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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 7
March 2008
Herring spawning area analysis continues
ALEXANDRIA, VA – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlantic Herring Technical Committee needs clearer goals and objectives and more data to properly evaluate how well the current “zero tolerance” spawning closures for sea herring are working.
However, the committee, which was responding to a request from the Atlantic Herring Section to determine “the efficacy” of spawning closures, will continue to work on the project despite these significant limitations.
At a Feb. 4 meeting here, technical committee Chairman Matt Cieri of the Maine Department of Marine Resources reported that the technical committee held a Jan. 10 conference call. The purpose of the call was to address specific questions posed by the herring section about spawning closures and the effectiveness of the new “zero tolerance, zero fishing” rule, which prohibits all fishing inside spawning areas during closure periods.
The new rule marked a monumental deviation from Maine’s long-standing 20% tolerance program that allowed fishermen to harvest herring during spawning closures as long as no more than 20% of the fish harvested were in gonadal stages V and VI, which are herring considered to be “ripe” and ready to spawn.
When ASMFC first took the zero tolerance route two years ago, Maine tried to implement a rule that interpreted “zero tolerance” as a prohibition against possession of “spawn” fish – the stage V and VI “ripe” adults – while still allowing fishing on fish in nonspawn-condition.
The ASMFC herring section vehemently protested and called Maine to the mat, forcing the state to adopt the “zero fishing” provision in 2007, which was what ASMFC said it had always intended.
At industry’s request, the section last fall asked the technical committee to evaluate the “efficacy” of spawning closures in general.
Only one year
According to Cieri, the technical committee only would be able to evaluate spawning area closures on a “relative” level because of the lack of an inshore assessment for herring. He explained that the relative analysis would look at three variations of the rule:
No fishing at all during spawning closures;
Zero tolerance, where Maine allowed fishing but zero possession of “spawn” fish; and
20% tolerance.
However, Cieri said the technical committee expressed significant concern about conducting an evaluation given the limited amount of data available since the zero fishing rule had only been in place for one season.
“We’re scientists,” he said. “We would like to have five years worth of data to look at the effect of these management changes.”
Goals, objectives
Furthermore, the technical committee as a whole said it was concerned that the goals and objectives of spawning area closures were “unclear.”
In its report to the section, the technical committee stated, “Historically, these measures were designed to protect the bulk of spawning individuals in the inshore Gulf of Maine, while balancing economic impacts.”
The committee asked, “Have the goals and objectives of the measures changed … particularly in reference to protecting spawning aggregations, acceptable impacts on juvenile fish, and acceptable levels of harvest interruption?
“Until these goals and objectives are stated, the technical committee will be unable to measure the effectiveness of these measures,” the committee reported.
Need to hold off?
Commissioners Ritchie White and state Rep. Dennis Abbott, both of New Hampshire, questioned why the herring section would ask the technical committee to continue investigating an issue for which it said it didn’t have enough data to properly analyze.
“We should get the data over five years and then analyze it,” said White.
Commissioner John Nelson, also of New Hampshire, concurred.
“If the technical committee can’t do this, why are we continuing to pursue it?” he asked.
Mary Beth Tooley of the Small Pelagic Group, which represents midwater trawlers and seiners, was quick to respond.
“I think we’re here discussing this today because industry is concerned about the economic impact,” she said. “In Maine, fishermen felt highly impacted.”
Tooley said fishermen thought the section instituted “zero tolerance, zero fishing” without adequate information.
“We felt you made the decision with no analysis,” she said. “The old regulations worked just fine. Maine put a lot of resources into monitoring the spawning closures and, during that period, the stock rebuilt.
“Then you decided to make changes,” Tooley said. “The fishermen quite frankly disagree with that. Now we’re asking for the analysis. We want to know, ‘Did the measures that were in place for a very long time have a positive or negative impact on the Gulf of Maine?’”
“No justification”
Jeff Kaelin, representing Ocean Spray Partnership and New England Fish Company, also urged the section to continue with the analysis.
“Putting it off for another couple of years doesn’t address the technical committee’s concern that we don’t have clear goals and objectives, “ he said. “All it will do is cause further economic harm to the fleet in the Gulf of Maine.”
Kaelin, too, supported reverting to the 20% tolerance.
“There’s no reason we couldn’t go back to it,” he said. “The state of Maine invested a lot of time and money into enforcing it.”
As for the zero fishing restriction, Kaelin concluded, “We don’t think there’s a biological justification for it. And it’s hurting the Maine industry.”
Move ahead
Section member David Pierce of Massachusetts said he wanted the technical committee to continue working on the issue to the extent possible.
“I don’t support postponing the analyses largely because of all the controversy we had last year,” he said. “I want to see what happened during the spawning closures before and after we had the zero tolerance in place. I’d like to see what happened to the boats. I’d like to see the catch and discards by gear type.”
Maine Commissioner Pat White said he recognized the section wasn’t going to refine its spawning area goals and objectives during the current meeting, but he said it was clear that a primary goal was to “maintain a spawning stock that’s healthy enough to support a healthy fishery.”
He then asked, “Is there any way we can ask the technical committee to do the analysis for the previous fishing years with 20% so we’ll have a baseline to go by?”
The technical committee, in its report to the section, stated that “estimating the relative risk for no fishing, 0% tolerance, and 20% tolerance will take one person a total of 80 hours to complete.”
The committee further warned that the analysis could not be conducted until landings and sampling data were finalized, which might not happen until May.
ASMFC Commissioner Eric Smith said he wanted to see the results of this analysis, even if it was in general terms.
“I think that would be very helpful,” he said.
Cieri said the technical committee could go back and put together a “catch-at-age matrix” showing catch levels for each year class of herring – age 1 fish, age 2 fish, and so on – per fishing year.
He said the committee also would “try” to look at discards, but those could not be broken down by age.
The herring section most likely will see the results of this work in August during the commission’s summer meeting week.
Janice M. Plante
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