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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 12
August 2009
Industry to NMFS: Liberalize bluefin regs
PLYMOUTH, MA – About 30 industry people from as far away as New Jersey traveled to Plymouth on June 29 to tell the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) how it should go about easing fishing restrictions to give fishermen a better shot at landing US bluefin and swordfish quotas.
The Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Division of NMFS conducted the public meeting to get feedback on an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) it issued on June 1 (see CFN July 2009 for ANPR details). It was one of five meetings along the coast and the only one in New England.
A number of speakers began their remarks by thanking NMFS, and HMS Division Chief Margo Schulze-Haugen in particular, for issuing a document that so closely reflected the requests and concerns of the industry.
“This is an unprecedented ANPR,” said Rich Ruais, who represents Blue Water Fishermen’s Association and a number of fishing organizations that are working together as the American Bluefin Tuna Association (ABTA). “The HMS Division’s response to the concerns of the HMS Advisory Panel and the industry … well, you’ve addressed them in spades.”
The urgent demand for these rule changes stems from a growing certainty that the industry’s inability to catch its bluefin quota since 2003 is about to give the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) all the reason it needs to cut the US share of the western Atlantic bluefin quota.
ICCAT, which will meet in the fall and is scheduled to re-evaluate quota-share distribution the following year, has the authority to redistribute uncaught quota from one country to another. And, it has been increasingly inclined to allocate quota to countries that lack strong histories in the fishery and have less stringent conservation programs.
Said ABTA Executive Committee member Ralph Pratt, “The reason why the industry is requesting these changes is to prevent the reassignment of quota in 2010 at ICCAT.”
NMFS position
Schulze-Haugen opened the meeting by acknowledging that the agency had gotten the message.
“We are below our quota for many reasons – management measures, fuel prices, low ex-vessel value, competition from imports, reduced availability of bluefin tuna, and/or stock declines,” she said.
“Every negotiation at ICCAT is different,” Schulze-Haugen added. “We have no intention of giving anything away.”
NMFS has already made it clear that it will take a regulatory amendment to the Consolidated Atlantic HMS Fishery Management Plan to implement any of the changes floated in the ANPR. That process takes at least six to nine months so it is highly unlikely that more liberal rules can be in place for the 2009 fishing year.
But there is a chance changes could be made for the Jan. 1 start of the 2010 fishing year or shortly thereafter.
“Interim suspension”
A number of speakers endorsed the testimony of Ruais, who spoke on behalf of the ABTA and Blue Water Fishermen’s Association.
Ruais pointed out that the existing bluefin regulatory program has its good points, including allocating quota among historical user groups, meeting social and economic objectives, and keeping the US in compliance with ICCAT agreements.
However, he added, the effort control measures were established to help NMFS and the industry deal with a time of quota “scarcity,” which hasn’t existed for six years.
“It is crucial that there be an ‘interim suspension’ of major existing measures preventing US fishermen from catching the bulk of our duly earned international quota, which is threatened by recent underperformance and the upcoming opportunistic attempts to ‘steal’ our share by a coalition of ICCAT member nations planning an agreement to do so,” he said.
ABTA position
Specifically, the ABTA and Blue Water supported “emergency immediate implementation” of the following changes:
Reduce the size for legal sale in commercial categories from 73"to 65" with a possible three-fish daily retention limit on the number of fish between 65" and 73" starting in mid-August;
Allow year-round fishing in all categories until 90% of all available quota is caught;
Eliminate the general category bag limit;
Preserve the harpoon category with no limit on the number of fish retained above 65";
Allow charter/headboats to participate in both the general and angling category on the same trip while continuing the prohibition on sale of fish below 65";
Increase allowable bluefin bycatch for the pelagic longline fleet to two bluefin per 3,000 pounds of targeted swordfish, bigeye, and other species, three bluefin for 6,000 pounds, four for 9,000 pounds, five for 12,000 pounds, and so on;
Suspend pelagic longline closed areas with the exception of the Florida east coast from Marathon to Fort Pierce but retain mandatory use of circle hooks, safe handing and release practices, and 20% observer coverage; and
Continue the prohibition on directed pelagic longlining for bluefin in the Gulf of Mexico while providing full agency commitment to completing an ongoing cooperative research project to develop “weak hook” technology as rapidly as possible.
The project hopes to prove that the weak hook, made of thinner wire, will bend straight when any fish over 250 pounds hits it, thereby protecting spawning giant bluefin.
Ruais concluded that once the US fishery is capable of catching its annual quota based on a rebuilt western stock with a maximum sustainable yield between 2,852 metric tons (mt) and 6,201 mt, the time will be right to reassess the “temporary suspension” of the effort control rules.
“We would then support consideration of reinstitution of any potentially necessary traditional management restrictions to reflect historical performance, traditional fisheries, and socio-economic regional objectives as existed from 1981 to 2009,” he said.
Other comments
A number of speakers addressed other options raised in the ANPR.
Ray Kane of Chatham, MA remarked on the possible creation of a HMS general commercial handgear permit that would allow fishermen without limited-access permits to once again go harpooning for swordfish.
“Thank you for considering swordfish handgear permits that were indiscriminately taken from us in 2000,” he said.
Kane added that he favored reducing the minimum commercial bluefin size to 65" and requested that NMFS seriously consider requiring vessel trip reports throughout the bluefin fishery.
“We need better reporting in this industry,” he said.
Tim Malley of Boston Sword & Tuna Inc. said he wanted to “give the devil his due” and acknowledge that ICCAT agreements had led to the rebuilding of a number of Atlantic stocks, including swordfish.
However, he added that NMFS had gone too far in restricting its own fishermen.
Stock rebuilding has been, he said, “at the expense of decimating the US fleet through unilateral actions by NMFS. There were 100 longliners in the 1970s and now there are 12 to 20.”
Malley added that NMFS needed to take defensive action to eliminate illegally harvested imports and more offensive action to reopen areas closed to US longliners.
Spotter pilot George Purmont suggested that NMFS could make a reduction in the bluefin minimum size for sale to 65" more palatable by counting the weight of fish 65"-73" as 1.5 times their actual weight.
“It would give the industry a greater opportunity to catch the quota and be conservation neutral,” he said.
John LoGiocco of Fairhaven, NJ was the sole speaker at the meeting to reject the idea of making it easier to catch more of the US bluefin quota.
“Seeing the sad shape these fish are in moves me to get involved,” he said. “ICCAT quotas are fictitious. Everyone in this room should be united in protecting the bluefin tuna.”
Lorelei Stevens
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