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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 11
July 2009
Dogfish quota up; more changes coming
GLOUCESTER, MA – With summer rolling in and fishing activity picking up, spiny dogfish, like clockwork, were making their presence known off New England.
Gloucester fishermen working on Middle Bank said dogfish were beginning to show up on prime codfish grounds.
“Usually, once that happens, they just get thicker,” said one industry member, who also reported that the dogfish were “huge.”
“These are monsters – big females, the four-footers,” he said.
Boats fishing on the western end of Georges Bank were running into big trouble. The onslaught began at the end of May, ruining what had been a smooth-going hook fishery. According to one report, the return of the dogfish was extremely frustrating for Cape Cod gillnetters and hook fishermen alike, who were tangling with thousands of pounds of them.
The 2009-2010 spiny dogfish fishing year began on May 1 under a 12-million-pound total allowable catch (TAC) – the biggest allocated quota since implementation of the federal dogfish plan in 2000. Overfishing is not occurring and, according to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), the stock is not overfished. ASMFC’s spawning stock biomass target is 167,000 metric tons (mt). Latest figures from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center put the female spawning stock biomass at 194,600 mt.
Although the 12-million-pound quota still falls far short of the heyday fishery of the 1990s when landings ran in the 30-to-60-million-pound range, it’s a significant leap from the 4-million-pound bycatch quota that ruled the early 2000s.
More markets needed
The biggest challenge now is finding outlets to handle the increased volume.
The couple of remaining processors in Massachusetts expressed particular concern about “flooding” the already delicate dogfish market and further driving down prices.
In response, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) opened the fishery on May 1 under a 600-pound daily limit, which will remain in effect through Aug. 31. DMF said it intends to increase the limit on Sept. 1 to anywhere between 1,500 pounds and 2,000 pounds per day, “depending on an assessment of landings prior to Sept. 1.”
Most other states opened the season with a 3,000-pound possession limit – the maximum allowed by ASMFC for state waters and by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for federal waters.
Massachusetts, which is by far the largest dogfish harvesting state in the north, said the lower 600-pound limit should help stretch out the north’s available quota and smooth out marketing efforts by processors. All state and federal permit holders landing in the commonwealth must abide by the stricter possession limit.
State quota split
Back in October 2008, ASMFC voted to significantly change the way the annual dogfish quota is divvied up among member states. The commission’s Spiny Dogfish and Coastal Shark Management Board voted to do away with its previous “seasonal” quota split, which allowed roughly 58% of the quota to be harvested from May through October and the remaining 42% to be allocated from November through April.
In theory, the May through October allocation was expected to be harvested by “northern” states since dogfish typically congregate off New England during that time of year. Conversely, the November through April allocation was expected to be harvested by “southern” states once the dogfish migrated down into the Mid-Atlantic.
But in practice, northern states often exceeded their 58% share, and the overage was deducted from the November through April allocation, effectively penalizing southern states and reducing the amount of poundage left for them to harvest.
Dissatisfaction with the split led ASMFC to adopt geographical quota allocations. Now, each year, the “northern” states of Maine through Connecticut are allocated 58% of the available quota – with no seasonal restrictions – while “southern” states from New York through Virginia are allocated 26% of the quota. The state of North Carolina, which was handicapped the most by the seasonal split, now directly receives 16% of each annual quota.
If the north, south, or North Carolina exceeds a designated quota, the overage will be deducted only from the offender’s quota the following year.
2009-2010 breakdown
Under the ASMFC system, the 12-million-pound 2009-2010 spiny dogfish quota has been allocated as follows:
Northern states – 58%, equal to 6,960,000 pounds, minus last year’s overage of 49,619 pounds for an adjusted quota of 6,910,381 pounds;
Southern states – 26%, equal to 3,120,000 pounds, minus last year’s overage of 431,930 pounds for an adjusted quota of 2,688,070; and
North Carolina – 16%, equal to 1,920,000 pounds, minus last year’s overage of 29,301 pounds for an adjusted quota of 1,890,699 pounds.
ASMFC further voted last October to allow states to set their own possession limits – up to the 3,000-pound maximum.
Federal waters
On May 1, NMFS published its own dogfish specifications for 2009-2010 in the Federal Register. Like ASMFC, NMFS implemented a 12-million-pound quota with a 3,000-pound possession limit for federal waters.
However, NMFS has not yet adopted ASMFC’s geographical allocation system and is still implementing a “seasonal” quota split.
For the current fishing year, the federal waters numbers ended up as follows:
Quota Period 1 – The May through October fishery was allocated 57.9% of the 12 million pounds, which equals 6,948,000 pounds; and
Quota Period 2 – The November through April fishery was allocated 42.1% of the 12 million pounds, which equals 5,052,000 pounds.
Under NMFS regulations, any state can fish for dogfish under the first quota period. Quota overages will be deducted from the second quota period. Once the quota is filled for a particular period, the fishery shuts down.
The difference between ASMFC’s geographical split and NMFS’s seasonal split may lead to different shut downs in state and federal waters once again this year. If federal waters close first, anyone holding a federal permit will have to comply with the shut down in both state and federal waters.
In an April 30 letter to permit holders, NMFS added, “If a state has a possession limit that is lower than the federal possession limit, the vessel must comply with the state limit when it is within state waters or landing spiny dogfish in that state.”
Closing the gap
The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council has the administrative lead over the federal Spiny Dogfish Fishery Management Plan (FMP), although the Mid-Atlantic and New England councils jointly develop basic measures for the federal waters fishery, which are then implemented by NMFS.
On April 15, the Mid-Atlantic council voted to initiate an amendment to the federal dogfish plan that, among other things, might modify the seasonal quota allocation system that’s still in place on the federal level.
Dogfish committee Chairman Red Munden of North Carolina said, “Over time, as the stocks have improved, we’ve seen a need to move forward with an amendment to the plan.”
Munden said the joint New England/Mid-Atlantic dogfish committee, which met March 19, and the Mid-Atlantic council’s own dogfish committee, which met April 14, supported including six items in a “scoping document,” which is the first step in developing an FMP amendment.
The Mid-Atlantic council endorsed all six of the recommendations, which were to:
Add a research set-aside provision to the FMP, with the percentage ranging from “no limit” up to 3% of the quota;
Develop commercial quota allocation alternatives, which possibly could include the geographical allocation system now in place under ASMFC provisions;
Make it possible to allocate dogfish quota and/or set trip limits by sex, which could open the door to a male-only fishery;
Seek permission from the secretary of commerce to include smooth dogfish in the spiny dogfish FMP;
Require a limited-access permit to possess spiny dogfish in federal waters; and
Include the recreational spiny dogfish fishery in the FMP.
Scoping meetings soon
According to Mid-Atlantic council dogfish plan coordinator Jim Armstrong, the council intends to hold scoping meetings later this summer, a move supported by the New England council as well.
If all stays on track, the Mid-Atlantic council is scheduled to approve alternatives for the draft amendment in December and then hold official public hearings next February.
Both the Mid-Atlantic and New England councils will need to sign off on final alternatives – most likely next summer, more than a year from now – before the amendment is submitted to NMFS for approval. The target implementation date is May 1, 2011.
For more information on the scoping meetings, call Armstrong at (302) 674-2331 ext. 33 or e-mail him at <jarmstrong@mafmc.org>.
Janice M. Plante
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