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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 4
December 2007
FW 19 impacts general category scallopers
WAKEFIELD, MA – Next year for the first time ever, general category scallopers will be working under a hard total allowable catch (TAC) that will be divvied up on a quarterly basis.
The New England Fishery Management Council approved this and other general category provisions, plus a hard TAC for the Northern Gulf of Maine Management Area, on Oct. 25 as part of Framework Adjustment 19 to the scallop plan.
The framework is the latest action since Amendment 11, which the council submitted to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) at the end of July for review and approval.
Amendment 11 will take the general category fishery in an entirely new direction, converting the fishery to limited access and establishing individual fishing quotas (IFQs) for those who qualify.
NMFS might be able to implement the amendment before the March 1 start of the 2008 scallop fishing year, but the agency will need one-to-two additional years to determine the final pool of IFQ qualifiers.
Consequently, the council agreed in Amendment 11 to put the general category fishery under a hard TAC during the transition period to the IFQ fishery. Framework 19 details how that TAC fishery will work.
Under the framework, the general category fishery will be allocated 10% of the projected catch for the entire scallop fishery as follows: 35% for Quarter 1; 40% for Quarter 2; 15% for Quarter 3; and 10% for Quarter 4.
Access areas
Framework 19 also stipulates that general category scallopers will be allocated 5% of each access-area TAC during the transition period, as well as afterward under the IFQ fishery.
During the transition period, as well as under the IFQ program, the 5% poundage figure will be converted to a total fleetwide number of trips. Once those trips are taken, general category fishing in the specified access area will be shut down.
The Nantucket Lightship area and the Elephant Trunk Area have been designated as access areas for 2008.
The council’s scallop committee initially recommended a 2% access-area TAC for the transition period as a way to slow down what is expected to be a derby fishery in those areas by general category boats.
But numerous fishermen argued against 2%.
“I urge the council to support 5% except for Closed Area II,” said Maggie Raymond of Associated Fisheries of Maine. “That would be consistent with what the advisory panel recommended and it would be consistent with what the scallop committee recommended for after the transition period.”
Chatham fisherman Paul Vafides also supported 5% and said effort would be even higher under 2% because fishermen would scramble all the more quickly to make trips before the fleetwide total was used up.
“I just don’t see how reducing the trips will reduce the derby,” he said.
Barnegat Light, NJ scalloper Bob Maxwell added, “The 5% in access areas would reduce the effort in open areas, which would be desirable.”
Shifting effort
The council struggled with this issue. The general category fleet traditionally has fished in open areas, not access areas, and a 5% allocation would end up reducing the hard TAC available for open areas.
Some supported such a shift in effort, arguing that scallop densities in access areas are much higher.
NMFS Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul said, “What we want to do is move these vessels into the access areas and not have them directing all their effort into the open areas.”
New Hampshire council member David Goethel said, “I understand both sides of the argument. We’re creating a derby no matter what we do. There are habitat considerations and fuel costs. To some degree, we probably should try to maximize people’s catch per unit effort.”
The council voted to support 5% both during the transition period and afterward.
Gulf of Maine
Under Amendment 11, the council approved a separate limited-entry program north of 42°20'N for what is being called the Northern Gulf of Maine Management Area.
Vessels electing to participate in this program would have to have held an open-access general category permit as of Nov. 1, 2004 – the control date – but would not be subject to poundage criteria. In exchange, they would be limited to landing no more than 200 pounds per trip with a maximum 10.5' dredge.
Although the program itself is contained in Amendment 11, the hard TAC for the area needed to be set through Framework 19.
The scallop plan development team (PDT) was charged with developing the TAC based on the federal portion of the resource within the area. After reviewing the data, the PDT originally recommended 64,000 pounds for both 2008 and 2009 and later revised the figure to 70,000 pounds for each year.
Maine DMR’s take
The Maine Department of Marine Resource (DMR) ran its own analysis and determined that 64,000 pounds would “unfairly restrict” fishing opportunities for general category scallopers in the area.
Council representative Terry Stockwell of the DMR argued that state waters landings by federal permit holders were not factored into the TAC calculation, yet all landings from federally permitted vessels – from both state and federal waters – would end up counting against the TAC.
“DMR staff concluded that if scallop landings from both state and federal waters count toward the TAC, they should both be included in the development of that TAC,” wrote the DMR in a memo to the scallop committee.
The DMR proposed a 126,000-pound TAC, which it said was “justified by taking the average annual landings of all federally permitted scallop vessels from 2000 through 2006 (158,069 pounds) and subtracting 20% for conservation purposes.”
Amendment 11 link
The council began to debate the DMR proposal, but it soon became apparent that basing the TAC on both state and federal landings went contrary to the program established under Amendment 11.
“This is inconsistent with Amendment 11, and I don’t think we can change the record as it stands at this point,” said Kurkul.
According to Maggie Raymond, the problems with the program go far beyond the TAC. She asked council members to urge NMFS to disapprove the program in Amendment 11 once the proposed rule is published.
“What started out as a really good intention has turned out to be a really big problem,” she said.
“It’ll take the state waters fishermen about 30 seconds to figure out this federal permit is of no use to them. When the TAC is reached, they won’t be able to fish in state waters. And for the IFQ vessels, their landings will count against the TAC and their IFQ. This is the practical result of what we have in place,” Raymond said.
Close vote
Maine council member Dana Rice said he continued to support the higher TAC proposed by DMR.
“I think there’s a point that needs to be made here,” he said. “I go back to my original intent. We’re talking about an area that wasn’t surveyed initially. This is a way to account for this area until we can survey it better.”
But given the link to Amendment 11, New Hampshire council member John Nelson didn’t think the council had much choice but to support the PDT recommendation, so he moved to adopt a hard TAC for the Northern Gulf of Maine area of 70,000 pounds for fishing years 2008 and 2009.
The vote was 7-to-7. Council Chairman John Pappalardo broke the tie by voting yes, so the 70,000-pound TAC passed.
Janice M. Plante
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