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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 9
May 2009
Large Whale Take Reduction Team meets
Groundlines settled; focus now on shaping plan to reduce endlines
PROVIDENCE, RI – Now that sinking groundline is required in fixed gear fisheries along most of the East Coast, the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team (TRT) has turned its attention to the risk posed to endangered large whales by the vertical buoy lines fishermen use to find and retrieve their gear.
The Northeast subgroup of the TRT met here April 1-2 to begin what is expected to be a five-year process to first better define that risk and then recommend and adopt ways to reduce it. More than 30 people participated in the meeting, including lobstermen, gillnetters, state and federal fishery managers, scientists, and whale conservationists.
For some time, the conservation community has been sending the clear message that there needs to be a reduction of at least 50% in the number of vertical lines in the water to protect whales from entanglements, which can sometimes lead to serious injury or death.
Two federal laws – the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act – basically demand that the risk of such harm to endangered whales be as close to zero as possible.
In an attempt to balance this mandate with the needs of fixed gear fishermen to operate in a relatively economical and safe manner, the Protected Resources Division of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), based at the Northeast Regional Office in Gloucester, relies on TRT members to hash out disagreements and build consensus on which steps NMFS should take.
On the issue of vertical line reduction, there appeared to be the potential for polar-opposite points of view to clash. But what took place instead was a surprisingly civil and candid exchange of ideas and concerns among fishermen, conservationists, scientists, and managers.
While no firm decisions were made, the group generally agreed to:
l Focus on reducing lines instead of focusing solely on reducing traps;
l Find a way to give fishermen credit for effort reductions currently taking place through management actions and stock and market declines if they translate into vertical line reductions; and
l Commit to improve data collection to get a clearer sense of how many vertical lines really are in the water and where whales are in relation to those lines.
Entanglements
Early in the meeting, Diane Borggaard, NMFS’s large whale plan coordinator, provided the group with an update on entanglements.
For all of 2008 through to March 24, 2009, the Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Network recorded 41 documented entanglement cases plus an additional 11 possible sightings that were still being investigated.
That figure included a record number of right whale entanglement cases in the Southeast region – five during the winter 2008-2009 calving season compared to one or two in previous seasons.
And, for the years 1997 through 2007, NMFS recorded 325 entanglements. Of those, gear was recovered in 112 cases and the place where the gear was originally set was determined in 45 cases.
Borggaard said that a preliminary analysis of that data revealed nothing new, just that there was “a lot of rope” involved. The one unusual event was a single case of Canadian lobster gear being removed from a whale in the Southeast US region, she said.
Sink rope effect
Meeting participants expressed quite a bit of interest about what impact the new sinking groundline requirement would have on the number of entanglements.
Fishermen especially expected the extremely costly and controversial measure that went into effect on April 5 would significantly reduce entanglement incidents.
However, research conducted at the NMFS Northeast Fisheries Science Center indicated that it will take at least several years before a trend is evident – if there is one.
While the sinking groundline requirement has the potential to significantly reduce entanglements because it removes a huge amount of line from the water column where whales swim and feed, no one knows exactly how big an effect the new requirement will have.
But the sinking groundline rule is here to stay, and NMFS is committed to moving ahead to further cut entanglement risk through vertical line reductions.
NMFS position
Dave Gouveia, marine mammal coordinator for the NMFS Protected Resources Division, said the agency is trying to learn from the long and difficult process that led to the last major Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan action.
“It is critical that this be different from how we developed the sinking groundline rule,” he said, explaining that, because it had limited data, NMFS had no choice but to impose broad-based groundline measures.
Gouveia said NMFS wants to be fully informed as early as possible on the economic impacts of vertical line reduction. It also wants enough data to have the option of reducing lines in the places where it will have the most impact, rather than apply blanket reductions all along the coast.
“What good is it to impose a heavy burden with rules on places where there are no whales?” he said. “We’re trying to be adaptive and listen to industry.”
Gouveia further asked everyone around the table to do what they could to accurately explain the TRT’s vertical line reduction goal and the process for reaching that goal to their respective groups or organizations.
“We need your help with outreach so we can make these alternatives as universal and meaningful as we can,” he told the TRT subgroup.
“Co-occurrence”
One of the biggest challenges facing NMFS and the TRT is figuring out a starting point. Since no one knows how many vertical lines are in use, it’s difficult to know how to achieve any reduction target and effectively reduce the risk to whales.
To get a better handle on this, NMFS has hired a contractor to develop a “co-occurrence model” that can overlay whale sightings data with estimates of the numbers of vertical lines in the water to determine where it makes most sense to focus efforts to remove lines.
“We’re trying to remedy a big problem by approaching it methodically,” Gouveia said.
The basic assumption of the model is that entanglement risk is greatest where high numbers of vertical lines overlap with high numbers of whale sightings.
Once those areas are identified, NMFS sees the TRT as having two options: keep the vertical lines but make them lower risk, which so far has proven to be a real challenge; or reduce the number of lines.
More data needed
Mary Colligan, NMFS assistant regional administrator for protected resources, stressed the need for accurate information to make the model work.
“It’s important that we have good gear data and good whale data before we overlay them in the model,” she said.
However, over the course of the two-day discussion, it became apparent that getting a clear picture of where line reductions will have the greatest impact will be very difficult.
TRT members pointed out that, beyond whale sighting and vertical line data, the model needs to consider many other factors to generate a somewhat accurate picture of risk.
Among these factors are: the impact of industry effort reductions on the number of vertical lines in the water; the seasonal nature of whale migration and fixed gear fisheries; and whale feeding and other behavior patterns.
There also is a need to figure out how to extrapolate what is known about all these factors to places where there is little or no such data. Currently, much of the needed data is considered to be sketchy.
“The NMFS model is a good approach, but I don’t think we should be misled into thinking this approach is everything,” said Maine TRT member Patrice McCarron of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “We have to recognize the behavior, feeding, and habitat pieces of the puzzle. That’s the way to identify the high risk areas that will have a high conservation impact.”
Maine reporting
There also was some pointed discussion over how many vertical lines are being used by Maine lobstermen.
Conservationists strongly believe they have ample evidence to document the presence of whales in the waters off the Maine coast from the outer limits of the lobster zones practically to the beach. And because Maine accounts for the vast majority of lobster fishing effort, getting vertical line info from the state is a high priority for the TRT.
While Massachusetts asks all lobstermen to report the maximum number of buoy lines fished in an annual recall log and Rhode Island does something similar, Maine doesn’t have a system in place for collecting and processing that kind of data.
The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) attempted to get a handle on the number of vertical lines through a survey sent to lobstermen a year ago. However, the TRT basically dismissed this effort because the response was “self-selecting,” meaning only those lobstermen who felt like responding did, skewing the results.
The DMR also is trying to ease into a mandatory reporting system by requiring 10% of lobstermen to file trip reports. But the TRT was skeptical that 10% reporting would produce enough information on which to base an accurate estimate of vertical lines in the water, even if a question asking the number of endlines fished was added to the reporting form.
When DMR representatives tried to get a sense from the TRT what level of mandatory reporting would be adequate, the response ranged from around 30% to as high as 100% trip level reporting.
The group eventually rejected the 100% idea as prohibitively expensive and impractical. Even at least one conservationist said such a requirement would generate way more information than could be effectively processed.
DMR representative Sarah Cotnoir added that state budget cuts leave no money to support any kind of new, large data collection effort. However, in a follow-up interview, Cotnoir said the DMR is committed to doing what it can because it’s the best way to make sure Maine fishermen are fairly treated.
“I think we realize we need more data and we’re trying to figure out the best way to get it,” she said. “If we’re going to be looking at endline risk reduction, we need the best data we can get.”
Conservation “concepts”
During the meeting, three different conservation groups offered “concept” papers that gave a good idea of how strongly they stand behind the need to further reduce entanglement risks.
One, introduced by the Ocean Conservancy, proposed trap reductions and/or endline reductions through requirements to have a minimum number of traps affixed to a single endline in nearshore waters and two endlines in offshore waters.
A proposal offered by Scott Kraus of the New England Aquarium was prefaced by the statement that a preferred strategy would be to make all entanglements “insignificant” through gear modifications that would allow whales to free themselves without harm.
However, since that technology does not exist at this time, Kraus recommended a 60% across-the-board reduction in traps from the coast to federal waters to go into effect in 2010.
Kraus’ proposal also would have eliminated single traps and, subsequently, imposed a five-year moratorium on further alterations in fishing gear aimed at whale conservation to give the industry time to “stabilize.”
Both of these proposals were heard but not endorsed, which left several industry and state reps feeling pretty secure that the TRT would focus on endline rather than trap reduction.
“Ropeless” zone
A third proposal, offered by the Humane Society of the US, sought to identify an area where there is a predictable overlap of right whales and fishing gear – most likely on Jeffreys Ledge – and close it from September through February to all fixed gear except “line-free” gear.
Following a break in the discussion, Massachusetts TRT member Stormy Mayo of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (PCCS) suggested modifying the proposal.
Instead of closing an open area, the modified proposal would open a closed area to fishermen willing to do cooperative research with engineers to test ropeless fixed gear.
With input from fishermen, the TRT identified a potentially appropriate area in the Great South Channel, which is seasonally closed to protect whales and also closed to mobile gear.
After industry representatives won assurances that any gear successfully tested there would be further vetted by the TRT before being required anywhere else, the TRT endorsed the concept.
It was what Mayo called “a rare consensus.”
In another consensus, the TRT endorsed a request from Dan McKiernan of Massachusetts to ask NMFS to change the weak link minimum breaking strength in the Cape Cod Critical Habitat area from 600 pounds to 500 pounds to make it consistent with breaking strengths required everywhere else.
Gear marking
While no formal consensus was reached, the TRT seriously discussed the need for better gear marking so that everyone can get a clearer sense of where line involved in entanglements comes from.
There were serious concerns both from fishermen and conservationists about any marking that would allow gear recovered from entanglements to be traced back to individual fishermen, leaving them open to civil lawsuits.
“I understand the need to know where the gear comes from but if the gear is compliant, the fisherman should be held harmless,” said TRT member Bob Nudd, a New Hampshire fisherman.
TRT member Jooke Robbins of the PCCS agreed that “compliant gear shouldn’t have ramifications” but explained that having bold markings that could at least identify what fishery gear was used in would be very useful.
Added McCarron to the point about improving gear marking, “This is something we should support because the lack of data could result in a broad-brush approach that hurts everyone.”
Next steps
The Mid/South Atlantic subgroup of the TRT was scheduled to meet in Philadelphia April 28-29. After that, NMFS will begin work on the issues agreed upon and discussed by the two subgroups.
Colligan summed up the tasks the agency will focus on as a result of the Northeast subgroup meeting.
They include: following up on the “ropeless” gear area proposal; working with the states to assess and then improve data collection; examining data collection gaps in federal vessel trip reports; figuring out how to account for changes in fishing effort that have happened or are about to happen; identifying additional data that need to be used in the co-occurrence model to formulate entanglement risk assessments; putting together a list of pros and cons of new gear marking techniques; and more.
The TRT likely will not meet again until 2010.
Lorelei Stevens
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