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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 4
December 2008
MA adopts dogfish control date; debates harsh black sea bass regs
CANTON, MA – At its Nov. 6 meeting here, the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Commission debated several controversial proposals for dogfish, black sea bass, and scup that will be aired at public hearings later this winter.
After extensive discussion, the commission voted to adopt a control date of Nov. 6, 2008 for the state’s spiny dogfish fishery. While a control date doesn’t involve a specific ban on the issuance of permits, it does put the public on notice that fishermen obtaining new permits after that date may be treated differently in the future than fishermen who had their permits before the date.
Now that the spiny dogfish stock is considered fully rebuilt and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has adopted a higher quota for the 2009 fishery – 12 million pounds vs. 8 million pounds – the idea of putting up barriers to letting fishermen catch dogfish didn’t make sense to some on the commission.
“Why you’d want to limit the number of people who can fish for this pariah of the ocean is beyond me,” said commission member Mark Amorello.
Added commission Chairman Vito Calomo, “I’m not for this. People need every avenue they can get to make a living.”
Commission member Ray Kane had a different perspective.
“This is a viable fishery for a number of fishermen in small boats,” he said. “I don’t want it to become a derby fishery.”
According to the Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF), the state issued 839 dogfish permit endorsements in 2008, which raised the question of how many more fishermen actually were out there ready to become new entrants.
Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association (CCCHFA) policy analyst Eric Brazer asked the commission to endorse the control date as a first step toward maintaining “profitable, viable fishing businesses.”
A motion to establish Nov. 6, 2008 as a control date for spiny dogfish and take the date to public hearing for comment passed in a 5-to-3 vote.
Dogfish moratorium
The next issue up for discussion was a petition from the CCCHFA to adopt a moratorium on the issuance of new state waters fisheries endorsements to harvest dogfish effective for the May 1 start of the 2009 fishing year. DMF Director Paul Diodati recommended that the commission and DMF take the petition to public hearing.
Unlike a control date, which just preserves managers’ options to limit entry, adopting a moratorium would mean an end to the DMF issuing new dogfish endorsements. And that further alarmed the control date opponents.
“A moratorium petition is a totally different thing,” said Amorello.
Diodati clarified that the petitioners were seeking a moratorium on the directed dogfish fishery.
“We would still issue allowances for the bycatch fishery,” which involves a 600-pound trip limit, he said.
In its petition, the CCCHFA said that there is already “an excess of fishing effort” permitted to target spiny dogfish in Massachusetts state waters.
“Without a change to the current endorsement process, the state can almost certainly expect an increase in effort, both latent and new, with this increase in (quota),” the petition stated.
“This additional pressure is likely to promote direct competition with traditional commercial fishermen,” the petition continued. “These fishermen deserve the same protection afforded to other limited-access, state waters fisheries – a chance to operate in a small-scale, viable, and profitable fishery without the threat of ‘weekend warriors’ and other individuals who are not committed to the same cause and vision for protecting their livelihoods.”
At the conclusion of this discussion, the commission decided to hold off on the CCCHFA petition in order to avoid confusion with the control date proposal.
Black sea bass
DMF has been warning the commission and the industry for more than a year now that difficulties in managing the black sea bass fishery because of extremely low quotas are only going to get worse, and they have.
For 2009, the state’s quota has been slashed to 146,510 pounds. According to DMF, the cut was based on a recommendation from the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s monitoring committee, which concluded that a 45% harvest reduction for both commercial and recreational fisheries was necessary to have even a chance of meeting the target stock rebuilding date of Jan. 1, 2010.
This drastic quota cut will create especially serious problems in the commonwealth because much of the remaining coastwide black sea bass resource is concentrated in state waters, meaning fishermen will see many more fish than the regulations will allow them to catch.
Because the state quota is so small, DMF has stated that it will be a struggle to effectively monitor the commercial fishery and close it in time to prevent an overage.
As a result, Diodati offered a recommendation to: eliminate the directed spring fishery; open the directed fishery on Aug. 1 or later in the month; prohibit the harvest of black sea bass by weirs; and limit fishing to four days per week.
He further recommended that the commission and DMF take to public hearing a petition signed by many commercial fishermen and residents of Martha’s Vineyard.
The vineyard petition sought to: “eliminate the harvest of spawning fish in the spring so that maximum successful spawning may occur;” delay the opening season for the commercial pot fishery until “late August;” and require that all pot gear be removed from the water outside of the season.
Also present at the meeting was Drew Kolek of Fairhaven, representing the Commercial Anglers Association (CAA), which had filed a related petition.
CAA’s main interest was scup. As Kolek explained in the petition, scup has been allowed only as a bycatch in the black sea bass and squid fisheries, and there was concern that eliminating the spring black sea bass fishery would diminish that scup fishing opportunity.
The CAA petition proposed no changes for the weir scup fishery or the 32% quota set-aside for the weir fishery. For all other gear types, the petition proposed: a season opening date of May 6; open fishing on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays; a 200-pound-per-day limit for all gear types; a spring season closure when 60% (32% weir + 28% other gear types) of the quota is reached or June 10, whichever occurs first; and, after that, no landings until Aug. 1.
Petition process
Diodati told commission members that he was not bringing the CAA petition before them for consideration because it conflicted with the DMF proposal to eliminate the spring black sea bass fishery.
This raised pointed questions from several commission members on why DMF was changing its longstanding policy of considering all public petitions or, at the very least, meeting with the petitioners to work out conflicts.
Diodati responded that he had checked with legal counsel, who concluded basically that the DMF director had the authority to determine what happens to public petitions. He also said he believed putting out conflicting petitions would only confuse members of the public and that it was DMF’s responsibility to apply its professional judgment in such cases.
Still, some commission members were uncomfortable with the situation and urged DMF to meet with both Kolek and Tom Osmers of West Tisbury, who attended the meeting to explain the Martha’s Vineyard petition, and work something out. Everyone was amenable to the idea, including the petitioners. Diodati said DMF would bring recommendations for public hearings before the commission again during its Dec. 11 meeting.
Other business
l Small pelagic fisheries – After months of work, DMF Deputy Director Dan McKiernan presented the commission with a package of proposed amendments “to improve and clarify management of small mesh inshore pelagic fisheries.” These include menhaden, sea herring, and mackerel as harvested by purse seines, surface gillnets, and cast nets in state waters, including inshore net areas such as Boston harbor.
A redistribution of the menhaden resource and the likelihood that pogies could show up in state waters in vast numbers at some point in the future prompted the revision of the rules, many of which were archaic, according to McKiernan.
The commission approved a motion to take the rules revision package out to public hearings this winter.
l Budget cuts – As is the case everywhere, state government is tightening its belt. Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Commissioner Mary Griffin reported that across-the-board cuts ordered by Gov. Deval Patrick for the fiscal year 2009 budget resulted in a $572,000 cut for DMF.
Diodati said he anticipated being able to absorb the loss by not filling four vacant positions and reducing earmark line items, including aid to fishing family assistance centers and the shellfish seeding fund. However, he warned that any further reductions will result in layoffs.
l Groundfish litigation – Griffin reported that the lawsuit filed by the states of Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 2006 against the federal government over Framework 42 to the groundfish plan was likely to have a court hearing date in early December.
DMF Deputy Director David Pierce interjected that even though federal groundfish management has moved well beyond Framework 42, the case was still relevant because it addressed management presumptions and actions anticipated from the National Marine Fisheries Service in the interim groundfish action and in groundfish Amendment 16.
l New faces – The commission was introduced to Col. Aaron Gross, the new head of the state’s Office of Environmental Law Enforcement. A former sergeant with the Boston Police Department with many years experience in the field, Gross was Gov. Patrick’s choice to replace Col. Jim Hanlon in the top job. Maj. Kathleen Dolan has left the department.
Finally, the commission welcomed a new member – seafood dealer Ed Nasser of Fall River.
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