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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 5
January 2007
NMFS takes first swordfish step; launches new shark rule-making
SILVER SPRING, MD – Making good on a promise to begin taking steps to revitalize the US swordfish fishery, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has published a proposed rule intended to “provide opportunities for US vessels to fully harvest the domestic swordfish quota … while ensuring that bycatch of nontarget and protected species remain within acceptable levels.”
The proposed alternatives include:
• Increasing retention limits for incidental swordfish permit holders to 30 fish, except for vessels in the squid trawl fishery, which would be limited to 15 swordfish;
• Increasing the per-vessel limit for angling category permit holders to four fish;
• Changing the swordfish retention limit to a maximum of six for charter vessels and a maximum of 15 for headboats; and
• Modifying vessel upgrading restrictions for permitted longline vessels.
Absent from the proposed rule is any mention of allowing longliners back in closed areas off the Atlantic coast.
However, Blue Water Fishermen’s Association is in talks with NMFS to develop experimental fisheries to demonstrate in these closed areas the effectiveness of mandatory circle hooks, turtle handling and release requirements, and other measures US commercial fishermen have adopted in recent years.
“We are willing to prove that this is a very clean fishery, actually the cleanest fishery possible,” said Rich Ruais, Blue Water’s executive director.
Ruais warned that if the US does not make serious strides towards catching its quota allocation from the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas by the next formal meeting of the commission in 2008, US quota will be transferred to other countries.
“More marlin, more turtles will die if we have to transfer quota to Taiwan, Spain, the Philippines, Korea, China, and Japan,” Ruais said. “There is no argument that the US is the most ecosystem friendly swordfish fishery in the world.”
The public comment period on the proposed rule closes on Jan. 31. For more info, call NMFS’s Sari Kiraly at (301) 713-2347 or visit the NMFS Highly Migratory Species Division web site at <www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/hms>.
Shark proposals
NMFS also recently announced its intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) to examine management alternatives for rebuilding sandbar, dusky, and porbeagle sharks and for providing opportunities for the sustainable harvest of the blacktip shark resource, which is rebuilt and considered healthy.
NMFS is beginning the EIS process based on the results of 2005/2006 stock assessments that show several shark species are overfished. The agency is also preparing an amendment to the Consolidated Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan.
Public comments are specifically requested on: commercial management options including quota levels, counting overages and underages, and monitoring; regional and seasonal quotas; trip limits; minimum sizes; applying dead discards and state landings after federal closures; authorized gears; prohibited species; and the Mid-Atlantic shark closure.
The Federal Register notice requesting public input was published on Nov. 7 and the deadline for comments is Feb. 5.
For more information, call Karyl Brewster-Geisz at (301) 713-2347. /cfn/
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