The New England Fishery Management Council opens a three-day meeting in Newport, R.I., this morning with a roster of devilish details, notably catch limits on groundfish species as well as pollock and herring, to establish the start of the hotly disputed era of catch shares, expected to begin next May.
In addition, the council faces proposed reductions in the fishing efforts allowed members of the common pool — those fishermen who have not joined the sectors or fishing cooperatives tied to the catch share system. The system has triggered intense consolidation nearly everywhere the commodification market principles were used.
Highlighting the meeting are anticipated decisions on the size of the allowable catch of herring, to be discussed today, and the allowable catches of the groundfish stocks, which are expected to be set Wednesday.
In addition, the council faces a wrenching debate between the groundfishermen and the scallopers on the allocation of yellowtail flounder. Because yellowtail is found among the scallops — the region's most lucrative and healthiest stock — the council is pulled in two directions with not enough fish to go both ways.
Yellowtail is one of the stocks that remains overfished, so the council must decide how to allocate a small total allowable catch.
The decisions on the size of the pollock and herring catches have significant implications as well.
Pollock are coming under recovery protections for the first time, and according to the recommendation of the council's Science and Statistical Committee, barely one third of the total catch from 2008 can be taken without subjecting the species to additional overfishing.
But a reduction of that scale would put the entire groundfishery at risk of an early shutdown just as the catch share and sector system is starting up. As Vito Giacalone, policy director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, has said, a small quota is only a problem if it's wrong.
If the trawl survey used to measure the size of the stock proves wrong, and pollock are notoriously hard to find, according to Paul Rego of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Science Center in Woods Hole, then the sectors could face an impossible dilemma trying to catch reasonable allocations of targeted species without catching the limit of pollock in bycatch.
"This stands to break the system," Giacalone said. "There is not even enough for bycatch. The viability of sectors is potentially fatally compromised by the recommendation of allowable catch for pollock."
The catch share system is based on hard catch limits that are divided into shares aggregated for groups or sectors. The system leaves the businesses to organize fishing trips based on weather, price at the dock and season rather than race to get to the fish first, as the old effort control system encouraged.
But the council also must decide new effort controls for the common pool fishermen.
The council in June agreed to allow them unlimited catches of pollock and 2,000-pound daily trip limits of Gulf of Maine cod, a recovering species. But after a number of fishermen in sectors complained that the common pool system did not align with the science, the council asked the staff to draft ideas for imposing tougher controls.
The herring question is also subject to scientific dispute.
The council takes up an analysis by the Science and Statistical Committee that could allow a slight increase in what has been described as a potentially disastrous cutback in the total allowable catch of herring due to some worrisome trends in statistical patterns of herring surveys and estimates.
In September, the committee announced a proposed acceptable biological catch of 90,000 metric tons, down from 145,000 metric tons. David Ellenton, president of a large herring fishing and processing business in Gloucester, predicted the conservative catch limit would effectively reduce landings by 50 percent and "have a disastrous effect on the fishery."
Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000 x 3464 or rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.
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