Oceana criticized the New England Fishery Management Council’s approval late last week of a standardized method, which will be applied to all northeast fisheries, to collect and report the amount of fish and marine life that is wasted as the result of commercial fishing. Oceana is concerned about the way the Council decided how many observers are needed to obtain accurate estimates of bycatch and with the necessity for improving the data that will be used to determine how many observers are needed.
The Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology (SBRM) should give New England fishery managers the tools they need to effectively assess and minimize bycatch in all fisheries as is required by law. The answer to the question of how the Council should collect bycatch information is simple: use observers, trained scientists who travel on board fishing vessels taking and identifying samples of both the targeted catch and the marine wildlife that is shoveled overboard as wasted bycatch. The analysis in the draft amendment the Council approved uses existing bycatch data as its foundation for its observer coverage projections, although it is widely accepted that bycatch data in many fisheries is simply unreliable.
“One of Oceana’s concerns is that the Council approved a document that is very different from the one that the public commented on last fall,” said Gib Brogan, Oceana’s New England campaign manager. “It feels like a bait and switch deal because the amendment is based on an analysis that neither the public nor independent scientists have had an opportunity to review.”
“The New England and Mid-Atlantic Councils were coerced by the National Marine Fisheries Service into rubber stamping a 600-page draft that has only been available to the council for two weeks,” said David Allison, director of Oceana’s Campaign to Stop Destructive Trawling.
Oceana requested last Thursday that the Council have the document reviewed by an external panel of experts, whom the Council and the Magnuson Stevens Act make available for reviews, to ensure the science is sound. The Council declined this request and supported the opinion of the National Marine Fisheries Service that its own analysis is adequate.
“I am not sure exactly what is in that document or whether the analysis holds water,” added Brogan. “I am afraid that the Councils may have just approved the status quo that the federal judge found to be illegal. If data was unreliable in the past, then it will be unreliable for the future.”
The Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology was developed in response to legal action by Oceana and other concerned conservation groups who challenged fishery management plans in New England for failing to meet the requirements of the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996.
“While this amendment may help fix some of what the court found to be illegal,” said Allison. “The public would be far better served if independent scientists reviewed and endorsed the methods and findings.”
