Page 12. MAINE COASTAL NEWS May 2016
Commercial Fishing News The National Marine Fisheries Service
(NMFS) partially approved Framework Adjustment 4 to the Federal Herring Fishery Management Plan—the fi nal rule published today, April 4th
. The empty fi sh hold provi-
sion, which was recommended by the New England Fishery Management Council and provisionally adopted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) in Amendment 3 to the Interstate FMP, was not approved. The justifi cation for not approving this provision is provided in the following excerpts from the fi nal rule. The fi nal rule can be found at: https://federal-
register.gov/a/2016-07583. NMFS could not approve the empty fi sh
hold provision because “…there is insuffi - cient support in the record to conclude that herring vessels are harvesting excess fi sh and discarding unsold fi sh at sea. The costs associated with a herring trip, including fuel, crew wages, and insurance, are sub- stantial, so it is unlikely that vessel operators are making herring trips to harvest fi sh that will ultimately be discarded.” In addition, NMFS determined “Frame-
work 4’s proposed waiver provides no way of verifying the amount of fi sh reported relative to the amount of fi sh left in the hold. Therefore, NMFS does not believe that this measure contains a viable mechanism to verify whether harvested fi sh that are left in the hold were reported by the vessel.” Ultimately, “Because the measure lacks a mechanism to verify or correct the amount of fi sh reported on the VTR, the measure is unlikely to improve catch monitoring in the herring fi shery. In contrast, the compliance and enforcement costs associated with the measure may be high.” As stated in Amendment 3, imple-
M C F N
mentation of the empty fi sh hold provision is contingent on federal adoption. Since NMFS did not approve this provision, ASMFC will maintain status quo measures on this issue. Under status quo there is no requirement to empty vessel holds of fi sh prior to a fi shing trip departure. Amendment 3 was updated to refl ect this information and can be obtained at
http://www.asmfc.org/ uploads/fi le//57042f26Amendment3_Re- visedApril2016.pdf. Please contact Ashton Harp, Atlan-
tic Herring Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at
aharp@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740 if you have questions.
2016-2017 Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside Recommended Awards Announced
NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries
Science Center and the New England Fish- ery Management Council are pleased to an- nounce that 15 research projects have been selected for support from the 2016 Sea Scal- lop Research Set-Aside (RSA) program. The projects address the council’s research priorities for the nation’s highest-valued single species commercial fi shery. Twenty-five researchers from nine
diff erent organizations will be awarded 2016-2017 research grants valued at $15.6 million. These projects are funded by pro- ceeds from selling a portion of the annual sea scallop quota “set aside” for this purpose. Award recipients are located in Maine, Mas- sachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia and include universities, non-profi t research and education organizations, and commercial fi shing vessels and businesses. Research set-aside programs are unique to federal fi sheries in the northeast region.
Under RSA programs, no federal funds are provided to support the research. Selected projects receive allocations “set-aside” within established quotas for this purpose under the particular fi shery management plan. Successful applicants partner with the fi shing industry to harvest their set aside award to generate funds for the research. There are active research set-aside programs for Atlantic sea scallops, Atlantic herring, and monkfi sh. The New England Fishery Manage-
ment Council established the sea scallop RSA program to address research that will support management of the scallop resource. The Council sets the research priorities and researchers compete for funding through a federal grant competition managed by NOAA Fisheries. All of the funds derived from quota sales are used to support research and compensate industry partners. NOAA Fisheries does not retain or use any of these funds.
This year, more than 30 proposals were
received for consideration. Six of these are two-year projects. Proposals were evaluated and ranked for technical merit and respon- siveness to Council research priorities. Ten projects will address the Council’s high- est research priorities, including intensive and broad-scale resource surveys, bycatch reduction, scallop meat quality, and scallop area management. Five projects focus on other Council priorities, such as sea scallop biology and productivity, habitat impact research, and reducing the risk of sea turtle interactions with the scallop fi shery. Proposals underwent a two-stage re-
view – one for technical merit and one for responsiveness to management priorities. Proposals for sea scallop surveys were
evaluated and ranked by a technical panel that looked at merit as well as how the work met recommendations from a recent peer review of all sea scallop survey meth- ods used in the region. All other proposals were each evaluated for technical merit by three subject matter experts. Each technical reviewer submitted scores and comments on each proposal. A management panel made recommendations on priority projects, based on current management priorities. The technical review scores, in con-
junction with recommendations from the management panelists, are the basis for RSA survey funding decisions.
Sea Scallop Resource Surveys Recommended for Funding
These surveys, combined with the
annual NOAA Fisheries sea scallop survey, will provide a comprehensive picture of the scallop resource by the end of this summer. The data collected are expected to support the Council’s area management decisions for 2017 and beyond. Arnie’s Fisheries Inc. will conduct an
optical survey of the Elephant Trunk Ac- cess Area using the HabCam V3 instrument system, looking at scallop numbers, sizes, and density in order to generate harvestable biomass estimates. The Virginia Institute of Marine Sci-
ence (VIMS) will conduct a fine-scale dredge survey of the Mid-Atlantic sea scallop resource from the Virginia/North Carolina border to Block Island, Rhode Island. VIMS will also conduct high-reso- lution abundance and distribution surveys in and around the Nantucket Lightship Closed Area, and in Georges Bank Closed Area II and the surrounding area to the south, where secondary objectives include fi nfi sh bycatch species composition and catch rates; scallop product quality and disease research; and commercial and survey scallop dredge per- formance. The Wood Hole Oceanographic Insti-
tution, as part of their habitat research on the northern part of Georges Bank, will conduct a high resolution HabCam survey to support near-term scallop area management decisions of this area that is undergoing considerable management changes. Lund’s Fisheries are co-principal investigators. As requested by the New England
Fishery Management Council, the survey technical review panel not only consid- ered technical merit, but also the results of a recent peer review when evaluating proposals for sea scallop surveys. That re- view, conducted in 2015 by the Center for Independent Experts, examined all of the primary survey methods for assessing sea scallop abundance in the region, several of which are supported through the scallop RSA program. The technical panel ensured that proposals were responsive to the peer review fi ndings.
Bycatch Mitigation Projects For the fi fth year, UMASS Dartmouth’s
School of Marine Science and Technology will use their award to support a yellowtail fl ounder bycatch avoidance
system.To ad- dress low allocations of yellowtail fl ounder in the scallop fi shery, these researchers will work with the limited-access and general category scallop fl eets to deploy the bycatch avoidance system in fi shing grounds on Georges Bank and in southern New En- gland.
Reducing bycatch through scallop dredge gear modifi cations is the focus of two proj- ects proposed by the Coonamessett Farm Foundation, Inc. The Foundation plans to design and test gear designed to reduce fl atfi sh bycatch through modifi cation to the dredge bag, and the use of a modifi ed fl ounder sweep attached to the dredge bail, fi lming interactions to monitor the eff ective- ness of the gear modifi cations. The Coonamessett Farm Foundation
will also continue its seasonal bycatch survey on Georges Bank, collecting infor-
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