LOOKING BYCATCH IN THE EYE

 When we talk about fisheries issues, bycatch is always somewhere in the conversation.

Sometimes, we call bycatch by different names, such as “regulatory discards,” which are fish that fishermen can’t keep for legal reasons; they might be too small, or out of season, or in excess of an applicable trip limit.  Or we might refer to another sort of bycatch as “economic discards,” which are fish of the same species that fishermen are trying to catch, but are dumped overboard because they are of an undesirable size, quality, etc.

Whatever we call it, people generally agree that bycatch is bad. 

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act contains ten National Standards for Fishery Conservation and Management.  National Standard 9 states that

“Conservation and management measures shall, to the extent practicable, (A) minimize bycatch and (B) to the extent bycatch cannot be avoided, minimize the mortality of such bycatch.”

Whether the regional fishery management councils are really adhering to that national standard is very much open to debate.

I was reminded of that a few days ago, when I was shark fishing south of Long Island, New York.

I had taken out a group of researchers from Stony Brook University, who were hoping to deploy acoustic tags in various coastal shark species, and to take various samples from such fish before they were released.  We had already worked up a couple of sandbar sharks, when another line went off and, before long, another sandbar shark was secured alongside the boat.

But this fish was different.  It almost looked like someone had tried to cut off its head with a hacksaw.

Deep lesions appeared on the shark’s back and sides, although the worst were extended from its gills to its throat, where deep cuts on the right and left sides nearly joined in the center.  I had caught sharks with deep lesions before, but in those cases, the cause had always been clear; the fish had been hooked on recreational fishing gear or commercial longlines, had either broken off or been carelessly released, and ended up wrapped in yards of leader and fishing line, which eventually eroded the skin and cut into the flesh.

But there was no hook in this particular sandbar, and neither line nor leader encircled its body; except for the deep wounds, it was in pristine shape.  Although we couldn’t be completely sure, it appeared that the fish had run afoul of a large-mesh gillnet, probably one set for monkfish; I had seen such gillnets set before close to the area where we were fishing, although none were evident that day.  It was impossible to know whether the shark managed to free itself, or whether the gillnetter found it alive and managed to let it go.

Whatever the case, a photo of that one sandbar shark does a good job of taking the sterile term “bycatch” and turning it into something with a little more emotional resonance.  Bycatch, one sees, is clearly not good.

Sandbar sharks are overfished, and so are designated a “prohibited” species that may not be retained by recreational fishermen, and may only be kept by commercial fishermen under very carefully controlled circumstances.  At the same time, anecdotal evidence suggests that their numbers are increasing, and the stock isn’t under immediate threat.  Thus, while sandbar bycatch in monkfish nets should be avoided if possible, it’s not an existential threat to the species.

That might not be the case with Atlantic sturgeon.  The New York Bight population segment, as well as three others, has been listed as “Endangered” under the federal Endangered Species Act, and they are frequently encountered in the monkfish gillnet fishery.  The “Completion Report” for a three-year Sturgeon Gillnet Study reported that

“bycatch in sink-gillnets was a significant hurdle to Atlantic sturgeon recovery.”

The report went on to note that

“During 2012 we compared [a] low profile net configuration (eight meshes tied-down to two) which reduced Atlantic sturgeon bycatch with minimal impact the landings of targeted species.  Our findings suggest that the use of tie-downs is important for maintaining adequate catches of target species, and that certain tie-down configurations can reduce Atlantic sturgeon bycatch.  Additionally, experimental testing of gear developed by harvesters allows for the identification of gear configurations that both address conservation objectives and are realistic for use in commercial harvest.”

Gear that both reduces the bycatch of endangered sturgeon and maintains monkfish harvest levels sounds like a win-win, and one might expect the New England and Mid-Atlantic fishery management councils, which are jointly responsible for monkfish management, to require the use of low-profile nets in the monkfish gillnet fishery.  Yet an examination of federal regulations demonstrates that, nearly ten years after the study was completed, no such requirement exists.

Thus, sturgeon bycatch continues, and dead sturgeon continue to wash up on New York beaches, in large enough numbers that the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation engages in an “Atlantic Sturgeon Salvage Program,” and has constructed a web page instructing the public on what to do when they find a dead sturgeon.u

Despite National Standard 9, it doesn’t seem that the regional fishery management councils are doing all that they can to minimize sturgeon bycatch, and no one seems to be all that concerned.

Once in a while, a dead sturgeon, or a wounded shark, might appear to remind us of the bycatch problem, but much—perhaps most—bycatch takes place out at sea, where there is no one around to  notice what’s going on.  Federal fisheries observers are supposed to detect such problems, but there’s no guarantee that fishermen are going to behave the same way with an observer on board as they do when they’re out and all alone.

That issue was recently cited, as one among many problems besetting the northeastern cod fishery, in a petition that the Conservation Law Foundation filed with the National Marine Fisheries Service.  As NMFS recently stated in the Federal Register.

“CLF’s petition also alleges that inadequate at-sea monitoring coverage in the sector fishery has failed to provide sufficiently accurate and precise data to prevent and end overfishing or rebuild the cod stocks.  CLF asserts that inadequate monitoring coverage targets, coupled with low quotas, have created incentives for the fishing industry to illegally discard and misreport cod catch.  Additionally, CLF relies on recent analyses in the development of Amendment 23 to the Northeast Multispecies [Fishery Management Plan] indicating that there is an observer effect in the Northeast multispecies fishery.  This observer effect could mean observed trips are not representative of unobserved trips.  CLF also states that, without accurate and precise catch data, managers cannot appropriately apply the accountability measures that are designed to prevent overfishing.”

The Conservation Law Foundation’s proposed solution to such regulatory discard issue is 100% observer coverage on vessels engaged in the Northeast groundfish fishery, that might encounter cod in the course of their fishing activities.

That’s probably the only realistic way to address the problem of “observer effect,” but given the cost of observer coverage, there’s likely to be very substantial resistance to the proposal, National Standard 9 be damned.

If the Conservation Law Foundation is right, reducing the current bycatch—what we might term “cryptic discards”—might be critical to the cod’s recovery, although most people don’t think about it, because it happens out at sea and out of sight.

On the other hand, when a big bycatch event occurs close to shore, people—and particularly anglers—tend to exaggerate its impact.  That’s particularly true when the bycatch is composed of striped bass floating behind a squid trawler off Martha’s Vineyard or Montauk, or dumped by a trawler off North Carolina, that has caught far more than the 50 bass that it’s allowed to land in a day.

 

Yet the most recent benchmark stock assessment for striped bass indicates that only 2% of all striped bass fishing mortality is attributable to commercial discards.

However, many of the same anglers that are quick to point fingers at commercial bycatch are far less eager to call out the losses caused by regulatory discards in the recreational fishery, such as the notorious fields of “floaters” that pop up down-tide of the recreational fleet participating in Maryland’s summer striped bass fishery.  That’s true even though the same stock assessment found that recreational release mortality accounts for nearly half of striped bass fishing mortality.

The bottom line is that bycatch is ugly whenever you see it, and just as ugly—and, sometimes, even more destructive—when you don’t.  Yet regulators, at both the state and federal levels, have yet to show a real commitment to minimizing bycatch-related removals.

It’s well past time for that to change.