D.B. Pleschner: California’s ports, fishermen rely on healthy wetfish fisheries

Despite gloomy predictions of El Niño and the broader impact of climate change on the ocean and planet, California’s historic wetfish fisheries carry on — still the foundation of California’s fishing economy.

More than 150 years ago, Chinese fishermen rowed Monterey Bay at night in sampans, with baskets of burning fat pine on the bow used as torches to attract market squid, which fishermen harvested with round-haul nets.

This was the modest beginning of California’s “wetfish” industry. The immigrant Asian, Italian, Slavic and other nationalities of fishermen who came to America introduced new fishing methods. Around the turn of the 20th century, Sicilian immigrants to Monterey brought their lampara nets, another type of round-haul net, and launched what would become the largest fishery in the western hemisphere — California’s famed sardine industry, popularized in our collective conscience by John Steinbeck’s “Cannery Row.”

It was the plentiful schools of fish — especially sardines that stretch from the Gulf of California to Alaska — that provided opportunity for generations of enterprising fishing families to prosper. The complex of fisheries that makes up California’s wetfish industry, including mackerel and anchovy as well as squid and sardines, helped to build the ports of Monterey and San Pedro, as well as San Diego and San Francisco. Wetfish, now called coastal pelagic species (CPS), have contributed the lion’s share of California’s commercial catch since before the turn of the 20th century.

Even back then fishermen recognized that a sustainable fishery was good for both fisherman and fish. That’s why over the decades fishing interests have supported marine protections based on sound science and have contributed significantly to cooperative research. That tradition continues today.

In fact, today coastal pelagic fisheries in California like squid and sardines are managed with strict quotas as well as numerous time and area closures, including a statewide network of no-take marine reserves. Fishermen are allowed to harvest only a small percentage of the overall fish population. Current regulations require that at least 75 percent of CPS finfish must stay in the ocean to ensure a resilient core biomass, and the sardine protection rate is even higher at about 90 percent.

In addition, squid fishing is closed on weekends (squid live less than a year and die after spawning). And about 30 percent of squid spawning grounds are also closed in reserves.

What’s more, to preserve the quality of the catch, fishermen typically fish day trips near the ports. This makes California’s CPS fisheries among the most efficient and “greenest” fisheries on the planet with one of the lowest carbon footprints in the world. For example, wetfish fisheries can produce 2,000 pounds of protein for only six gallons of diesel fuel. This highlights the importance of California wetfish to California.

Beyond history, culture and sustainability, California’s CPS fisheries contribute essential revenue into local port communities. Wetfish fisheries are an important part of California’s fishing economy and squid is California’s most valuable fishery. Statewide, these fisheries represent more than 80 percent of all landings and close to 40 percent of dockside value of all fisheries in the Golden State!

download/view PDF infographic

[www.californiawetfish.org/CPS_infographic.pdf]

D.B. Pleschner is executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, a nonprofit created to promote sustainable wetfish resources.

Read the original post: MontereyHerald.com

D.B. PLESCHNER: Some Inconvenient Truths about California Squid Marketing

Greenberg missed the boat on a number of issues, including the overall carbon footprint of seafood, but equally important, the reasons why most of the squid that California exports is consumed overseas!

Read the original Paul Greenberg op-ed in the Los Angeles Times

August 5, 2014 (SeafoodNews.com) — The following opinion piece appeared today on SeafoodNews.com:

In his op-ed to the Los Angeles Times last week, author Paul Greenberg could have dodged some critical misstatements and inaccuracies about the marketing of California squid – the state’s largest catch.

All he had to do was check with local sources, including the California Wetfish Producers Association, which represents the majority of squid processors and fishermen in the Golden State and promotes California squid.

Instead, Greenberg missed the boat on a number of issues, including the overall carbon footprint of seafood, but equally important, the reasons why most of the squid that California exports is consumed overseas!

To set the record straight, here are some inconvenient truths you wouldn’t know about squid by reading last week’s op-ed:

First, size matters and price rules when it comes to California market squid, which are one of the smallest of more than 300 squid species found worldwide. The U.S. “local” market really prefers larger, “meatier” squid, notwithstanding Greenberg’s ‘locavore’ movement.

Greenberg acknowledged the labor cost to produce cleaned squid in California adds at least $1.50 per pound to the end product. In fact, local production costs double the price of cleaned squid, due to both labor (at least $15 per hour with benefits) and super-sized overhead costs, including workers’ comp, electricity, water and myriad other costs of doing business in the Golden State.

Del Mar Seafood is one processor in California that micro-processes cleaned squid at the request of markets like the CSA that Greenberg mentioned. In fact, virtually all California squid processors do the same thing at the request of their customers. But at 1,000 pounds per order, we would need 236,000 CSAs, restaurants or retail markets paying $1.50 more per pound to account for the total harvest. If the demand were there, we’d be filling it!

Greenberg also misconstrued the issue of food miles. Respected researchers like Dr. Peter Tyedmers, from Dalhousie University in Canada, found that transport makes a minor contribution to overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, when considering the carbon footprint of seafood (or land-based foods). Mode of production is far more important.

Here’s another surprise: California squid is one of the most efficient fisheries in the world – because a limited fleet harvests a lot of squid within a short distance of processing plants.

Studies show that the California wetfish fleet, including squid, can produce 2,000 pounds of protein for only 6 gallons of diesel. Squid are then flash frozen to preserve freshness and quality. Keep in mind that even with immaculate handling, fresh squid spoil in a few days.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, even with product block-frozen and ocean-shipped to Asia for processing, California’s squid fishery is one of the ‘greenest’ in the world. One recent survey estimated that about 30 percent of California squid is now either processed here or transshipped to Asia for processing (other Asian countries besides China now do the work) and re-imported.

China, although important, is only one export market that craves California squid. With a growing middle class billions strong, Chinese consumers can now afford California squid themselves. Many countries that import California squid prefer the smaller size, and California squid goes to Mediterranean countries as well. In short, most of the squid that California’s fishery exports are consumed overseas. Why? The U.S. palate for squid pales in comparison to Asian and European demand.

Also important to understand: California squid is the economic driver of California’s wetfish industry – which produces more than 80 percent of the total seafood volume landed in the Golden State. California squid exports also represent close to 70 percent by weight and 44 percent of value of all California seafood exports. Our squid fishery contributes heavily to the Golden State’s fishing economy and also helps to offset a growing seafood trade imbalance.

The sad reality is that price really does matter and most California restaurants and retail markets are not willing to pay double for the same – or similar – small squid that they can purchase for half the price.

Nonetheless, we do appreciate Greenberg’s pitch for local seafood. Our local industry would be delighted if, as he suggested, all Californians would be willing to pay $1.50 a pound more for California squid. We may be biased, but in our opinion California squid really is the best!

D.B. Pleschner is Executive Director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, a nonprofit designed to promote sustainable wetfish resources.

Farming The Bluefin Tuna, Tiger Of The Ocean, Is Not Without A Price

Dan Charles  |  July 30, 2014

Yonathan Zohar, Jorge Gomezjurado and Odi Zmora check on bluefin tuna larvae in tanks at the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology. (Courtesy of Yonathan Zohar)

In a windowless laboratory in downtown Baltimore, some tiny, translucent fish larvae are swimming about in glass-walled tanks.

They are infant bluefin tuna. Scientists in this laboratory are trying to grasp what they call the holy grail of aquaculture: raising this powerful fish, so prized by sushi lovers, entirely in captivity. But the effort is fraught with challenges.

When I visited, I couldn’t see the larvae at first. They look incredibly fragile and helpless, just drifting in the tanks’ water currents. But they’re already gobbling up microscopic marine animals, which in turn are living on algae.

“It’s amazing. We cannot stop looking at them! We are here around the clock and we are looking at them, because it is so beautiful,” says Yonathan Zohar, the scientist in charge of this project.

It’s beautiful to Zohar because it’s so rare. Scientists are trying to raise bluefin tuna completely in captivity in only a few places around the world. Laboratories in Japan have led the effort. This experiment, at the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology, is the first successful attempt in North America.

Scientists still have a long way to go to succeed. Most of the larvae have died, but hundreds have now survived for 10 days, “and we are counting every day,” says Zohar. “We want to be at 25 to 30 days. This is the bottleneck. The bottleneck is the first three to four weeks.”

If they make it that far, they’ll be juvenile fish and much more sturdy. Then, they’ll mainly need lots to eat.

Fully grown, the bluefin tuna is a tiger of the ocean: powerful and voracious, its flesh in high demand for sushi all around the world.

Journalist Paul Greenberg wrote about bluefin tuna in his book Four Fish. If you’re an angler, he says, catching one is an experience you don’t forget.

“When they come onboard, it’s like raw energy coming onto the boat. Their tail will [beat] like an outboard motor, just blazing with power and energy,” he says.

The fish can grow to 1,000 pounds. They can swim up to 45 miles per hour and cross entire oceans.

They’re also valuable. Demand for tuna has grown, especially in Japan, where people sometimes pay fantastic prices for the fish.

That demand has led to overfishing, and wild populations of tuna now are declining.

That’s why scientists like Zohar are trying to invent a new way to supply the world’s demand. They’re trying to invent bluefin tuna farming.

“The vision is to have huge tanks, land-based, in a facility like what you see here, having bluefin tuna that are spawning year-round, on demand, producing millions of eggs,” he says.

Those eggs would hatch and grow into a plentiful supply of tuna.

That brings us back to these precious larvae. Before there can be aquaculture, large quantities of these larvae have to survive. Here in the laboratory, the scientists are tinkering with lots of things — the lights above the tanks, the concentration of algae and water currents — to keep the fragile larvae from sinking toward the bottom of the tank.

“They tend to go down,” explains Zohar. “They have a heavy head. They go head down and tail up. If they hit their head on the bottom they are gone. They are not going to survive.”

Enough are surviving, at the moment, that Zohar thinks they’re getting close to overcoming this obstacle, too.

But that still leaves a final hurdle. The scientists will need to figure out how to satisfy the tuna’s amazing appetite without causing even more damage to the environment.

A tuna’s natural diet consists of other fish. Lots of other fish. Right now, there are tuna “ranches” that capture young tuna in the ocean and then fatten them up in big net-pens. According to Greenberg, those ranches feed their tuna about 15 pounds of fish such as sardines or mackerel for each additional pound of tuna that can be sold to consumers. That kind of tuna production is environmentally costly.

Zohar thinks that it will be possible to reduce this ratio or even create tuna feed that doesn’t rely heavily on other fish as an ingredient.

But Greenberg says the basic fact that they eat so much makes him wonder whether tuna farming is really the right way to go. It increases the population of a predator species that demands lots of food itself.

“Why would you domesticate a tiger when you could domesticate a cow,” he asks — or, even better, a chicken, which converts just 2 pounds of vegetarian feed into a pound of meat.

If farmed tuna really can reduce the demand for tuna caught in the wild, it would be worth doing. But it might do more good, he says, to eat a little lower on the marine food chain. We could eat more mussels or sardines. It would let more tuna roam free.

Read the original story here.

FAO Releases State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture Report

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization: 70% of global fish stocks fished within sustainable limits; seafood production up 10 million tons

WASHINGTON (SeafoodNews.com) May 20, 2014 — FAO has released its latest “State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture” report, covering 2012,  and there are a number of positive news items. First and foremost, 70% of wild capture fisheries are now being fished within biologically sustainable limits.

This is a “reversal in trend observed during the past few years, a positive sign in the right direction,” says the FAO. Global capture fisheries remained stable at 80 million tons.

Secondly, the aquaculture production continues to surge. Global aquaculture production marked a record high of more than 90 million tonnes in 2012, including almost 24 million tonnes of aquatic plants. China accounted for over 60 percent of the total share.

Other positive trends were the increase in employment in fisheries and aquaculture, the greater share o trade coming from developing countries, and the fact that seafood now accounts for 17% of global protein consumption.

The report also emphasizes the importance and positive role of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries which, since its adoption almost two decades ago, remains key to achieving sustainable fisheries and aquaculture.

More people than ever before rely on fisheries and aquaculture for food and as a source of income says the new FAO report published today.

According to the latest edition of FAO’s The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture, global fisheries and aquaculture production totaled 158 million tonnes in 2012 – around 10 million tonnes more than 2010.

The rapid expansion of aquaculture, including the activities of small-scale farmers, is driving this growth in production.

Fish farming holds tremendous promise in responding to surging demand for food which is taking place due to global population growth, the report says.

At the same time, the planet’s oceans – if sustainably managed – have an important role to play in providing jobs and feeding the world, according to FAO’s report.

“The health of our planet as well as our own health and future food security all hinge on how we treat the blue world,” FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said.

“We need to ensure that environmental well-being is compatible with human well-being in order to make long-term sustainable prosperity a reality for all. For this reason, FAO is committed to promoting ‘Blue Growth,’ which is based on the sustainable and responsible management of our aquatic resources.”

The renewed focus on the so-called “blue world” comes as the share of fisheries production used by humans for food has increased from about 70 percent in the 1980s to a record high of more than 85 percent (136 million tonnes) in 2012.

At the same time per capita fish consumption has soared from 10 kg in the 1960s to more than 19 kg in 2012.

The new report also says fish now accounts for almost 17 percent of the global population’s intake of protein — in some coastal and island countries it can top 70 percent.

FAO estimates that fisheries and aquaculture support the livelihoods of 10-12 percent of the world’s population.

Since 1990 employment in the sector has grown at a faster rate than the world’s population and in 2012 provided jobs for some 60 million people engaged in capture fisheries and aquaculture. Of these, 84 percent were employed in Asia, followed by Africa with about 10 percent.

Global marine capture fishery production was stable at about 80 million tonnes in 2012, the new report indicates.

Currently, under 30 percent of the wild fish stocks regularly monitored by FAO are overfished – a reversal in trend observed during the past few years, a positive sign in the right direction.

Just over 70 percent are being fished within biologically sustainable levels. Of these, fully fished stocks – meaning those at or very close to their maximum sustainable production – account for over 60 percent and underfished stocks about 10 percent.

Global aquaculture production marked a record high of more than 90 million tonnes in 2012, including almost 24 million tonnes of aquatic plants. China accounted for over 60 percent of the total share.

Aquaculture’s expansion helps improve the diets of many people, especially in poor rural areas where the presence of essential nutrients in food is often scarce.

However, the report warns that to continue to grow sustainably, aquaculture needs to become less dependent on wild fish for feeds and introduce greater diversity in farmed culture species and practices.

For example, small-sized species can be an excellent source of essential minerals when consumed whole. However, consumer preferences and other factors have seen a switch towards larger farmed species whose bones and heads are often discarded.

The role of fish is set to feature prominently at the Second International Conference on Nutrition jointly organized by FAO and the World Health Organization (WHO) for 19-21 November 2014 in Rome.

Fish remains among the most traded food commodities worldwide, worth almost $130 billion in 2012 – a figure which likely will continue to increase.

An important trend sees developing countries boosting their share in the fishery trade – 54 percent of total fishery exports by value in 2012 and more than 60 percent by quantity (live weight).

This means fisheries and fish farming are playing an increasingly critical role for many local economies. Some 90 percent of fishers are small scale and it is estimated that, overall, 15 percent are women. In secondary activities such as processing, this figure can be as high as 90 percent.

FAO, through the 2014 International Year of Family Farming, is raising the profile of smallholder activities – including fisheries and aquaculture – with an emphasis on improving access to finance and markets, securing tenure rights and protecting the environment.

An estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food are lost per year – to about one-third of all food produced. This figure includes post-harvest fish losses, which tend to be greater in small-scale fisheries.

In small-scale fisheries, quality losses are often far more significant than physical losses. Improved handling, processing and value-addition methods could address the technical aspects of this issue, but it is also vital to extend good practices, build partnerships, raise awareness, and develop capacity and relevant policies and strategies.

The report also notes that illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing remains a major threat to marine ecosystems and also impacts negatively on livelihoods, local economies and food supplies.

Food chain traceability is increasingly a requirement in major fish markets, especially in the wake of recent scandals involving the mislabeling of food products.

FAO provides technical guidelines on certification and ecolabeling which can help producers demonstrate that fish has been caught legally from a sustainably managed fishery or produced in properly run aquaculture facility.

In particular, the report stresses the importance of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries which, since its adoption almost two decades ago, remains key to achieving sustainable fisheries and aquaculture.

The Code promotes the responsible use of aquatic resources and habitat conservation to help boost the sector’s contribution to food security, poverty alleviation and human well-being.

FAO is also promoting “Blue Growth” as a framework for ensuring sustainable and socioeconomically-sensitive management of oceans and wetlands.

At the Global Oceans Action Summit on Food Security and Blue Growth held last month in The Hague, Netherlands, governments and other participants committed to actions focused on tackling climate change, overfishing, habitat loss and pollution in a bid to restore productive, resilient oceans.

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Pew/NatGeo Column Oversimplifies Ecosystem-Based Management of “Forage Fish”

“Environmental NGOs have launched a nationwide campaign to protect “forage fish”.  Groups such as Pew are broadcasting the same protectionist message on the west coast as well as the east and gulf coasts.  On the west coast, the Pacific Council has already adopted an Ecosystem Plan, but as this article attests, managing “forage species” is not a one-size-fits-all proposition.  In fact, west coast fishery regulations for coastal pelagic species, also called forage fish, are the most precautionary in the world.”

Pew/NatGeo Column Oversimplifies Ecosystem-Based Management of “Forage Fish”

It’s not as simple as “ABC”

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) May 7, 2014 — In a recent article, “The ABCs of Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management-Part II,” the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Director of Federal Fisheries Policy and National Geographic online guest writer, Lee Crockett, focuses on the management of “forage fish” — a much used, though highly debated categorization for a number of small, marine species. The article’s title suggests that management of forage species is as simple as learning the alphabet, but in reality that is far from the case. Fisheries management is a highly complex process, and fisheries managers have stated that much remains to be studied and understood before ecosystem-based management can work for every species.

The term “forage fish” simply describes a number of tiny fish and invertebrates that share a similar niche in the marine food web (they are often “foraged” upon by larger predators). The range of included species is broad, and their differences are diverse. Targeted stocks like shrimp, squid, herring, and menhaden can all be classified as “forage” species, as can non-targeted species like jellyfish, bay anchovy, sand lance, and sea worms. These species have a variety of biological differences, and don’t have much in common outside of their trophic level. So while the term may seem convenient, all species labeled “forage fish” cannot be successfully lumped and managed in the same way, as Pew and a number of environmental groups often suggest.

An example of this flaw can be found in the calculations Mr. Crockett cites from the Lenfest Forage Fish Taskforce. The Lenfest analyses are based around the assumption that the various “forage species” can be managed under the same broad guidelines. However, there are a significant number of different variables — including fecundity, spawning periods, migration, predator-prey relationships, and habitat — that must be considered to properly manage these species and are more relevant than their shared trophic role.

Different forage species will likely respond in different ways to management measures. For example, one of the species mentioned in the article, Atlantic herring, has lower levels of fecundity when the stock biomass is high. Another species mentioned, Atlantic menhaden, has historically shown a poor correlation between harvest levels and biomass. Some of the peak years in menhaden biomass, particularly in the early 1980s, were preceded by years of heavy fishing mortality. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) states that, “menhaden recruitment appears to be independent of fishing mortality and spawning stock biomass, indicating environmental factors may be the defining factor in the production of good year classes.” Mr. Crockett’s broad reference to “forage fish” as a general category does not factor in these differences.

Lenfest’s economic analysis, concluding that “forage fish” are more valuable if left in the water than if caught, rests on unproven assumptions about predator species. First, that all “forage fish” left in the water will be consumed by predator species, and second, that predator species are currently constrained by a lack of forage. But the report does not actually provide evidence that this is the case.

In fact, these assumptions are demonstrably untrue for several predator species. Some, like weakfish, are currently overfished, and an increase in available forage would not be an effective solution to problems facing the stock. Other species, like striped bass, have not historically been abundant at the same time as forage species like menhaden.

A shift toward ecosystem-based fisheries management for all fisheries is a common goal shared by managers, industry members, and conservationists alike. But such a transition requires that fisheries management reach a point of technological and scientific innovation that enables responsible and informed management in that capacity. Fisheries managers are constantly working to improve and obtain the most up-to-date and comprehensive scientific information regarding species interactions, but at the present, many fisheries simply have not yet reached the point at which ecosystem-based management is possible and productive.

In the mean time, “forage” species like menhaden are being watched and managed closely to ensure their sustainable harvest. The menhaden fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic are two of the most closely monitored and regulated fisheries in their respective regions. In the Atlantic, commercial menhaden harvesters now operate under a 20 percent reduction in allowable harvests. That historic cut was implemented by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), with the support of groups such as Mr. Crockett’s employer, for the express purpose of ensuring the species’ continued sustainable harvest. In the Gulf of Mexico, the menhaden fishery has been lauded as a “close to perfect” fishery thanks to its remarkably low bycatch and closely monitored commercial operations.

Managers in the Gulf have also openly discussed ecosystem-based management for the menhaden fishery there, for which they have decades of scientific records. But as is the case for many fisheries for now, scientists concluded that the data and technology are simply not there yet for such a significant transition. In their most recent Gulf menhaden stock assessment, the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission (GSMFC), which manages regional species in the Gulf of Mexico, stated “that data and techniques [for ecosystem-based management] are insufficient at present to incorporate them into the assessment.” In other words, to adopt premature and incomplete ecosystem-based components to future stock assessments would prove difficult to accurately project the true health of a species’ population. Ultimately, a hasty transition would leave fisheries with less science-based management than at the present.

Mr. Crockett also references Federal law governing fisheries management, the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA). He alleges that “forage” species are at risk of exploitation without strongly worded protections within the MSA against commercial harvests. But harvest cuts like those for Atlantic menhaden, and closely monitored menhaden management in the Gulf of Mexico already exemplify that law’s intent. In both cases, managers are actively fulfilling the law’s fundamental requirement that fisheries management balance long-term sustainability with the socioeconomic needs of our fishing communities. The Magnuson-Stevens Act exemplifies the principle of sustainable marine resource management. Its intent and application demonstrates that conservation is not an end in itself, but also a means for ensuring that those who rely on these fisheries remain economically afloat.

Commercial fishermen, including those who harvest species like menhaden, share an interest in ecosystem-based management. Fishermen and scientists have long worked together to develop more timely and comprehensive fishery science to that very end. But forcing fishery managers into a system that is not yet supported by fundamentally important scientific findings and technology will not advance responsible resource management.

In the case of “forage fish,” those involved in fishery management have regulated and monitored these species with recognition of the reality that they are a highly diverse group whose behavior is far from uniform. To the benefit of these species, as well as the fishing communities who depend on their sustainable management, there is more work to be done before making a move toward the ecosystem-based management that Mr. Crockett endorses.

Read this response online at Saving Menhaden

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California fishers say quota system is all wet

The skipper of a fishing boat that has trawled Monterey Harbor for decades says he’s been docked since spring, unable to earn a living.

Jiri Nozicka says a federal quota system enacted to protect both fish and the commercial fishing industry has problems that he can’t navigate.

“How do I plan anything?” he asked, recently standing on the deck of the San Giovanni. “I can’t. It’s impossible.”

He’s not alone in criticizing the “catch shares” system and calling for changes. Commercial fishers, industry experts and government officials are among those who say that while fish populations are recovering, too few people in California are benefiting from that rebound in part because there aren’t enough qualified monitors to oversee the program.

“Financially, I can only say that multiple trips have been cancelled due to a lack of availability of these monitors, millions of pounds of fish have not been caught, processed and sold to markets and this is a loss of millions of dollars,” said Michael Lucas, president of North Coast Fisheries Inc., in a letter to federal regulators.

After Pacific Coast groundfish populations dropped dramatically in 2000 a federal economic disaster was declared, leading to the strict new quota system. The goal was to boost populations of black cod and dover sole and to revive the flagging industry.

Read the full article here.

Sam Rauch, NOAA acting administrator for fisheries, testifies about 10 year rebuilding timeline

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [seafoodnews.com] Sept 12, 2013 – In Congressional testimony on Monday, NOAA Acting Assistant Administrator for Fisheries Sam Rauch responded to the latest NRC report calling for more flexibility in stock rebuilding timelines. A portion of his comments are below:

“We`ve heard concerns from stakeholders that the 10-year rebuilding timeline may be arbitrary and too restrictive.

In response to these concerns and similar concerns expressed by Members of Congress, in 2011 NOAA commissioned the National Academy of Sciences` National Research Council (NRC) to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of success in stock rebuilding and identification of changes made to fisheries management in response to rebuilding requirements. NOAA asked the NRC to study seven topics related to rebuilding to help us and the Councils better construct efficient and effective rebuilding plans.

The NRC rebuilding study was released on September 5, 2013. We are thankful for the in-depth and forward looking review provided by the NRC, and at present we are carefully analyzing the report`s details. The timing of the report fits nicely with our work to revise National Standard 1 Guidelines. Since the guidelines were last updated in 2009, a number of issues regarding the application of the guidelines have been identified by stakeholders and managers, and these issues may warrant revisions. An Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was published on May 3, 2012 to solicit public input, and several report findings reflect possible revisions to the guidelines similar to those currently being considered by NMFS. At this time, NMFS would like to acknowledge a few aspects of the report:

Read the full article here.

In the U.S., Good News on Fisheries

Around the world, the status of fish and fisheries is grim indeed. Approximately 85 percent of global fish stocks are either over-exploited, fully-exploited, depleted or recovering from depletion. But rigorous management efforts have resulted in some American fisheries making a comeback.

The new report by the National Research Council assessed 55 fisheries and found 10 that have been rebuilt and five that showed good progress toward rebuilding; only nine continue to experience overfishing. What about the rest? Eleven have not shown strong progress in rebuilding but are expected to rebuild if fishing levels remain reduced and a whopping 20 were not actually over-fished despite having been initially classified as such.

The report comes with a neat interactive online graphic to track the fate of fish populations in different regions over the years. By selecting particular species or geographic areas, users can watch, as for example, yelloweye rockfish becomes steadily overfished, as chinook salmon numbers – especially susceptible to changing environmental conditions – swing wildly back and forth, and the likes of lingcod, George’s Bank haddock, king mackerel and Bering Sea snow crab stage their marches toward recovery.

The report is fairly technical, so for a summary – and an explanation of what it means in practical terms for U.S. fish consumers – Discovery News turned to Chris Dorsett, Director of Ecosystem Conservation Programs for the Ocean Conservancy.

“If you look at a map of the United States and where overfishing is still occurring, it’s almost exclusively an east coast problem,” he points out. “And when I say east coast, I mean Gulf of Mexico as well. Where we have not seen success in terms of species recovering based on management actions, that could be due to climatic factors, which aren’t particularly good for productivity. It could be due to management regimes that aren’t particularly effective. But what exacerbates the issue is that, when you drive a population to an extremely low abundance level, environmental variability plays an even more meaningful role in the recovery of that population, so recovery is a little less predictable.”

As the classic case in point, Dorsett points to cod fisheries off Canada, which collapsed in the 1990s and subsequently saw catches slashed essentially to zero. Despite such drastic measures, neither the fish population nor the fishery has shown signs of recovery.

As the NRC report notes, however, there remains some variation: fishing pressure is still too high for some fish stocks, and others have not rebounded as quickly as plans projected. To a large extent, argues Dorsett, that’s a function of natural variability in fish populations and their environments, as well as differences in the ways fisheries have been managed over the years.

In general, though, the news remains positive, increasingly so, and is reflected in the choices available to consumers.

Read the full article here.

National Research Council study finds rebuilding timelines for fish stocks inflexible, inefficient

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) September 6, 2013 — A new study from the National Research Council of the National Academies, “Evaluating the Effectiveness of Fish Stock Rebuilding Plans in the United States,” examines the ability of US fisheries management to reduce overfishing. Among other conclusions, the study, currently in pre-publication, finds that current stock rebuilding plans, which are based on eliminating overfishing within a specified time period, are not flexible enough to account for uncertainties in scientific data and environmental factors that are outside the control of fishermen and fisheries managers. It concludes that basing rebuilding on a timeline diminishes consideration for the socioeconomic impacts of the rebuilding plans.

The study was originally requested by Senator Olympia Snowe and Congressman Barney Frank in 2010, who wrote to NOAA asking them to fund the National Research Council’s work. The following are excerpts taken from pages 179 and 181 of the report:

The tradeoff between flexibility and prescriptiveness within the current legal framework and MFSCMA guidelines for rebuilding underlies many of the issues discussed in this chapter. The present approach may not be flexible or adaptive enough in the face of complex ecosystem and fishery dynamics when data and knowledge are limiting. The high degree of prescriptiveness (and concomitant low flexibility) may create incompatibilities between singlespecies rebuilding plans and EBFM. Fixed rules for rebuilding times can result in inefficiencies and discontinuities of harvest-control rules, put unrealistic demands on models and data for stock assessment and forecasting, cause reduction in yield, especially in mixed-stock situations, and de-emphasize socio-economic factors in the formulation of rebuilding plans. The current approach specifies success of individual rebuilding plans in biological terms. It does not address evaluation of the success in socio-economic terms and at broader regional and national scales, and also does not ensure effective flow of information (communication) across regions. We expand on each of these issues below and discuss ways of increasing efficiency without weakening the rebuilding mandate.

Read the full article here.

Fishery Management: An Analysis of Fish Stock Assessments

Center for American Progress

Counting Fish 101

An Analysis of Fish Stock Assessments

George Lapointe, Linda Mercer, and Michael Conathan   

Science is integral to fishing operations. Without the ability to estimate how many fish exist in the ocean there’s no way to determine how many of them we can catch while allowing the remaining fish populations to stay viable. But fish live in a mostly invisible world beneath the ocean surface, they move around constantly, and they eat each other.

This creates a dynamic population structure that’s incredibly difficult to track, making fish virtually impossible to count. Thus, fisheries scientists—like political pollsters or other statisticians—must rely on imperfect data to make their predictions about the status and health of fish populations.

They take these data—some of which they collect, some of which come from fishermen—and plug them into scientific models which, in turn, create estimates of population health. Because the entire population of a given species is frequently divided into subpopulations known as “stocks,” these estimates are called “stock assessments,” and they form the backbone of modern fishery management in the United States.

These assessments provide an estimate of the current state of a fish population and, in some cases, forecast future trends. This tells us whether fishery management goals are
being met and indicates the type of conditions to which the fishery will have to adapt in the near future. In an ideal world, scientists would have the resources to provide managers with updated stock assessments for each species every year, but their expense and complexity mean they can only be updated periodically.

Regardless of how frequently they can be updated, strong, science-based stock assessments are the key to future sustainability, not just of the fish but also of the fishing industry. Fishing is an inherently unstable business, yet strong, accurate science can give fishermen a better understanding of whether their resource will remain healthy, and if it does, how many fish they will be allowed to catch. This in turn allows fishermen to make informed business decisions and stabilizes coastal economies.

Read the full report here.