House backs killing NOAA catch share funds

photo © 2008 Dion Hinchcliffe | more info (via: Wylio)

Dr. Ray Hilborn: ‘The end of overfishing,’ what does it mean?

Ray Hilborn

Dr. Ray Hilborn examines the end of overfishing in the United States. He addresses what fisheries managers can control and what is in the realm of nature, beyond the reach of human management.

(SEAFOOD.COM NEWS) – Feb 7, 2011 – The following article from Ray Hilborn is in response to NMFS chief scientist Steve Murawski’s widely reported comments last month that US overfishing as ended. This is part of a continuing series of occasional articles on fisheries and conservation topics by Ray Hilborn, Professor at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, prepared for Seafood.com News.

Overfishing has ended in the U. S. said Professor Steve Murawski, former chief fishery scientist for NOAA on January 8th 2011.

Could this possibly be true?

With many fish stocks still at low abundance, subject to rebuilding plans and listed as overfished, how could he argue that overfishing has ended?

To understand the issue we first must begin with the distinction between “overfished” and “overfishing.” Overfished is a term used when the abundance of the stock is low enough that its sustainable yield is significantly reduced. Overfishing is when the percentage harvested is higher than required to provide long term maximum sustainable yield. So “overfished” is about abundance and “overfishing” is about the percentage we harvest.

What Murawski said is that the percentage harvested for all U. S. federally managed fish stocks is now within the range that would produce maximum sustainable yield.

We have stopped fishing too hard; but many fish stocks remain at low abundance.

Read the rest of the story on SavingSeaFood.org.

Concept of ‘fishing down food webs’ shown to be a myth

By Ray Hilborn (originally published in Pacific Fishing magazine, Jan. 2011)

Ray Hilborn

Perhaps no image of the impact of fish has captured the public as much as “fishing down food webs.”

The idea is very simple: Fishing begins, quite naturally, on the largest, most valuable fish. Once those are gone, fishermen move down the food webs to smaller, less valuable fish, and so on until the oceans are empty.

As Daniel Pauly, the prime apostle of the concept, has often said, we will soon have nothing to eat but jellyfish and zooplankton soup. This neatly fits the “apocalyptic” narrative that is so beloved by some environmental activists, but like many of these narratives, it is wishful thinking.

Pauly’s original paper, published in 1998, showed that the average fish caught in the world was becoming smaller and ever lower on the food web. This has been one of the most influential papers in the history of fisheries science. The “food web index” has been adopted by the Convention on Biodiversity and other groups as the best indicator of the health of marine ecosystems.

Read the rest here.

Environmental Groups Concede Sea Otter Protections Deserve More Scientific Study

Peter Halmay diving

By Harry Liquornik and Peter Halmay

After a yearlong legal fight with two environmental groups, the federal government recently came to an agreement surrounding the future protection of the threatened California sea otter.

If you believe the rhetoric coming from the plaintiff groups, they scored a major victory.

According to their statements, the Otter Project and the Environmental Defense Center are now on the path to freeing the sea otters from government interference and allowing the animals to return to the waters off Southern California.

But that’s not really the whole story, or even the whole truth.

Instead of dealing with meaningful, yet difficult, water quality problems this ill-conceived lawsuit sought simplicity — allow sea otters to go find places to survive on their own.

Sadly, without even so much as demanding an update to the 2005 scientific research surrounding the sea otters’ habitat, and seemingly not allowing the government to comply with the Endangered Species Act, the lawsuit took aim at terminating a key element of the government’s sea otter recovery program.

What’s more, these groups also wanted to ignore the act’s requirements that demand a program for a listed threatened species — such as sea otters — must also avoid harming other listed species. In this case, two endangered native abalone species are a primary prey of the threatened sea otters and the abalone share the habitat that will likely be occupied by the sea otters if the management program is ultimately ended.

The program, which began in 1987, established a separate colony of sea otters at San Nicolas Island as an insurance policy to protect the species in the event of a major oil spill. The plan also set up a sea otter management zone to protect Southern California’s shellfish fisheries, which represent a critical part of the state’s marine ecosystem and are an important element of many coastal communities.

Despite what the lawsuit claimed, the program has been a success.

Currently, the San Nicolas Island colony boasts the healthiest sea otters in California; these animals are reproducing at double the rate of the mainland population. Conversely, the island success stands in stark contrast to the mainland population, where approximately 300 sea otters die each year.

It’s for these reasons that several groups who know that a comprehensive ecosystem-wide protection plan is much more effective than a species-by-species approach, intervened in the lawsuit. This coalition, headed by the California Sea Urchin Commission, understands that without a functional ecosystem management plan, all species are at risk, not just a single target species. And that’s why we must redouble our efforts to fulfill all the elements of the 1987 program.

Thankfully, the court-approved agreement forced the plaintiffs to ultimately agree with the Sea Urchin Commission and its partners on practically all points put forward — that updating the 2005 study was appropriate; all elements of a final decision should in fact depend on a new analysis; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should consider impacts to other protected marine species; and it should also consider the negative impact that poor water quality is having on sea otters. So what did the plaintiffs get for their lawsuit efforts?

They got taxpayers to reimburse them $55,000 in legal fees for an agreement which they could have received with a written request and first-class stamp.

And what did the people of California get, besides an unnecessary bill? A chance for a comprehensive review of the translocation experiment and a chance to further develop a meaningful ecosystem-based management of the resources.

Harry Liquornik serves as chairman of the California Sea Urchin Commission and Peter Halmay is a former member of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s sea otter recovery implementation team. Both are commercial sea urchin divers.

Dr. Doyle Hanan Talking Sardine Research on KNX-AM Los Angeles

Dr. Doyle Hanan was interviewed today on KNX-AM 1070 (Los Angeles) about the sardine research project. You can listen here.

Sardine count on Central Coast: Science, business mix

Money on the line for county fishermen in aerial photo project

By MIKE HORNICK, The Californian
October 2, 2010

Moss Landing-based fisherman Andy Russo is a skipper, not a scientist. But he’d swap a line and net for a test tube and white lab coat if it put more sardines in his next catch.

It just might.

Russo is helping scientists with a project that could help his bottom line.

Since August, the California Wetfish Producers Association, a nonprofit industry group, has been flying aerial photography missions on the Pacific coast from Canada to Mexico, capturing images of massive sardine schools below the water’s surface. Russo and other fishermen take occasional hauls from the schools to establish density and weight.

The fishing purse seiner Eileen approaches schools of sardines, which appear as black masses on this enhanced photo.

Read the rest of the story from the Salinas Californian here.

Pilot Jeff Laboff Talking Sardine Research on KTVA Ventura

Pilot Jeff Laboff was recently interviewed on KTVA-AM 1520 (Ventura) about the sardine research project.  You can listen here.

Collaborative Sardine Research Program Concludes Aerial Summer Survey

Local Sardine Fishermen Collaborate with Scientists to Improve Knowledge of Natural Resource

San Pedro, CA, Sept. 20, 2010 – San Pedro fishermen Nick Jurlin on the FV Eileen and Robert Terzoli on the FV Maria T made their final point sets –fishing for science– just hours before the summer sardine research project ended and the fall directed fishery began, at 12:01 AM September 15.

Sponsored by California’s wetfish industry, the summer aerial sardine survey, whose purpose is to provide a minimum estimate of sardine abundance, documented sardine schools from Cape Flattery in Washington State to Southern California, encompassing the area around all of the Channel Islands, where sardines were plentiful.  But the project was unable to conduct point sets in Monterey due to persistent fog and uncooperative fish.

Despite this, the project accomplished its overall goal of conducting three replicates of the aerial survey.

“Three repetitions provide enough information to establish a variance,” said Dr. Doyle Hanan, retired senior marine biologist supervisor for Department of Fish and Game, who directed field operations in California. “This will reduce uncertainty and provide a more accurate estimate of sardine abundance.”

Conducted in cooperation with the Northwest sardine industry, the project covered 66 random transects in all, with 40 in California. Transects were scientifically pre-determined and flown at an altitude of 4,000 feet, extending from the coast out 35 miles, and staged at 15-mile intervals. The high-tech camera systems installed in or attached to the planes photographed the ocean surface with 60 percent overlap, providing seamless coverage. The cameras were equipped with a 24 millimeter lens, covering about a one-mile swath of ocean every 15 miles. The total area of the survey encompassed about 1,000 miles along the west coast.

The survey was conducted as a two-stage project: Stage 1 consisted of aerial surveys to photograph sardine schools visible on the ocean surface along transects.  Stage 2 consisted of ‘point sets’, where fishermen wrap and harvest sardine schools of various sizes, which are weighed and biological samples taken at the dock. The fishing activity also is photo-documented, and point set photos are used to correlate the volume of fish caught to the area measurement of schools identified in the aerial photos to develop a minimum estimate of absolute biomass.

In all, California fishermen harvested a total of about 1,238 of the 2,100 metric tons allocated for the summer research project in California. Twenty-six point sets on schools ranging from five – 75 tons met the stringent requirements for use in the survey.  Fishermen were required to capture 90-100 percent of the school, and the pilot was required to photograph the vessel approach to the targeted school as well as the capture process.

The good news is the research succeeded overall.  However, the forces of nature battled the project every step of the way in California. A perfect storm of problems thwarted the research project in the Monterey area. Although the fog lifted just long enough to accomplish transects, fishermen standing by to conduct point sets were stymied, first by the persistent marine layer, then by fish behavior — as the only sardines spotted in the bay were congregated in the shallows near Santa Cruz in schools too large to conduct valid point sets. The final blow came when the owner of United Flight Services was killed along with his son in a tragic plane crash on Labor Day weekend, grounding the planes the association had chartered before the end of the research period.

The first photo in this series shows FV Eileen approaching a sardine school near Santa Cruz Island. The second photo shows the process of wrapping the school.  Fish were weighed and biological samples were taken at the dock. Fish were processed at Tri-Marine and State Fish Companies at cost, and the proceeds will help to fund the research. Approximately 861 metric tons remaining in the research quota at the end of the project will automatically be added to the fall directed fishing quota.

The research was approved by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which issued Experimental Fishing Permits to selected vessels to participate in the harvest of sardines outside the open fishing period. The sardine industry initiated the summer sardine research in 2009 and expanded it into Southern California in 2010.

FV Eileen approaching sardine school

FV Eileen wrapping school

Ventura County Star: New study shows healthy sardine population along coast

Sardine Research Update – Southern California Report

We extend huge thanks to Nick Jurlin on the FV Eileen, Robert Terzoli on the Maria T, and Neil Guglielmo on the Trionfo, as well as our pilots Jeff Luboff and Devin Reed for their dedication to this research.

Through August 28, they have completed 12 preliminarily acceptable sets, targeting the smaller schools (as instructed to do). For the next two weeks they’ll be targeting schools at the larger end of the spectrum — up to 80 tons.

Below is a photo of Nick Jurlin approaching a small school near the Northern Channel Islands; his target is highlighted with arrows. The pilot estimated the school at 5 tons; Nick estimated close to 6 tons, and the point set verified the weight at 5.3 tons. This photo was enhanced by Dr. Doyle Hanan, the scientific advisor and field coordinator for the research project, and shows numerous sardine schools.

Nick, Robert Terzoli and Vince Lauro will continue making point sets in Southern California until we fill the projected SoCal research allocation (about 1,050 metric tons). They have about 800 mt to go, but targeting the larger schools (i.e. 50-80 tons each), that tonnage should be caught relatively quickly.

All fish landed in Southern California will be processed either at Tri-Marine or State Fish Company.

Thanks to everyone involved in our California research project for your dedication and cooperation!