Nmfs Steps Up To Help Longliners

[WhItEoUt 23]

It took 10 years from the time anglers sounded the alarm on swordfish depletion for the National Marine Fisheries Service to finalize a swordfish management plan and even it proved to be a weak one. It also took nearly 10 years for the U.S regional fishery management councilsto agree on the Atlantic Billfish management plan. And it took four years to come up with an emergency shark management plan. The point I'm getting at is things move slowly in fishery management circles. Well at least they used to. But when lobbyists for commercial longline fishermen asked NMFS to REVITALIZE their industry the agency sprung into action.

Since NMFS received the request last summer it has gathered public input from meetings held from New England to Florida including the gulf coast held a meeting of the Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel and published and distributed the 100 page Initial Review Draft of the Environmental Assessment; Regulatory Impact Review, Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis, and proposed rules to implement regulatory changes for the U.S Atlantic swordfish fishery.

All that happened before the end of 2006. Why such urgency to help longliners make more money? longliners reported more then 160,000 pounds of dead discards of blue and white marlin in 2005 yet William Hogarth the top man at NMFS pledged to assure a viable future for the pelagic longline industry.

The U.S swordfish quota for the six month period ending November 30, 2006,stood at 1,277 metric tons,not counting a carry over for under harvest in previous periods.U.S fleets landed only 46 percent of the quota, and there in lays the problem.Many swordfish longline vessels no longer operate or now target other species. Increased operating cost and low prices for swordfish forced many vessels out of business.

So how is NMFS proposing to revitalize? They have several preferred alternatives.One proposal would increase retention limits.For those vessels with incidental swordfish,limited access permits, the retention limit would sky rocket from two swordfish to 30 per vessel per trip.Currently 48 vessel owners possess such permits,Some of these permit holders use hand gin a sear in the closed zones off Florida's east coast where most of the swordfish are juveniles.This could result substantial impact,but NMFS doesn't see it that way.The agency says the proposal would have limited adverse ecological impacts since vessel operators are not expected to alter fishing practices to land 28 additional swordfish. If you could make almost 8,000 more per trip landing those extra fish, wouldn't you at least try?

For recreational anglers the bag limit would remain at 1 swordfish per angler per trip, but the limit per boat would increase from three swords to four. This is a token move to indicate that anglers were included in the proposed regulations. Charter boat limits would increase to 6 swords per trip and head boats would be allowed to land up to 15 fish per trip.

National Marine fish services also wants to relax commercial vessel upgrading restrictions for swordfish longliners. The upgrading allowance for length would increase from 10% to 35% so operators could upgrade to longer boats. Larger vessel means greater fishing effort which translates to more swordfish caught and more bycatch of billfish, sharks, and turtles.

Here's what it all boils down to. Longliners substantially reduced their swordfish efforts over the past few years. With less effort, fewer swords were caught and we saw a substantial reduction in bycatch. Recreational fisherman benefited with a very robust swordfish fishery.

Now if you reverse this process the exact opposite will happen. More swordfish will be caught including juvenile swordfish as well as bycatch. The change will also adversly affect the multi-million dollar recreational fishery, which inflicts a very small impact on the resource. Why should NMFS be concerned with helping longliners when it will result in direct adverse impacts to swordfishers and several pelagic fishes?

The answer to that question might be found in the NMFS paper entitled "Finding of No Significant Environmental Impact to Revising Swordfish Retention Limits and Modifying HMS Limited Access Vessel Upgrading Restrictions to Facilitate the Ability of U.S Vessels to Fully Harvest the ICCAT-Recommended Domestic Swordfish Quota Allocation." The paper includes several questions and unthinkable answers such as the following:

Question: Can this action be reasonably expected to jeopardize the sustainability of any target species that may be affected by the action?
Answer: No.

Question: Can the action be reasonably expected to jeopardize the sustainability of any non-target species? Answer: No. (Perhaps NMFS forgot that blue and white marlin are non-targeted species currently fished far beyond sustainability, with whites teetering on the brink of threatened or endangered-species status.)

Question: Can an action be reasonably expected to have an adverse impact on endangered to threatened species, marine mamals, or critical habitat of these species? Answer: No. (Did they forget that all sea turtles are either threatened or endangered?)

Question: Are signifiacant social or economic impacts interrelated with significant natural or physical environmental effects? Answer: no. In fact, NMFS says positive economic social impacts are expected. This may be the future for longliners, but the effect will be a strong negative fro the sport fishers.

Question: Can the proposed actions be expected to result in cumulative adverse effects that could have a substantial effect on the target species or non-target species? Answer: No.

The paper concludes with this statement, "All impacts to potentially affected areas, including national, regional and local, have been addressed to reach the conclusion of non significant impacts."

NMFS has cleared the way to do whatever it wants to revitalize the longline industry. One thing, however, that recreational anglers that convervationists should be thankful for that NMFS is not proposing op open up any areas currently closed to longlining - at least not yet. If the revitalizing actions fail in meeting the U.S swordfish quota, mounting pressure to open up some closed areas will likely come about.

In a letter to Bill Hogarth last November, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, blames the longliners' inability to catch their quota on the implementation of closed areas. The senator goes on to say that the revitalization plan must include meaningful revisions for the current time-area closures. Snowe, who serves as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Coast Guard, holds a lot of weight when it comes to fishery issues.

Recreational anglers contribute large sums of money to coastal economies in their quest to land swordfish. Anglers would greatly benefit from a study showing the economic value of the recreational sowrdfishery in Florida and other areas. No study has been done; therefore there is no official number representing the economic value that is in jeopardy should the closed areas open back up to longlining. A similar study was conducted for the recreational winter bluefin-tuna fishery in North Carolina. The results show that this short fishing season contributed millions of dollars to the local economy. Unfortunately, the results fell on deaf ears-NMFS opened up what was a strictly recreational fishery to commercial fishing, and the sport fishing for winter bluefins has seen a drastic reduction. Sometimes with NMFS, you just can't win.

Marlin-The International Sportfishing Magazine
April/May 2007 Issue
"Springing into Action"-By Michael Leech

[mneptune]

Disgusting and unbelievable.... but what else would you expect from these A-Holes. Their bottom line is politcs and their wallet, not the health of overstressed resources. They should be ashamed of themselves trying to implement policies that are counter productive to sustaining marine resources that belong to ALL of us.... They have done this time and time again and only act when a fishery is on the verge of collapse

[CaptKen]

I wonder if Hogarth smokes crack ??

[Disco Lady]

CONO!!!!!!!!!

[Broadbill-Pro]

The same Agency (NMFS) is the one responsible for closing the FEC to longlining, are you saying that they are only correct when they agree with you?

The post by Whiteout is too long to comment on, but the bottom line says it all. The Author has a long history of biased and fabricated journalism, it is impossible to find a leader of any recreational group who will side with him (including the IGFA) (read his sour grapes over being dismissed from the HMS AP). Marlin Magazine needs to clean it's own house by eliminating dead marlin from it's pages (pick up any issue and count them), it should be renamed the Leech and Wright report.

The truth of the Longline issue is in this forum, read posts by Ron38, HiCatch, Skip Smith and Rich Ruis to name a few.