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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 1
September 2009
NMFS eyes NE trawl gear limits to protect turtles
PORTLAND, ME – New England and Mid-Atlantic fishermen who are already struggling to cope with changing regulations in numerous fisheries may need to begin paying closer attention to a whole other issue – turtles.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) conducted six scoping meetings between May 15 and July 15 to accept public comment on its latest strategy to reduce turtle takes in fishing gear.
The strategy is designed to reduce the potential for turtle bycatch by gear type, and NMFS has identified trawl gear as its first priority. Gillnets, traps and pots, and hooks and lines, including longlines, will be dealt with further down the road.
For starters, NMFS is proposing to deal with trawl gear fisheries in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico in three phases:
Trawl Phase I – Summer flounder, Atlantic sea scallops, whelk, calico scallops, and flynet fisheries for croaker and weakfish;
Trawl Phase II – Sheepshead/black drum/king whiting, porgy, skimmer, Spanish sardine/scad/ladyfish/butterfish, and large- and small-mesh multispecies; and
Trawl Phase III – Skate, horseshoe crab, monkfish, bluefish, spiny dogfish, and herring trawl fisheries.
The first round of rule-making is supposed to focus on Phase I trawl fisheries, but the broad range of proposed alternatives in the scoping document led some industry members to worry that Phase II or III trawl fisheries might be lumped in as well.
During the recent scoping meetings, NMFS floated a wide range of alternatives to collect information on where and when it should impose turtle protection measures and which fishing operations they should apply to. It also solicited input on whether or not to require turtle excluder devices (TEDs) for some or all trawl fisheries and/or whether it should investigate alternatives such as tow-time restrictions.
Two of the scoping meetings were conducted in conjunction with ongoing meetings of the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils. Following requests from members of the public, NMFS extended the scoping comment deadline from July 10 to Aug. 10.
NMFS said it will use the comments to determine the “scope of issues” that should be analyzed in a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) and to design the “options for rule-making to reduce the take of sea turtles in commercial trawl fisheries.”
New England
The New England scoping meeting was held on June 23 in Portland and was overseen by NMFS’s Pat Scida of Gloucester.
Some fishermen who attended the meeting clearly found the entire turtle protection effort to be preposterous for northern waters.
“I’ve been fishing above 41ºNorth for 40 years and I have never even heard of a boat catching a turtle,” said Russell Desjardins, who captains the Titan.
Titan owner Mike Love said, “This all strikes me as putting up slow-speed restrictions for moose in Manhattan. It’s a problem that’s not there.”
Yet according to NMFS, turtle bycatch does occur – maybe not so much in New England but definitely in the Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico – and bycatch reduction measures are necessary because every species of turtle found in US waters is listed as either threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
Options
The scoping document contained three “spatial” alternatives proposing different areas where turtle protection measures might be imposed. Two options essentially focused on the area from Cape Cod south, but one called for the entire Atlantic from the Canadian border south.
NMFS also floated some “temporal” alternatives that would require vessels to comply with turtle measures south of specific latitudes during specific months of the year.
In another category, NMFS proposed three alternatives for “who” the measures should apply to, fishermen working in: Phase I trawl fisheries; all trawl fisheries in Phase I, II, and III; or trawl fisheries with the highest turtle bycatch, such as 5% or greater of total turtle trawl bycatch.
TED questions
Finally, NMFS asked for comments on “operating” alternatives such as mandatory TED usage, area closures, and tow-time restrictions.
Maggie Raymond of Associated Fisheries of Maine, who spoke with gear specialists before the scoping meeting, said, “I don’t see how these TEDs are going to work in a large-mesh multispecies fishery.”
According to Scida, NMFS has considered this potential problem.
“We are aware that TEDs might not work in all fisheries,” he said.
And in its May 8 Federal Register notice announcing the scoping meetings, NMFS explained, “Testing is necessary to ensure that feasible TED designs for specific fisheries still accomplish the desired sea turtle bycatch reduction goals and to determine the TEDs’ impact on target catch retention.”
More to come
In its written comments on the turtle protection strategy, the New England council expressed concern about some of the more “extreme” alternatives proposed in the scoping document.
It also requested more detailed information for the DEIS, including specifics on which fisheries actually encountered turtles and where and when those takes occurred.
At the end of its letter, council Executive Director Paul Howard said, “Our council would like to know how it and the public might be included in the upcoming process for refining the alternatives.”
Several commenters – both during scoping meetings and in written comments – noted the lack of details in the scoping document.
At the Portland meeting, Scida explained, “The scoping document is meant to lay out some general alternatives and get some comments from folks, but the proposed rule will have more specifics.”
More information on the NMFS turtle bycatch reduction program, which is officially called the “Strategy for Sea Turtle Conservation and Recovery in Relation to the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico Fisheries,” is available online at <www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/turtles>.
Janice M. Plante
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