JCAA

      

Highly Migratory Species Report

by John T. Koegler

(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association December 2002 Newsletter)

Is NMFS Fishery Management a Scam?

Anglers try to understand “politically correct” choices made by fishery managers. Anglers try even harder to understand the poor “best available science” choices made by fishery managers. They even try to understand reduced fishery quota splits that always give commercials a major extra allocation in every fish species quota allocation plan. BUT, when it comes to following ICCAT mandates and creating new HMS fishery management rules, there is something really not right with NMFS choices.

ICCAT mandates are self-imposed by each country on their own fishermen. After 26 years of ICCAT management, the European and African ICCAT member countries have yet to abide by the regulations that ICCAT has mandated. How much longer can US fishermen wait for US ICCAT commissioners to stand up and do what is right for US fishermen? Is not waiting 26 years for the Eastern Zone countries to accept ICCAT bluefin tuna quotas and management recommendations enough time? How can anyone believe there is any value in continued US unilateral conservation of ocean-wide fish species?

On September 11, 2002, the RFA filed a petition for relief under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 asking the President to take action against the European Union for its non-compliance with ICCAT mandates. This petition states that the EU’s non-compliance with ICCAT quotas and management measures has caused bluefin tuna, white marlin and blue marlin stocks to seriously decline resulting in injury to US commerce. They produced economic numbers that appeared to strongly support the issue of injury to US businesses.

On October 28, 2002 the RFA announced that officials from the highest level of the US Department of Commerce would work with the organization on negotiations with the European Union to secure a plan for compliance with the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).

“We are very pleased that the Bush Administration is willing to challenge the EU to live up its obligations under ICCAT,” said James A Donfrio RFA executive director. “We applaud the Bush Administration for standing up for our fishermen, our fishing industry and our marine environment.” Based upon its discussions with officials from the Department of Commerce, the RFA has withdrawn its Section 301 petition.

ICCAT’s annual meeting was held in Spain last week. Last year the Eastern Zone delayed discussing imposing their 2002 bluefin tuna quotas on themselves until the very last session of the 2001 ICCAT annual meeting. They wanted the US to approve their theft of 10,000 MT more bluefin than ICCAT recommended. They did this despite the fact that these nations had previously accepted but not imposed bluefin quotas on themselves. The final result was no 2002 ICCAT quotas for bluefin tuna in the Eastern Zone.  The US ICCAT commissioners must be again commended for not approving the Eastern zone’s bluefin tuna highway robbery quota allocation.

US Yellowfin tuna landings

The most disputed issue within HMS management circles has been the absurd low yellowfin (YFT) tuna landing numbers proposed by NMFS to be the base for future recreational yellowfin tuna quota allocation.

In 1993, using ICCAT’s 1992 approved rule that “yellowfin tuna effort not be increased above that exerted in 1992,” NMFS went to public hearings with a proposal that would have capped recreational landings of Yellowfin tuna at 400 MT. a year. As absurd as this seems this is what NMFS proposed and took to public hearings.

At the time of the 1993 yellowfin tuna public hearing, a single NJ port of Manasquan had landed more yellowfin tuna than was the proposed quota for the entire US Atlantic Coast and Gulf of Mexico. NMFS later explained their low quota allocation was from Large Pelagic Survey (LPS) data. The LPS was created to count recreational bluefin tuna landings, not yellowfin tuna. The only yellowfin counted by LPS occurred during the time period when LPS bluefin counters were at the docks. In fact, all yellowfin counted by LPS before 1994 represent only the yellowfin bycatch of their bluefin tuna count. The main recreational yellowfin landings occured after LPS counters had ended their recreational bluefin operations for the year. When LPS extended their counting season in 1994, the LPS recreational yellowfin tuna count exploded to 5,103 MT. This 5,103 MT total is 13 times NMFS proposed recreational YFT quota cap.

NMFS own Marine Recreational Fishery Statistical Survey division (MRFSS) had  landing data supporting 5 to 20 times higher recreational landings than was proposed by the 400 MT quotas.  In making their statistical estimates, the MRFSS does not count either charterboat or headboat landings of any species fish because it causes the recreational statistical count to be too high. The point is not charterboat/headboat inclusion in MRFSS, but the issue that even without counting charterboat and headboats YFT landings, the proposed NMFS Yellowfin quota was far too low to be used for quota allocation. Adding charterboat and headboat landings to MRFSS recreational landings would increase the MRFSS yellowfin recreational YFT tuna count greatly, and likely double it in a good fishing year.

As a result, anglers were enraged that NMFS would take to public hearing any proposal that had only one purpose, the elimination of the recreational Yellowfin tuna fishery. NMFS had successfully accomplished this in the bluefin tuna fishery where a total recreational fishery was made into a commercial fishery by eliminating recreational participation, using low quota allocations. NMFS claimed that anglers could not document their bluefin tuna landings so they could not give them more quota allocation. NMFS somehow did find available quota to create a new allocation for a commercial harpoon bluefin tuna fishery that did not exist at the time the quotas were allocated.

NMFS imposed bluefin tuna quota allocations shifted that fishery to commercial and reduced recreational quotas so sharply that it resulted in actual elimination of recreational participation.  NMFS did this by reducing recreational bag limits to one school bluefin per boat trip. Understand that the current NMFS bluefin tuna allocation is half of one single school bluefin of 40 pounds a fishing season per recreationally permitted fishing boat. NOT one-half of one fish per boat trip but per fishing season. This absurd low quota for over 11,000 recreational boats remains the current recreational bluefin tuna allocation for their school size bluefin tuna fishery.

Several years later NMFS unilaterally imposed a THREE fish YFT bag trip limit on recreational fishermen, again without imposing any limit on the commercial fishery.

Is there any doubt why the recreational community does not trust NMFS management?

However, do not ever expect NMFS to reform or lose their appetite for converting a

recreational fishery into a commercial fishery.

A New Recreational Yellowfin Tuna landing count

A new NMFS flyer reports, “NMFS has commissioned a small-scale independent review of data sources to compare with the LPS and other data on these species to ascertain the validity of the claims against the LPS.”

NMFS proposes to “Evaluate potential bias in the large pelagic survey for the Atlantic tuna fishery.” Their outline goes on to say “Many members of the recreational fishing community have not accepted the Large Pelagic Survey.”

Recreationals “claim that the survey vastly over estimates the recreational harvest of bluefin and underestimates yellowfin, that the survey of universe of permits is flawed and that the survey methodology is inappropriate and therefore inaccurate have been widespread.”  All items mentioned above were found to be NMFS manipulation of their recreational data. Most NMFS choices appear to have been made to support NMFS agendas. Is there any wonder why anglers do not trust NMFS proposed HMS management and the data they use to support their management choices?

The perfect example is North Carolina’s yellowfin tuna landing numbers. In response to NMFS 1993 proposal, North Carolina instituted a comprehensive dockside trip ticket survey to document North Carolina tuna landings. The NC survey documented that NC based boats usually land around 3,000 MT of Yellowfin tuna per season. Compare their documented 3,000 MT. to NMFS’s proposed 400 MT of yellowfin proposal as the entire US recreational quota. This same NC survey found that NC based boats landed 50% less bluefin tuna than was reported by NMFS Large Pelagic Survey (LPS). A similar 50% less real bluefin landed that the LPS survey reported was affirmed in Maryland when their bluefin tuna landings were also counted by a hard count dockside survey. In addition, LPS counts ended in the State of Virginia, because before 1994 NC recreational boats rarely caught bluefin tuna, which was the purpose for LPS.  So all yellowfin tuna landed below Virginia must be added to any LPS based yellowfin totals.

The project proposal goes on to say, “ This project will look at data sources in several states, including documented data from sport fishing clubs, state data and any published or unpublished university or Sea Grant data that could be compared to existing LPS data. This could be used to determine if additional data sources made a case for correcting existing data…. Once all of the available data is collected, we will begin analyzing it for comparison to the LPS records on an annual basis. At the basic level, we will compare total fish reported in LPS to total reported in the logs, club records and other data sources.”

What is most interesting about this entire proposal is that NO state or ICCAT advisor member has ever seen the LPS recreational landing data on Yellowfin tuna. How could the members of the recreational fishing community dispute LPS data when they have never seen the LPS yellowfin data? Anglers do dispute the YFT numbers NMFS reports to ICCAT which have been reported to be primarily based on LPS.

Nowhere in this proposal is the use of NMFS own MRFSS data even mentioned.   I wonder what the odds are for a fair and equitable allocation of the yellowfin tuna resource as is legally mandated and required under Item #4 of the Management Act’s National Standards!

Finally, why bother? No other ICCAT nation counts their recreational landings of any HMS species. None intend to ever count their recreational landings because they believe that recreational landings are never the problem in HMS management. After 26 years is not the US program of “lead by example” and impose the toughest rules on all US fishermen a farce! After 26 years, the other ICCAT members have always graciously caught and sold all the HMS species that the tough US conservation rules has saved for them. 

If anyone has yellowfin tuna data from the late 1980’s or 1990’s, please forward it to me by e-mail or at least contact me at jtkoegler@juno.com  Thanks for any and all information or any suggestions.

The 2002 US ICCAT report

It was another tough year at ICCAT for US commissioners. The official ICCAT report will not be available for one month. A short review from the Department of Commerce is available. This report is available at www.nmfs.noaa.gov and locate the ICCAT report.

Their report documents the slow progress at ICCAT. The general tone of the report is negative. The 2003 quota for Eastern Zone bluefin tuna is way over scientific recommendations that are at least 7 years old. The approved Eastern Zone quota is 32,000 MT. This is over the recommended 26,000 MT. ICCAT scientists determined was the Maximum Sustainable Yield amount many years ago.

 Swordfish quotas were increased based on a questionable ICCAT report that found a 29% increase in North Atlantic ocean swordfish biomass. A 29% increase in the 4 years since the last ICCAT swordfish report is more than questionable. The US recap does not mention what the new ICCAT swordfish quota is. Remember, US commercial fishermen have failed to land their swordfish quota for the last 3 years. If they cannot land their swordfish quota, how can this fishery not still be in trouble?

ICCAT did extend its rebuilding plan for white marlin and blue marlin through 2005. The action maintains the requirement to release all live marlins that are caught incidentally by purse seine and longline vessels.

US chief ICCAT commissioner Dr. William T. Hogarth said: “On the whole, we were disappointed by the outcome of this ICCAT meeting. The total allowable catch for eastern bluefin tuna is way too high, and the total swordfish allowances for the north and south Atlantic Ocean will put significant pressure on the small swordfish that are a high proportion of the stock.

There is increased protection for small bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean. ICCAT members committed to work on integrating bluefin tuna management in the eastern and western Atlantic Ocean and to consider the mixing status between east and west bluefin tuna populations. This action will lead to a re-examination of the arbitrarily set dividing line that separates the two fishy management areas.

ICCAT did adopt far-reaching measures to control Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing and addressed chartering of foreign fishing vessels by developing coastal countries. ICCAT also ensured that virtually all of the countries fishing in the Atlantic are now under its management structure by applying the new allocation criteria. “These agreements are going to make future management more effective.”

The US ICCAT report seems bleak. This is because high US profile issues did not

pan out as the US delegation planned. Positive issues were passed that have the potential to change ICCAT and their management.

The two key items changed are the IUU issue and the eastern zone countries’ acceptance of hard count bluefin tuna quota numbers.  These two items are a package because without controlling IUU there is no ICCAT ocean-wide management.

Second, although we lost on both lower swordfish quota limits and lower bluefin quota limits, getting hard numbers assigned to each eastern zone country is a real breakthrough. Will these two items actually become enforceable and eventually be enforced by ICCAT?

Only time will tell if ICCAT is more than a paper tiger.