HERRING AMENDMENT 1 SCOPING MEETING

Transcription

1 NEW ENGLAND FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL MEETING SUMMARY HERRING AMENDMENT 1 SCOPING MEETING Date: May 12, 2003, 7:00 p.m. Location: Clarion Hotel, Atlantic City West, New Jersey Attendance: Lori Steele, NEFMC staff; Bruce Freeman, Herring Committee Member and hearing officer; Dan Axelsson, Michael Genovese, Michael Byrne, Michael Loper, and Wayne Reichle, interested parties. After some introductory remarks by Mr. Freeman, Council staff summarized the scoping document for the audience and briefly described some of the scoping issues. Mr. Freeman asked for questions first, and then comments. Mr. Genovese asked about when capacity data would be available. Ms. Steele noted that this information would be made available to the Committee over the next three months as management alternatives are developed, and then a full analysis of the limited access alternatives under consideration would be available as part of the Draft EIS for the amendment. Mr. Byrne asked for clarification regarding possible layover days in the fishery. Mr. Reichle asked for clarification regarding the notion of community quotas. Mr. Axelsson asked whether or not additional information about the smaller fisheries, like weir and stop seine fisheries, will be made available. Comments on the scoping document were provided as follows: DAN AXELSSON Regarding layover days the herring fishery is a high-volume, low-price product. In order to make money at it, the boats need to go as continuously as possible. Efficiency, speed of the boat, and size of the boat are to handle the weather. Weather will make lay-days for seiners and smaller boats. The bigger boats cost more to run. If they make layover days covering the whole spectrum of the fishery, that puts a hurt on the big boats, relatively speaking. Freezer plants and whatever else depends on the fish will be impacted as well. I represent the F/V Dursten and Flicka. With regard to access to the fishery for the boats I represent, the herring fishery as a directed fishery is only in the recent three years where we have chased them directly. We have landed herring historically later in the year in Area 2, freezing them at times when there wasn t anything else to fish for because of bad weather offshore or things like that to put something on the boat. It s not that we don t or never have wanted to fish the herring, but it s basically market regulated. The boats that lived in the GOM had the markets for the bait and a fishery near year-round with them. Our traditional fisheries as freezer boats meaning the loligo, scup, bass, and flounders started as wet boats. Then, we went to freezing and then hard-core freezing of mainly loligo. When the quotas and trip limits came down on bass and scup and flounders and monkfish, literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in bycatch from our company were produced. We didn t target those fish in our pursuit of loligo, but we were on the ocean nonetheless. A lot of Herring Scoping Summary 1

2 times, we were there when the weather was bad or the other boats weren t producing these fish, so the price was high. We would come across them in our search for loligo, not per se as a bycatch, but we would look at the market and catch them. In essence, the regulations that have taken place south of Long Island have screwed up our business the quarterly quotas on the loligo and the derby run that it is. You get a couple of trips out of it, but big freezer boats can t maintain a crew of guys, or even 10 guys, to pursue these fish on a consistent basis to make it pay. Before you get up and running with a trip and a half, all of a sudden you hear that the season is closed, or they have the Gear Restricted Area (GRA). The GRA is the one that put the main hurt on us and drove us to the herring fishery. Mackerel has been our mainstay in the winter for the past couple of years, but we ve always pursued that since the early 1980s. We have basically been driven from our traditional fisheries into herring and mackerel fisheries. When it comes to qualifying criteria, any vessel that is traditional on this coast, any vessel that has produced, even if they haven t produced thousands of tons in the 80s or the early 90s, should qualify on a 100% basis in all areas where the herring swim in US waters. In essence, these boats have no where else to go, nothing else to fish for. The scup will never be back with quotas large enough to support these boats. With loligo, it looks like a foot boat regulation is taking place. It serves those boats and feeds those boats, but it won t feed our boats and the shoreside facilities. (An audience member asked Mr. Axelsson if he built his boat to go herring fishing.) Yes, I did build the boat to fish for herring and other species a boat that we didn t have to worry about dieing in pursuing a cheap fish. A lot of boats out there are running by the skin of their teeth trying to make these herring pay. I ll die fishing or staying at it, but not in pursuit of the fish. Being a big boat, you can t go back to the other fisheries, the way the fisheries are regulated now. Once shoreside capacity comes up to speed millions of dollars need to be spent to achieve this and then you need know-how and backup to bankroll that operation in a worldwide scheme the capacity of the boats that are here if they turn-to to pursue this fish is almost near catching the quotas. A concern that I have is the influx of big west coast money that figures they can put some chips down, roll the dice, and take a chance. In the meantime, the local guys on east coast have to suffer the brunt of that. In the early 80s, we went from chasing the flounders to chasing the underutilized species, mainly squid, and then that became a money making prospect. Then, everything else started going down, and everyone started piling into the fishery. Now it s split up a thousand more ways. This is a concern that I have that the licenses on this coast could catch the quotas. The only regulating factor right now is market. (Mr. Freeman reminded the audience members to consider developments in the loligo and illex fisheries as they provide herring comments.) Just an aside note about groundfishing and scallopers their attitude was to jump on the loligo for a couple of trips and then go back groundfishing or whatever. I can t go groundfishing. They may qualify, but that s not their living, that s not their mainstay they are just staying busy with that fishery. I guess that is how we are looked at coming into the herring fishery from down south up into the GOM. But the boats that are participating that qualify under the September 1999 control date should be given full access to wherever the fish roam, other than state waters. Quota set-aside for communities or special interests such as the smaller purse seiners on the coast of Maine makes sense. But maybe extend it like spawning area closures rather than the Herring Scoping Summary 2

3 way they have them now, depending on the take in the areas. It s very dicey when you start considering all the aspects in the fishery. MICHAEL LOPER You cannot put a label on the fish. They live off New England in the summer time (Maine and Canada), and they winter off New Jersey and Long Island. In my eyes, that s the way I see them migrate south. Some say that it is two stocks, but I have never picked up a herring an identified it as a GOM herring or anything else. (Mr. Freeman addressed this issue.) It seems like there s always herring off Canada, and you can almost always go off Cape May and catch herring somewhere year-round. I am not a big believer. We know that the mackerel are down here in the winter time most years. And then in the summer, they move off of Maine and Canada and summer up there. I don t see a two-stock theory in mackerel either. Why are we trying to make it a two-stock theory with herring? We are the pelagic fishermen off the Mid-Atlantic, and we want the right to fish the Atlantic herring wherever they roam. I feel like we are getting constricted with the management areas. We are not restricting the guys from Maine, Massachusetts, or anywhere else to come down off our waters and fish the mackerel. Why do we have to come under those restrictions when we are just chasing the fish up and down the beach like they do? WAYNE REICHLE F/V Annie Marie and Jersey Cape, in which Lund s Fisheries has partnership. Both of these vessels have landings in the herring fishery prior to control date, but they don t necessarily have any amount of landings in Area 1A or 1B, and in some cases, maybe Area 3. These vessels have been involved in the herring fishery directly and indirectly for many years, whether it s been with JVs or landing the product shoreside. We haven t targeted herring directly for a number of reasons. First and foremost, when herring are in Area 2 and in the Mid-Atlantic region, the mackerel fishery is taking place. Mackerel is just more economically feasible for these guys to catch. Second, we don t anywhere near the markets for herring in the Mid-Atlantic that they do in New England for lobster bait. The new shoreside facility in Cape May has enabled us to start freezing larger volumes of fish for export markets. We don t want to see any new regulations that would eliminate these two vessels from obtaining access to herring anywhere along the Atlantic seaboard. We want access to the herring wherever they occur. For every other fishery that has been regulated on this coast, the control date was the word. Why would we change it now? We don t want to be biased to one group, but the control date has been set. We went through the expense of setting up our boats to fish for herring, and we were there catching it. Why wouldn t we use the control date? DAN AXELSSON The concern that I have is if somewhere along the line, it comes to a point where we say that we are not using the total quota, so we can allow new big boats into the fishery, when we are just starting to get into gear utilizing the fish as a food source and a world export product. We are not up to speed yet. Herring Scoping Summary 3

4 The two boats that came already do not qualify under the control date. But it s one thing if there s an outfit that has been living on this coast and struggling through the ups and downs. It s another thing to have a complete outside influx of fishing power to show up based on the fact that we are not utilizing the full tonnage of available fish, when the struggle has been all along by the locals, the east coast participants in the fishery, to develop a market and get it to the point where it s a viable fishery. Herring has been a local bait fishery in the Gulf of Maine, and that s why some vessels in that area have produced many thousands of tons, but it s not because of lack of interest with the Cape May boats. It s been the markets that have regulated our participation. But change is in the wind. MICHAEL GENOVESE I feel that the control date needs to be maintained. There needs to be some criteria established for limited access for small boats and big boats. All pelagic boats should have equal access in federal waters. In the inshore Gulf of Maine, there should be a setaside for coastal areas, and possibly some kind of sharing allocation for small seiners. We don t have a lot of history in herring in this area. In 1980s and 1990s, we fished mackerel in a lot of joint ventures. There was no FMP for herring at the time, so we were not allowed to use herring as part of our JVs in federal waters. But we do have history catching herring. My family has history catching herring in New England, but that s just that history now. Both mackerel and herring should be managed separately. I think that taking two people from each Committee is the best way to do it. Catches are predominantly in those areas, so we shouldn t have one Council trying to manage both of them. Management boundaries If they keep the lines in the sea, then Areas 1A and 1B should just be Area 1. That would make it a lot easier for us fishing up there. Trip limits, DAS, and days out of the herring fishery are economically prohibitive to business for shoreside and the boats. Herring is a cheap resource, and cannot afford the extra days off. Maybe you can afford the days off in the bait market, but not for food fish. Clarification of definition of midwater trawl? I think that the current definition is the best you are going to get. How can you come up with anything more definitive? It is not supposed to make contact with the bottom. If you make contact with the bottom with a midwater trawl or a bottom trawl in New England, a lot of the times, you won t get the net back. Saying that you can t have chain on the net means that you wouldn t be able to catch fish. You have to have chain on the net to make it fish properly. DAN AXELSSON Regarding bycatch and observer coverage I personally believe that it stems from jealousy and hearsay based on jealousy. For that matter, why should one fishery, because of the squeak of another fishery, be policed as if it were on the verge of being criminal? On a percentage basis, the bycatch is almost negligible. It is not a fair charge. MICHAEL LOPER F/V Retriever. If it s done right, there is no bycatch. There is virtually zero bycatch when we are targeting herring, just like mackerel. We keep it clean. There is no bycatch. To go on the bottom in the Gulf of Maine, and we ve been fishing the GOM for my Herring Scoping Summary 4

5 second year now with the Retriever, we don t come into contact with the bottom, and we don t have any groundfish bycatch whatsoever. (Mr. Freeman asked a question about the mix of herring and mackerel in the southern fisheries.) MICHAEL GENOVESE We ve been working on the mixing for a few years, and we are getting better at shedding herring. If you had mackerel caught when targeting herring, you couldn t get the mackerel out. But can get the herring out if you are pursuing mackerel and catch herring. DAN AXELSSON Those of us who have been doing mackerel since the 1980s have worked on education in the business and gear modifications. Knowing what to do and not to do, we have cleaned it up tremendously. The newcomers in the business sound like we did 15 years ago with the mixing of herring and mackerel. MICHAEL LOPER It s a combination of echosounders, codend mesh size, and common sense all combine to make it clean. We can go strictly mackerel. We can do it almost only with the echosounders. We learned to keep it clean in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the JVs couldn t have any herring on board at all. We learned quickly how to keep it clean. MICHAEL BYRNE Vice President, Lund s Fisheries. Back in the early 1980s, these boats started fishing herring and mackerel out of Cape May. They had the foresight, knowing that they were going to fish on pelagics, and built boats to chase those species. I think that everyone at this table and the other Cape May vessels support the control date of Sept. 16, 1999, and we certainly do too (Lund s Fisheries). We also recommend that the New England Council continue to take the lead in herring management, and that the Mid-Atlantic Council continue to take lead in mackerel management. We also support maintaining the current vessel upgrade restrictions. We think that herring should be managed as one resource, not two separate stocks. We don t think that the scientific information supports the argument that there are two different stocks. We are opposed to any language in the management plan that would deal with herring as a forage issue for other fish. We ve had a management plan for illex squid now for 3-4 years, and there s been very little illex on what we call traditional grounds, and we don t see that as a forage issue with tuna fishing. Tuna fishing is still quite good off our coast. We think that it has more to do with temperature and that the fish just go to different places. This is one of the reasons why we feel that we need access to Area 1, whether it be Area 1A or 1B. These boats probably would have prosecuted the herring fishery much earlier if we had the shoreside equipment in place to handle the catch. This is such a low value, high volume species that if they can t work in conjunction with the plant that can handle the tonnage, then it didn t make economic sense to chase them in the kind of quantities that you need to carry to run such a big distance. We can do that now. The boats have spent money to increase their speed and carrying capacity, and we have spent the money to handle the kind of tonnage to make the whole fishery economically plausible. Herring Scoping Summary 5

6 Layover days do not work for big boats. (Everyone in the room agreed that they are opposed to layover days.) When we have the weather and are capable of working, we need to chase the fish and maximize our effort to get the herring. There is just not enough value in it to be sitting at the dock for 1-2 days. We are fundamentally opposed to the complicated way that days out are set up in the ASMFC plan. If it was a 24-hour layover, we could deal with that because we have to probably lay in a day anyway to unload the fish. DAN AXELSSON Last year, in pursuit of the herring in the Gulf of Maine early in the season (June/July), fishing was pretty good nearshore. It was clean from dogfish, which is a major nuisance. It got to the point where we were looking for the fish in the evening, you could see the school on the water as big as this hotel, with dogfish swirling around and eating them. We couldn t fish there because we need good quality fish for food export, and any amount of dogfish with the herring tears them up. We moved off to the northern edge, Area 3, and in the basins and deeper water. Someone from the newspaper came down on a number of occasions and talked to me. He noted that we spent a lot of time out there and were not coming in with a lot of fish. I told him that the fish are there, but the water is warmer than I have seen in previous times that I have been up there. We have temperature sensors that go down. The temperatures that the fish liked to be in were flat on the bottom, and we couldn t fish down there on the bottom. We could look at the fish all day long, but they were too close to the bottom to get at. We had to wait for the one moment for the fish to rise off the bottom so that you can get the net through them. It s not that the fish weren t there, but they were acting differently. In the mornings and evenings, they would come up into the midwater in spikes, but they weren t doing that. They were staying flat on the bottom, even on Georges Bank. They were dispersed over the whole Gulf of Maine in that narrow band of temperature that they like. It s like deer hunting. You have to spend all of your time in that stand, waiting for your one shot. If you miss or mess up, then you are out of business for the day. MICHAEL BYRNE Quota-based limited access programs? I think that as a group, we are opposed to any quota based limited access program. (Mr. Loper agrees.) MICHAEL GENOVESE I don t know. I would be opposed to a quota-based limited access program in the beginning, but it maybe a better idea down the road. DAN AXELSSON At this point, for the existing participants, it shouldn t be chopped up. It should be wide open access for the historic participants. MICHAEL BYRNE We support limited access. We all favor the 1999 control date with some tonnage landed prior to that date. That s probably good enough, as long as it pertains to a herring management plan for federal waters, not just a 1A management plan. We would support Herring Scoping Summary 6

7 the present control date and limited access program if we can chase the fish anywhere in federal waters. MICHAEL GENOVESE If they have to do something for the weir and stop net fishermen, and maybe the small seiners inshore, I can see that. But any other divisions are not necessary at this time. (Mr. Freeman asked about a set aside for the fixed gear fisheries and how fish could re-enter the fishery if they are not caught by the historical gear.) Sure, look at historical times when they caught the fish. If they don t catch the fish by that time, then it would rollover into the general quota. They do that in the bluefin tuna fishery. If one group catches the quota fast and other group isn t catching it, they roll the quota over from one group to another. After asking for any additional comments, Mr. Freeman adjourned the scoping meeting. Herring Scoping Summary 7