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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 10
June 2008
ASMFC to look at hard quotas for dogfish
ALEXANDRIA, VA – The state of North Carolina, claiming it is disadvantaged by the existing spiny dogfish seasonal quota split between the north and the south, has successfully won acceptance by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) to review how dogfish allocations are made both regionally and on a state-by-state basis.
“It’s been a big issue in North Carolina,” said ASMFC Commissioner Louis Daniel III, director of the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF). “For North Carolina to go from being a strong number-two dogfish player to a weak (number-five) player raises some real concerns with us.”
Daniel made those comments during the May 6 meeting of ASMFC’s Spiny Dogfish and Coastal Sharks Management Board. He walked into the Alexandria-based meeting seeking board consideration of a state-by-state quota allocation system for dogfish, similar to the ones now in place for summer flounder, black sea bass, and bluefish.
However, several board members expressed reservations about undertaking such significant action on such short notice.
“It’s going to be quite a contentious process,” said Virginia board member Jack Travelstead. “It’s going to be a drawn-out process as states go back and look at where they’ve been and where they want to go” in terms of dogfish landings.
Others agreed, and the board instead supported a two-part strategy to address potential dogfish harvest equity issues.
First, it voted to launch Addendum II to the interstate dogfish plan to change the current 58% and 42% seasonal quota split between northern and southern states and make it a fixed, nonseasonal split between the two regions with a requirement that any quota overages be paid back by the region that accumulated the overage.
Second, the board voted to initiate another addendum – Addendum III – to consider state-by-state quotas for dogfish.
How it works now
The current ASMFC plan divides the annual dogfish quota two ways. First, it splits the quota into two seasonal harvest periods so that roughly 58% of the quota is available May 1 through Oct. 31 and 42% is available Nov. 1 through April 30.
Second, the plan divides the quota regionally so that “northern” states from Maine through Connecticut receive 58% of the quota while “southern” states from New York through North Carolina receive 42%.
As a result, northern states have been allowed to fish for 58% of the quota from May through October while southern states, in theory at least, have been allowed to fish for 42% of the quota from November through April.
But according to North Carolina officials, the seasonal split hasn’t worked as intended. Southern states haven’t gotten a fair crack at their intended 42% share because the fishery in recent years has been shut down repeatedly due to overages in the north.
In an April 29 letter to ASMFC urging the board to address the issue, North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission Chairman Mac Currin wrote, “It is clear North Carolina fishermen have been disadvantaged by the harvest seasons.”
Short-changed
North Carolina’s DMF documented the landings shift in an extensively detailed seven-page report to the ASMFC spiny dogfish board.
The original interstate dogfish plan used 1990-1997 as the “reference period” to establish the 58% vs. 42% regional quota split.
However, during the 2003/2004 dogfish fishing year, which was the first year of implementation of the ASMFC plan, northern states far exceeded their seasonal 58% quota, landing 82.88% of the available annual quota.
During the following three fishing years, northern states respectively landed 82.96%, 93.83%, and 66.53% of the annual quota, reported DMF.
Massachusetts dominated the field under both the seasonal and regional category quota splits, but the overall shift in landings toward northern states was evident from the data review (see box previous page for state-by-state percentages).
Fixing the inequity
As a “first step,” Daniel urged the board to support a hard quota for each area “so the southern fishery doesn’t become disadvantaged by an overage in the northern fishery.”
By eliminating the seasons and simply allocating 58% of the quota to the north and 42% of the quota to the south, all states within a region could fish at any time during the year, as long as they didn’t exceed their regional quota.
North Carolina’s Red Munden, who was involved in the development of both the ASMFC and federal dogfish plans, said the original May-October and November-April seasonal split “was a pretty arbitrary decision.”
“We said, ‘Well, that looks like a natural break,’” he explained.
As for the idea of going to hard regional quotas instead, Munden said, “I feel like this is a move in the right direction.”
Several board members considered the payback provision to be essential to assuring southern states receive their designated quota share.
“You don’t solve the problem if you don’t establish hard quotas with payback of overages,” said Travelstead.
If the board eventually adopts -– and then requires implementation of –- Addendum II, any quota overages in the north would have to be paid back by northern states the following year, meaning the northern quota would be reduced by a comparable amount. The same would be true of overages in the south.
State-by-state
Daniel said he appreciated the board’s support of Addendum II but added, “I think the ultimate fix is to establish an addendum to look at state-by-state quotas.”
According to Daniel, the board’s previous attempts to impose a payback provision on a regional basis didn’t solve the problem, which is why North Carolina was proposing to go to state-by-state allocations.
The board supported considering the proposal in Addendum III, along with the possibility of the transfer of state quotas among states.
Drafts of both Addendum II and Addendum III are expected to be ready for review during the board’s late August meeting.
NMFS objects
National Marine Fisheries Service representative Harry Mears strongly objected to any shift at all in management direction.
“The resource is still in rebuilding mode,” he said. “It’s still much too early for us to be talking about state-by-state quotas when this isn’t supposed to be a directed fishery.
“This is clearly going to polarize state and federal permit holders,” Mears added. “We’re essentially moving in opposite directions at the expense of the resource.”
Janice M. Plante
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