November 13, 1998

Dear Mr. Rittgers:

We offer the following comments on 1999 specifications for summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass fisheries, as published in the Fed. Reg. 63(203):56135-56139.

You propose to adopt a TAL of 18.518 million lbs. for 1999. You rejected the Council/ASMFC TAL of 20.20 million lbs. because it was "unacceptably risk-prone." We suggest that the 20.20 million lbs. TAL is no more risk-prone than your proposed TAL.

One basis for your conclusion was a 3 percent probability of achieving the target F of 0.24 in 1999. The 3% argument to justify going to a lower TAL (although not much lower) is unconvincing. The 3% originates from an assessment bootstrap procedure to evaluate precision of estimates (F and SSB) and to calculate probabilities. This procedure is a clever approach for getting something out of nothing. Bootstrapping is a resampling technique that uses the same numbers over and over again to get an answer that cannot be obtained in any other way. It involves resampling a sample so that one available sample gives rise to all the others. This procedure gives the false impression that we can precisely calculate the odds of hitting our target. We cannot.

Nevertheless, we do agree that there is a low probability of achieving an F of 0.24 in 1999; 0% probability is more likely. After all, the recreational fishery may have landed as much as 14-15 million lbs. in 1998. Your 3% figure is with an assumed 1998 recreational fishery landings of 7.4 million lbs. Furthermore, North Carolina has been given another 400,000 lbs. for 1998 by Judge Doumar. And, like every year, discarding in 1998 (regulatory discards) probably was very high.

Your 18.518 million lbs. TAL corresponds to a 1999 F of 0.31 (NEFSC analysis). The Council’s TAL is supposed to produce a 1999 F of about 0.33. We seem to be debating a very small difference. With either of these TALs, expected spawning stock biomass is just about the same (see attached figure).

Frankly, the bigger issue is not whether the TAL should be 18.518 or 20.20 million lbs. The issue is how to get fishing mortality under control. The Council has never hit its F-target. F always has been greatly exceeded. As a result, commercial quotas continue to remain relatively low, and for the Commonwealth this has caused a continuation of a very low annual state allocation with our having little hope for higher quotas in the future. The Commonwealth’s acceptance in 1992 of our small 6.8% share for 1993 and beyond was contingent on anticipated stock rebuilding by at least the last year of the recovery schedule (1998!) and a state quota far more than 1 million lbs. Now, we’re faced with a quota of 509,427 lbs. for a directed fishery and 248,414 lbs. as bycatch. Are we evolving to a fishery that is predominantly bycatch? This is not the intention of the Council or ASMFC. This year Massachusetts had 616,638 lbs. for a directed fishery with 15% (108,818 lbs.) set aside for bycatch. With your proposal, our directed fishery must suffer another cut, a cut of 107,211 lbs.

Next year promises to be even worse for fluke management in our state. Our relatively small quota, getting smaller every year, continues to force us to make increasingly difficult allocation decisions. We don’t mind making these decisions when fishing mortality is under control, and we can see some long term benefit to our state. As yet, we see no benefit now or in the foreseeable future for commercial fishermen who struggle to deal with shorter and shorter fluke fishing seasons we are obliged to impose.

Now, NMFS suggests we tell these same fishermen that Massachusetts’ allocation is being shortened even more through an increased set-aside for bycatch (32.7% in 1999 vs 15% this year). No wonder commercial fishermen landing fluke in Massachusetts feel the Council and ASMFC have failed them. On the flip side, recreational fishermen are pleased; there has been an unintended allocation of fluke in Massachusetts from commercial to recreational fishermen. With our very long closed season for fluke commercial fishing in Massachusetts, fluke remain abundant throughout the summer and fall, and recreational fishermen are the beneficiaries.

We urge you to set the TAL for 1999 at 20.20 million lbs. and to continue the 15% set-aside. The set-aside should not be increased from 15% to 22% (Council/Board recommendation) until it can be demonstrated that the concept works. There has been no evaluation of the success of the 15% set-aside for reducing discards. The benefits of an additional 7% or 18% set-aside have not been proven. Furthermore, we are concerned that the set-aside strategy is a way to justify current quotas thereby avoiding needed discussion on the best way to reduce discard and to effectively control fishing mortality.

Finally, if NMFS really is concerned that the Council not adopt a risk-prone TAL for 1999, you’d insist that new information regarding expected total landings in 1998 be considered in the TAL calculation, e.g., perhaps an overage of 7-8 million lbs. in the recreational fishery and the North Carolina add-on of 400,000 mt. We suspect such a recalculation would cause the TAL to plummet since F in 1998 must have been much higher than the target.

Once again we raise concerns about scup discards and the procedure for determining period quotas. The Council has decided that discards should not exceed 2.085 million lbs. in 1999. Accordingly, this "allowable" amount of scup discard will be subtracted from the TAC of 4.6 million lbs. to produce the commercial fishery quota for 1999. Discards for 1998 were estimated to be 4 million lbs., four times the amount the Council "allowed" for 1997. Please take note: estimated discards in 1998 are almost double the 1999 quota of 2.534 million lbs.! This must trouble NMFS, as it does DMF. We continue to feel unfairly and inequitably treated by the scup management approach that still does not effectively deal with the horrendous scup discard problem primarily attributable to fisheries that do not target scup, e.g., squid. We repeat here our Amendment 12 comments to Chris Moore regarding discard:

Subtracting a discard "target" from the TAC does little to nothing in reducing discard. Witness the 4 million lbs. of estimated discard for 1998. The directed fishery is impacted, not the small-mesh fisheries mainly responsible for discard (100% mortality). We find this impact especially objectionable because our inshore fishery has a very low discard mortality. Our inshore fishery is primarily with hook-and-line, weirs, and scup pots. By the way, this 4 million lbs. of discard in 1998 is a serious underestimate. Of course, no one can predict the amount of discard with certainty, but 158,000 lbs. in 3 hours of towing makes for a convincing argument that 4 million is the tip of the iceberg..

You indicate that by dropping the threshold trigger from 4,000 lbs. to 200 lbs. (winter) and from 1,000 lbs. to 100 lbs. (summer), discard of 2.085 million lbs. will occur, not 4 million lbs. Where is the analyses that supports this contention? When the Council set the 4,000/1,000 lbs. triggers a few years ago, its justification was discard reduction. Now, there appears to be a reversal of logic: lower triggers will reduce discards by a large amount (about 2 million lbs.). There is no explanation for this flip-flop. We argue that reducing the threshold will increase discard because fishermen will have to discard most legal-sized scup they retain while fishing for squid, the favored target species. With this proposal juveniles and legal scup will be discarded. The argument that a lower trigger will prompt fishermen to stay away from scup when they fish for squid is weak. These species are frequently caught together on the same offshore fishing grounds and certainly when long tows are made.

Finally, the management approach for scup begs for monitoring. We urge NMFS to devote more time and money to sea sampling, especially on board large freezer-trawlers that, to date, have escaped scrutiny. Sea sampling is absolutely necessary before the Council will consider more effective conservation measures for scup (and squid), i.e., seasonal area closures. Closures are used for groundfish, and we argue they should apply to scup and other Mid-Atlantic species (e.g., squid and butterfish). Mesh size management alone is inadequate, especially in offshore areas where enforcement is minimal. Note: NMFS has insisted on one-mesh throughout the net for summer flounder; so why does NMFS agree to scup mesh (4 ½") in the codend only?

You note that the status of the black sea bass stock is uncertain, but exploratory results indicate that stock size has increased in recent years. Be reminded that exploratory results are from a VPA that is not reliable for assessment purposes. For example, projections for 1999 stock size could not be conducted. Surplus production models also don’t work for sea bass. Therefore, we caution NMFS that a quota-based management system for sea bass has a very weak foundation. NMFS should work to improve the data base dramatically so an assessment will some day be possible. Otherwise, the Council (and ASMFC) will continue to base its decisions on little to no data.

We hope you find our comments constructive. As always, we appreciate the opportunity to comment.

cc
Daniel Furlong
Jack Dunnigan
Paul Howard
Mass. Marine Fisheries Commission

Contact: David Pierce, Division of Marine Fisheries at david.pierce@state.ma.us