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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 5
January 2008
Councils, ASMFC seek dogfish quota increase
NEWPORT, RI – In a rare show of solidarity, three different management bodies have endorsed an 8-million-pound spiny dogfish quota for the 2008 fishing year.
The Mid-Atlantic and New England Fishery Management Councils both voted in mid-October and early November respectively to ask the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to increase the 2008 quota from 4 million pounds to 8 million pounds resource-wide.
And the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), which develops management measures for state waters that don’t always agree with NMFS, simply adopted an 8-million-pound quota for 2008 on Oct. 29.
At press time in mid-December, NMFS had not announced whether it would go along with the quota increase, but based on comments by agency officials, it appeared highly unlikely.
Back in 2006, NMFS published final specifications for dogfish for the 2006, 2007, and 2008 fishing years that included a 4-million-pound annual quota and 600-pound trip limit for federal permit holders.
That means NMFS would have to take additional steps to change the 2008 quota since one is already in place.
NMFS has the final say over federal fishery specifications so unless the agency takes further action, all vessels holding federal dogfish permits will remain bound by the existing 4-million-pound limit.
Any excess landings by state-waters-only permit holders fishing under ASMFC’s 8-million-pound quota could lead to an early shutdown of the federal waters fishery and/or a reduction in the federal quota the subsequent year.
Harry Mears, director of NMFS’s State, Federal, and Constituent Programs Office in Gloucester, attempted to dissuade ASMFC’s Spiny Dogfish and Coastal Shark Management Board from adopting an 8-million-pound quota during the commission’s annual meeting in Annapolis, MD in late October.
“This is not defensible from either a scientific or management perspective,” he said. “I would strongly urge us to not go forward with the obvious disconnect between state and federal quotas.”
And at the New England council’s Nov. 6-7 meeting in Newport, RI, NMFS Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul said, “Although we have some good news on this stock and it is not overfished, it is not rebuilt.”
Industry reaction
The probability of yet another year at 4 million pounds was inconceivable to an already frustrated industry. For many fishermen, the whole discussion seemed ludicrous given their inability to get away from dogfish.
Speaking to the New England council on behalf of the Georges Bank Cod Hook Sector, Jeff Pike of the Washington, DC firm Sher & Blackwell said, “The hook sector has not harvested even 50% of what it was allocated. A great deal of that is because of dogfish. You can’t get hooks to the bottom.”
Fisherman and New England council member David Goethel of New Hampshire, summing up the situation in his general fishing territory, said, “It does not matter what fishery you participate in. You can’t do it because the Western Gulf of Maine is filled with dogfish.”
He added, “We’ve got to consider the ecosystem ramifications with what we’re doing here and get things in balance again. Otherwise there won’t be anything else except dogfish.”
Steve Barndollar of Seatrade International, one of only three remaining dogfish processors in the region, emphasized the need for uniform regulations.
“This battling between the state and federal agencies doesn’t do us any good,” he said. “We need consistency with ASMFC. We need a directed fishery.”
Stock status
The best news about dogfish is that the biomass of mature females has nearly tripled over the past two years from 48,000 metric tons (mt) in 2004 to 141,350 mt in 2006, which equates to roughly 312 million pounds of mature females.
According to scientists, this near tripling of the numbers was “biologically unrealistic” given the slow growth rate of dogfish. Rather, it probably had to do with how the stock was assessed.
“It’s more likely that the recent biomass estimates are more accurate and the old estimates were underestimates,” said Jim Armstrong, chairman of the Spiny Dogfish Monitoring Committee and dogfish plan coordinator for the Mid-Atlantic council, which manages dogfish jointly with the New England council and provides federal waters quota recommendations to NMFS.
The Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s 2007 spring bottom trawl survey turned up a large number of mature female dogfish – not as many as in 2006, but still much higher than past surveys.
“In 2007, the survey continued to catch mature females at a level above what it had in the past nine years,” said Armstrong.
The spawning stock biomass “threshold” for dogfish is 100,000 mt, meaning the stock would be overfished if the number of mature females dropped below this level.
At present, with the mature female biomass level at 141,350 mt, “The stock is not overfished because it’s greater than the threshold,” said Armstrong.
Stock rebuilt soon?
The federal plan currently does not contain a spawning stock biomass “target” – the safer number to aim for – because the 180,000 mt target originally submitted to NMFS by the Mid-Atlantic and New England councils was disapproved by the agency.
Nonetheless, many managers informally agree that the stock would be “rebuilt” if the mature female biomass was somewhere around 200,000 mt.
David Pierce, a Massachusetts representative on both the New England council and ASMFC’s dogfish board, said, “Whether the number is 180,000, 190,000, 200,000, or 210,000, I really don’t care. All I know is we’re rebuilding in a dramatic way. The ocean is filled with dogs and the biomass is increasing.”
No overfishing
On another positive note, Armstrong reported that overfishing was not occurring on dogfish. The fishing mortality threshold – the number that would trigger an overfishing designation – is 0.39. The fishing mortality rate in 2006 was 0.109, well below the threshold though very close to the “target” level of 0.11.
Armstrong said removals from the dogfish stock in 2006 totaled 20.2 million pounds or 9,182 mt broken down as follows:
US commercial landings – 5.212 million pounds or 2,363.9 mt;
Canadian commercial landings – 5.186 million pounds or 2,352 mt;
US commercial discards – 8.408 million pounds or 3,814 mt; and
US recreational landings plus dead discards – 1.437 million pounds or 652 mt.
Pup problem
As has been the case for many years now, the 2007 survey failed to find a significant number of dogfish pups, which scientists say doesn’t bode well for the future. It’s also part of the reason environmentalists aren’t convinced dogfish are in good shape in spite of their vast numbers.
According to the Spiny Dogfish Monitoring Committee, the biomass estimate of pups from the 2007 trawl survey was 560 mt – low compared to the 1968-1996 average of 2,780 mt.
The Northeast Fisheries Science Center said nine of the 11 lowest pup values in the 40-year time series of the survey were recorded over the past decade.
As a result, the science center said in a stock status update report that “female spawning stock biomass should continue to increase until 2010 and decline afterward when the smallest year classes on record enter the mature component of the population.”
However, the center added, “Total stock abundance should increase after this if survival of pups returns to average levels.”
Two council members who, as commercial fishermen, spend time on the water, questioned the pup situation.
Jim Ruhle, a Mid-Atlantic council member from North Carolina, said, “Pups are available at deeper depths than we’ve seen them before. You can’t go from having low recruitment to a spike in the biomass. They (the pups) had to be there before.”
And David Goethel of New England added, “I’ve seen pups in places I’ve never seen (them) before.”
Following a stream of comments by New England council members and fishermen in the audience about dogfish being everywhere and “indeed the plague of the ocean,” Jim Weinberg of the science center said, “No one is disputing there are a lot of dogfish out there.”
Weinberg said the big concern was poor pup production.
“The science is telling us that recruitment is the key to the dynamics of what will happen to this stock in the future. The population will increase until about 2010 and then it will decline.”
Technical advice
This whole flurry of activity on the dogfish management front began in September when the Spiny Dogfish Monitoring Committee met in conjunction with ASMFC’s Spiny Dogfish Technical Committee to review new information about the status of the stock and make recommendations to the Mid-Atlantic and New England councils and ASMFC.
After reviewing the 2007 spring bottom trawl survey results, running some numbers, and holding two more conference calls, the two technical committees recommended a 2008 quota increase from 4 million pounds to 6 million pounds because dogfish are not overfished and overfishing is not occurring.
They also loosely supported a 600-pound trip limit but never reached full consensus on the issue.
Recommendations
The Mid-Atlantic and New England councils’ joint dogfish committee then met on Oct. 17. The committee voted to support a quota increase from 4 million pounds to 8 million pounds divided as follows:
Quota Period 1, May 1 through Oct. 31, 2008 – 57.9% equal to 4,632,000 pounds; and
Quota Period 2, Nov. 1, 2008 through April 30, 2009 – 42.1% equal to 3,368,000 pounds.
The joint committee also supported a 3,000-pound trip limit for both harvest periods.
The Mid-Atlantic council met the following day and voted to ask NMFS to increase the 2008 quota to 8 million pounds, as recommended by the committee, but voted to keep the trip limit at 600 pounds.
ASMFC’s Spiny Dogfish and Coastal Shark Management Board met next on Oct. 29. In contrast to its federal counterparts, the board last year adopted a 6-million-pound quota for the 2007 fishing year even though the federal quota was 4 million pounds. For 2008, the ASMFC board adopted an increase from 6 million pounds to 8 million pounds with a trip limit of “up to 3,000 pounds,” to be determined by individual states.
The ASMFC board further agreed that 58% of the quota would be allocated to states from Maine through Connecticut and 42% would be allocated to New York through North Carolina.
Last came the New England council, which met Nov. 6-7 and voted to ask NMFS for a 2008 quota increase to 8 million pounds with a 3,000-pound trip limit for both quota periods.
The bottom line, however, rested in NMFS’s hands. Just before Christmas, the agency had taken no action to change the rules on the books for federal waters and the 2008 quota remained at 4 million pounds with a 600-pound trip limit.
Janice M. Plante
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