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Highly Migratory Species Report
by John T. Koegler
(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association April 2003 Newsletter)
New Marlin Rules
Amendment #1 to the plan for Atlantic tunas, Swordfish, Sharks and Billfish
Has NMFS surrendered to the commercial fishing industry in their proposed amendment #1 to their management plan for Atlantic Tunas, Swordfish and Sharks? Is NMFS substituting contrived observance for their legal mandated responsibility specified in the Magnuson-Stevens sustainable fishery act? They took a long time after the passage of this act to provide the guidelines that determined how fishery management terms were to be used in all plans.
In April 1999 NMFS HMS division produced the Final Fishery Management plan for Atlantic Tunas, swordfish and sharks. Sharks are the only HMS species for which NMFS has written the entire management plan. In all other HMS fisheries NMFS implements fishery plans based on ICCAT guidelines. NMFS revised their original shark plan in1997. It required much tougher rules and a 50% reduction in LCS landings. The commercial industry sued and had their planned reduction put on hold until the suit was settled. During that time the commercial fishery was managed using the emergency rule provision. They settled that lawsuit last spring. Last summer, NMFS held a Shark Evaluation Workshop (SEW) to review their data and provide guidelines for future shark management. Their report was peer reviewed by November 2002. NMFS claims that this Peer review of 2002 LCS SEW results were “generally positive.” The three peer reviewer’s reports indicate that this is incorrect. All had doubts, but, in summary, one said yes, one no and one maybe.
On January 1, NMFS produced their emergency shark rules. During February NMFS produced their amendment #1 plan proposal for the Atlantic tunas, swordfish, shark and billfish. These proposals when combined resulted in ALL directed commercial shark fishing limits being eliminated, increased or ignored! Since the shark fishery is managed under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, several of NMFS changes for the commercial fishery appear to violate National Standards (NS) guidelines.
A new shark report from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada using NMFS most complete commercial shark landing data estimated an overall 50% drop in both LCS and Pelagic reported shark landing. Several identified species like scalloped hammerhead sharks were down by 89%. These statistics were for a recent time period of 1986/92 to 2000. Given that sharks have been sold commercially since 1976, the total overall decline is without question greater. How much greater than 89% can sharks numbers decline and not go beyond their biological ability to survive? If all directed commercial shark fishing in the US is ended immediately, are there some shark species numbers that are dropping too low to be saved? These are questions that NMFS at this time appears to be ignoring.
At the same time NMFS reports that recreational shark fishermen are out of compliance on both the number of sharks LCS landed per trip and the 4.5 foot minimum size limit. At the same time NMFS is ending these two restrictions for commercial fishers. Under National Standard # 4, this violates the fair and equitable provision of the Magnuson Act
There are SIX key items that fishery managers use to control overfishing. In the proposed amendment #1 and the current emergency rule plan, NMFS intends to repeal commercial controls and/or limits in all six areas. The six key management items are quota, trip limits, seasons, minimum size, bycatch control and proper species identification.
NMFS Commercial proposed/passed rules are:
1- Size limit-NMFS shark emergency rule ends the 4.5 foot size limit for commercial shark fishermen.
2- Trip Limit-HMS amendment #1 proposal would end the 4,000 pound commercial trip limit. The reason given for this change is that there are plan limits on boat rebuilding size and horsepower, which make the trip limit, unneeded. Ninety five percent of the permitted shark commercial boats have capacity above the current 4,000 pound trip limit. Boat size has nothing to do with a 4,000 trip limit.
3- Season Limit-The emergency rule extends the season until May 15 for LCS non- ridgebacks and April 15 for Ridgebacks. These late closings extend well into the shark female pupping season for both species. In past years, the shark quota early 6-month season was filled by Feb. 20. How can commercials land only one shark category between April 15 and May 15 and not discard a large number of the other out of season sharks plus the prohibited sharks in this fishery?
4- Quota limit-In the emergency rule Quota has been increased from an earlier proposed limit 1,285 Mt. dw. to 1,714 Mt. dw. for 2003/04. This is a 35% increase. Dressed weight (dw) is a shark without head, tail, internal parts or fins. Whole weight is estimated to add 331/3% additional shark weight to dw numbers. This new higher quota was extended into 2004 despite NMFS assurances that the amendment #1 plan would be complete by Jan 1, 2004.
5- Bycatch-In all fishery management plans bycatch by other commercial fishing gear has been the KEY issue that had to be addressed before any fishery could begin recovery. In NMFS new Shark plan the bycatch issue has been ignored. Failing to address this issue means that LCS and SCS sharks whose ability to recovery is limited by their reproductive biology can never be rebuilt!
How bad the bycatch problem is is best documented from NMFS shrimp fishery bycatch estimate as reported in their 2003 SAFE report. For the year 2000, it is reported that 1,257,000 POUNDS of DRESSED WEIGHT SCS was discarded in the Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishery. Converted to metric tons this represents 570 Mt dw of SCS dead discards in the GOM shrimp fishery alone. These pounds are estimated to number 1,282,000 individual SCS sharks. In addition, 396,974 individual SCS sharks is the estimated discard for just the South Atlantic part of the shrimp fishery for 1996/97. The management measure that counts dead discards against the Atlantic shark quota went into effect for the first time on January 1, 2003! The entire commercial SCS quota for 2003 is ONLY 326 MT dw! The reported bycatch discards are 100% OVER the entire SCS commercial quota. How the shrimp fishery would not also be discarding dead major numbers of LCS that are misidentified as SCS is another NMFS fishery management miracle!
6- Dead Discards/ State Landings after Federal Closures
Up until Amendment #1- “dead (shark) discards and state landings after Federal closures have not counted against the Federal commercial quota” is the exact words from the amendment #1 proposal. NMFS shark plan was imposed in 1992! After 11 years these two key parts of all fishery management plans have yet to been made part of the NMFS shark plan! How can they not count state landings against a federal quota and manage any species for 11 years and make believe that they are managing that fishery?
7- Species Identification-Shark indemnification for LCS shark species has been poor, but improving. Unclassified commercial shark landings remain a problem. In 2002 NMFS split unclassified landings evenly between ridgeback and non-ridgeback. In 2001 3,562,546 lbs dw of LCS was reported. 569,605 + 172,494 = 742,099 lbs dw. of this total was unclassified LCS and 105,475 unclassified shark fins. How can sharks be managed when 20% of the landings are unclassified?
8- NMFS claims that Blacktip sharks have been rebuilt from 1997 to the new 2001 survey. Shark reproduction live birth limits make this highly improbable.
9- NMFS claims sandbar sharks not overfished, but overfishing is occurring.
10- NMFS reports the shark LCS complex is overfished and overfishing is occurring. How can NMFS provide additional quota for the directed commercial fishery for LCS sharks and not destroy the other known overfished species plus the prohibited species that are part of the complex?
11- Prohibited species group-In Amendment #1 NMFS proposes that, “Public concern that protection of this group is unwarranted-(because) they are rarely encountered/caught” is a direct quote. Under the Magnuson Act this action would be illegal!
Recreation proposal in Amendment #1.
NMFS reports that there is “evidence that (Rec’s) harvest exceeds current bag limits.” Options being suggested are more restrictive. Is NMFS mixing various SCS (limit of 10 bonnet heads per person) sharks with LCS shark landing data?
NMFS reports “MRFSS data shows that majority of shark trips sampled are below minimum size.”
Authorized gear (under recreational proposals) “Regulations do not distinguish between commercial and recreational gear types options; “Recreational landed fish can only be harvested by hand gear”?
Does this absurd loophole allow commercial fishermen to land sharks without legal shark permits? Is this why recreational anglers are being reported out of compliance?
Combing the above items makes one thing clear, NMFS regard for the sustainability of the shark species does not exist. Their regard for the income of the directed shark fishermen is paramount. NMFS two plans when combined appear to be a total abjection of NMFS responsibilities under the Magnuson Steven Act. At the same time conservation groups have informed NMFS that they will sue NMFS if the final version of the shark plan is passed as proposed
NMFS Office of Sustainable Fisheries has asked in a new federal register notice for public input on their intent to revise the guidelines in National Standard #1 of the Magnuson Act. NS#1 defines MSY, optimum yield, overfishing, 10-year rebuilding time limits and other key guidelines.
In my opinion, this is an outrage beyond belief! Is NMFS solution for their lawsuit problems to actually rewrite their own guidelines? Would this not destroy the shark populations without regard for their own fishery management rules? Forgetting the sharks, what is the future impact of NMFS changing the National Standard #1 guidelines in all other fishery management plans? Since there is not room to cover the NS item in this issue, it will be covered next month.
WOW! After counting the above items, it must be true that NMFS fishery management is really stranger than fiction. Where is NMFS fishery management headed? Answering that question will determine if recreational anglers will be incrementally eliminated by regulation for their own fisheries in the future.