EDFish

New Study: Catch Shares Comply with Catch Limits

By / Published: December 21, 2012

Published online November 16, 2012, in Ocean & Coastal Management

By Wesley S. Patrick & Lee R. Benaka

NOAA Fisheries, Office of Sustainable Fisheries

Fisheries operated under catch share management systems were more likely to stay within target catch limits and to stop overfishing than those operating under other management systems, according to a new study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) entitled “Estimating the Economic Impacts of Bycatch in US Commercial Fisheries” which was published online last month in Ocean & Coastal Management.

The study analyzed the impact of “management uncertainty” upon fishery performance in 17 U.S. fisheries covering 12 different species. It compares fisheries under catch share management systems with those operating under other types of fishery management in which landings are managed “in-season” or “post-season.” This study is one of the first to look at the impact of “management uncertainty” upon a fishery’s performance. “Management uncertainty” refers to the inability of fishery managers to accurately predict how the management techniques they employ will affect their ability to achieve targets such as catch limits.

The study found that a fishery’s ability to stay within targeted catch limits varied considerably, but those under catch shares exceeded catch limits the least. Catch share fisheries exceeded catch limits just 2% of the time, compared to 37% of the time for those managed in-season or post-season. Knowing that catch share-run fisheries are unlikely to exceed catch limits reduces uncertainty and allows managers to set catch limits closer to “true” targets, allowing fishermen to catch more fish while still protecting fish populations for the future.

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New England Catch Shares Ruled Legitimate by 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals

By / Published: December 3, 2012

1st Circuit Court of Appeals logoIn a long-awaited decision, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a 2011 lower court ruling confirming the legality of the NE sector program.

Ruling on a suit brought by the ports of New Bedford and Gloucester, as well as fishermen and fishing groups, the justices determined that the NE sector program form of catch share complies with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

The court found that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had adequately considered the impact of the program and taken the proper steps to accomplish its goals, including environmental conservation, increasing economic benefits and holding fishermen accountable for staying within catch limits.

The three judge panel noted that, rather than destroying smaller business, many believe the new rules provide better protection. The judges also said federal regulators installed the law properly. “The Secretary (of Commerce’s) judgments here were derived from the record, rational, and not based on any error of law,” the court wrote. Read the full opinion here.

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Catch Shares Save Fishermen and Fish

By / Published: November 21, 2012
Bubba Cochrane with his Boat the Chelsea Ann

Bubba Cochrane. Photo by Mark Thein of GulfWild.

This is a re-post of a National Geographic Blog posted by Miguel Jorge of National Geographic’s Ocean Initiative on November 20, 2012

Bubba Cochrane always knew he wanted to be a fisherman. So, despite concerns from his family, he began his career as a deck-hand and eventually saved enough to buy a permit and boat of his own. He’s 43 years old now and owns a commercial fishing business out of Galveston, Texas. Business is good – but he can easily remember what fishing used to be like.

“When I got started, fishing was a race: when the season opened we fished every day until we were notified that the quota was caught. That meant lots of fishing all at once, a glut of fish in the market, and bad prices when we got back to the docks,” said Bubba, reminiscing about his early days in the fishery.

Through the mid-2000s, the red snapper fishery was on the brink of collapse. Even with so few fish in the population and a short season, the fishing derbies meant that the price at the dock stayed low, hurting the profits of commercial fishermen. Fishery managers tried to address the price problem by breaking up the season into the first 15, then 10 days of each month. Fishermen would fish for 10 days, and then wait until the next month to go out again.

These sporadic openings were not the solution fishermen like Bubba wanted. “It’s hard to run your business in just the first 15 days of a month; a lot can get in the way. I tell people to imagine a gas station only being able to sell gas for the first ten days of each month or a contractor only being able to build houses in that short window.” Read More »

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Pacific Catch Shares are Working to Reduce Discards and Improve Business

By / Published: November 1, 2012


The November issue of Fishermen’s News includes in-depth look at the transformation of fishing for almost 100 species along the West Coast since catch shares were introduced last year.

The West Coast Groundfish Catch Share Program was first proposed by fishermen who realized that their fishery was on an unsustainable course. Design and development of the program took about seven years, and required a collaborative approach among diverse stakeholders: small-boat fishermen, large “mothership” trawlers, environmental groups, state officials, regional Council members and NOAA officials, just to name a few.

From the article by reporter Terry Dillman:

“Coos Bay-based trawler Rex Leach said he had ‘some pretty big reservations’ about catch shares, but after the first year, he’s ‘happy to say I was wrong.’ Discards are nearly non-existent and he can now plan groundfish landings when it’s convenient for his operation.”

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Rebuilding Global Fisheries for Food Security: The Time is Now!

By / Published: October 26, 2012
A spawning aggregation of the bigeye trevally, Caranx sexfasciatus, Cabo Pulmo National Park, Mexico.

A spawning aggregation of the bigeye trevally, Caranx sexfasciatus, Cabo Pulmo National Park, Mexico.
Photo Credit: Octavio Aburto-Oropeza/Marine Photobank

“Unleashing the self-interest of local fishermen to advance both conservation and economic development can create one of those rare win-win scenarios.” This powerful quote from a recent op-ed, beautifully describes what is at the core of EDF’s mission to save fisheries.

The authors of that op-ed, Carl Safina, founding president of the Blue Ocean Institute at Stony Brook University, and Brett Jenks, chief executive of Rare, called attention to both the global depletion of fisheries AND the solution. They discuss how despite growing concern about the dire state of global fish populations, there is hope to rebuild them. “Why are we hopeful? They write, “It’s because the analysis of global fisheries has a silver lining. We have not reached a point of no return. We have time. Solutions exist.”

They draw from the first comprehensive analysis of more than 10,000 fisheries in the journal Science which finds that, “When sustainably managed, marine fisheries provide food and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people worldwide.”  Fisheries and food security for future generations are a challenge that we believe can be solved by partnering with fishermen to find common solutions, but we must act now.

The United States has made great progress in fisheries management.  Almost two-thirds of fish landed in the United States are done so under a catch share.   However,  the United States is just one piece of the puzzle,  Safina and Jenks point out that, “small-scale fishers — who fish within 10 miles of their coast — account for nearly half of the world’s global catch and employ 33 million of the world’s 36 million fishermen, while also creating jobs for 107 million people in fish processing and selling [pdf]. Mostly poor, they live mainly in areas lacking fisheries management, monitoring and enforcement.” Read More »

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New Science Paper: Status and Solutions for the World’s Unassessed Fisheries

By / Published: September 27, 2012
Grey Reef Sharks (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos) cruise through the reef passes among large schools of surgeonfish in Fakarava, French Polynesia.

Photo Credit: Gerick Bergsma 2010/Marine Photobank

The world’s fish stocks can be rebuilt to provide more nourishment and economic value to the millions of people who rely on the ocean for food—if we step up now and make aligning these incentives a global priority.

The magazine Science has published a study that provides new insights into thousands of fisheries where scientific data has not been historically available.  These “data poor” fisheries make up a majority of the world’s catch, around 80 percent. According to this new research, many of these fisheries are facing collapse, but there is still time to turn the situation around. The study indicates that it is possible for fisheries to recover globally, which would increase the abundance of fish in the ocean by 56% and in some fisheries’ yields could more than double.

With these new assessments, fishery managers and world leaders can have a more comprehensive view of the status of our global fisheries.  There are many new insights into previously unmeasured fisheries, using new methodology that can have enormous implications for managing the resource sustainably.

The report also provides some hope and insights on how the world can reverse these trends. Read More »

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