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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 10
June 2009
2009 monkfish cooperative survey a wrap
WOODS HOLE, MA Two New-Bedford-based commercial fishing vessels recently carried teams of scientists and successfully completed the 2009 cooperative monkfish survey. The survey was the third of its kind between industry and scientists, following up on similar work done in 2001 and 2004.
The two participating vessels were the 119’ Endurance, captained by Armando Estudante, and the 100’ Mary K, captained by Henrique Franco. The Mary K took part in both the 2001 and 2004 surveys as well.
By several accounts, the survey went extremely well, with fishermen setting gear and working smoothly alongside scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Northeast Fisheries Science Center. All told, monkfish were sized, aged, sexed, counted, and dissected at 215 different sampling stations.
Perhaps most importantly of all, the cooperative survey took place during the science center’s annual spring bottom trawl survey, which is now conducted by the center’s new survey vessel, the Henry B. Bigelow. The Bigelow replaced the Albatross IV and, according to early reports, catches more monkfish.
“I hope we will be able to compare the results from the cooperative survey with the Bigelow,” said Anne Richards, the center’s lead assessment scientist for monkfish who also served as chief scientist on the Mary K during Leg 4.
Having the Bigelow and the two industry boats at sea at the same time will give scientists a chance to make some important comparisons, Richards said.
“This way we can ask the question: What do you see on a survey boat vs. what do you see on a commercial fishing vessel?” she said. “If we use the cooperative survey to help interpret the results of the Bigelow survey, that will be very powerful since the Bigelow does surveys every year.”
The cooperative survey was conducted with standard, commercial nets, and the first four legs were devoted to the sampling effort itself. The fifth leg and an upcoming sixth for the Endurance was spent primarily testing gear efficiency.
Underway
The survey began on Feb. 9. The Endurance was assigned to cover the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, while the Mary K covered Southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic to Cape Hatteras.
Both vessels encountered bouts of bad weather and gear hang-ups. They saw days when monkfish were plentiful and days when they weren’t.
In the south, the Mary K crew had its fair share of dogfish and skates, which clogged the net and slowed operations. But the boat came up with nice hauls of red crab and tilefish as well, which pleased everyone onboard.
Hard bottom and lobster traps made sampling more difficult in the north, forcing the Endurance at times to shift sampling stations. And one encounter with offshore lobster gear on Friday the 13th, no less proved particularly problematic.
A bilge plug on the Endurance became dislodged, triggering an alarm at 1 am. Pumps took care of incoming water, which was limited to one secured compartment in the fish hold. But, as a precaution, the boat pulled into Rockland, ME, where a diver discovered the source of the problem. After replacing a plug, the Endurance was back in service the next day.
Despite minor weather and gear complications, which are part of every survey and routine fishing trips, the Endurance and Mary K both cranked along from one monkfish sampling station to another. They had 95% of the stations done and were back in port by April 3.
Appreciation
The scientists clearly valued their time at sea with fishermen.
“The boats and the captains were great,” said monkfish survey field coordinator Rob Johnston of the science center. “All of the objectives of the survey were met.”
Geoff Shook, chief scientist aboard the Mary K during Leg 3, wrote in a March 18 Boatracs message to the science center, “I have enjoyed this cruise very much, as well as all the people on it. The camaraderie and teamwork between the scientists and the ship’s crew has been great to see. I think it really defines cooperative research.”
Valuable info
Data collected during the survey will be used in the next monkfish stock assessment and will help scientists obtain better information about monkfish growth rates, maturity rates, and abundance levels.
Future genetic work on 2009 samples also will make it possible to take another look at a gnawing key question: Are monkfish in the north biologically different from those in the south?
A previous study determined that the answer was “no.” Even though monkfish in the north are managed differently from those in the south, they are part of one common stock.
But Richards said, “We want to look at it again because we have a nice set of samples from boats operating in two management areas at the same time,” referring to the Endurance surveying in the north and the Mary K in the south.
Furthermore, survey crews removed otoliths those tiny inner ear bones from monkfish, which will be analyzed to determine their chemical composition.
According to Richards, different water bodies vary in chemical nature, so these studies might give scientists a sense of whether a monkfish started off in the Gulf of Maine and then, later in life, traveled to Southern New England, for example.
Johnston said crews on both boats spent an extensive amount of time collecting samples and gathering biological information on monkfish.
“We really focused on that in this survey,” he said. “There’s going to be a great deal learned about the biology of these animals as a result.”
Gear work
Following the sampling work, both the Mary K and Endurance spent a fifth leg doing gear experiments primarily to test net efficiency to figure out how well the nets catch monkfish on each tow.
These tests called “depletion experiments” are tough to do.
First, a vessel has to find bottom with a good abundance of monkfish. Then, the boat has to make a tow along a specific track line. Once the net is back onboard, monkfish from the haul are counted.
The vessel then has to make a second tow over the very same bottom. By comparing the number of monkfish in tow #1 to the number in tow #2, researchers get an indication of how many fish escaped from or weren’t caught at all by the net on the first pass, which is how they gauge net efficiency. More tows are made until the monkfish are “depleted” and final net efficiency calculations can be made.
The Mary K and Endurance carried out most of this work at the end of April, although the Endurance was expected to head back to sea in the near future for another five days of depletion experiments.
Memorable moment
While the survey overall had its share of memorable moments for both boats and crews, one of the best was aboard the Endurance on Feb. 27.
With a spell of bad weather approaching, the Endurance was headed to Gloucester to ride it out. However, Capt. Estudante made a slight detour when he learned from survey coordinator Johnston that the research vessel Gloria Michelle had lost an entire trawl and associated electronic gear off Cape Ann last August during the northern shrimp survey.
In November, the Albatross IV attempted to recover the gear but failed, and so Estudante was up for the challenge.
After obtaining the lost gear’s coordinates, Estudante easily found the trawl on radar in about 75 fathoms of water in Scantum Basin.
The Endurance put out a grapple and made a pass, catching the edge of the gear, which slipped off. But on the second pass, the crew caught the gear “squarely in the middle” and recovered it all, said Johnston.
“In less than two hours, they had located and safely recovered about $40,000 worth of equipment for the Northeast Fisheries Science Center,” he said.
Added Anne Richards, “That made people here at the center really happy.”
NMFS was so pleased to have the gear back that Acting Director Jim Balsiger publicly thanked Estudante and crewmembers Filipe Andre, Jose Silva, Noel Silva, and Aires Oliveira, noting their “great skill” in retrieving the rig.
“This was not an easy task by any means,” wrote Balsiger in an April 4 letter. “Several attempts by others to recover the gear were unsuccessful. É Retrieving the gear saved the agency replacement costs.”
Janice M. Plante
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