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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 5
January 2007
Monkfish: Major changes on the way in FW 4
GLOUCESTER, MA – For the first time ever, fishermen working in the Northern Fishery Management Area will be subject to very strict monkfish trip limits and days-at-sea once Framework Adjustment 4 to the Monkfish Fishery Management Plan (FMP) comes on line May 1.
Up to now, northern area fishermen have been allowed to keep an unlimited amount of monkfish while fishing on a groundfish day-at-sea. That’ll end after the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) approves Framework (FW) 4.
Then, northern area fishermen will have only 31 monkfish days in which they’ll be allowed to land more than the incidental catch limit. That incidental limit is proposed to be 300 pounds of monktails per day or 25% of the total weight of fish on board, whichever is less.
During the 31 designated monkfish days, Category A and C permit holders in the north will be able to land 1,250 pounds of tails per day, and Category B and D permit holders will be limited to 470 pounds per day.
“This is going to result in a huge change in the northern area,” said Maggie Raymond of Associated Fisheries of Maine.
“In Maine, monkfish accounts for one-third of our revenues. To go from no trip limit to these restrictive limits will be very difficult,” she said.
The New England Fishery Management Council signed off on Framework 4 during its Nov. 14-16 meeting. As CFN was going to press, the Mid-Atlantic council, which jointly manages monkfish with New England, was reviewing the package for final approval.
The councils are anticipating NMFS will implement the framework on May 1, the start of the new monkfish and groundfish fishing years.
Framework 4 proposes that fishermen working in the Southern Fishery Management Area be allocated 23 monkfish days-at-sea. During those days, Category A and C permit holders will be limited to landing 550 pounds of tails per day while Category B, D, and H permit holders will be restricted to 450 pounds.
The New England council considered creating an annual enrollment program for southern area fishermen that would have allowed permit holders to elect to receive 31 days with lower trip limits instead of 23 days.
However, NMFS Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul opposed the enrollment option.
“This is a big red flag,” she said. “It effectively eliminates at-sea enforcement.”
Consequently, the New England council removed the option from the document.
The councils are not proposing any changes to the incidental catch limit in the southern area. The limit varies based on mesh size used in non monkfish fisheries, such as squid and summer flounder, and whether vessels are fishing east or west of the Mid-Atlantic Exemption Area boundary line.
Rebuilding
The reason trip limits and days-at-sea are so restrictive in Framework 4 is because the New England and Mid-Atlantic councils are obligated to finish rebuilding the monkfish resource by the end of 2009, which is 10 years after the FMP was first implemented.
The resource in both the north and south is considered to be overfished, and the stock indices in both areas need to more than double in the next three years to meet the target.
Monkfish plan coordinator Phil Haring of the New England council staff said, “That’s not unrealistic. In the first three years of the plan, the survey indices did double.”
The problem is they went back down again – significantly down in the northern area.
Flipping
As Framework 4 is currently written, fishermen in the northern area would not have to declare a monkfish day until just prior to returning to port and passing over the vessel monitoring system (VMS) demarcation line.
This means vessels would be able to go out fishing on a groundfish day or for something else and try to stay under the 300-pound or 25%-of-the-catch incidental limit. However, if by the end of the trip the incidental limit was exceeded, the vessel could declare a monkfish day by VMS on the way home – hence the term “flip” a day.
Kurkul expressed serious concerns about this provision on two counts.
First, she said, “It adds to the complexity of a plan that’s already impossible.”
Second, she said, “People would be fishing with multispecies gear for the whole trip and then declare a monkfish day at the end.”
Maine council member Jim Odlin considered the flipping provision essential to protecting monkfish.
“If someone declares a monkfish day before they go out on a trip, they’ll do everything they can to catch those fish,” he said.
However, if a fisherman doesn’t have to declare a day upfront, he can attempt to target other species and stay under the incidental catch limit for monkfish, Odlin explained.
Discards, safety
New Hampshire council member Mike Leary also thought it was better to let fishermen stretch out their monkfish days as much as possible.
“You’re talking about huge discards once the 31 days are over,” he said.
Furthermore, Leary didn’t view the declaration process as “flipping.”
“You’re not flipping,” he said. “You’re endorsing your groundfish day with a monkfish day. Flipping is not the right terminology.”
Finally, Leary didn’t want to put anyone into an untenable situation by forcing them to declare a monkfish day upfront and then feel like they had to fish it out.
“There are huge safety implications on this,” he said.
A motion to require vessels to declare a monkfish day prior to crossing the demarcation line failed, so Framework 4 as proposed continues to give vessels until the end of a trip to figure out if they want to declare a monkfish day or not.
300 pounds, 25%
The incidental trip limit in the northern area was another component of Framework 4 that troubled people – not so much the 300-pound part but the secondary provision requiring that monktails make up 25% of the total weight of fish onboard.
Under such a requirement, a vessel would need to have a total of 1,200 pounds of fish to possess 300 pounds of monktails – in other words, 900 pounds of other species to keep 300 pounds of tails. A vessel with only 400 pounds total couldn’t have more than 100 pounds of monktails.
“The 25% is what’s going to trip everyone up, not the 300 pounds,” said New Hampshire council member David Goethel. “You’ll have a lot of vessels that will be over the 25% but under 300 pounds.”
Goethel expressed a frustration felt by many day-boat and small-boat fishermen who are stuck near shore, bound by massive area closures and extremely restrictive trip limits on numerous species.
“You can’t fish for anything now,” he said. “It’s just impossible to balance the books.”
Goethel added, “We’re just trying to catch some high-value fish in relatively small amounts.”
Taking monkfish out of that mix will be devastating for many people, he said.
Two viewpoints
Kurkul had her own concerns about the 25%. Not only did the provision create a mathematics nightmare that had to be enforced at the dock, Kurkul acknowledged that NMFS was well aware that percentage requirements often drive people to load up on trash fish just to meet the threshold to keep a desired species.
“That’s one reason we consistently oppose percentages,” she said.
But many council members strongly supported the percentage.
Phil Haring explained that the monkfish committee genuinely tried to develop an incidental catch category for vessels not on a monkfish day-at-sea.
“Three hundred pounds of tails for some vessels may present the opportunity for a directed fishery,” he said. “That’s why we have a percentage. This is truly an incidental limit.”
Rhode Island council member Phil Ruhle said, “This percentage is one of the tools we’re going to end up having to use. If we don’t tie the incidental limit into the percentage, we’re missing a great opportunity to address bycatch and discard problems.”
But Goethel worried the percentage might work to increase discards, not decrease them, which he feared would be worse for the resource.
“I’ve never seen a monkfish swim away,” he said. “I’ve seen them sink away. I want to be very careful we just don’t increase discards.”
Haring said the joint New England/Mid-Atlantic monkfish committee recognized the complexity of the issue.
“There’s no perfect program here,” he said. “You are trying to balance the desire to minimize discards with the desire to have an enforceable program with the desire to not have a directed fishery on an incidental catch.”
After extensive debate, the council decided to stick with the percentage.
TACs reduced
In an effort to bring some stability to the fishery, the council took a new approach and adopted fixed, three-year target total allowable catch (TAC) levels for both the Northern and Southern Fishery Management Areas.
The annual northern area TAC for the 2007, 2008, and 2009 fishing years is proposed to be 5,000 metric tons (mt), a big drop from the 2006 target TAC of 7,737 mt.
The annual southern area TAC for all three fishing years is proposed to be 5,100 mt, an increase from the 2006 TAC of 3,667 mt.
“The 2006 TAC for the southern area may have been unnecessarily low, which is why it’s proposed to increase in the south,” said Haring.
Haring also explained that the monkfish committee went with a three-year approach to reduce the huge annual swings in TACs, trip limits, and days-at-sea that have plagued fishermen in the southern area in recent years.
“The industry requested we come up with something that stabilizes this fishery,” he said.
Although the councils intend for the numbers to stay put for the next three years, Kurkul emphasized that this approach was contingent on the councils meeting the rebuilding targets for monkfish.
“If new information indicated we weren’t rebuilding, these numbers could change,” she said. “It would be disingenuous to not be clear about that.”
TAC backstop
As a final check to ensure that the councils actually rebuild the monkfish resource on schedule, Framework 4 contains a “TAC overage backstop.”
The backstop is multifaceted and works this way:
If landings during the 2007 fishing year exceed the TAC by 10% or less, nothing will happen;
If landings during the 2007 fishing year exceed the TAC by greater than 30%, the directed fishery for monkfish will be shut down during fishing year 2009; and
If landings during the 2007 fishing year exceed the TAC by more than 10% but less than 30%, days-at-sea for the 2009 fishing year will be recalculated and implemented without further action by the New England and Mid-Atlantic councils.
Other measures
Framework 4 contains several other elements, including a days-at-sea carryover provision and a shift of the North Carolina/Virginia boundary line 20 miles north for Category H permit holders. If approved, the new line would be located at 38°40'N.
Also, if the councils don’t take further action prior to the end of the rebuilding period, the measures in place in 2009 will continue into 2010 and beyond. The one exception would be if the backstop kicks in during 2009. In this event, measures in 2010 would be restored to 2008 levels.
Finally, Framework 4 adjusts the monkfish possession limit for scallop vessels fishing on a scallop access-area trip.
Janice M. Plante
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