took final action last fall on the ’08-’09 TACs.
In the end, the two-thirds vote came easily. Only Massachusetts voted against the motion. That means the 45,000 mt TAC for Area 1A will cap landings from both state and federal waters for the inshore Gulf of Maine for the next two years unless the issue is revisited once again.
Janice M. Plante
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