Group says feds turning a blind eye to bycatch

Print

Washington, D.C.   

A new report by the Marine Fish Conservation Network charges the federal government with not doing enough to reduce bycatch.

Bycatch is the catching and killing of ocean wildlife other than those fishermen intend to capture. It includes species of fish, but also birds, turtles and dolphins.

The report finds that federal fishery managers in New England:

• Have not adequately established bycatch reporting systems as mandated by the 1996 amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

• Have taken few steps to minimize bycatch.

• Are not accounting for the number of fish killed as bycatch when setting annual catch limits for fisheries.

The new report, "Turning a Blind Eye: The 'See No Evil' Approach to Wasteful Fishing," points out that fishery managers need to increase the number of certified biologists who work aboard fishing vessels as observers to properly document the unwanted fish and other ocean wildlife tossed overboard, often dead or dying.

It also charges that fishery managers should increase efforts to reduce this wasteful practice and, where bycatch is unavoidable, must factor in the number of fish killed as bycatch in other fisheries when setting catch limits to avoid taking too many fish out of the ocean. Considering that in 2002 fishermen discarded at least 2.2 billion pounds of bycatch nationally, ignoring bycatch data when setting catch limits could be significantly contributing to the decline of ocean fish populations.

Susan Buchanan, communications representative for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, said every federal fishery management plan includes bycatch. She said minimizing bycatch is always considered when new regulations are developed.

Among items addressed in the report are the following:

• At least 17 regulatory and management actions designed to reduce bycatch.

• At least $4.4 million in agency and cooperative research to reduce bycatch.

• Bycatch-reduction technology transfer and diplomatic efforts involving more than 20 countries facing bycatch challenges.

• More than 30 workshops focusing on bycatch-reduction techniques.

• More than $40 million for observer coverage for more than 67,000 days at sea in 42 fisheries to gather bycatch and other data.

The network report found that there is already a lack of bycatch information. The National Marine Fisheries Service proposed to limit public access to fishery data, including bycatch data, when revising and renewing the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary federal law that governs our nation's fisheries. The network will submit "Turning a Blind Eye" to members of Congress who are currently considering legislation to reauthorize this law and will urge Congress to strengthen the law to help eliminate bycatch in U.S. marine fisheries.

"It is astounding that the NMFS would propose to limit access to bycatch data," said Jan Pendlebury, N.H. representative for the National Environmental Trust. "Data is the integral component of any plan intended to help restore declining fish stocks."

"The lack of progress during the last five years in reducing bycatch is unacceptable," said Lee Crockett, executive director of the network. "Fishery managers aren't aggressively addressing this wasteful practice, which significantly contributes to the declining health of our oceans and further limits opportunities for fishermen."

"Turning a Blind Eye" looks at how the regional fishery management councils have addressed the problem of bycatch in the "dirtiest" fisheries around the country, including the problematic Northeast Multispecies Groundfish fishery, which catches nearly twice as much bycatch for every pound of groundfish.

A federal court found in 2001 that efforts in New England to reduce bycatch and minimize bycatch mortality, as legally required, were grossly inadequate.

Discarded fish in the New England groundfish and scallop fisheries alone totaled more than 337 million pounds in 2002, the equivalent by weight of more than 53,490 pickup trucks.

In the Northeast, on June 13, 2005, NOAA implemented emergency regulations to establish an incidental haddock catch allowance for the Atlantic herring fishery to allow the herring fleet to continue normal operations without providing an incentive for the industry to target haddock and without causing harm to the Georges Bank resource.

On Dec. 8, 2005, NOAA extended the effectiveness of a haddock bycatch cap for the Atlantic herring fishery to keep haddock possession as close to zero as practicable.

The report analyzed data from the eight regional fishery management councils, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and other conservation groups. It is the last of three reports the network has released reviewing the implementation during the past five years of key conservation measures of the 1996 amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The two previous reports examined how federal fishery managers have addressed the issues of fish habitat protection and overfishing in the last five years.

There are several other Northeast actions included in NOAA's report on bycatch. The report can be found at nmfs.noaa.gov/by_catch/2005BycatchReportJune9v2.pdf.

From the Portsmouth Herald