Protecting Pacific forage fish: Pacific Fishery Management Council initiative

[agentaqua]

This is a US initiative, but nonetheless may impact certain areas of Canada - esp. near the Southern border w Washington State. South Island fishermen may be interested in getting involved.

http://www.pewenvironment.org/uploa...pff-april2013-pfmc-ecosystem-plan-release.pdf

Pew Trusts is promoting a campaign to advocate implementation of the new fishery ecosystem plan, that the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) adopted in it’s April 2013 meeting. This plan includes an Unmanaged Forage Fish Protection Initiative.

From the Pew Trusts website: "In the past year, the PFMC http://www.pcouncil.org/ has started to implement an ecosystem-based approach to managing fisheries that will increase protections for these important fish, thanks largely to the fact that the council has heard from thousands of people like you. Encourage the council to finish the job by protecting forage fish now.

For those interested in contributing/advocating - Pew Trusts has posted an online form at:

http://advocacy.pewenvironment.org/...1793&ea.campaign.id=22235&ea.tracking.id=Blog

The PFMC initiative can be reviewed at: http://www.pcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/FEP_Initiatives_Appendix_for_web.pdf

From the PFMC website: "The purpose of the Fishery Ecosystem Plan is to enhance the Council’s fishery management with more ecosystem science and to allow broader consideration of ecosystem factors – for example, the food web, climate change, human interactions with fisheries, and habitat. The plan will not replace the Council’s four fishery management plans (for salmon, groundfish, highly migratory species, and coastal pelagic species), but will deliberately insert additional ecosystem science and factors into the decisionmaking on fishing seasons that occurs under those plans. The new Plan also mandates an annual “State of the Ecosystem” report to the Council to be made at March Council meetings each year.

Several new ecosystem initiatives are connected to the plan. The first relates to protecting currently unmanaged forage fish due to their importance in the marine ecosystem. The Council is not pursuing a permanent moratorium on fishing for forage fish; rather it intends to prohibit the development of new, directed fisheries on forage species that are not currently managed by the Council or states, until the impacts of any proposed fishery can be fully understood."

Status report including stock assessment for PACIFIC COAST COASTAL PELAGIC SPECIES FISHERY AND RECOMMENDED ACCEPTABLE BIOLOGICAL CATCHES listed at: http://www.pcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2011_CPS_SAFE_Text_FINAL.pdf

amounts forage fishes currently taken as by-catch listed in: http://www.pcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2011_CPS_SAFE_tables_Appendix_A_FINAL.pdf

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2015/03/west_coast_fishery_managers_da.html

West Coast fishery managers days away from landmark decision on forage fish
schooling sardines

New rules under consideration by the Pacific Fishery Management Council could restrict new forage fisheries along the West Coast. Existing fisheries like sardines, seen schooling in this photo, would not be affected. (Photo courtesy of The Associated Press/1998)

Print Kelly House | The Oregonian/OregonLive By Kelly House | The Oregonian/OregonLive

on March 05, 2015 at 2:00 PM, updated March 05, 2015 at 2:01 PM

West coast fishery managers are poised to make a decision next week that could alter the future of fishing in federal waters off the Pacific Coast, as well as in Oregon's state-regulated nearshore waters.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council is scheduled to vote Monday on a proposal to restrict new forage fisheries off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington unless prospective fishermen can prove harvesting a new species would not damage the ecosystem.

"It's really a visionary move," said Paul Shively, who manages the Pew Charitable Trusts' Pacific Ocean conservation efforts. "This puts the ocean first."

The restrictions would apply to federal waters, which exist from three to 200 miles offshore. If the plan gains approval, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will pursue new regulations to mirror the federal ban, agency spokeswoman Jessica Sall said.

Forage fish, also referred to as baitfish, exist at the bottom of the marine food chain. They include species such as herring, sardines, smelt and sandlance. As some of the most abundant fish in the oceans and a crucial food source for species farther up the food chain, they're vital to the marine ecosystem's overall health.

Monday's decision, which is expected to gain easy approval, is the commission's first test of a new strategy to make management decisions with the entire ecosystem in mind, rather than based upon impacts to individual fish species.

The commission in 2013 adopted a Fishery Ecosystem Plan and made a list of several issues they could take up with an eye on ecosystem-wide health. The forage fish decision was first on the list. Future decisions could address how fishing affects age and size distributions of fish, how to reduce bycatch in fisheries, and climate change's impact on fisheries.

If the new rules gain approval, existing forage fisheries along the West Coast will not be impacted. But those looking to start up new fisheries could not do so without first proving the fishery would not adversely affect the ecosystem.

Under existing West Coast rules, fishermen who want to start a new forage fishery need only notify the authorities and wait 90 days. If they don't get a response, they're clear to begin fishing with no catch limits.

The proposed new regulations have broad support among sport fishermen and small-boat commercial fishermen, who depend upon healthy forage fish populations to feed the larger species they target.

"They know they need bait in the water to catch the fish they make their livelihood on," Shively said.

If the new rules gain the commission's approval Monday, they'll need further consent from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Secretary of Commerce. That could take several months.

--Kelly House

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.onearth.org/earthwire/sa...e=fb&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=socialmedia
SAVE THE BAIT BALLS!
A new rule for the Pacific will protect many of its little swimmers.

BY SUSAN COSIER | @SUSANCOSIER | 2 hours ago
<iframe width="730" height="456" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0t7izDYof3k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Among the earth's most spectacular natural phenomena is a feeding frenzy around a bait ball (see video). Marine fauna of all stripes—birds, sharks, squid, rays, fish, dolphins, and whales—get together to feast on schools of tiny silver swimmers called forage fish. And because they are so important to so much sea life, those little fishies just got a big boost from the government. The Pacific Fishery Management Council, the federal agency that oversees West Coast fisheries, decided yesterday to outlaw hauling seven types of forage fish to shore.

Sardines, mackerel, anchovies, and others already account for more than one-third of the global catch each year, and demand is on the rise (humans love to grind up these guys for fish-oil pills and fishmeal for farmed salmon and our cats).

If approved, the rule wouldn’t apply to existing fisheries. So sorry, Pacific sardines, your plummeting populations may continue to spiral and spin and spiral until that huge whale of extinction suddenly appears and gobbles you up.

Illustration by the Pew Charitable Trusts

 

[Sangstercraft]

Managing a fishery based on science and not politics?! What an idea! Let's hope it gets traction up here soon.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/researc...15/03/fishing-amplifies-forage-fish-collapses
Fishing Amplifies Forage Fish Collapses
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tPva5OuOOLM?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Study shows that natural fluctuations do not explain population data
April 06, 2015
Ocean Science
A new study shows for the first time that fishing likely worsens population collapses in a group of small but important species known as forage fish. Some of the largest fisheries in the world target forage fish, such as anchovies and sardines. These “baitfish” are also a key source of food for larger marine animals, including tuna, salmon, seabirds, and whales.

Scientists have long known about wide fluctuations in the abundance of forage fish, including the occasional population collapse. But they had not figured out whether collapses were entirely natural or were related to fishing.

Pew marine fellow Tim Essington of the University of Washington and his colleagues reviewed a large global data set of 55 forage fish stocks. Of these, 27 had collapsed at some point, meaning that they had fallen to a quarter or less of their average biomass. To investigate whether fishing was involved, the researchers asked two questions.

First, what was happening before and during the collapse? They found that fishing was particularly intense, about 50 to 200 percent higher than the average rate. (See Figure 1.) The population’s growth rate was plummeting at the same time, but this drop could explain only a small number of the collapses.

That pattern suggests that fishing is triggering or exacerbating collapses, but it is only one piece of evidence. So the researchers posed a second question: Do these collapses follow a pattern that would be expected as part of a natural cycle?

One way to answer that would be to compare the forage fish stocks with other stocks that are not fished. However, no reliable, long-term data exist to track the abundance of unfished stocks.

The researchers instead compared the forage fish fluctuations to simulations of natural, random fluctuations. To generate these simulations, they used the magnitudes and frequencies of fluctuation in each of the 55 stocks in the data set.

They produced 1,000 simulations based on the assumption that the 55 stocks fluctuated randomly, but with the same amplitude and frequency observed in the real data. They found that collapses were more common in the real stocks than in 97 percent of the simulations, leading them to conclude that fishing is a likely contributor to forage fish collapses.

Forage fish eventually rebound, but the collapses deprive other species of food and fishermen of income for as long as the population is depressed.

As with other studies, this research suggests that precautionary management may be particularly important with forage fish. But this study went further, using simulations to look at a specific management strategy: suspending fishing when a population falls to less than half of its long-term average. They found that this strategy would prevent 64 percent of collapses but would reduce the average catch by only 2 percent over the long term. (See Figure 2.)

http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/Assets/2015/03/FishingAmplifiesForageFishCollapses.pdf?la=en

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/04/01/1422020112.full.pdf

Fishing amplifies forage fish population collapses
Timothy E. Essingtona,1, Pamela E. Moriartya, Halley E. Froehlicha, Emma E. Hodgsona, Laura E. Koehna, Kiva L. Okenb,
Margaret C. Siplea, and Christine C. Stawitzb
aSchool of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and bQuantitative Ecology and Resource Management, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
Edited by Peter M. Kareiva, The Nature Conservancy, Seattle, WA, and approved March 2, 2015 (received for review November 18, 2014)

Forage fish support the largest fisheries in the world but also play key roles in marine food webs by transferring energy from plankton to upper trophic-level predators, such as large fish, seabirds, and marine mammals. Fishing can, thereby, have far reaching consequences onmarine food webs unless safeguards are in place to avoid depleting forage fish to dangerously low levels, where dependent predators are most vulnerable. However, disentangling the contributions of fishing vs. natural processes on population dynamics has been difficult because of the sensitivity of these stocks to environmental conditions. Here, we overcome this difficulty by collating population time series for forage fish populations that account for nearly two-thirds of global catch of forage fish to identify the fingerprint of fisheries on their population dynamics. Forage fish population collapses shared a set of common and unique characteristics: high fishing pressure for several years before collapse, a sharp drop in natural population productivity, and a lagged response to reduce fishing pressure. Lagged response to natural productivity declines can sharply amplify the magnitude of naturally occurring population fluctuations. Finally, we show that the magnitude and frequency of collapses are greater than expected from natural productivity characteristics and therefore, likely attributed to fishing. The durations of collapses, however, were not different from those expected based on natural productivity shifts. A risk-based management scheme that reduces fishing when populations become scarce would protect forage fish and their predators from collapse with little effect on long-term average catches.

 

[agentaqua]

https://swfsc.noaa.gov/news.aspx?ParentMenuId=39&id=20263


Sardine Assessment Shows Cyclic Decline in Population

Fisheries Resources Division, 4/16/2015 09:11:50 AM




Pacific sardines are known for wide swings in their population: the small, highly productive species multiplies quickly in good conditions and can decline sharply at other times, even in the absence of fishing. Scientists have worked for decades to understand those swings, including a decline in the last few years that led to the Pacific Fishery Management Council's The previous link is a link to Non-Federal government web site. Click to review NOAA Fisheries Disclaimer recommendation on April 13th to suspend commercial sardine fishing off the West Coast for the first time in decades..

An updated stock assessment The previous link is a link to Non-Federal government web site. Click to review NOAA Fisheries Disclaimer by NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC) was the basis for the Council's action. Stock assessments are research tools that estimate the status and size of the sardine population. The Council uses the assessments to set fishing quotas.

Models that support the sardine assessment combine NOAA data on past and current abundance of sardine eggs, larvae and mature fish with other data on sardine biology and fishery catches. The data on sardine abundance come from two SWFSC research vessel surveys conducted off the West Coast each year.


These surveys employ two methods to estimate the current size of the sardine population. They use underwater acoustic equipment (like sonar) to estimate the size of fish schools, followed by the use of trawl nets to verify the species comprising the schools. Additionally, the surveys employ devices that measure the density of sardine eggs in the water as a gauge of sardine spawning. Scientists can then calculate how large the spawning population must be to produce the measured density of sardine eggs.

These data feed a computer model to estimate sardine population trends and provide the foundation for projections of the total population of sardines off the West Coast in the next fishing year.

“The assessment produced this year suggests that cool ocean water temperatures off the West Coast beginning around 2007 may have reduced the survival of juvenile sardine resulting in a population decline”, said Kevin Hill, a fisheries biologist who oversees the stock assessment for the SWFSC. The number of surviving young fish appears to have dropped to the lowest levels in recent history and has likely remained low in 2014. This has led to a steady decline in the fishable sardine stock biomass, which is defined as the total volume of sardines at least one year old. This is the measure the Council relies on when setting fishing quotas.

“The environment is a very strong driver of stock productivity. If ocean conditions are not favorable, there may be successful spawning, but fewer young fish survive to actually join the population,” Hill said. “Small pelagic fish like sardine and anchovy undergo large natural fluctuations even in the absence of fishing. You can have the best harvest controls in the world but you’re not going to prevent the population from declining when ocean conditions change in an unfavorable way.”

The current decline adds to a series of ups and downs that illustrate the boom-and-bust nature of sardine populations. The sardine biomass rose from about 300,000 metric tons in 2004 to a high point of more than 1 million in 2008 and is predicted to decrease to an estimated 97,000 metric tons by this coming July.

Because of these swings in sardine populations, the Council’s management framework for sardines includes built-in mitigation measures and safeguards to exponentially reduce fishing pressure as the stock declines. One of these Council measures is a cessation in directed fishing on sardines when the biomass falls below 150,000 metric tons. “The fishing cutoff point is included in the guidelines adopted by the Council and is designed to maintain a stable core population of sardines that can jump-start a new cycle of population growth when oceanic conditions turn around,” Hill said.

In the course of reviewing the 2015 updated assessment, it became evident that the final model used in the 2014 assessment did not correspond to the best fit to the data. The data were reanalyzed and a better fit to the 2014 model was achieved. This re-examination resulted in a lower 2014 biomass estimate of 275,705 metric tons, down from the previous estimate of 369,506 metric tons, which is still above the fishing cutoff value of 150,000 metric tons.

The revised model applied to the 2015 assessment resulted in a biomass estimate of 97,000 metric tons, which is below the fishing cutoff. As a result, the Council decided to close the 2015-2016 sardine fishing season and requested that NOAA Fisheries close the remainder of the 2014-2015 sardine fishing season. The sardine population is presently not overfished and overfishing is not occurring; however, the continued lack of recruitment observed in the past few years could decrease the population, even without fishing pressure.

The NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada is currently conducting a new sardine survey off the West Coast to collect updated information on the size and location of the sardine stock. In addition, a large-scale 80-day survey this summer will collect data on sardine and whiting (hake) populations from the Mexican border to Canada. This new information will support the next stock assessment SWFSC prepares for the Council and NOAA fisheries managers.

Learn more:

Pacific sardine stock assessment
Executive summary The previous link is a link to Non-Federal government web site. Click to review NOAA Fisheries Disclaimer
Full report The previous link is a link to Non-Federal government web site. Click to review NOAA Fisheries Disclaimer

In the Field: Spring Sardine Survey 2015

Pacific Fishery Management Council Coastal Pelagic Species The previous link is a link to Non-Federal government web site. Click to review NOAA Fisheries Disclaimer

California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI)

Video – Coastwide Sardine Survey

Green Seas Blue Seas – Interactive Guide to the California Current

For more information, please contact: Michael.Milstein@noaa.gov or Jim.Milbury@Noaa.gov (West Coast Regional Office Public Affairs), Dale.Sweetnam@noaa.gov (Southwest Fisheries Science Center) and Joshua.Lindsay@noaa.gov (West Coast Regional Office)