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Fisheries: more funding, onboard observers needed to count
Ocean Threats: Dirty Fishing - Bycatch
Michael Burnham, Greenwire reporter
5th November 2003
Greenwire
Amid depleting stock in the nation's fisheries and other non-commercial marine life, a new report calls on Congress to invest more money to place independent observers aboard fishing vessels to record how much non-commercial bycatch is harvested and discarded at sea.
The dumping of bycatch, labelled "dirty fishing" by environmentalists, has resulted in unnecessary harm to numerous endangered and threatened species, including birds, marine mammals and sea turtles, according to the report released Tuesday, 4th November 2003 by Oceana. Adding to the problem, according to Oceana, is the federal government's failure to adequately catalogue bycatch information as part of a broader sustainable fisheries policy. Oceana recommends that independent observers be dispatched to monitor fisheries accounting for 20 percent of common species such as haddock and cod and 50 percent of rare species such as white marlin and Atlantic halibut.
"While the exact level of coverage required for a particular fishery would depend on the distribution of the discard and catch species, it is clear that in order to accurately access bycatch, rare species require substantially higher levels of coverage than common species," the report states.
With just 20 observer systems to cover about 300 U.S. fisheries, the Oceana recommendation would come with a price tag of between $50 million and $100 million annually, according to the report's estimate. While there has been a moderate increase of federal funding for fishery observer programs since the mid-1990s, Oceana marine wildlife scientist Charlotte Hudson contends funding increases "have a long way to go.” The Bush administration, in its FY '04 appropriations request for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), has asked Congress for almost $23 million for the national observer programs, up about $9.2 million from the $13.8 million budget in FY '03. The Senate has earmarked $22.9 million for the programs in its budget proposal, while the House spending plan sets aside about $17 million for the programs.
In addition to proposing the first federal observer standards, the report focuses on how observer bias affects bycatch counts. A central assumption among the researchers is that fishermen's behaviour in the presence of observers is different than when they are alone. Therefore, the report recommends that comparing the catches of observed and unobserved vessel trips should be an ongoing component of any observer program. "To avoid bias caused by non-representative sampling, observers must be allocated randomly or systematically across the fishery," contends the report, which will be shared with NMFS, the fisheries industry and Congress.
Peter Baker of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fisherman's Association lauded the report's call for more onboard observers, but said other steps must also be taken to reduce bycatch, such as new designs for nets and other fishing equipment and changing long-held practices for harvesting fish. For example, the New England fisherman's association is in the early stages of a three-month study aimed at reducing bycatch aboard boats fishing for haddock. By switching bait from squid to herring, study participants are able to reduce cod bycatch to less than 5 percent of total take, Baker said. "It's not just a matter of being able to protect endangered stock -- it's a matter of knowing what species are killed most," Baker said.
The Oceana report comes just before the annual meeting of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration and the eight regional fisheries councils. A major focus of the Nov. 13-15 meeting will be whether regional councils are adequately addressing bycatch issues.
According United Nations figures cited by Oceana, roughly 25 percent of all marine catch worldwide -- accounting for 44 billion pounds of fish and other animals -- is considered waste.
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