The Winding Glass

Catch share meeting attracts wide attention in New England - community issues come into play

The following commentary on the implementation of catch share programs in New England was published in Seafood.com News today.

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton - Oct 22, 2009 [News Analysis] - Although unable to personally attend the catch share meeting this week in Bretton Woods due to a prior commitment, the issue at stake: can the system of IFQ's and catch shares established successfully in Alaska be replicated in New England - is near and dear. For years I have contrasted the experience of Alaska, with a system of hard TAC's and fishery closures when catch targets or by-catch limits are reached, with the system in New England that for the past 15 years has relied on imprecise attempts to control effort.

In one setting, the industry has thrived, value of the fisheries had dramatically increased, and the degree of Alaskan ownership of vessels has increased.

In the other setting, the value of the industry has plummeted, historic ports are seeing near record low levels of landings, and the management has become one huge fight of industry vs science due to the increasingly absurd contortions being asked of the industry.

Anyone who cares about the New England fisheries knows that change is necessary.
When the Magnuson - Stevens Act was reauthorized in 2006, the big regional fight was over whether the system of hard quotas established on the West coast would become mandatory nationally. Environmental groups strongly supported the provision, while in New England, it was fiercely opposed. New England lost that battle, and now is operating under a legal requirement to meet hard quotas for each species of a 13 species groundfish complex in 19 separate management units.

The magnuson act also provided strong support for ITQ systems, also called catch shares, under which vessels in a fishery are assigned a proportion of the quota based on their fishing history. About 14 years earlier, a moratorium had been placed on catch shares after two experiences with northeast surf clams, and Alaskan halibut and sablefish. Both programs led to major changes in their respective industries. The moratorium was to allow more consideration of the types of changes catch shares brought about.

Subsequently, both the Alaska pollock program, under the American fisheries act, and the crab rationalization program, were enacted by an Act of Congress, due to the moratorium on catch share programs in place. This moratorium was lifted in 2006, giving regional management councils authority to establish catch share systems.

With this as background, the New England management council, under strong pressure from NOAA and the legal requirements of Magnuson, adopted a modified catch share system to come into effect in 2010. The system would not provide individual quotas, but assign vessels to voluntary sectors, which could then pool their quotas, and act like FCMA co-ops, i.e. decide which vessels should fish and when and make payments to members based on their share of history.

One of the biggest problems in New England was that the prior system - days at sea - made no distinction in fishing permits. There are thousands of fishing permits in New England, many of them dormant, and under the old system, each permit had the same right to be allocated days at sea. Quickly a leasing program came into being where active vessels would lease additional days at sea rights from inactive vessels. Yet since the pool was based on the total number of permits, no effective consolidation took place.

The looseness of this system allowed anyone to still enter the fishery, so long as they could find a cheap permit and days at sea to lease from another permit holder. The value of dormant permits was not that great, and they could easily be bought.

Under the catch share allocation, what matters is fishing history, not the existence of the permit itself. Suddenly, boats who have come into the fishery recently find themselves with insufficient history. Those who understood the system bought permits with established history, which were much more valuable than permits with no history. Much of the outcry in New England against catch shares is due to this change in status.

A second problem, exacerbating the transition, is the current state of recovery of fish stocks. In a species complex of 13 species in 19 management stocks, the expectation that all will or can achieve their maximum biological potential at the same time is scientifically impossible. Yet Magnuson allows for no flexibility on this point. The result is that much of the fishing effort in New England is dictated by the weakest species. Under Magnuson, weaker species with stocks that are below the target spawning threshold must be protected and rebuilt.

New England is put in an impossible position: there is no way except perhaps with a 10 or 20 year moratorium on all fishing, that the 13 groundfish species could readjust to their natural proportions - which have not existed on Georges Bank for more than 100 years.

In fact, the idea that New England can go back to some pre-fishing mix of species abundance is absurd. The egg is scrambled. It cannot be reconstituted as an egg. Yet much of the current science and management is still based on control of discrete species with the goal of producing a new egg (the original spawning biomass) - and that ties New England fishermen in knots and makes them think the goals are simply irrational.

The meeting in Bretton Woods this week was really just a workshop to address some of the issues in catch shares. It got a high profile because, first, it was by invitation, and secondly, it had the full support of NOAA which is committed to implementing catch shares as a national fishing strategy.

The meeting addressed some of the design issues in catch shares, and the fundamental problem: there is a trade-off in implementing catch shares.

In order to make existing fleets efficient and profitable, they have to shrink - capacity has to match the stock available for harvest, instead of being two, three or four times greater than needed. Catch shares are principally a market mechanism to make that happen - by allowing consolidation to the degree that the fishery is conducted efficiently, and compensating those who leave the fishery by paying the market value for their shares. This is what allowed the Alaska crab fleet to move rapidly from 280 boats to 80 active boats.

The question is what is lost in a pure market mechanism. Catch share programs have to be implemented so as to not magnify negative consequences. In Alaska, one consequence of the rapid consolidation was an outcry over loss of crew jobs.

How do you preserve the structure of the industry in New England - a mix of smaller inshore and larger boats, a mix of ports all with some landings, and a wide range of specializations on certain types of fish.

A common argument of those against catch shares is that it destroys existing communities, by allowing boats and landings to be bought and concentrated elsewhere. This is not a feature of catch share per se, but of poor design.

At the conference, Wes Erikson, a 4th generation British Columbia fishermen talked about catch shares and impacts on communities. Contrary to some reporting that communities shrunk as a result of the catch share program, he said that communities in British Colombia were 'negatively impacted by the shrinking of the commercial salmon industry which is not a catch share fishery.'

'In fact, under catch shares, commercial landings have actually increased in coastal communities and decreased in urban centers. For the most part catch shares have been a positive aspect for the coastal communities that I work and live in', he said.

Steve Minor, from Alaska, also addressed the community issue. He said 'Catch Shares in the Bering Sea crab industry have in fact been created positive benefits for crab-dependent communities, because we designed our program with that goal in mind. Crab dependent communities are now guaranteed abut 90% of their historic share of landings based on the delivery requirements we placed on the quota shares themselves.'

There is absolutely no reason why the New England program should not contain a strong community protection component. Ports like Portland, Gloucester, and Boston, should all have consideration under the program so that provisions are made to restrict wholesale transfer of shares away from traditional landing ports.

There is nothing in the current design of a program that would prevent for example, a sector consisting of Maine and Massachusetts boats assigning all of their quota to be landed in one port only.

Once shares are bought and sold, as they will be inevitably in any system, the lack of such protections leaves the fishing infrastructure in New England badly exposed.

The program in Bretton Woods did not solve the probems, but did help to get some of the issues on the table.

The thing that most upsets New England fishermen is that they feel they are being forced to forego legitimate harvests for very unsound scientific reasons. Catch shares don't determine the level of the catch, but have become a lightning rod for all the issues affecting New England, since they represent a new approach that New England has traditionally resisted.

The most telling fact is that the vessels with real catch history are flocking to the program. Estimates are that holders of 90 to 95% of the catch history for most species have signed on to the sector program. These fishermen represent the ones who have most successfully navigated the management contortions of the past decade. Given the transition that is necessary, it is obvious that some flexibility on management goals would help tremendously.

Such flexibility has often been accepted by NMFS in the past. In the Alaska opilio fishery this year, when rigid adherence to a rebuilding plan would have resulted in a dramatic cut back, or possibly no fishery at all, NMFS adjusted the goal, and allowed a new rebuilding plan to be put in place. As a result, the crab fishery remained viable.

One reason such an adjustment was possible was that all parties - NMFS, The State of Alaska, and the industry, all had demonstrated strong commitments to crab conservation in the past. So the idea of an adjustment never was seen as a ploy to get around scientific reports on stock status, but a way to incorporate such science into the reality of the fishery. Such thinking will have to come to New England if this transition is going to have any chance of success.

Gloucester Times plays destructive role; misses chance to make fisheries work for local benefit

(The Gloucester Times published an editorial calling on the NE Council to abandon catch shares.  We thought it was an irresponsible approach, and made our own comments in reply. )

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [EDITORIAL COMMENT] by John Sackton - Aug 19, 2009 - The Gloucester Times is playing the same role in New England Fisheries Management that the Republican party is playing in the national health care debate. Both are saying essentially they dont want to participate in the proposed reforms, so they would rather see nothing done at all.

While the national debate on health care can be postponed for another year, the management of New England fisheries cannot, because there is a legally mandated timetable to implement the new standards of the Magnuson act.

In this context, the idea of blowing up the system, which is essentially what is advocated in the Times Editorial is irresponsible and does a disservice to New England fishermen.

Anyone who is pinned down in an economic vise is looking for whatever hope might be on the horizon. To argue that NMFS science be thrown out; that the council rebel, and that essentially the entire management of New England fisheries start over is just a false hope.

If that is really what the Times believes, they should have the guts to call for a total moratorium or shut down of New England fisheries while the problem is fixed, with appropriate support for fishermen.

But if they are not willing to see the fishery closed, then they have the responsibility to propose positive management measures as well.

We know fishery management can work in New England. Here is a graph of scallop landings and biomass we printed in a separate article today.



Source: NMFS

This management was done by the same agency and council that the Gloucester Times is vilifying.

There are real problems with the low biomass of pollock, and the difficulty of getting accurate measurements on a single species in a mixed stock assessment covering 19 groundfish species which share the same habitat. There are also problems with attempting to maximize the yield of all 19 species at the same time. But the most hopeful answer to this is to address the how the needed flexibility can be achieved.

Instead, the advocates in Gloucester are refusing to confront the real problem, and just calling for the system to be blown up.

This is a false hope for fishermen. We are never going back to a golden age when boat captains could fish all they wanted and were not constrained by management.

The late Jake Dykstra, a giant in New England fishing who was one of the key people responsible for the 200 mile limit knew he was making a trade-off. In return for gaining control and stewardship of the EEZ out to 200 miles, Dykstra realized that fishermen were taking on a management system as well. He strove to make it work, sometimes successfully, and sometimes less so. But he never gave up on the idea or the need for management as the price of achieving control over U.S. waters.

Now U.S. style fisheries management has been recognized by scientists (Worm-Hilborn paper) as the best single hope for achieving global sustainable fisheries, based on the successes this country has had with fisheries since 1977.

I wish the present leadership in Gloucester and the writers at the Gloucester Times had more of Dykstra's vision, and less of a feeling of anarchist nihilism.

For example, other fishery catch share programs have strong adjacency and community landing requirements. If Gloucester leaders were not so intent on blowing up the system, they might actually fight for adjacency rights to protect the inshore fleet from competition on nearby banks. They might fight to guarantee some community landing rights so that IFQs could not be concentrated in some other community and taken out of Gloucester.

Many fishing communities have prospered and become dominant owners through working within catch share systems to maximize the economic benefits to that community. Some smaller communities in Maine have been pushing hard for such protections. But such a discussion has been sorely lacking in Gloucester and Southern New England, partly because the Gloucester Times, a highly visible advocate is talking about blowing up the system, in an anarchist frenzy, rather than seriously trying to make it work for their community.

Massive flu outbreak could have huge economic consequences to seafood

In a couple of our news stories today, I flagged the potential for a swine flu epidemic this fall to be another major blow to travel, foodservice, and by extension the seafood industry.

From our AP story:

 U.S. health officials say swine flu could strike up to 40 percent of Americans over the next two years and as many as several hundred thousand could die if a vaccine campaign and other measures are not successful.

Those estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mean about twice the number of people who usually get sick in a normal flu season would be stricken by swine flu. Officials said those projections would drop if a new vaccine is ready and widely available, as U.S. officials expect.

After the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 - the seafood industry was hit hard as people stopped traveling, and in the lobster industry the bank collapse in the fall of 2008 led to virtually a drying up of many restaurant purchases.  I am worried that a flu epidemic and media coverage of it could end up creating a huge disruption to travel - and consequently another economic blow to the seafood industry.  

None of this is to belittle the human and material cost of the pandemic - its just that along with the public health planning, seafood businesses should also think about how their own day to day business may be affected by a massive flu outbreak. 

Gloucester Industry faces stark choice in approach to future at demonstration tonight

here is another in our series of editorials about the fishing crisis in Gloucester.  In a nutshell, they are fighting the last war, and putting the New England industry at risk.  This appeared on our paid news site yesterday. SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton - [Editorial Comment] July 8, 2009 - The recent developments in the New England Fishing industry have struck a nerve in Gloucester, and the entire community is mobilizing to respond.  Gloucester, long one of the centers of the New England Fishing industry along with New Bedford, has faced stepped up enforcement, more reductions in days at sea and fishing time, the threatened temporary closure of the fish auction for violations, and now a wholesale change in fisheries management to a system of catch shares. It is no wonder the community feels under siege. But the industry faces a stark choice tonight, and it is time to put forward a positive vision of the future the industry wants. Most of the outrage over this situation has been directed at the wrong targets. The Gloucester Times is incensed that NOAA chief Lubchenco has a prior association with the Pew Foundation, mentioning it in every story they write. They have gone on to suggest that the money being spent by environmentalists is to support the oil industry, since the original funding for the Pew foundation came from an oil company. Yet they never suggest that because Gloucester got a large cash payment for an offshore natural gas terminal as part of $10 million spent in Gloucester by a Texas energy giant, that their own views are compromised by the oil industry. They have also seized on a statement from one of the Environmental Defense funds executives touting the investment potential (up to 400% return) in buying up quota shares. Anyone who believes this should have invested in Bear Sterns. It is nonsense. Actual markets for quota shares in Alaska trade at five to seven times the per lb. value of the catch, well within the normal range of returns for a large number of investments. So while Gloucester is tilting at windmills, such as Pew and Environmental Defense and Lubchenco's past associations, the real issues of catch shares are not even on the radar. The issue is whether catch shares end up concentrating the fishery in a few corporate hands so that crews become employees, as has happened in the offshore clam fishery, or if catch shares are implemented in a way that keeps fishing vessels in local communities, provides for orderly retirement and income for boat owners, and provides an avenue for new entrants, i.e. crew, to become captains and run and own their own vessels. One of the key tests for this is whether there are owner-on-board requirements for the new catch shares. Owner-on-board requirements make it impossible for outside investors to become more than minority partners in the various fishing enterprises. It certainly is one way to protect local communities. Owner on board requirements also force environmental groups to partner with fishermen, not dictate to them.  Yet there is a downside, which is for those who are currently leasing and want to sell their shares, the owner on board requirement reduces their value because there is a more limited universe of buyers. This should not be an issue if the goal is to retain the present decentralized nature of the fishery.  Another important consideration in catch shares is the percent of total quota that can be held by any single company or individual. It is true that some New England companies see catch shares as a bonanza, because they will be in a position to buy up significant amounts and control a portion of the total catch. Once this happens, catch shares are aggregated on to a few boats, drastically reducing the size of the fleet. In the Alaska crab fishery, the fleet went from around 280 vessels to 80 operating vessels virtually overnight.  If Gloucester is concerned about concentration, they should advocate for a strict limit in both species quota and total quota to be held or used by any individual share holder or sector.  The catch share system is not a straight jacket, but rather a different way of managing fisheries. The environmental community is rapidly learning to navigate in this new environment, while Gloucester continues to fight old battles. Hopefully tonight, someone will stand up and tell the crowd that there are ways to achieve a healthy fishery in the community by insisting on certain rights under catch shares - but unfortunately it is more likely we will hear more of the vilification of NMFS, the government, environmentalists and Pew, without anyone putting forward a positive vision of how to retain a healthy fishery in Gloucester in the face of changing times. Given the speed of the changes going on in New England, not putting forward a positive vision could be fatal. Gloucester is fighting the last war. History has not been kind to those who make this mistake.

Greenpeace freaks out at Trader Joe's 'We simply listen to our customers' approach

(this appeared on the Seafoodnews.com website on Monday) SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton - July 6, 2009 - Trader Joe's has had one of the best run and innovative seafood programs for many years. They have pioneered a custom-pack frozen display that consistently offers a variety of frozen fillets and steaks - often featuring products like Alaskan cod and salmon, as well as other items like snapper, mahi mahi, and frozen shrimp. True to its philosophy of buying when deals are available, Trader Joe's does not attempt to consistently keep certain species in stock, but rotates through a range of seafood items. The variety makes their frozen seafood case a good stop for heavy seafood users, and because of its emphasis on frozen and frozen at sea product, it is unique among retailers. Most other banners emphasize their fresh fish counters or tray pack fresh items. What has flipped out Greenpeace is that Trader Joe's has refused to engage with them over their seafood purchases. In correspondence dated March 11, 2008 (which Greenpeace says is the most recent and only time Trader Joe's management deigned to discuss the issue of seafood sustainability with Greenpeace), Jon Basalone, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Trader Joe's, stated "We simply listen to our customers", when refusing to participate in Greenpeace's survey of American retailers.  This attitude has provoked fury. First, Greenpeace has built a web site, called Traitor Joe's, to argue that the company is a poor environmental steward. What Greenpeace cannot abide is that for most customers, Trader Joe's has a strong environmental approach that includes copious labeling and lots of organics. Greenpeace says of Trader Joe's customer first approach "This view is antithetical to the basic tenets of Corporate Social Responsibility - to take social, environmental, and political concerns into account when doing business - and runs counter to consumer preference and marketing trends toward sustainable products." In otherwords, unless Trader Joe's buys into the social, environmental, and political concerns of Greenpeace USA, the company is an outlaw. Greenpeace has a nice little skull and cross bones icon on their Traitor Joe web site. The problem for Greenpeace is not that Trader Joe's might in fact be making a strong statement about corporate responsibility, but that they are not doing it according to Greenpeace's rules. Greenpeace says that their surveys found Trader Joe's sells 15 of the 22 red list seafoods: Alaskan pollock, Atlantic cod, Atlantic salmon, Atlantic sea scallops, Chilean sea bass, Greenland halibut, monkfish, ocean quahog, orange roughy, red snapper, redfish, South Atlantic albacore tuna, swordfish, tropical shrimp and yellowfin tuna. What Greenpeace did not find out was how the Trader Joe purchasing model of taking advantage of seasonal opportunities for good seafood when available, is in fact very compatible with sourcing wild products whose abundance and seasonality fluctuates. The most destructive purchasing practices for seafood are when companies seek to have certain items at any price - for in this way buyers distort the market and drive demand for illegal fishing, assuming that they must have a product to please their customers, even if it is in short supply and at a high price. This had lead to abuses for illegal supplies find a ready market. More flexible policies, such as providing the customer with a variety of available frozen fish that changes depending on what is in season, what is packed, and how it is priced, is a much more long term sustainable policy than purchasing from a fixed list of items no matter if these items are red or green. Trader Joe's should take Greenpeace's anger as a badge of honor. It is obvious that seafood is an important part of their vision of customer satisfaction, and that is a long term benefit to the entire seafood industry.

Gloucester should learn to look across the Annisquam bridge - there is a big world out there (editorial comment)

The following editorial appeared on Seafood.com News on Monday, June 29, 2009 -

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton (Editorial Comment  June 29, 2009 - Once again,  the Gloucester Times has demonstrated a woeful lack of knowledge regarding the recent decision of the N.E. management council to implement a catch sharing plan. 

In the latest article (link  ) , the paper acts like the only people who support catch shares are environmentalists and pointy eared bureaucrats - to bring back a phrase from the 1980’s.

It reminds me that it is time to think about the things that Gloucester really has lost. 

Back when the 200 mile limit was put in place, the entire Northeast peak of George’s Bank was open to Gloucester fishermen.  For offshore draggers, it was their primary fishing ground.  The problem was that the peak was also claimed by Canada, since it was within Canada’s 200 mile limit as well. 

In 1979, Lloyd Cutler, working as White House counsel , negotiated an agreement with Canada that would have given American fishermen harvest rights to about 70% of the allowable catches on the Northeast Peak, while Canadians would have gotten 30%.

The guys in Gloucester were thrilled.  This was a solid agreement, and prevented the issue from going to the World Court.

At that time, it was the port of New Bedford that could not see beyond its nose.  In the years running up to the agreement, New Bedford scallopers had harvested around 90% of the scallops on the Northeast Peak, and they vociferously objected to the 70% figure.

 Then, as now, New England fishermen were wired politically, with access to Senators and Congressmen who followed their lead. The uproar from New Bedford led the Senate to kill the treaty.    Basically, the Senate said that if the industry could not accept this deal, the agreement was dead.

New Bedford rejoiced.  They had retained their 90% scallop share, they thought.  Gloucester was furious - they had lost the opportunity for a permanent solution to sharing George’s Bank. 

And the maritime boundary dispute went to the World court. 

In 1984, the court made a decision.  It awarded 100% of the Northeast Peak to Canada.  New Bedford scallopers lost about 50% to 60% of their historic scallop grounds. Gloucester draggers were now prohibited from fishing on the most productive area on George’s.

I am bringing up this ancient history because today, something similar, although without the power of a Senate ratification, is taking place over catch shares.

Convinced that catch shares will end traditional fishing in New England, the writers in Gloucester think wharf talk in Gloucester is the be-all and end-all of fisheries knowledge. 

The fact is that many fisheries have prospered tremendously with catch shares. Others have suffered problems.  The key to a successful program lies in a lot of details, including how allocations are made, how rights of others who have invested in the fishery - such as the Gloucester auction, for example - are protected, and how local fishing communities can retain their fleets and not have them scooped up by outside investors.

But Gloucester’s writers are not focusing on these issues. Instead, there is a one note symphony:  Jane Lubchenco, head of NOAA, and environmentalists have done this to us, and we are being victimized.

A few weeks ago, Gaines even quoted a couple of brothers from upstate New York, - never in the fishing industry before - who came to Gloucester and now are fishing their vessel because they love it, and are mad about the upcoming regulations.

I like to cut down trees.  Give me someone else’s forest, a chain saw, and no need to look at the property again for 50 years, and I will do just fine, for the one year I can sell the timber.  But the idea that somehow fishing is exempt from any limits is simply wrong.  And yet, the attitude reflected again and again is that the enemy is the regulation - not recognizing that the world has changed.

After the 200 mile limit got rid of the Russian fleet off New England, capital investment, encouraged by the government, poured into the industry and the capacity of the fleet exploded.  Fish finding sonar, GPS, Autopilots, rock hopper gear - suddenly anyone with a map and a memory could catch more fish than the old time high liners. 

With no plan to make things better, the economic fallout of the collapse has hit many individual families, who are no longer fishing.  Others, without access to investment partners or money to buy or lease licenses, have not been able to grow their business.  But some others have managed to be quite successful in the New England fishery for decades, running multiple boats.   In our system, we allow good businesses to thrive, and poor ones to fail.  Why should fishing be different.

Far from being a death knell, catch shares are a system that puts a firm foundation under fishing businesses.  The good ones will take advantage and thrive.  The poor ones will actually have an asset they can use to sell out -  not a trivial matter.

The writers of the Gloucester Times remind me of the scallopers in New Bedford in the early 1980’s.  Convinced that the end of their livelihood was at stake if they gave up 20% more scallop catch, they ended up losing far more.

Unless Gloucester’s fishermen and their writers can see across the Anasquam bridge to the wider world, they risk losing a lot as well.   In a time of revolutionary change in fisheries management around the world, to have leaders who stand up and say no change is simply not a viable option.   And it is not Pew or the Environmentalists who have brought this about.  It is the popularity and attention now paid to seafood, and the fact that the public, the buyers, and the industry who are there for the long term - all want to see the fishing continue at the highest possible level, forever.  And they will find a way to make it happen.

-John Sackton

'Fishing down the food web' debunked in new Scientific paper

 Fishing down the food web - the idea that fishermen target the largest species, then smaller, than the forage fish, until eventually the oceans have nothing but jellyfish, is a cornerstone belief of many environmentalists concerned about overfishing.  It was accepted without challenge at the recent Monterey Bay Aquarium Cooking for Solutions event.  It was popularized in papers by Daniel Pauly and Boris Worm, that gave the media the idea that all fish would disappear by 2048.  This idea is also the central premise behind the new movie 'End of the Line.'  A new study, published in a Canadian Journal, has debunked this theory, and shown that over 112 years in the N. Pacific, there is no evidence for fishing down the food web, and in fact the average tropic level of target species appears to have increased.   Here is the article on this which was in our news the other day, and which is being reprinted in New Zealand and elsewhere. 

Fishing down the food web debunked in new 112 year study of fish statistics

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton - June 16, 2009 - Several years ago, Dan Pauly's paper predicting extinction of commercial fisheries by 2048 was seized on by the media and many environmental groups as the raison d' tre for updending the existing practices of fisheries management, since they had led to a total depletion of the larger fish species in the oceans.

At the time, the paper was widely criticized for being a simple extrapolation of data across a wide variety of fisheries that did not take into account more recent changes in management practice.

The idea that the commercial seafood industry was going to cause the oceans to become devoid of all life but jellyfish was highly popularized under the term fishing down the food web.

The idea has become ingrained in many media stories. The basic argument is that fishermen first harvest the large fish, then the forage fish, and eventually no fish. Over time, more and more fishing is concentrated on the lower trophic levels, so eventually we are left with nothing but jellyfish.

Now, a peer-reviewed, scientific study that looked at 112 years of historical fishing records in the North Pacific, has thoroughly debunked the myth of "fishing down the food web."

Michael Litzow and Daniel Urban, from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center and the Alaska Dept. of Fish and game, respectively, writing in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science (66: 201-211 (2009)), have shown this is a false hypothesis.

They show that the fishing down the food web is localized to the history of fisheries in the North Atlantic, and that when applied to the history of fishing in the North Pacific, the effect disappears. 

Further, they say that the primary drivers of the trophic level of fisheries in major ocean basins is correlated with the size of the fishery on forage fish, which is in turn primarily driven by changes in climate and ocean conditions.

In the pacific for example, the abundance of anchovies is known to vary over time. The scientists who thought they were seeing evidence of fishing down the food chain actually were seeing anchovies come and go depending on ocean conditions - but they mistook the ratios to to deduce a false relationship between fishing at the higher trophic levels and the lower ones.

In Alaska, the authors say, over a 112 year fishery, there has been no net change in the trophic levels of the catch. The abundance of the higher trophic level fish like salmon, pollock, halibut, as remained constant over time compared to the abundance of the lower trophic fish, and in some cases increased.

Instead, the principal causes of fluctuation have been related to multi-decade scale temperature changes in the North Pacfiic.

They say "A broad consensus holds that global fisheries are poorly managed and unsustainable, and over exploitation of high trophic level stocks has been identified as a central part of this problem. However, a rigorous debate has recently played out over the exact nature of the global fisheries crisis."

"To our knowledge, our study and the study of Essington et al (2006) are the only published studies to explicitly test for declining catches of upper trophic level fish during the times when the mean trophic level of an entire fishery is declining. "

"Our results show that historical periods of declining mean trophic level in Alaskan commercial fisheries were due to increases in lower level trophic catches, rather than declines in upper trophic level catches. "

"We found that in recent decades the mean trophic level of the catch has been stable, or actually increased. " 

They go on to say that the results show that when sound fisheries management principles are applied that fisheries can exist for decades without impacting the trophic level of the harvest, completely contradicting the positions of those scientists who say trends in fishing are inexorably leading to commercial extinctions. 

This paper needs much more visibility, and it should be cited as an antidote to the claims of fishing down the food web, or that fishing will end in 2048, which serves to scare people, but is not scientifically accurate.

The fact is that the premise of the movie, End of the Line, is completely false. The issue is not that fisheries will become extinct if they continue. The issue is that poor management is a threat to the continuation of fisheries, and that poor management (such as is the case with bluefin tuna and Big eye tuna) should be targeted, and not the commercial industry. 

CDC says incidence of tapeworm rising due to popularity of sushi

Most people know that raw salmon, eaten for sushi, should be frozen before serving.  Freezing destroys a tapeworm parasite found in some types of salmon.  Now the CDC has published a paper saying that the incidence of tapeworm is rising in urban populations, due to the growing popularity of sushi and sashimi.  Here is the article we wrote about this today in Seafood.com News.   Popularity of sushi has led to increase in tape worm infections in urban populations

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton - June 17, 2009 - Tapeworm parasites transmitted from eating raw salmon used to be endemic in some rural areas of Japan. However, researchers now say that the global popularity of sushi has led to an increase in tapeworm infestation in urban populations who eat more raw fish. In some species of pacific salmon, which are used by tapeworms as part of their life cycle, the eggs can be killed by freezing.  The paper, published by the CDC in the current edition of its Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal, says 'the incidence of human infection with the broad tapeworm Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense has been increasing in urban areas of Japan and in European countries.  A recent surge of clinical cases highlights a change in the epidemiological trend of this tapeworm disease from one of rural populations to a disease of urban populations worldwide who eat seafood as part of a healthy diet. The graph shows the increasing incidence of tape worm associated with eating raw salmon that has been recorded among some populations. "Annual incidence rates of the clinical cases show an apparent surge in recent years (Figure 2). In a broad assumption that the case numbers at MZ represent all cases of this tapeworm infection in Kyoto, the average incidence in the past 20 years was 0.32 cases per 100,000 population per year, and that in 2008 was 1.0 case per 100,000 population. " "Most patients regularly ate sushi and sashimi. Approximately half could recall that they ate raw or undercooked salmon in the past 6 months. Analyses of 149 cases at MZ and BH showed that the disease occurred during all seasons but that prevalence peaked in early summer (Figure 3). Every age group was affected, from 3 to 77 years. Most patients were 20Ð59 years of age, which probably reflects more frequent consumption of sushi and sashimi by persons in this age group than in other age groups. Twice as many men than women were affected."

Gloucester Times Goes off the Deep End

This originally appeared in Seafood.com News on June 12 - JS

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton (Commentary) - June 12, 2009 - The Gloucester Times, speaking for the fishing community in Gloucester, has been on the war-path against NOAA head Jane Lubchenco and NMFS.  The events of this year, including a court injunction against NMFS groundfish management, subsequently lifted, anger at cutbacks in days at sea, and unhappiness with an ongoing investigation into the Gloucester Display Auction, have caused some to have a knee jerk reaction that any regulation or enforcement action is harmful and biased against the fishing industry. This leads to the absurdity of claiming, as one writer recently did, that the spring spawning closure, in effect for more than 20 years, was somehow responsible for low cod prices fishermen received the first week in June. Another example of this thinking going off the deep-end is the latest editorial in the Gloucester Times (link here) suggesting that the inspector general's review of NMFS enforcement should only focus on New England, not the rest of the country. The paper urges the IG to ignore Lubchenco's request for a broad national review. They say this 'not the time to expand the investigation's focus to include National Marine Fisheries Service enforcement tactics across the entire nation. That would simply delay the probe and water it down.' In the thinking of the editorial, the case is closed. NMFS will be found guilty, and Gloucester complaints will be vindicated. But in fact, the picture is much less clear. Around the rest of the country, there is not nearly the level of complaint and aggression against NMFS enforcement as there is in New England. New England is thought to be the region with the highest non-compliance with fisheries regulations, and also has a regional management council that is the most out of step with national NMFS policy, repeatedly clashing with NMFS.  Some in Gloucester say the problem is entirely the making of NMFS, and that the fault lies with the regional administrator, Patricia Kurkul, and overly aggressive enforcement. And perhaps they are right, and IG investigation may show this.  But Lubchenco is more right to call for a national review. The only way to evaluate whether NMFS enforcement in New England is out of step is to determine whether NOAA acts differently in New England than in the rest of the country. If the probe finds instead that NOAA actions are consistent, and that the New England industry has a history of fighting compliance, it would point to the fact that the problem lies not in the rules or enforcement, but in the decent into outright war between harvesters in New England and NMFS. This question cannot be answered by focusing only on New England where there are problems. The Gloucester call to short circuit the national investigation is self-serving, because it would prevent any consideration of regional differences in compliance, which might make NMFS enforcement not the culprit, or as guilty, as they have already been declared in Gloucester. I for one want to see Lubchenco stick to her guns, and help bring New England more into line with the systems in use in the rest of the U.S. for fisheries management and enforcement, so long as they are fair and equitable.

IATTC and big-eye tuna: a glass half full (editorial comment)

(this editorial appeared in Seafood.com News on Monday, June 15th)

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton - June 15, 2009 - The ISSF has correctly decided that the initial steps taken by the IATTC to finally begin conservation measures for big-eye tuna represent a glass half full, not a glass half empty.  The RFMO failed to adopt the conservation measures proposed by its scientific staff, but it did adopt measures that would provide conservation benefits, in terms of reduction of fishing pressure, by about 20%, rather than the 30% recommended.  The group also did not vote a binding recommendation at the meeting, but voted ad referendum, which allows the individual governments to state by July 15th whether they will abide by the resolution or not.  In a move that ISSF vice-president Bill Fox called "brilliant", the chair also followed the ad referendum vote with another vote, this time a recommendation embracing the same conservation measures. This vote passed 15-0, with every country on the commission but Colombia supporting the measure. Fox says this means that regardless of the action of Colombia by July 15th, there will be a conservation measure in place. The only question is whether Colombia will abide by it.  The ISSF and WWF (International Seafood Sustainability Foundation and World Wildlife Federation) represents the most significant conservation development in the seafood industry since the founding of the Marine Stewardship Council. In this case, purse seine tuna canners - representing about 70% of global capacity - have come together to demand effective management measures of global tuna stocks.  The group formed on the initiative of Bumble-Bee and other major canners, after spectacular failures on the part of RFMO's to manage bluefin tuna (not a species handled by canners) and Big-Eye, which is overfished in the Eastern tropical pacific, but no actions were being taken.  The tactic of the ISSF was to pledge to refuse to buy red-listed products, which can be species without effective conservation management, or which can by species from outlaw countries that refuse to abide by conservation measures adopted by the RFMO's.  What happened at the IATTC meeting was that Colombia became isolated, as the only tuna fishing country in the Eastern Pacific that is refusing to say whether it will abide by collective conservation measures or not.  The reason this glass is half full is that the outcome of the meeting, while not a 100% win for the ISSF, left them in a very strong position.  If Colombia does not abide by the conservation resolutions of the IATTC (something it has the right to do under current international law), the ISSF member companies should initiate a boycott of purchases of Colombian caught tuna.  There is no reason to allow an outlaw fishing nation to continue to profit from overfishing while other member countries take steps to control their fishing effort.  The campaign against Colombia, should the country decide to flout the will of the international community on tuna conservation, should include not simply private efforts of the major canners to boycott Colombia's fish, but should also include legal steps to prevent the import of fish from Colombia under the blacklisting and other regulations coming into force under the U.S. Magnuson Act.  The Act already gives NOAA the power to restrict imports from individual vessels that are blacklisted by the regional RFMO's as violating fishery restrictions. It seems like it would be a small step to extend that to an entire country's vessels if that country was acting in an outlaw fashion.  The stakes for Colombia are very high, and the ISSF had a key role in setting up this situation.  Finally, the advantage of this approach is it puts the onus on the real obstructionists. Instead of fighting the IATTC for being ineffective, the ISSF and WWF strategy, along with the broad support among 15 out of 16 countries of the IATTC, has created a situation where the target will become Colombia's outlaw industry if it refuses to abide by these conservation measures; not the IATTC itself.  This is not a perfect outcome, nor the end of the matter, as ISSF president Susan Jackson said. The IATTC did not adopt their scientific staff recommendations, but instead watered them down by approximately 1/3. But the meeting did set in motion a different approach to tuna conservation, one which has the potential to bring all global tuna stocks under effective conservation management in the future.  -John Sackton