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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 9
May 2006
General category scallop options advance
MYSTIC, CT – In a move strongly supported by industry advisers, the New England Fishery Management Council recently announced its almost certain intent to use the Nov. 1, 2004 control date as the cut-off for limiting access to the general category scallop fishery.
The decision won’t be final until after public hearings early next winter, but given the council’s leaning, the control date will now serve as the foundation for the majority of the alternatives developed for Amendment 11 to the federal Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan. Additional qualification criteria, such as poundage landing requirements, also might be considered.
During its April 4-5 meeting here, the council further agreed to consider allocating between 2.5% and 11% of each year’s scallop target total allowable catch (TAC) to the directed day-boat general category fishery.
Next, the council’s scallop plan development team will come up with an analysis detailing the impacts of specific allocations – for example, 2.5% vs. 5% vs. 11%, or possibly even every variable between the identified range.
The selected percentage will not include incidental scallop catches by general category permit holders who target other species, nor will it include any poundage landed by limited-access vessels working on scallops outside of a day-at-sea if that practice is allowed to continue under Amendment 11.
The council’s scallop committee met late in March to develop recommendations for the council after reviewing testimony from February’s Amendment 11 scoping meetings and considering input from industry advisers, who also met in March.
According to scallop committee Chairman Tom Hill of Massachusetts, the meeting was a hard one.
“The committee is struggling to figure out how to proceed with what we were charged to do in the scoping document and how to send a signal to people that we are going to be far more deliberate in how we control fishing mortality,” he said.
What is “historical?”
The council struggled as well, particularly as it tried to define the general category TAC range.
Deirdre Boelke, the council’s Amendment 11 scallop coordinator, put three of the potential TAC allocation options into perspective. The first, 2.5%, reflects the fishery from 1994 to 1998, the period when average general category landings were low, while 5% reflects 1999-2003, a period when landings were higher.
The 7.5% figure is “50% higher than the highest historic level before the control date,” she said.
As scallop chairman, Hill put forward the committee’s original motion to consider a general category allocation range of 2.5% to 12.5%. However, he said he personally opposed the range and instead supported a move by council member David Pierce of Massachusetts to reduce the span to 2.5% to 7.5%.
“I am unequivocally committed to having us pick a range that fits within the historical norm,” said Hill. “The fishery has changed dramatically over the past few years. We’re trying to help historical participants from being buried by new participants. Their longevity and success in the fishery is being constrained by uncontrolled growth.”
Sensing the council’s unwillingness to restrict the range, Hill continued, “We go through this every time we do limited entry. These are hard decisions but I encourage you to make them.”
Yet Maine council member Dana Rice was against taking such a significant step prior to public hearings.
“At this stage of the game, I’d like to see the analysis done with the 12.5%. This is not a fishery that’s in trouble. It is the success story of New England,” Rice said.
TAC range
The original 2.5% to 12.5% range was vehemently opposed by limited-access scallopers who argued that the upper end was inappropriately high. Most called for a range of 2.5% to 5%. The highest, a few conceded, should be 7.5% – and for analysis purposes only.
“The historic range needs to be considered here,” said David Frulla, attorney for the Fisheries Survival Fund. “Otherwise it’s a reallocation of a resource at the cyclical high. A lot of people have a lot at stake here on both sides.”
Dan Cohen of Atlantic Capes Fisheries Inc. added, “We should not lead people on to believe that you’re going to create a new fishery. If you don’t control this mortality, you’re going to maybe have a bloom for one more year and then it will go down again. We don’t want any more boom and bust cycles.”
Is it fair?
General category permit holder John Stuart of Portland, ME, on the other hand, argued against a restrictive TAC range.
Although the council’s general category advisers voted 6-2 on March 22 that 5% to 15% would be “a reasonable range to examine as an allocation for the general category sector,” Stuart signed on to a “minority opinion,” believing the upper 15% end needed to be higher given the significantly larger number of participants in the general category fishery vs. the limited-access fishery.
According to the latest statistics available to the council, 2,898 vessels held general category permits in 2005, and 2,374 of those belonged to vessels that acquired history prior to the control date.
In contrast, 359 vessels held full-time, part-time, or occasional limited-access permits.
At the April council meeting Stuart argued that even 15% was too low and not consistent with National Standard 4 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
National Standard 4 states, “Conservation and management measures shall not discriminate between residents of different states.”
It further specifies, “If it becomes necessary to allocate or assign fishing privileges among various US fishermen, such allocation shall be:
A) “Fair and equitable to all such fishermen;
B) “Reasonably calculated to promote conservation; and
C) “Carried out in such manner that no particular individual, corporation, or other entity acquires an excessive share of such privileges.”
Prior to control date
After listening to arguments on both sides, New Hampshire council member John Nelson took a slightly different approach. He learned after asking a few questions that roughly 11% of all the scallops landed from March through December 2005 came from general category scallopers who were in the fishery prior to the control date.
Given this information, Nelson moved to amend the motion to 2.5% to 11%.
“Rather than penalize the people who were in before the control date, I’m prepared to support the higher number. I think we need to be fair about how we treat people who were already in the fishery,” he said.
The motion to amend carried 10-6 with one abstention, again with the understanding that the percentage would apply only to the directed day-boat general category fishery.
Hill, clearly frustrated, said he was baffled by the council’s decision.
“It absolutely paralyzes the committee in being able to develop limited-access criteria,” he said. “We want to leave everything so broad and so user friendly, and then we get to the end and find out our actions don’t work.”
He also said, “The advisers aren’t going to be able to give us any advice this way.”
What’s the vision?
Nelson, however, stressed the action was preliminary.
“Whether we choose that upper range depends on the analysis that comes back to us,” he said.
Jim Kendall of New Bedford Seafood Consulting was disturbed by the course of events and asked the council for a “vision statement” for the general category fishery.
“I’m very troubled with the direction this is heading to. This is getting to the point where the little fishery is going to lead and direct what happens in the bigger fishery,” he said. “We’re about to have a part-time fishery redefine the limited-access fishery.”
Percentage implications
The volume of future landings by the general category directed day-boat fleet will hinge directly on which TAC percentage the council ultimately chooses.
For example, if the scallop target TAC was projected in a given year to be 70 million pounds, a 2.5% allocation to the general category would allow the fleet to land 1.8 million pounds, while a 10% allocation would boost allowable landings to 7 million pounds.
In a different example, a 60-million-pound target TAC coupled with a 5% allocation to general category day-boats would allow those vessels to land 3 million pounds.
However, if the TAC was projected to be 40 million pounds, the allocation would drop to 2 million pounds. Conversely, a 70-million-pound projected TAC would result in a 3.5-million-pound allocation to general category day-boats.
The way it works now, a target TAC is developed for the fishery as a whole, which influences the limited-access fleet’s days-at-sea allocations.
However, the council may consider allocating a hard TAC to the general category fishery, a possibility that drew harsh criticism from New Bedford vessel owner Harriet Didriksen.
“I’m against the hard TACs and I’m against ITQs. How do you feel you have the expertise here to go to hard TACs?” she asked.
Connecticut council member Dave Simpson also questioned the equity of using hard TACs for only one segment of the fishery.
“I think if we’re going to be talking about hard TACs, it should be for the entire fishery, not just (a small percentage) of the fishery,” he said.
The council is expected to pick final alternatives for the Amendment 11 public hearing document during its June 13-15 meeting in Newport, RI.
Before that, the scallop committee will meet May 16-17 in Plymouth, MA to develop recommendations. The scallop general category advisory panel will meet on May 2 in Warwick, RI and then again on May 3 jointly with the council’s regular scallop advisory panel.
Janice M. Plante
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