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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 12
August 2006
Yellowtail puts Georges Bank fishery at risk
WOODS HOLE, MA – Scientists from the US and Canada recently updated the status of three shared groundfish stocks on Georges Bank – cod, haddock, and yellowtail flounder.
The news was mixed. Overall, it was OK for cod, complicated for haddock, and extremely bad for yellowtail.
The updates were conducted by the joint US/Canada Transboundary Resource Assessment Committee (TRAC), which met in Woods Hole June 13-16.
The TRAC’s final reports will be used by the US/Canada Transboundary Management Guidance Committee (TMGC), which will meet Sept. 7-8 in Portland, ME to determine 2007 Georges Bank cod, haddock, and yellowtail quota shares for each country.
Although the quota shares won’t be official until after each country accepts the TMGC results, fishermen following the TRAC’s actions are already worried.
While cod is showing promising signs of rebuilding with an above average 2003 year class, the US total allowable catch (TAC) for cod still will be very low next year and will impede successful fishing on other stocks.
And the yellowtail TAC will be extremely low – the lowest since the US formally entered into the US/Canada Resource Sharing Understanding under Amendment 13. The yellowtail situation will have serious management implications for all of Georges Bank.
Eastern vs. western
Here’s why. The US/Canada understanding covers “eastern” Georges Bank cod and “eastern” Georges Bank haddock, so if one of those TACs is filled early, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is obligated under the sharing agreement to shut down only the Eastern US/Canada Management Area to groundfish days-at-sea fishing.
However, yellowtail is different. The stock governed by the US/Canada understanding runs through both the eastern and western areas, which combined pretty much cover all of Georges Bank (see chart page 10A).
So, if the yellowtail TAC is filled early, not only will NMFS be obligated to shut down the eastern US/Canada area to all groundfish days-at-sea fishing, it will need to take action in the western area as well. The western area will remain open, but all fishing vessels will be prohibited from harvesting, possessing, or landing any yellowtail flounder from the eastern and western areas.
“This is a crisis waiting to happen if we don’t come together to have a real discussion on this,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, who sat through all three days of the TRAC meeting.
“We’re all very concerned about this and I think the industry is demanding an answer,” she said. “We based the US/Canada sharing agreement on a set of beliefs, and one of those was that yellowtail was rebuilt. It was a success story. And now all of that is in question. Just 2-1/2 years ago we were at a place where we weren’t catching enough yellowtail, and now they’ve completely reversed their assessment for this stock.
“This impacts the scallop fishery and potentially other fisheries, too,” Odell said. “We’re talking about all of Georges Bank.”
Given the magnitude of the problem, the Northeast Seafood Coalition has called on NMFS and the New England Fishery Management Council to hold an “emergency US meeting” with representatives from the commercial fishing industry, the TRAC, TMGC, and NMFS to review the 2007 TRAC information and discuss “the future of the sharing agreement.”
The Canadians met with their own industry members prior to the TRAC meeting, but the US did not. That, the coalition said, put the US at a disadvantage.
Tom Nies, the council’s groundfish plan coordinator, said the council’s groundfish committee would be meeting on Aug. 24 in Portland not only to begin work on future groundfish actions but to review the TRAC results and discuss the upcoming TMGC meeting.
However, Odell said the coalition was calling for a whole separate meeting.
“This just can’t get squashed into a groundfish committee agenda,” she said. “This is a little more profound than that.”
George Lapointe is the US co-chair of the TMGC. He said he planned to attend the Aug. 24 meeting to ask questions and learn more about what went into the TRAC’s work. He also thought the meeting would serve as a useful platform for discussing industry’s stand on what the US position should be going into the TMGC meeting.
Lapointe said he knew the discussions would be difficult, but added that the US/Canada understanding was working as intended.
“It’s designed to share fish in a shared stock in a concrete way,” he said. “It’s there for good times and bad.”
Eastern GB cod
Here’s a rundown of a few of the more fundamental points made by the TRAC about each of the three key groundfish stocks shared between the US and Canada.
Regarding eastern Georges Bank cod, the TRAC reported several positive trends. Fishing mortality in 2005 was extremely low at 0.10. The adult population of age 3 fish and older was at 16,300 metric tons (mt) at the beginning of 2006, up from a low of 8,500 mt in 1990.
And best of all, the 2003 year class – deemed to be the “first above average cohort since the 1990 year class” – was still showing up in surveys as being “above average.” It was estimated to be 7.9 million fish strong, a significant boost over the poor 2002 and 2004 year classes, which were the lowest on record at less than 1 million fish strong.
“The 2003 year class is projected to make a large contribution to the fishery over the next several years,” the TRAC wrote in its summary report. “The 2003 year class affords an opportunity to continue rebuilding of the stock by fishing below (the fishing mortality limit reference point, or Fref, of 0.18).”
The US share of the 2006 TAC for this stock was 374 mt, which represented 22% of the total US/Canada TAC. This year, the US share of whatever the quota will be is expected to increase to 26%.
The eastern Georges Bank haddock stock is at a phenomenal biomass level. The TRAC reported that, in 2006, the adult biomass of age 3 and older fish reached 123,000 mt, significantly higher than the previous maximum biomass of 90,000 mt recorded from 1931-1955.
The 2003 year class, called “exceptional” by the TRAC, was estimated to be 338 million fish strong, “the largest observed in the assessment time series.”
The TRAC noted, however, that the 2001, 2002, and 2004 year classes were weak with less than 9 million fish each, though initial estimates of the 2005 year class indicate that it is about average at 28 million fish.
Fishing mortality on haddock from 1995 through 2004 was below the 0.26 reference point, but in 2005, it climbed slightly above to 0.29 because the 2003 year class failed “to contribute as expected to the 2005 fishery.”
No one’s sure why, but fish from the 2003 year class are growing very slowly, and some fishermen who work on Georges Bank say they look like they’re not growing at all (see related story page 13A for more on growth rates).
The TRAC said, “Slow growth of the 2003 cohort will continue to impact the fishery. If the TAC in 2006 is caught, fishing mortality will be higher than Fref on the fully recruited ages,” which are age 5 and older.
The US share of the TAC for haddock for 2006 was 7,480 mt, representing 34% of the total US/Canada quota. For 2007, the US share is expected to be 33%.
Yellowtail
The most troubling news from the TRAC related to yellowtail. Scientists said yellowtail recruitment declined to 9.2 million fish in 2005, down from an average of 23.5 million age 1 fish during 1998 to 2001. The adult biomass of age 3 and older fish dropped to 5,450 mt from the 2003 level of 11,300 mt.
The TRAC stated that a combined US/Canada catch of about 1,250 mt in 2007 would result in a neutral risk that fishing mortality would exceed the reference point of 0.25. That’s assuming the combined US/Canada 2006 TAC of 3,000 mt is fully caught.
This statement more than any other is what has industry so on edge. For 2006, the US share of the yellowtail quota was 69%, resulting in a TAC of 2,070 mt. The US share for 2007 is expected to increase to 72%, but 72% of 1,250 mt is only875 mt, which is what the quota could be if the TMGC accepts the TRAC’s advice. For comparison, the US TAC for 2004 was 6,000 mt.
Two models
Like last year, TRAC scientists again used two different virtual population analysis (VPA) models to assess the yellowtail stock – the “base case” model and the “major change” model. Both had problems, and both gave different results.
However, the TRAC determined that the major change model “better reflects the recent decreasing trend observed in all three surveys and is recommended as the basis for management advice.”
Complicated stuff, but in short, the base case model is more optimistic and indicates that the yellowtail stock decline is leveling off, while the major change model indicates that the stock is continuing to decline.
The TAC would be low under the base case model as well, but maybe not as low as under the major change model, so everyone with a stake in the matter is trying hard to figure out the difference between the two, including Lapointe in his role as the US TMGC co-chair.
“I need to better understand why those two models were picked and what’s happening,” he said. “And then we need to figure out how to react to them.”
“This is a crisis”
Phil Ruhle of Rhode Island, a commercial fisherman and TMGC member who serves on the New England council, is extremely troubled by the yellowtail situation. He’s worried that Georges Bank yellowtail might be mirroring Southern New England yellowtail, which are at a very low state and are triggering severe restrictions in that area.
“We’ve ended up with a really big problem,” he said. “We don’t want to be on a downhill slide that we can’t get out of.”
Ruhle has his own share of concerns about the assessment.
“There’s definitely a hole in the science,” he said. “A few years ago, they said we had plenty of yellowtail, so we had the SAP, which may have made things worse.” (See related story next page for details about the 2004 Closed Area II Yellowtail Flounder Special Access Program.)
Jackie Odell agreed.
“The science is all over the map on this stock,” she said.
The yellowtail situation in particular is what makes Odell adamant that industry needs to strategize hand-in-hand with US TMGC members and TRAC scientists.
“We need to get everyone on the same page,” she said. “This is a crisis. Here we are with a new assessment that is just horrific. We really need to talk about that and it needs to be as transparent as possible.”
New Bedford, the yellowtail capitol of the region, is especially worried.
“It’s not setting up to be a very good situation for the port of New Bedford,” said Odell.
Copies of the TRAC reports can be downloaded off the Internet at <http://www.mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/TRAC/tsr.html>.
Janice M. Plante
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