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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 10
June 2010
Herring assessment on track for June 2012
MYSTIC, CT – Despite the grim reality of a 26,546-metric-ton (mt) total allowable catch (TAC) for Area 1A for the next three fishing years, herring industry members and managers have come to consensus that waiting until June 2012 for a new “benchmark” stock assessment will best serve everyone in the long run.
The Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, MA had scheduled this major assessment for June 2012 right from the start, but in January, the New England Fishery Management Council asked the center to move up the assessment to December 2011, which would make it easier to set quotas for the 2013-2015 fishing years.
Industry members, who are eagerly awaiting a comprehensive stock status overhaul, had serious problems with the 2009 assessment update. The model used to run that update produced a strong “retrospective pattern,” meaning it overestimated biomass and underestimated fishing pressure on a regular basis (see CFN September 2009 for details).
As a result, managers, erring on the side of caution, significantly reduced quotas in all herring management areas for the 2010-2012 fishing years, even though the Atlantic herring stock complex overall is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring.
The problem led everyone, even the council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, to call for a new benchmark assessment “as soon as possible” – one that would use a new model and incorporate much more data.
Strong case
However, despite its earlier call for a December 2011 assessment, the New England council voted during its April 27-29 meeting to support the original June 2012 assessment after all.
It based this decision on a recommendation from its herring committee, which had heard an extensive presentation from science center representatives in late March that fully explained the problems associated with condensing the timetable for such a major assessment by six months.
Maine council member Mary Beth Tooley, who had been a strong advocate for conducting a new assessment “as soon as possible,” said she now was convinced that allowing the science center to properly conduct all phases of the assessment was the best way to go.
“I thought the science center really made a good argument for waiting until 2012,” she said.
Information from the new assessment, regardless of whether it was conducted in December 2011 or June 2012, would not be used until the 2013-2015 specification setting process, leaving the fleet bound by untenably low TACs until 2013 (see CFN May 2010 for TAC details).
This, said many, was a problem in and of itself.
“It’s not just a handful of herring fishermen that we’re talking about,” said Tooley. “We have thousands of lobstermen along the coast who will be heavily impacted.”
Furthermore, people are now being forced to access alternative bait sources. Not only are they bringing in fish from other parts of the US and other countries, some are using more artificial bait.
“The ecosystem impacts of what we’re embarking on here are unknown,” Tooley said.
The one council member who continued to have problems with the June 2012 timeframe was David Pierce of Massachusetts.
“I still think December 2011 is the right way to go,” he said. “This benchmark assessment is extremely important. For 2010, 2011, and 2012, the industry is already hamstrung by the Area 1A quota.”
A new model
Maine council member Terry Stockwell, however, saw it differently. He said the Maine Department of Marine Resources was working with Yong Chen of the University of Maine on a new model, and Chen “very clearly” had indicated that June 2012 “was better” so that scientists would have adequate time to peer review the new model.
“The last thing I want to do is turn the crank on the retrospective pattern we had this time that was so devastating to industry,” said Stockwell.
But waiting until June 2012 has additional consequences. Final results from the assessment might not be available until early August, which will significantly condense the timeframe for developing 2013-2015 specifications, warned Lori Steele, the council’s herring plan coordinator.
“Don’t rush it”
Given all of the ongoing turmoil in the herring fishery, several industry members said, at this point, they were willing to deal with the specification complication in exchange for a better assessment.
Jeff Kaelin of Lund’s Fisheries, who also serves as clerk for the Sustainable Fisheries Coalition, said, “Everybody wants to be fully engaged in all the options here. I think we have to work with the science.”
Kaelin said industry members were talking about bringing in an independent, highly qualified, internationally recognized scientist to help them work on the science. Also, industry members were hoping to pull together a workshop in the near future to see what could be done in the interim years while waiting for the 2012 assessment.
“We want to see if there are additional data that industry can bring to the table, like additional acoustic surveys in the Gulf of Maine,” he said.
Jud Crawford of the Pew Environment Group also supported the June 2012 timetable.
“I urge you not to rush this assessment,” he said.
Crawford emphasized that retrospective patterns show up in assessments for many different reasons, “and some have to do with the quality of the data.”
“To rush ahead and not have improved data going into the model would be, to me, a huge mistake,” he said.
Janice M. Plante
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