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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 1
September 2006
ASMFC agrees to ‘analyze’ Massachusetts dogfish plan
CRYSTAL CITY, VA – Industry leaders came out in force to back up Massachusetts in its effort to gain support from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) for the immediate reinstitution of a small-scale directed fishery for dogfish.
Buoyed by the latest stock assessment, Massachusetts officials called on ASMFC’s Spiny Dogfish and Coastal Sharks Management Board to authorize an increase in the 2006 dogfish quota from 4 million pounds to 6 million pounds and to allow each state to increase its commercial dogfish trip limit from the current 600 pounds per trip – intended only to cover bycatch – to somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds.
ASMFC last year took “final action” to approve a 4-million-pound quota for 2006, so a move to change that number would require a two-thirds vote of the entire commission, explained Bob Beal, director of ASMFC’s Interstate Fisheries Management Program.
During an Aug. 15 meeting here, Massachusetts commissioners and a string of industry members passionately urged the board to endorse the proposal.
However, emphasizing the need to follow proper ASMFC procedures, the board voted to first send the proposal specifics to its dogfish technical committee for analysis. The board will reconsider the analyzed plan at its October meeting in North Carolina.
The decision came as a blow to fishermen, who had hoped ASMFC would agree to what they said was an extremely conservative proposal by Massachusetts.
Peter Weiss, executive director of the General Category Tuna Association, flew to Crystal City to drive home his position that dogfish were wreaking utter havoc on the bluefin tuna fishery, a point that Rich Ruais, executive director of the East Coast Tuna Association, also underscored.
The 2006 general category quota for bluefin is 1,163.3 metric tons (mt). As of Aug. 14, only 34.6 mt had been landed. According to both Weiss and Ruais, thick schools of dogfish were making it nearly impossible for fishermen to even gain access to bluefin.
“The abundance of dogfish in waters off Massachusetts and Maine, which is unbelievable, is ruining the fishery,” said Weiss. “The Massachusetts proposal is the first step to get the dogfish population under control. I don’t understand why we are spending this amount of time and this amount of money saving this population and ruining other fisheries.”
Numerous industry representatives echoed the “ruining other fisheries” theme.
“We do believe the dogfish issue is undermining the rebuilding of Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank cod,” said Eric Brazer, who spoke on behalf of the Georges Bank Cod Hook Sector, the Georges Bank Cod Fixed Gear Sector, the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association, and the Cape Cod Gillnetters Association.
Dogfish have also plagued Mid-Atlantic fishermen.
North Carolina Fisheries Association President Sean McKeon said, “This fish is destroying other very important fisheries. I really think that when we’re emphasizing the need for sound science, we need to emphasize the need for sound economics too.”
Contrary to a new scientific finding that male dogfish outnumber females by a 7:1 ratio, charter boat Captain Tom DePersia, president of the Stellwagen Bank Charter Boat Association, said the number of females in inshore waters was overwhelming.
“We’re being pushed further and further offshore to catch cod and haddock,” he said.
Of the dogfish charter boats encounter, DePersia said, “We’re probably catching 90%-95% big, fat, pregnant females. When all these females have pups, we’ll really have a problem.”
Herring industry member Jeff Kaelin, representing the vessels Providian, AJ, and Atlantic Frost, added that herring fishermen, like their counterparts in the tuna, groundfish, and charter boat fisheries, were experiencing similar troubles.
“We’re having the same situation in the herring fishery this summer,” he said. “We can’t seem to get away from the dogfish either.”
Massachusetts’ case
David Pierce, deputy director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF), was the first official to present the state’s case to the ASMFC dogfish board.
“I need to make clear that this is an issue of great importance to the commonwealth,” he said.
Sensitive to concerns from other states about Massachusetts fishermen potentially catching the full quota, Pierce said 42% of the 6 million pounds would be reserved for Rhode Island and states to the south.
He also emphasized that the proposal would have a negligible effect on fishing mortality (F).
“This is a modest increase in the quota,” said Pierce. “It would allow fishermen to prosecute small-scale fisheries in various states.”
However, Pierce said the primary reason DMF and the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Commission were pursuing the small-scale fishery was to “foster Gulf of Maine cod rebuilding.”
“We in our state have made a lot of investments into rebuilding codfish. We have excellent signs of recruitment in 2006. We have every good reason to believe that large dogfish will (prey on cod) and have a very significant impact on our cod rebuilding initiative,” said Pierce.
To support this point, Pierce noted a 2002 paper published in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management titled “Ecological interactions between elasmobranchs and groundfish species of the Northeastern US continental shelf,” which contains stomach-content data from 40,756 dogfish.
According to Pierce, the 1998 cod assessment estimated there were 5.77 million age 1 cod.
“Dogfish ate 2.15 million age 1 cod, so dogfish do eat cod,” he said. He called this level of predation “consequential.”
After providing further justification for the Massachusetts proposal, Pierce concluded, “Our attitude is that our request is very reasonable.”
More review?
Peter Hemcheck, a New Jersey representative on the board, expressed reservations about moving too quickly.
“It seems a little hasty on my part to take new data and reinstitute a directed fishery,” he said. “I wonder if there’ll be repercussions. Our past track history has been to take a much more cautious approach.”
New Hampshire Commissioner John Nelson said he was “in favor of the overall concept” of a small-scale directed dogfish fishery for many of the same reasons as Pierce.
However, he thought the proposal first needed to be reviewed by the dogfish technical committee, which is standard ASMFC procedure.
“This is what we have set up to do,” he said. “I would recommend that this go to the technical committee for review and confirmation that what Massachusetts has proposed – that this will have a negligible effect on F – is correct.”
The initial proposal was forwarded to the technical committee prior to the board’s Aug. 15 meeting, but given the short notice, many members were unable to provide feedback.
Furthermore, Ruth Christiansen, ASMFC’s dogfish plan coordinator, said, “I did not specifically ask the technical committee to evaluate the proposal itself. I asked (it) to evaluate the merit of the proposal to see if it warranted further analysis.”
Massachusetts Commissioner and DMF Director Paul Diodati insisted the board already had plenty of information to take action.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for the board to be held hostage to the technical committee,” he said. “The question here is, ‘What is the difference between a 4-million-pound fishery and a 6-million-pound fishery? This is not a drastic change.”
Caution wins
New York Commissioner Gordon Colvin described the issue as “a very difficult” one.
“I find myself conflicted,” he said. “I am very intrigued with what’s been put on the table. At the same time, my experience tells me that in the past, when we have reacted quickly to new assessment information without a lot of debate within our own body, we have not always made wise decisions.”
Colvin thought the time had come for ASMFC to undertake a much broader examination of dogfish, independent of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), in order to look into the impacts “more thoroughly.”
After weighing both sides, Colvin concluded, “I’m very sympathetic to this issue, particularly to the cod rebuilding part. But as much as I’d like to see us pursue this proposal, I think we need to put it through our own process first. And I would like us to think harder about a more comprehensive charge to our technical committee. I think we need to spend more time independently assessing these issues.”
With that, the board voted 13-to-3 to send the Massachusetts proposal to the technical committee for further analysis. The board will consider the proposal again during ASMFC’s annual meeting, which begins Oct. 22 in Atlantic Beach, NC.
Janice M. Plante
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