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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 12
August 2007
General category scallopers: no vessel upgrade restrictions; VMS reporting still required
PORTLAND, ME – General category scallop fishermen will not be subject to vessel upgrading restrictions under Amendment 11 to the federal scallop plan, but they will need to report landings and declare the start of a scallop trip through a vessel monitoring system (VMS).
These were just two of the numerous additional decisions the New England Fishery Management Council made regarding Amendment 11 during its June 19-21 meeting here. The amendment, which must first be approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), is shifting the fishery over to limited access and putting it under an individual fishing quota (IFQ) program (see story page 8A for details).
The council spent considerable time debating whether the general category should come under the same horsepower, length, and tonnage upgrading restrictions that apply to most other fisheries. The scallop committee had recommended dropping the tonnage caps but maintaining the horsepower and length restrictions to preserve the traditional character of the fleet.
Maine council member Jim Odlin was quick to oppose the horsepower cap.
“I think it’s a piece of unnecessary regulation that’s unenforceable,” he said.
Odlin worried that fishermen might make vessel modifications to meet horsepower restrictions that could cause vessel stability and safety problems.
“We have plenty of controls on the amount of scallops these boats can have,” he said. “I don’t know why we have to tell people what they can float out there.”
New Hampshire council member Mike Leary agreed and said, “I’d rather see them make the investment (in a better engine) and go out there in a safer boat.”
Changing fleet?
Scallop committee Chairman David Simpson of Connecticut, however, expressed concern that a lack of upgrading restrictions would lead to fundamental changes in what traditionally has been a small-boat, day-trip fishery.
New Hampshire council member David Goethel concurred and added, “I think it’s going to change the character of the fleet whether it’s intentional or not.”
Rhode Island council representative April Valliere worried that a horsepower upgrading exemption would open up numerous loopholes.
Phil Michaud, who chaired the council’s scallop general category advisory panel, said the issue for him was “a tough one.”
“I look at where this fishery is going and I think it’s going to a few big boats,” he said. “I’d like to see you keep the restrictions in there.”
But Massachusetts council member Rodney Avila didn’t think eliminating the restriction would compromise the fishery.
“For 400 pounds, I don’t think anyone is going to put a 70' boat with 400 horsepower out on Georges,” he said. “No matter whether you’re fishing off a 30' platform or a 70' platform, it’s still going to be a small-boat fishery with the limits we have in there.”
NMFS Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul explained that vessels with permits in other fisheries limited by vessel upgrading restrictions would remain bound by those restrictions.
HP cap problems
Maggie Raymond of Associated Fisheries of Maine brought up a different point.
“One of the consequences of imposing this new limited-access system on the general category fleet is that people who are really dependent on this fishery are going to take a huge cut,” she said.
“There’s going to be a strong need for some good stacking provisions, and the horsepower restrictions will make that very, very difficult to achieve,” Raymond said.
Machiasport, ME fisherman Doug Wood agreed.
“I probably have as much history in this fishery as anyone, but the way this amendment is going, it’s going to slaughter me,” he said. “We’ll need a bigger boat to stack. I think that overwhelmingly the safety issue is what we’re looking at here.”
In the end, the council voted to eliminate all of the upgrading restrictions for the general category IFQ fishery.
VMS reporting
Another issue that generated considerable debate was whether the new fleet would have to report landings via VMS.
Goethel expressed serious reservations about adding any new VMS requirements to the current system given that NMFS’s VMS program was struggling to catch up with all the pressure on the current program.
“Anything we can do to alleviate strain on the system at the moment would be good,” he said.
Kurkul said she thought the IFQ program could be adequately monitored through vessel trip reports and dealer reports.
“It’s an annual allocation to the vessels, which is something we said doesn’t need to be in real time,” she said. “What we’re monitoring is that each individual vessel is staying within its individual allocation.”
But attorney David Frulla, representing the Fisheries Survival Fund, strongly supported VMS reporting for general category boats.
“One thing you get is enforcement,” he said. “You get to know when a vessel is coming in.”
Raymond agreed. She said fishermen would “think twice about keeping to their allocations” with “that extra check” under VMS reporting.
“In the interim period when we get everyone qualified, hopefully we can get this VMS system straightened out,” she said.
The motion to delete VMS reporting from Amendment 11 failed in a 2-to-15 vote.
Sectors
The council readily agreed to include in Amendment 11 a process for establishing sectors for general category qualifiers with a 20% cap on how much of the overall TAC each sector could acquire.
But some members wondered whether any cap was really necessary, and Maine council member Jim Salisbury said, “With IFQs, there’s less and less reason for any cap on sectors and less reason for sectors in general.”
Others didn’t agree.
Massachusetts council member Tom Hill said, “This one merits caution. I would encourage us to go slowly and not eliminate the cap.”
Maine council member Dana Rice added, “I’m very nervous about this. I think we’re going too far too quickly and we’re losing sight of the general category fishery. (Eliminating the) 20%, it opens this up.”
The council decided not to eliminate the cap.
Furthermore, Massachusetts council member David Pierce wasn’t prepared to allow sectors to do away with the 400-pound trip limit in the general category fishery.
“My emphasis is to keep this fishery the way it is now and not go against the vision statement,” he said.
The full council concurred that sectors would be bound by the 400 pound possession limit, but that the trip limit restriction for sectors be made a “frameworkable” item that could be modified in the future.
Janice M. Plante
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