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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 5
January 2008
MA quota cuts mean big regulatory changes
BOURNE, MA – Massachusetts fishermen across all gear types who count on summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass catches to help make their year will see a dramatic reduction in what they can harvest in 2008, and state managers are trying to figure out how to effectively monitor catches so quota overages don’t lead to even more cuts in future years.
Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) Director Paul Diodati and Deputy Director Dan McKiernan laid out the sobering situation for members of the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Commission at their Dec. 6 meeting here.
The cuts are the result of total allowable catch landings (TALs) proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) this fall and adopted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) in August.
The coastwide 2008 TAL for black sea bass will be 4.22 million pounds, a 35% reduction from 2007. The coastwide scup TAL will be 7.34 million pounds, a 46% reduction from 2007. The coastwide summer flounder TAL was also cut, but not by as much – 8% to 15.77 million pounds.
Because the reduced quotas will be taken quickly, DMF faces a dilemma – how to keep track of landings so that the quotas aren’t exceeded, leading to overages being deducted from the 2009 quotas, without controlling fishermen so tightly that they don’t have adequate opportunity to catch the fish they’re entitled to.
“In light of significant quota cuts … it is unreasonable to expect accurate forecasting of many of these commercial fishery closure dates under the current regulatory scheme,” Diodati wrote in a memo to the commission.
He explained that DMF now predicts the closure date of quota-managed species based on the previous weeks’ landing. But since some quotas conceivably could be taken in less than two weeks, “the likelihood of ending up far from 100% is increased,” he said.
McKiernan noted that this year’s black sea bass quota basically was taken in two-and-a-half weeks during the second half of the spring season.
To try to deal with the problem, DMF proposed and the commission approved taking the following options to public hearing in February.
Black sea bass
The proposal is for no change to the January-April season when bycatch amounts are allowed. The directed fishery traditionally has been split between a May-July spring season, when fishing is at its best and prices tend to plunge, and an August-December summer-fall season.
DMF’s preferred option is to close the spring fishery altogether and open the summer-fall season two weeks earlier on July 16 instead of Aug. 1.
“Black sea bass spawn primarily during June and fishermen report that sea bass disperse after the peak spawning period,” DMF said by way of explanation. “Catch rates in the post-spawning period through summer and early fall likely will be lower than those seen in May and early June. Ex-vessel prices will likely be maintained.”
One big drawback of this proposal is that it will affect black sea bass potters who only participate in the spring fishery because they’re doing something else during the summer months, like lobstering and fishing for tuna, DMF said.
Other “nonpreferred” options on the public hearing agenda will include: limiting the spring fishery to a set number of days, probably around six, with current trip limits – 500 pounds for pots and weirs and 100 pounds for lobster traps; or implementing individual fishing quotas (IFQs) for potters and allowing other gear types access to what’s left in a common pool quota.
Scup proposals
The scup fishery is currently split into three periods – Winter 1, Summer, and Winter II. Since the winter fisheries are in federal waters and managed by NMFS, the DMF options most directly apply to the May-October Summer period. Due to the 46% quota cut, DMF anticipates this fishery will close more than a month earlier than usual.
Following a strategy of minimizing fishing mortality during times and places where the fish bunch up and are vulnerable, DMF is proposing to:
Prohibit catch of scup by hook and line and pots during the proposed May 1-July 15 closure of the black sea bass fishery;
Open the directed scup fishery on July 16 when the black sea bass fishery opens; and
Decrease the weir set-aside by 46%.
DMF explained that, due to the unique nature of the fishery and its dependence on scup, the weirs have had a set-aside since 2000 that has increased from the original 75,000 pounds to the current 225,000 pounds.
No change is proposed to the 9" minimum size. The daily trip limit during the proposed July 16-Oct. 31 Summer period would be 400 pounds for hook and line, pots, and trawls, and the fishery would run Sunday-Thursday.
Summer flounder
Starting in 2007, DMF divided the state’s summer flounder quota over three periods: 15% for Winter I; 70% for Summer; and 15% for Winter II. The goal was to limit winter fishery landings so overages wouldn’t have to be taken out of the Summer period subquota.
However, high catch rates combined with late reporting by some dealers resulted in the fishery exceeding not only the Winter I subquota but the Winter II subquota as well, leaving no fish available for harvest from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31.
Concluding that it will be even more difficult to accurately track landings and close the fishery in a timely way, DMF is proposing to eliminate the Winter periods and to delay the opening of the fishery until Feb. 1.
So, the summer flounder quota would be split between Period I, Feb. 1-April 22, and Period II, April 23-Dec. 31. The Period I trip limit – 500 pounds for nets decreasing to 100 pounds when 25% of the quota is taken – would be comparable to Rhode Island’s trip limits to discourage boats from redirecting their landings from Rhode Island to Massachusetts.
Because the public hearings won’t be held probably until February, DMF said it expected to implement the Period I changes through emergency action.
Inadequate science
Making this news even harder for commission members to accept was an explanation of the thin science these quota cuts were based on.
“The black sea bass quota is index-based determined by the bottom trawl survey. It’s not ideal but it’s what we’ve got. There is no assessment available,” said DMF Deputy Director David Pierce, who shared the commission’s frustration.
He explained that the “three-year moving average,” meaning the amount of black sea bass seen by the federal survey for 2005, 2006, and 2007, declined, resulting in the 35% quota cut.
“There have been many expressions of concern that there is no way to adequately assess black sea bass,” Pierce said. “It’s the same thing with scup. There’s not really an assessment. We haven’t got it and we aren’t going to have it in the near future.”
Summer flounder is a different story since the information used to determine stock status includes recreational and commercial landings and catch reports, as well as the bottom trawl survey. However, Pierce said federal fishery managers are beginning to insist on extremely conservative precautionary management approaches.
“The 8% reduction on fluke is a significant reduction, but it could have been worse,” Pierce said.
Other hearing items
Commission member Mark Amorello made the motion to accept the DMF summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass changes for public hearing purposes with the caveat that they “have the latitude to consider a wider range of options.”
The commission unanimously approved the motion. The only other items expected to be on that public hearing agenda is the June 7, 2007 control date for all the commercial hook fisheries except striped bass (see CFN July 2007 for details); and the emergency Cod Conservation Zone closure.
Tautog cut tempered
Pierce also informed the commission that, thanks to the hard work of DMF biologist Paul Caruso, Massachusetts and Rhode Island will not have to take such deep cuts in their tautog quotas as were anticipated earlier this year.
The current Massachusetts quota of 96,000 pounds will be cut to around 64,700 pounds. That entire cut will come out of the commercial fishery’s share of the quota. That’s because the ASMFC tautog plan requires states to maintain an 80% recreational/20% commercial balance, and the Massachusetts fishery currently is predominately commercial. Taking the reduction on the commercial side will help restore the required balance, Pierce explained.
“Without the work (Caruso) did, we would have had about a 36,000-pound quota,” Pierce said. “We could have liberalized the recreational fishery if we took a bigger commercial cut, but we didn’t want to do that. This hit was big enough.”
Sector money
In early December, DMF was reviewing proposals from groups that have applications into the New England Fishery Management Council for sectors under Amendment 16 to the federal groundfish plan.
The Massachusetts Legislature has appropriated $500,000 to support sector development by covering costs associated with drawing up draft environmental impact assessments, operations plans, and sector contracts.
The money is being channeled through the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife (F&W), the parent agency of DMF. The New England council has received 12 sector proposals from Massachusetts-based fishermen’s groups.
CCZ action
Following consultation with DMF and F&W attorneys in response to criticism about DMF’s decision not to hold a public hearing before renewing the 2007-2008 Cod Conservation Zone (CCZ) closure, Diodati decided to take emergency action to ensure that the closure went into effect as scheduled on Dec. 1.
In a memo to the commission, Diodati said the legal review indicated that the closure was different enough from the original proposal heard at public hearing in 2005 that a new hearing was warranted.
There was not time enough to schedule a hearing and so Diodati decided to move forward with a 90-day emergency closure of the area. The emergency action and a proposal to make the CCZ closure permanent will be aired at public hearing probably in February.
“In light of the need to maintain our cod protection measures, I firmly believe we must keep the CCZ closed this winter,” Diodati said. “I apologize to the commission for this misstep in the rule-making process and regret that these actions have been so convoluted. However, this effort to protect cod aggregations in Massachusetts Bay, a remnant of the Gulf of Maine stock, is a moving target that is made more imperative by ongoing federal actions to protect groundfish.”
Gloucester gillnetter Don King, who traveled to the meeting in hopes of presenting the commission with information he thought would convince them the CCZ should be reopened to state waters fishermen, was angry that he was not allowed to speak at the Dec. 6 meeting. His feelings were especially strong because he felt the legal opinions proved he was right in his previous criticism of Diodati’s decision to impose the closure without a public hearing.
“I feel I’m being stonewalled,” he told the commission.
In other business ...
The commission welcomed Ray Kane of Chatham as a new commission member. Kane replaces Rodney Avila.
In response to concerns raised by Mark Weissman, a commission member from Cape Cod, Diodati said he would look into reports that delays in shellfish testing were preventing the opening of traditional oyster areas on the Cape in time for the holidays.
Diodati explained that DMF staffers were in the process of moving the shellfish-testing program from temporary quarters to the new, recently completed DMF lab at the DMF field office in New Bedford.
“We are transitioning to the new lab but we have two other labs within the state,” he said. “We’ll look into it and get that testing done.”
Commission member Patsy Frontierro asked how DMF could help shrimpers get access to a closed area on Jeffreys Ledge. He said the northern shrimp are good size and plentiful in the area between mid-January and mid-February.
Noting that the area was in federal waters, Diodati said DMF had tried before to convince the New England council and NMFS to open the area but without success.
Commission member John Pappalardo, who also is chairman of the New England council, said the time was right to try again because the council is examining habitat closures, such as the one on Jeffreys, right now.
“This is a good time to raise the issue again,” he said.
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