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Fishermen Ask for a Fair Share
Conflict over commercial catch
And regulations may land fleet in court
(06/04/2009) How to change fishing regulations for New York State? That was the question at a meeting on Saturday in Hampton Bays.
 Doug Kuntz
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In attendance were commercial fishermen, Representative Tim Bishop, Peter Grannis, the commissioner of the State Department of Environmental Conservation, and Kit Kennedy, the deputy state attorney general.
Mr. Bishop did not sound hopeful afterward. “In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need litigation,” he said. “But we don’t live in an ideal world. I think a suit is inevitable,” he said on Tuesday morning while on his way to Washington, D.C.
The changes that the fishermen seek are significant and politically charged. At the same time, improvements in the science of data collection hold out hope for the future, fishermen say — if they can stay in business.
Fluke, or summer flounder, is the species that Saturday’s meeting revolved around. Fishermen also wanted to talk about how their harvest is managed with what they say is an antiquated system that pits states against one another as they compete for shares of an overall coastal quota assigned by Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.
Fishermen who work from Montauk and Shinnecock Harbors maintain not only that they are being shortchanged, but that the whole management scheme forces them to throw perfectly good, but dead, fish overboard. That is, one fisherman said, “a crime against nature.”
For years, New York fishermen have complained that the state-by-state allocation of fluke is based on historic landings that no longer reflect true fishing activity. Nor, they say, do they have confidence in the government stock assessments that establish the coastwide quota for fluke.
For years, commercial fishermen have said that the number of fish they were seeing, including fluke, porgies, and now, winter flounder, disproved what government scientists were calling a depressed state of the same stocks.
Then, three years ago, Capt. Jimmy Ruhle, a seasoned trawlerman, joined a team of scientists from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in a survey called the Northeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program.
“The law says stock assessments are made using the best available data, but it was never in line with what we were seeing,” Captain Ruhle said on Tuesday.
Last month, he took Montauk fishermen out on his trawler to demonstrate the use of scientifically designed net that has been approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The survey is being conducted between Cape Hatteras and Cape Cod within four miles of the shore in cooperation with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which is the parent agency of the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
After gathering two years’ worth of data, Captain Ruhle said, the survey had already succeeded in persuading the fisheries service to upgrade its assessment of porgy (or scup) stocks from depleted to “completely rebuilt,” thus justifying an increase in the quota.
“I sat on the Mid-Atlantic Council for nine years. Scup, a fish important to New York, got a significantly reduced quota. We argued there was nothing wrong with the stock, there’s something wrong with the survey,” Captain Ruhle said.
“I make my living catching fish. I want to know what the sustainable levels are,” he said.
In surveys conducted between Sandy Hook and Martha’s Vineyard during the past month, his trawler caught nearly twice as many winter flounder as summer flounder — the opposite of what the government considers to be the relative state of those fisheries.
Captain Ruhle’s winter flounder survey is not yet complete, but the government’s assessment of winter flounder stocks was so dire that earlier this year the New England Management Council threatened to ban the harvest of all groundfish, including not only winter flounder but also cod, haddock, and yellowtail flounder, in Southern New England waters.
Last year, winter flounder landings represented over three-quarters of the total income derived from groundfish.
Much of the discrepancy between fishermen’s hauls and official stock assessments is blamed on the inaccuracy of trawl surveys conducted by a government research vessel, the Albatross, over a 40-year period, and more recently by its replacement, the Bigelow. Fishermen refer to the surveys, and the conclusions drawn from them, as Trawlgate.
The cruise of Captain Ruhle’s trawler, the Darana R, is meant to augment government survey data.
“I didn’t expect miracles, but the reason I put so much effort into it is to get all the environmentalists, recreational groups, to see the work ethic of the scientists,” he said. “They work hard, they have no preconceptions, or agenda. I do think their information will be utilized.”
Captain Ruhle said the government’s fishery scientists “will be forced to look. It will be a full-blown, peer-reviewed process. Why not consider it at a high level? Of course, when they use it is a different ball game,” Captain Ruhle said.
Chuck Weimar of Montauk, the captain of a dragger, the Rianda S, said he told Mr. Bishop that the summer flounder were far more abundant than the government assessment indicated. Quotas should be increased, Captain Weimar said, but improving the way the fishery is managed is equally important, he said.
“The way fluke are managed violates national standards,” Captain Weimar said. He said that other states, like North Carolina, had much larger fluke allocations based on inaccurate landing data. This, he said, gave New York a unfairly small share of the fluke pie.
“Why not manage fluke like scup, with a federal trip limit” instead of state-by-state allocations, he asked.
“We pleaded with them to change it, now it’s a mockery. The species is recovered. They have the science. It shows they’re recovered.”
When the fluke quota went into effect in the late 1980s, he said, fluke were depleted. “Now they’re not. It’s time for a change.”
Mr. Bishop said there would be a fight if fluke management were to change. “I think it’s incumbent to make a good-faith effort to solve this without a lawsuit,” he said, but added, “I have only a modest hope that the effort will succeed.”
“The pie is only so big,” Mr. Bishop said. “We’re getting a little over 7 percent. If we got 10, someone’s giving up fish. Their fishermen will fight tenaciously.”
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| 6/5/2009, 5:54 AM | | Just a couple of comments/corrections.
There are actually two stories here, one about LI fishermen taking on the federal state-by-state allocation quota system for fluke; the other the NEAMAP surveys conducted by the Darana R and VIMS re groundfish, with specific interest in Southern New England (SNE) winter flounder populations.
The Darana R did catch more aggregate pounds of SNE winter flounder to fluke, 2:1 in fact. Since fluke is an already rebuilt stock, the amount of winter flounder landed, along all age classes, should point to a much more robust winter flounder fishery than previously determined by NMFS.
Will NMFS accept the NEAMAP data and do an updated SNE winter flounder assessment? The last assessment done by NMFS for winter flounder used 2006 data for the GARM III review in 2008. Winter flounder is not scheduled for another assessment for at least another two years, but in the fall of 2009 the Darana R & NEAMAP will have three years of data to augment NMFS’ winter flounder assessment.
So let’s see, 2006 data, not another assessment until 2012.....Meanwhile a million-dollar fishery to Long Island’s fishermen lays dormant while science that may show the stock is much more robust is not being utilized or accepted? Does that sound like science and transparency to you?
Secondly, the problem with the state-by state fluke allocation system is not that fishermen believe the allocations "no longer reflect true fishing activity," but that the system that was used to allocate NY state's share was faulty, based on port samplings and not true weigh-out data like other states.
Put simply, from 1980 to 1989, if you were a fisherman in any state but NY, when you came to port, you unloaded your fish at the dock, the total weight was weighed, and you were handed a weigh-out data receipt acknowledging in pounds how many fish you landed (brought to the dock,) and what species. Your fish were sold to the dock when you landed them.
New York was the only state where fishermen boxed and iced their fish at sea and then shipped them to Fulton directly for sale on consignment. NY fishermen did not receive any weigh-out data receipts, when the fish were sold how ever many days later they received a "return" from each of the fish dealers they sold to, with the total weights by species, plus they had their own records. They never received a weigh-out data receipt unless they landed their fish in a state other than NY.
When fluke regulations began in the early 90s, NMFS asked for each state to show the weigh-out data for fluke they landed. NY had none.
Instead, in the 1980s NY had port sampling by NMFS port agents. The federal government visited the consignment docks monthly and counted the number of boxes shipped in each port to get a total weight, and ask the dock manager for a species breakdown. This species breakdown was then recorded and the data was entered in lump sums by port, gear and area, and then made estimates based on these conversations and port log books that showed how many boxes were shipped to Fulton. It was never meant to be an accurate count, as the name clearly states, it was a sampling.
New York’s fishermen have contended for years that the numbers alleged via port sampling were incorrect, yet effort after effort to have the numbers revisited has been thwarted.
Surrounding states all have percentages of the commercial quota in the 20-27 percent range, yet all that was shown for NY at the time was 7 percent based on port sampling. That number is incorrect and perhaps finally we will be able to have appropriate redress, due in part to the efforts of Congressman Bishop to facilitate the meeting with Commissioner Grannis.
Also, there was no representation by the Attorney General’s office at the meeting as you state in your article- Commissioner Grannis told us this meeting with fishermen and the DEC was warranted prior to outlining the issue for the AG’s office, but we have every reason to believe a future meeting with the AG will take place soon.
Re the system, whether New York gets a more equitable share of the allocation or whether NMFS decides to move to a more reasonable overall federal quota, as was done with scup, remains to be seen. But we are buoyed by the support of the Congressman, and both Senators Schumer and Gillebrand, to fight to gain back what was ours to begin with. Now the hunt for old landings begins.
Bonnie Brady
LICFA | | LICFA - Montauk |
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