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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 12
August 2010
GOM winter flounder: A big problem stock
PORTLAND, ME – Well aware that extremely low allocations of Gulf of Maine winter flounder could end up severely limiting fishing activity for many groundfish fishermen, the New England Fishery Management Council nevertheless concluded on June 23 that it might make matters worse if it asked the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to take emergency action to deal with the situation.
Part of the council’s concern was that the industry was already part way into the fishing year, and a lot of people had already decided on their fishing strategies and made quota swaps.
The council instead voted to ask its Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) to review any new data collected since the last Groundfish Assessment Review Meeting – known as GARM III – and “evaluate” whether this new information could affect the SSC’s allowable biological catch (ABC) recommendation for Gulf of Maine winter flounder. An increase in ABC could lead to an increase in annual catch limits (ACLs).
The SSC had difficulties setting an ABC for Gulf of Maine winter flounder last summer because the GARM III peer review panel rejected the scientific models used to assess the stock. As a result, the stock really doesn’t have an official status.
However, the peer review panel did say it “agreed that the current trend in the population was very troubling” and that there was a “substantial probability” that the stock was overfished.
Those comments swayed the SSC toward setting a very conservative ABC, which turned out to be 238 metric tons (mt).
After the rest of the math was done, sectors collectively received a sub-ACL of 133 mt, and a few individual sectors received annual catch entitlements (ACEs) for winter flounder that were only on the order of a few tons or less.
Zero possession?
Several sectors with low winter flounder ACEs have expressed deep concern that they may be shut down prematurely because of winter flounder, even though they have plenty of remaining allocation for other stocks.
And, the common pool fishery has been rapidly harvesting its small share of the pie as well. As of July 7, the common pool had used up roughly 66% of its tiny 25-mt sub-ACL for Gulf of Maine winter flounder.
The New England council, trying to address this complex state of affairs, started off its discussion on June 23 with a motion to request that NMFS take emergency action to make Gulf of Maine winter flounder a zero-possession stock, similar to the way Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic winter flounder is treated.
Under this scenario, groundfish sectors would not receive an ACE for the stock, so sector members would not be allowed to keep any winter flounder they might catch incidentally. However, sectors also would not be hindered by very small ACEs that might prevent them from targeting other stocks due to winter flounder bycatch problems.
Maine council member Jim Odlin supported this strategy, especially given the uncertainty around the real status of the resource.
“Zero possession stops directed fishing and minimizes discards,” he said. “We don’t want to allow a directed fishery until we know the true status of the resource and get an assessment that can tell us something.”
Maine council member Terry Stockwell agreed, saying he thought emergency action was justified, possibly for the resource itself given its unknown stock status, but definitely for fishermen.
“We’ve made the commitment to make sectors work. I look at this as a Band-Aid,” he said.
‘Terrible philosophy’
Massachusetts council member David Pierce, however, was quick to voice his opposition.
“This is a difficult issue,” he said. “Winter flounder is a choke species.”
The very idea of zero possession and emergency action did not sit well with Pierce.
“I don’t like the concept,” he said. “It leads us down the wrong path for how we deal with choke species. I don’t want to see us with a laundry list of species for which we’ll be requesting emergency action. That’s a terrible philosophy.”
Pierce also noted that, after debating the possibility in early June, the groundfish plan development team (PDT) had come up with only one benefit for the zero possession strategy – “Sector vessels would not be constrained by the low Gulf of Maine winter flounder ACL.”
However, the PDT cited several “weaknesses,” including the following:
The approach raised concerns over accountability measures (AMs) for the stock;
The strategy removed any incentive for sector vessels to reduce catches of Gulf of Maine winter flounder;
Zero possession eliminated the value of permits with a history for this stock, although the trade-off of increased access to other stocks might be more valuable for some fishermen; and
Common pool vessels had a higher likelihood of being subject to increased differential days-at-sea counting because AMs would kick in due to overages of the overall ACL.
Pierce said another reason he could not “in good conscience” vote for emergency action was because emergencies need to be unforeseen events, and the Gulf of Maine winter flounder problem didn’t come as any surprise.
“I was well aware this problem was going to occur many months ago,” he said. “In fact, we at my agency, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, indicated in our formal comments that we’d have potential problems, that fisheries would shut down, that sectors would be in jeopardy because of choke species. We indicated the ACLs were inordinately precautious. But the council adopted these particular ACLs anyway.”
100-pound proposal
New Hampshire council member David Goethel also vehemently opposed the zero-possession approach.
“We can’t be logical here and say zero possession solves the issue,” he said. “Zero possession is not an accountability measure. It says, ‘You just go out and throw them all over.’ What’s accountable about that?”
However, Goethel said he believed the council needed to initiate some sort of action to prevent sectors from being shut down because of Gulf of Maine winter flounder, so he moved to substitute the zero-possession motion with a multiple-part strategy that included, among other things:
Suspending the current Gulf of Maine winter flounder AMs for sectors while still requiring sectors to record their catch of the stock;
Creating a new 100-pound trip limit for Gulf of Maine winter flounder for both sector and common pool fishermen; and
Requiring both sector and common pool vessels to cease fishing and return to port if they catch more than 100 pounds and report the position of their winter flounder catches.
“This is a way to provide a real accountability measure,” Goethel said. “Once you’ve caught more than 100 pounds, you’ve got to go home. Fishermen don’t like to be told to go home, so this provides a powerful incentive to try not to catch winter flounder.”
However, he said, the trip limit would still make it feasible for people to keep operating if they happen to unintentionally run into a few pounds of winter flounder.
“I recognize, based on my 30 years in these fisheries, that you are going to catch winter flounder at times and in places you don’t expect to catch them. That’s unavoidable,” he said.
But if that happens, the consequence – the AM – will be a trip back to port, Goethel said.
‘Better alternative’
New Hampshire council member Doug Grout was intrigued by the motion and viewed it as a better option than zero possession.
Grout said 2008 and 2009 recreational catches of Gulf of Maine winter flounder for New Hampshire have been the highest since 1997, and a fisheries independent survey off New Hampshire also showed increasing trends since the late 1990s.
“So I do not believe that there is an emergency warranting zero possession,” he said. “I think it would be very difficult for the fisheries service to justify that.”
However, Grout said, “I certainly see problems for sectors with low ACEs, so I’m looking at this as an alternative to get those sectors to continue to fish with very low ACEs for winter flounder.”
Maine council member Glen Libby also initially leaned toward the trip-limit approach.
“This makes more sense,” he said. “It collects data that we’ll need.”
Libby said several vessels in his own Port Clyde sector didn’t receive any allocation at all for yellowtail flounder or Gulf of Maine winter flounder, which are often called blackbacks.
“There’s a reason for it,” he said. “We’ve never caught a lot of those stocks.”
But now the sector was concerned that it didn’t even have enough allocation to cover its “assumed” discard rate. Sector ACEs must cover both landings and discards.
“I’m worried that our sector in particular – and maybe others – will get shut down by blackbacks even though we don’t land any,” he said.
Sector discard rates
According to Northeast Fisheries Science Center Deputy Director Frank Almeida, sectors with low discards should not worry about their “assumed” discard rate.
Almeida is currently serving as acting director while center Director Nancy Thompson is away on detail dealing with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
“The assumed discard rate will not shut down a sector,” he said. “It’s just a starting point.”
At the beginning of the fishing year, NMFS didn’t have any real-time discard rates to apply to sectors, so the agency calculated an “assumed” rate based on past discard levels in the fishery, fishing patterns, and other pieces of information.
However, Almeida explained, sectors were designed with incentives to reduce discards, and so after sector fishermen make a certain number of trips, the sector shifts first to a transitional discard rate and then to the sector’s actual discard rate.
“So the assumed rate is not the rate that will be applied for the whole year,” Almeida said.
Port Clyde sector member Gary Libby, speaking from the audience, wasn’t fully convinced, despite Almeida’s explanation.
“The assumed bycatch rate still worries me,” he said. “I’ve seen things happen before that weren’t intended.”
Libby was one of those people who had zero winter flounder and zero yellowtail to contribute to his sector.
“I don’t think there’s enough winter flounder to cover everybody,” he said.
Libby took the significant step of putting on a 7" square-mesh codend to reduce his ability to catch winter flounder and yellowtail even further, but he emphasized that he and his sector members rarely encountered these species where they normally fish.
“I just want to make sure I won’t be shut down from fishing – and my sector won’t be shut down – because of some blackbacks I will not catch,” he said.
Trip limit concerns
Questioning whether a 100-pound trip limit would help out fishermen like those in the Port Clyde sector, the council continued to discuss the merits of Goethel’s proposal compared to the zero-possession strategy.
But council Chairman John Pappalardo of Massachusetts stepped in to express his own serious reservations.
“I personally find it troubling that we’re considering reaching in and telling sectors they need to start using trip limits to protect themselves from themselves,” he said.
The whole reason the council adopted Amendment 16 in the first place was because many people wanted to get away from days-at-sea and trip-limit management “and plan their year out,” he said.
“Now we’re giving an ACE to a sector and then telling them they have to catch it in certain chunks. I don’t know how that accomplishes anything except to muddle up sectors,” Pappalardo said.
Jackie Odell of the Northeast Seafood Coalition was of a similar mind.
“This is a serious issue in the multispecies fishery,” she said. “With single species management and ACLs and AMs, we’re going to have these weak links that we’re going to be talking about every day. It was pollock yesterday. It’s Gulf of Maine winter flounder today. Finding a creative long-term solution for these stocks is really important for the fishery as a whole.”
That said, Odell opposed “fixing” the Gulf of Maine winter flounder problem with a trip limit.
“Sectors are under an output control system, and starting to overlay trip limits on top of sectors is extremely problematic,” she said. “I appreciate the intention here and I support a long-term solution, but I cannot support putting a trip limit on sectors,” she said.
Let it ‘play out’
New Hampshire council member Mike Leary had concerns of his own. For one, he thought a 100-pound trip limit was “way too high” and would lead some sectors to land far more Gulf of Maine winter flounder than their ACE.
“I don’t know how that’s going to help the stock,” he said.
Furthermore, Leary said he knew some fishermen who had been hemmed in by eight months of rolling closures and all they ended up qualifying for in their personal sector contributions was blackbacks.
“If you take that away from them, they’ll have nothing,” he said. “This is going to penalize people.”
As the discussion progressed, Leary said he became increasingly uncomfortable, especially since people within some sectors already had traded Gulf of Maine winter flounder and planned out their fishing year.
“There are some sectors that have enough blackbacks for the year and there are some that don’t,” he said. “Maybe we should just see how the sectors play out.”
NMFS Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul said she, too, had concerns about the 100-pound trip limit.
“Sometimes a trip limit becomes a goal instead of a constraint,” she said. “Are we actually encouraging sectors to catch more winter flounder with this kind of motion?”
Kurkul said she had significant concerns about putting forward a proposal “without any kind of analysis.”
“This hasn’t been fully vetted,” she said.
Sensing that the tide was turning, Doug Grout moved to amend the 100-pound limit to 50 pounds, but that attempt failed on a 4-to-13 vote.
The 100-pound limit next came up for a vote, but that, too, failed, this time by in a 3-to-14 vote.
Careful what you seek
After that, the council was back to its original motion asking NMFS to take emergency action to designate Gulf of Maine winter flounder as a zero-possession stock.
To this, Grout said, “I am going to vote against this. I do believe we are sort of kidding ourselves that an emergency has taken place.”
David Goethel remained steadfastly opposed.
“If the only way you can make sectors work is to have everybody hurling everything over the side, then that’s a failed concept,” he said.
If NMFS implemented the council’s zero-possession request for Gulf of Maine winter flounder, Goethel said, “We would have two winter flounder stocks, windowpane, ocean pout, and wolffish being thrown over the side 100% of the time. Add thorny skates and smooth skates to that list from another plan and I would say this council had better do some soul searching.”
Rhode Island council member and groundfish committee Chair Frank Blount brought up a broader issue. He urged the council to consider the potential consequences of requesting emergency action.
“We have to be very, very careful when we ask for an emergency action,” he said. “Once you ask for an emergency action, the service is free to implement any measures it feels are necessary. The service’s hands are not tied, so just because you ask for something, it might not be what you get as a response.”
One last attempt
In the last few minutes of the debate, Jim Odlin tried one last time to gain support for emergency action.
Odlin said his own sector had enough Gulf of Maine winter flounder to cover itself for the year, but he still thought the zero-possession approach was in the best interest of “the industry as a whole.”
“To me, this was unforeseen because when we adopted Amendment 16, we didn’t have the ABCs for these stocks,” he said.
Amendment 16 set up the structure for allocating ACLs to sectors and the common pool, but due to timing issues, the actual numbers weren’t calculated until after the council had submitted Amendment 16 to NMFS. Rather, final ACLs were implemented through Framework Adjustment 44.
“Had we realized what the situation was, we would have adopted the same strategy as we did for Southern New England winter flounder,” Odlin said. “There’s no question about that. I truly believe this was unforeseen and that this is a unique situation.”
The vote to request emergency action for zero possession failed 5-to-12. And then the council quickly passed its final motion asking the SSC to review new information about Gulf of Maine winter flounder to see if additional data would change the stock’s ABC.
Janice M. Plante
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