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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 9
May 2007
Skates overfished; new rules on horizon
MYSTIC, CT – Anyone who handles or catches skates for bait or the skate wing market will want to pay close attention to the New England Fishery Management Council’s latest move to reduce fishing mortality on several species in the skate complex.
The council is developing a new amendment to the federal skate plan and has scheduled three scoping meetings to gather industry ideas on potential management measures and issues affecting the fishery.
The meetings will be held in the following locations:
Gloucester, MA – May 22, Gloucester City Hall, 7 pm;
Narragansett, RI – May 23, Narragansett Town Hall, 7 pm; and
Buzzards Bay, MA – May 24, Mass Maritime Academy, 7 pm.
According to the council’s skate plan development team (PDT), thorny and winter skates are overfished, and little skates are “near the overfishing threshold.”
Furthermore, the PDT said the biomass of smooth skates “has not increased despite reductions in groundfish effort” and these skates, too, “could become overfished in 2007.”
Under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), a council must take corrective action to address an overfished or overfishing condition within one year of being notified of such a status.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) notified the New England council on Feb. 20 that winter skates were overfished, which triggered the new amendment.
And then, after reviewing the situation, the PDT concluded that a “broad-scale reduction in skate mortality” was needed overall – except, possibly, for barndoor, clearnose, and rosette skates, which are in better shape.
Trip limits? TACs?
During its April 10-12 meeting in Mystic, the council signed off on the scoping document and discussed the timetable for developing the amendment.
According to skate plan coordinator and PDT Chairman Andy Applegate, the scoping meetings give the public the earliest and best chance of influencing the process.
“We’re looking for input at this point on issues as well as management alternatives that might work,” he said.
In an effort to stimulate the discussion, the council outlined several possibilities, including:
Establishing hard or target total allowable catch (TAC) limits for skates;
Reducing the possession limit for skate wings to 5,000 pounds or some other appropriate amount;
Allowing skate landings only on a day-at-sea, possibly with different possession limits for different fisheries (e.g. groundfish vs. monkfish);
Disallowing small-mesh fisheries and fisheries not on a day-at-sea unless the bycatch of overfished and protected skates is less than 5% of the total weight of fish onboard in an exempted fishery; and
Closing new areas to bottom-tending trawls and dredges to reduce mortality on protected skates unless the gear is modified to reduce skate retention by 75%.
Tough problem
Executive Director Paul Howard reminded the council that under the newly reauthorized MSA, councils have to develop annual catch limits (ACLs) and accountability measures (AMs) for all overfished species by 2010.
Howard encouraged the council to meet this requirement for skates in the new amendment. Otherwise, the council will have to initiate a second amendment on the heels of this one, he said.
Applegate acknowledged that coming up with annual catch limits for individual skate species would be difficult.
“It’s going to be very challenging to do that because of the large number of ‘unidentified’ skates in the data base,” he said.
Council member David Pierce of Massachusetts laughed at the idea.
“I don’t know where we’re going with this,” he said. “How is this council going to come up with hard TACs when we still can’t tell some species apart?”
Identifying one species of skate from another, especially in their juveniles stages, has been the bane of this fishery, and Pierce said even the best scientists struggle to get it right sometimes.
Rich Canastra of the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction in New Bedford agreed.
“I’ve been doing this forever and I still can’t tell the difference,” he said. “We have quite a few skates at the auction, and they all look the same to me. If the fishermen can’t tell the difference and the processors can’t tell the difference, how are you going to do this?”
Fast track
All of these issues, including the species identification problem and data quality complications, are sure to come up during scoping, and it’s still unclear how the council will be able to address these points given its very tight timetable for completing the amendment.
Skate committee Chairman Rip Cunningham of Massachusetts explained that, following the May scoping meetings, the council will pull together its skate advisers and skate committee to develop alternatives for a full-scale public hearing document.
Then in June, the council will pick which of the advisers/committee alternatives should go out to official public hearings.
The council’s goal is to finalize the amendment by February 2008.
“We have a very ambitious schedule on this,” Cunningham said.
To obtain a copy of the scoping document, visit the council’s web site at <www.nefmc.org> or call the council office at (978) 465-0492.
Janice M. Plante
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