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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 11
July 2007
Swordfish final rule falls short of industry revitalization goal
SILVER SPRING, MD – The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has released its final rule detailing measures that were supposed to revitalize the US swordfish industry.
Unfortunately, the relaxations primarily target the sport fishery and commercial bycatch fisheries and don’t go far enough to truly jumpstart the commercial fishery, according to Rich Ruais, executive director of Blue Water Fishermen’s Association.
“It doesn’t do anything significant to increase the use of our swordfish quota,” he said. “That would require the reopening of US swordfishing grounds and more flexibility in vessel replacement length. This is not enough.”
The US commercial swordfish industry is widely held to be the most heavily regulated highly migratory species (HMS) fishery in the world, governed by limited quotas, minimum size, extensive area closures, gear restrictions, and a host of additional sea turtle protection measures.
Not surprisingly, the fleet has dwindled in recent years as fishermen either have left the fishery altogether or relocated to other countries. As a result, the US has fallen far short of reaching its swordfish quota share determined by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).
Following the 2006 stock assessment, ICCAT declared the swordfish resource to be almost totally rebuilt.
Yet, at last fall’s ICCAT meeting, US negotiators agreed to allow 2,690 metric tons (mt) of uncaught US swordfish quota from the last three years to be distributed over the next two years among Senegal, Morocco, Mexico, and Belize. The agreement was meant to stave off for one more year increasing demands to reallocate US baseline quota to other countries ready and willing to develop their own swordfish fisheries.
Bycatch limits upped
In sum, the final rule: increases the recreational bag limit; increases the retention limit for Mid-Atlantic squid trawlers; and increases the bycatch limit for Gulf of Mexico longliners.
The rule also liberalizes vessel upgrade restrictions. However, Ruais said this, too, fell short of what was needed to offer any real benefit to serious US swordfish fishermen.
The rule does nothing to modify year-round closures in the DeSoto Canyon and east Florida coast areas and seasonal closures in the Charleston Bump and Northeastern areas to commercial swordfish fishing activities.
In the final rule, NMFS admitted that “the final management measures are not likely, by themselves, to result in full utilization of the US swordfish quota.” The agency added that “other measures may be considered in the future to provide additional opportunities to increase US swordfish landings.”
Lorelei Stevens
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