Groundfish Management Research Articles

Groundfish quota prices

In 2010, the Northeast United States groundfish fishery adopted a catch share system in which Annual Catch Entitlements (quota) are allocated to groups of firms, known as sectors. The quota market has many features that differ from an ideal market: trades are facilitated by sector managers, completed trades are not easily seen by all, and both package and barter trades are common. This paper examines quota prices using a two stage econometric model. In the first stage, transactions data are used to estimate the prices of individual stocks of quota. In the second stage, a hurdle model is used to understand the determinants of quota prices. Despite the many quirks inherent in groundfish management, quota prices are affected by fundamentals in reasonable ways: increases in output prices and decreases in quota available both increase quota prices. Increases in monitoring rates also increase quota prices, evidence that at least some of the groundfish fleet is not always compliant with fishing regulations when not observed.

Long-term participation in collaborative fisheries research improves angler opinions on marine protected areas.

Recent marine spatial planning efforts, including the management and monitoring of marine protected areas (MPAs), increasingly focus on the importance of stakeholder engagement. For nearly 15 years, the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program (CCFRP) has partnered volunteer anglers with researchers, the fishing industry, and resource managers to monitor groundfishes in California’s network of MPAs. While the program has succeeded in generating sustained biological observations, we know little about volunteer angler demography or the impact of participation on their perceptions and opinions on fisheries data or MPAs. In this study we surveyed CCFRP volunteers to learn about (a) volunteer angler demographics and attitudes toward groundfish management and stock health, (b) volunteer angler motivations for joining and staying in the program, and (c) whether participation in the program influenced volunteer angler opinions on the quality of fisheries data used in resource management and the establishment of MPAs in California. CCFRP volunteers were older and had higher fishing avidity than average within the California recreational angling community. Many self-identified as more conservation-minded than their peers in the recreational fishing community and had positive views of California groundfish management and stock health. Participation in science and giving back to fisheries resources were major motivating factors in their decision to become and remain CCFRP volunteers. Angler opinions toward MPAs were more positive after volunteering with CCFRP. Those who had volunteered for seven or more years with CCFRP were more likely than not to gain a positive opinion of MPAs. Our survey results provide evidence that long-term engagement of stakeholders in collaborative research positively influences stakeholder opinions regarding marine resource management, and highlights CCFRP’s success in engaging citizen science stakeholders in collaborative fisheries research.

Fishing failure and success in the Gulf of Maine: lobster and groundfish management

This article examines the reasons management of the New England groundfishery has failed, while management of the Maine lobster industry has succeeded. After 35 years of management, groundfish stock sizes and catches are lower than ever while lobster stocks are at record high levels. We argue that the New England groundfishing industry is caught in a prisoner's dilemma from which it has failed to escape. That dilemma is due to the interaction of social, political and economic variables that have lowered the benefits of investing in rules to conserve fish stocks. The lobster industry, once marked by a piracy ethic, has been able to escape from its dilemma and, over time, develop a strong conservation ethic and institutions. Our evolutionary game theory model indicates that three sets of factors are involved in this cultural transformation of the lobster industry, which has led to support for better conservation rules and for law enforcement.

Modeling Disaster: The Failure of the Management of the New England Groundfish Industry

AbstractMost of the world's marine fisheries are overexploited or endangered, including the Gulf of Maine groundfish fishery, once one of the world's most prolific. After 35 years of management, groundfish stock sizes and catches are lower than when management began. We argue that in New England, the groundfishing industry is caught in a prisoner's dilemma caused by a large number of interactive social, political, and economic variables. These factors have (1) motivated fishermen to oppose the rules promulgated by the government (which we call the “harvest game”) and (2) lowered the benefits of investing in rules to conserve fish stocks (which we call the “rule game”). In both games, fishermen are motivated to play their dominant strategy to the detriment of the industry, conservation, and fish stocks. We suggest that the dilemma will only be solved by a change in the culture of the industry that would lead to support for a conservation ethic. Unfortunately, the current institutional framework of management does not support the development of such an ethic. Rational‐choice theory and concepts from evolutionary game theory add to our understanding of the dilemma facing those concerned with groundfish management in this region.Received March 3, 2010; accepted June 16, 2011

Broadening Participation in Fisheries Management Planning: A Tale of Two Committees

Management agencies increasingly seek to broaden stakeholder participation in fisheries decision making beyond commercial fisheries groups. This precipitates the challenge of meaningfully involving additional stakeholders without unjustifiably diminishing the role of commercial users. This research examines participants'; evaluations of one attempt to broaden but balance participation in groundfish management planning on Canada's Pacific coast. Commercial fishery and noncommercial fishery stakeholders were separated onto two advisory committees with more and less control over the design of the management plan, respectively. Respondents from the noncommercial fishery committee were accepting of this asymmetrical arrangement, provided they had sufficient opportunities to influence the design of the advisory process and define overarching objectives that would bound potential outcomes. Findings suggest several reasons that involvement in these early steps may be particularly important to meaningful participation of noncommercial fishery stakeholders within asymmetrical, multicommittee processes.

Analysis of fishery-independent hook and line-based data for use in the stock assessment of bocaccio rockfish ( Sebastes paucispinis)

Fishery-independent surveys are an important source of information for stock assessment and management worldwide. Research surveys often use trawl gear to capture commercially valuable species and calculate indices of relative abundance or density. However, many species of interest do not occur in direct contact with the bottom, or occur in areas where high-relief habitat precludes trawl operation. This paper introduces a standardized hook and line survey for rockfish conducted by NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center in the Southern California Bight. The survey uses fishing gear similar to that used in many recreational fisheries to sample approximately 120 locations covering a wide range of depths and habitats. To provide an example of how these data can be analyzed for direct inclusion in stock assessments, we standardize catch rates of bocaccio rockfish from 2004–2008 using a Bayesian Generalized Linear Model to account for site, fishing time, survey vessel, angler, and other statistically significant effects. Results indicate that the bocaccio stock vulnerable to this survey in the Southern California Bight has shown a relatively flat trend over recent years. Length frequency distributions indicate the presence of several strong cohorts that should be detectable in future stock assessments of bocaccio for use in U.S. West Coast groundfish management. This survey is the only available tuning index for the adult portion of the bocaccio population in recent years as historically used recreational catch per unit effort indices have been compromised due to changes in bag limits and other management restrictions.

Multispecies Coastal Shelf Recovery Plan: A Collaborative, Ecosystem‐Based Approach

AbstractThis article explains the integration of an ecosystem into a collaborative management plan to restore New England's depleted multispecies groundfish stocks and decimated coastal fishery. Applying lessons learned from Maine's successful fishery for lobsters Homarus americanus, the Downeast Groundfish Initiative (an eclectic group of fishermen, scientists, and concerned individuals) created a new groundfish management approach designed to nest seamlessly within existing federal and state management systems and be compatible with a total allowable catch (TAC) approach, though it does not require TAC as the primary management tool. The plan resolves fine‐scale issues affecting the fishery's biological productivity and addresses the economic, social, and cultural factors confronting fishing communities. The inadequacy of systemwide assessments in detecting local changes in marine ecosystems led to the creation of smaller, contiguous coastal shelf management units each of which encompasses the subpopulation of a key species such as Atlantic cod Gadus morhua. Each unit would have an inshore core layer encompassing the species' spawning grounds and nursery habitats while providing a limited, small‐scale fishery for local fishermen using selective, habitat‐friendly gear. A buffer layer outside the core area that brackets coastal shelf migration routes would also support a fishery using all legal gear types but with constraints, and an outer layer would provide a fishery operating under current federal regulations. The core and buffer areas would be collaboratively managed to enhance local stock recovery by local advisory councils of fishermen functioning under state administration and regional council oversight. The coastal shelf plan synchronizes the needs of coastal ecosystems and fishermen by restoring species diversity and protecting critical habitats while rebuilding commercial stocks. The approach can create robust, sustainable fisheries for all user groups, resolve equity issues among fishermen, and revitalize the economies of fishing communities of all sizes.

Comparison of trawled vs untrawled mud seafloor assemblages of fishes and macroinvertebrates at Coquille Bank, Oregon

We report the first quantitative comparison of trawled vs untrawled mud seafloor communities off the west coast of North America. Using a manned submersible, we ran visual transects at Coquille Bank, 25 km off the central coast of Oregon, USA, including six half-hour (mean length 1184 m) transects over mud seafloors 183–361 m deep. The shallowest transects were untrawled, whereas deeper transects were heavily trawled, as evidenced by extensive trawl-door tracks. Differences between trawled and untrawled seafloor assemblages were striking. We observed 23% more fish over untrawled compared to trawled seafloors, and recorded 27 fish species on untrawled bottoms, but only 19 species on trawled seafloors. Regarding benthic invertebrates, density of individuals was 6 times greater on untrawled compared to trawled bottoms. Nonetheless, we observed 11 taxa on trawled seafloors and only 6 taxa on untrawled bottoms. Principal components analysis (PCA) defined the untrawled assemblage as characterized by sea pens, ratfish, sablefish, ronquil, slender sole, and poacher. PCA defined the trawled assemblage as characterized by seastars, hermit crabs, bigfin eelpout, Dover sole, hagfish, and shortspine thornyhead. In untrawled areas, there was no correlation between sea-pen density and total fish density, whereas in trawled areas, there was a marginally inverse correlation between the density of trawl-door tracks and total fish density. The dominant fishes and macroinvertebrates on trawled seafloors are known mobile scavengers that may aggregate along trawl-door tracks. Sea pens that dominated untrawled bottoms are sessile, slow-growing, long-lived species that are likely to recover slowly from physical disturbance. We conclude that the observed differences between trawled and untrawled communities were the result of groundfishing activities rather than local environmental differences. Given that habitat considerations for groundfish management in this region focus exclusively on rocky seafloors, it seems prudent to consider the adverse effects of bottom trawling on mud seafloor ecosystems of the continental shelf and slope.

Lobster and Groundfish Management in the Gulf of Maine: A Rational Choice Perspective

Many of the world’s most important fisheries are in a state of crisis. The Maine lobster industry is one of the very few exceptions, with catches at an all time high. Much of the success of this fishery stems from effective conservation legislation, passed largely through the long-term lobbying activities of powerful factions within the industry itself. In stark contrast is the Maine groundfishery, where stocks and catches have never been so low. This industry has had to deal with a top-down management system that has given it little incentive to conserve and has made it virtually impossible to get rules the industry considers effective. They have responded by using a roving bandit strategy. From the perspective of rational choice theory, the basic difference is that the lobster industry has been able to organize politically to get legislation to solve its communal action dilemma, while the groundfishing industry, like most fishing industries, has not. This paper explores the biological, technical, econom...

Contemporary management issues confronting fisheries science

Stock collapses have occurred worldwide. The most frequently cited cause is over-fishing, suggesting that fisheries management has been ineffective in controlling exploitation rates. The progression of a fishery from an over-exploited to a collapsed state involves impairment of the reproductive capacity of the target species, i.e. recruitment over-fishing. In many cases, this occurs by reduction of the spawning stock biomass (SSB) through the systematic elimination of spawning components within a stock complex. While operational definitions of minimum levels of SSB have been developed, they have seldom been applied and never adopted in a Canadian groundfish management context. The answer to the question of how much is enough to perpetuate a stock under exploitation has been illusive. Serebryakov [J. Cons. Int. Explor. Mer, 47 (1990) 267] has advocated definition of critical levels of SSB based on survival rates (R/SSB). We review his method and discuss the utility of the approach. An alternative approach to the problem of estimating minimum SSB is through a fundamental revision of the traditional stock and recruitment relationship. Explicit theoretical SSB thresholds below which reproduction/recruitment is severely impaired based upon density-dependent mating success (or Allee effects) is considered a superior approach to the question of how much is enough because of its ecological grounding. However, the successful application of this approach will require re-definition of the space/time scales of the management unit. Finally, support is growing for the establishment of closed areas or “no-take zones” as an alternative approach to managing the problems of fishing a stock complex by enabling sub-populations to escape fishing. While the expected benefits of areas protected from fishing are numerous, clear demonstrations of benefits of such areas in marine temperate ecosystems are lacking. In fact, unintended negative consequences may result from such actions.

Ludwig?s Ratchet and the Collapse of New England Groundfish Stocks

The stocks of principal groundfish species off New England have collapsed, creating economic hardship and dislocation in fishing communities from Rhode Island to Maine. In this article we analyze the causes of this collapse using the ?ratchet effect? described by Ludwig, Hilborn, and Walters (1993) as a framework. According to Ludwig, Hilborn, and Walters, powerful economic and political interests drive fisheries to overcapitalize and overexploit despite scientific evidence that stocks are declining. When the fishery is no longer economically viable, governments provide financial assistance to minimize economic hardship. When stocks increase there is another rush to invest, and the cycle repeats itself. The history of groundfish management in New England conforms well to this model. Optimism among fishers and government over U.S. control of this fishery in 1977 stimulated successive rounds of investment that built up excessive fishing capacity despite warnings from scientists that stocks were becoming weaker. Management regimes designed by the New England Fishery Management Council were ineffective in constraining fishing effort. Collapse of the stocks has led to severe restrictions on fishing and to government assistance. We suggest that the integration of science, management, and harvesting sectors through ecosystem-based management offers the best means of avoiding similar situations in the future.

Groundfish management in transition within the Scotia–Fundy area of Canada

Owing to the collapse of several groundfish stocks in the Scotia–Fundy area of Atlantic Canada, the fisheries-management system has been critically reviewed and changes introduced. A fisheries-management model with eight components was used to structure the recommendations for change. The components are strategic planning, annual planning, fishing entitlements, catch and effort monitoring, enforcement, service delivery, socio-economic analysis, and resource analysis. For each component, a brief synopsis of the major problems identified during the review is provided, and subsequent changes (1995–1998) to address problems are summarized. In spite of unclear and conflicting objectives, the conservation objectives under a rebuilding strategy are generally being met for the open fisheries, at least recently. This is a direct result of improvements in the overall management system. By transferring responsibilities for several aspects of management to the fishing industry, there has been a reduction in institutional uncertainty. Introduction of a combination of enterprise allocations, individual transferable quotas and community quotas has permitted a reduction of fishing capacity without government assistance. However, the reduction in participation level in the open groundfish fisheries has led to social unrest as some participants received small quota shares. For fisheries that have been closed since 1993, little progress has been made in improving the management system. The resource base is not recovering owing to continued levels of poor recruitment, and there is a lack of scientific consensus on the relative contributions of fishing and ecosystem changes to the poor recruitment observed during the past decade. The groundfish fisheries-management system of the Scotia–Fundy area provides an interesting case history on the degree to which conservation objectives can be achieved despite considerable institutional and ecosystem uncertainty.

U.S. New England Groundfish Management Under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act

Previous articleNext article No AccessThalassoramaU.S. New England Groundfish Management Under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management ActSTANLEY D.H. WANG and ANDREW A. ROSENBERGSTANLEY D.H. WANG Search for more articles by this author and ANDREW A. ROSENBERG Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Marine Resource Economics Volume 12, Number 4Winter 1997 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/mre.12.4.42629210 Views: 25Total views on this site Citations: 5Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright © 1997 Marine Resource FoundationPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Micah J. Dean, William S. Hoffman, Nicholas C. Buchan, Steven B. Scyphers, Jonathan H. Grabowski Lost in translation: understanding divergent perspectives on a depleted fish stock, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 80, no.33 (Mar 2023): 593–613.https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2022-0090Stephen J. Walsh, Juan M. Díaz de Astarloa, Jan-Jaap Poos Atlantic flatfish fisheries, (Nov 2014): 346–394.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118501153.ch13Heike Lotze Historical Reconstruction of Human-Induced Changes in U.S. Estuaries, (Aug 2010): 267–338.https://doi.org/10.1201/EBK1439821169-c5David S. Crestin FEDERAL REGULATION OF NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES: A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW, Northeastern Naturalist 7, no.44 (Dec 2000): 337–350.https://doi.org/10.1656/1092-6194(2000)007[0337:FRONEF]2.0.CO;2Jon G. Sutinen, Harold F. Upton ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES ON NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES MANAGEMENT, Northeastern Naturalist 7, no.44 (Dec 2000): 361–372.https://doi.org/10.1656/1092-6194(2000)007[0361:EPONEF]2.0.CO;2

Nova Scotian Fishing Families Coping with the Fisheries Crisis

Abstract: The fisheries crisis has severely affected Nova Scotian fishing families. These fishers and their households had developed strategies to cope with the work organization and schedule of the various fisheries prosecuted in this area. Critical reductions in catches of groundfish have led to lay-offs or work reductions, to changes in work organization and to exploitation of other fisheries, some of which previously had been underutilized. This article focusses on one area of southwestern Nova Scotia to describe how new adaptations have been developed and how these previously beneficial adaptations conflict with the new situation these households now face.IntroductionThis article focusses on families of Nova Scotia fishermen(f.2) who live in or sail from Lunenburg and Halifax Counties. It studies their strategies to cope with the changes brought about by the current fisheries crisis. Although fishers have prosecuted many different types of fisheries off Nova Scotia's shores, these fisheries can be divided on the basis of employment into two groups -- industrial and independent. Industrialized fishers work for companies, and independent fishers work as, or for, independent operators/owners. This distinction -- industrial/independent -- roughly coincides with the division between the off-shore and the in-shore fisheries respectively.(f.3)In February 1992, the federal government halted off-shore harvesting of northern cod in the northern waters of Newfoundland. In June of the same year the government expanded its moratorium to include in-shore fishers in that area. It subsequently issued a groundfish management plan limiting all fishing of northern cod off Newfoundland as well as in specific areas of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including Sydney Bight, and in waters off Nova Scotia north of Halifax (see Figure 1). On August 31, 1993 the government closed five more areas, virtually halting all cod fishing off the Atlantic shore north of Halifax except for fisheries off the Labrador coast. Groundfish quotas in those areas remaining open were severely cut. The latest groundfish plan has severely limited catches in the remaining open areas.Figure 1 Map of Atlantic Canada [Map Not Transcribed]As of 1993, the northern cod closures have eliminated over 40 000 fishery jobs (Kelly 1993:14-15). Through The Atlantic Groundfish Strategy (TAGS) and in conjunction with early retirement packages for plant workers and retirement of groundfish licenses by fishers, the federal government has compensated plant workers and fishers for lost earnings and offered them retraining programs, but the future for those people, their families and their communities appears bleak. Declines in the fishery of southwestern Nova Scotia have inevitably restructured the economies of the local communities, and the government has not offered any relief to the local retailers or other people indirectly affected by the fishery closures. Men who have been laid off, or have left the fishery altogether, must find other employment or collect government assistance such as the fisherman's package (TAGS), unemployment insurance or other social benefits. Many full-time fishers are reluctant to sign on to TAGS, because it requires them to give up their fishing licenses. Most of these men plan to return to the fishery once the stocks bounce back, and are unwilling to give up these hopes now. But the compensation packages cannot go on forever, and even if the fishery does rebound no one expects it to support the large numbers of vessels and crews that had previously exploited this resource. Moreover, in a region of chronically high unemployment, many fishers and plant workers with relatively poor education are sceptical about what jobs they can retrain for and where those jobs will be located. In fact, in the summer of 1996, the federal government stopped the retraining component of TAGS.In Nova Scotia, particularly in the area south of Halifax and along the Bay of Fundy shore -- including the study area -- where the fishery is more diverse, the impact of the moratorium has been recessionary rather than catastrophic. …

User participation and fishery management performance within the pacific fishery management council

Fish populations have the potential to contribute to the long-term economic and social benefit of humans, but to do so they must be managed in ways which maintain ecological health. There are many ways that management performance can be assessed, but four measures are particularly pertinent to sustainability: equity, stewardship, regulatory resilience, and efficiency. A key factor in management performance is the process by which management tools are developed and implemented. One approach that has been recommended to improve performance is to structure the management process around user participation. The paper analyzes three case studies of user participation in ad hoc processes of Pacific groundfish management: the development of a license limitation program; an inter-gear sablefish allocation; and the development of a sablefish individual quota (IQ) program. The case studies illustrate the role played by participation in contributing to the equity, stewardship, resilience, and efficiency of the management process. The effect of user participation was mixed in the three cases, depending on the history of participation, the structure and process of participation, on resource conditions and on the characteristics of the program under consideration. Participation can contribute positively to fishery management performance when there is a history of collective decision-making, the time line is slow enough to allow a full consideration of the issues, educational possibilities are pursued and the condition of the resource allows equitable compromises.

U.S. Fisheries Management and Economic Analysis: Implications of the Alaskan Groundfish Controversy

Fisheries management under Magnuson Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (MFCMA) has focused on treating symptoms of open-access inefficiency (e.g., overharvesting and overcapitalization) with little regard for economic objectives (Huppert). While seven national standards under Section 301 of Act include promoting efficiency (standard 5) and minimizing costs (standard 7), same standards preclude economic allocation as sole purpose of management. Cost-benefit of fishery management alternatives has been required since 1981 under Executive Order No. and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) guidelines for regulatory impact reviews (RIR). The record, however, on conducting cost-benefit analyses is mixed and, in practice, there have been few examples where cost-benefit studies played an important role in decisionmaking. Recently U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) rejected part of an Alaskan groundfish management plan by North Pacific Fisheries Management Council (NPFMC) because the disapproved measures would violate national standard 7 and Executive Order 12291 (U.S. DOC). In addition, an internal audit by DOC recommended rejection of entire plan because documentation supporting plan did not include an appropriate benefit-cost analysis (Office of Inspector General (OIG)). In this article I review events and actions leading to rejection of NPFMC plan and reasons why economic was a pivotal issue. I then consider some technical issues related to

An overview of the CDQ fishery program for Western Alaskan native communities

Abstract In the continually changing realm of groundfish management in the North Pacific, a new category of resource harvesting became operative as of December 1992. The Community Development Quota (CDQ) program is designed to provide western Alaskan native villages an opportunity to participate in the economic bounty of the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands pollock fishery, as well as promote local economic growth, employment, and educational opportunities. Reserving a portion of the Total Allowable Catch for these communities signifies a revolutionary new approach to resource management in the Bering Sea and to sustainable development in rural Native villages. On the surface, CDQs are similar to previous allocative measures, but closer scrutiny reveals several major variances, primarily in scope and design. To provide the reader with a useful framework in which to view the new fishery, this article will present a brief background of CDQs and potential community impacts, discuss inherent problems and implicati...

U.S. and Canadian groundfish management in the Gulf of Maine-Georges Bank region

This article examines groundfish management philosophies and practices of the United States and Canada in the Gulf of Maine-Georges Bank region. The authors conclude that significant differences in the legal, administrative, and philosophical framework of the two countries' fisheries regimes must be recognized and accommodated before effective management of transboundary stocks can occur.

Two Fisheries Biology Problems in West Coast Groundfish Management

Abstract Two major fisheries biology problems currently confront managers of west coast groundfish. First, fisheries that develop while long-lived but low-production stocks such as rockfish (Sebastes spp.) and sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) are fished up attain a harvesting potential that vastly exceeds the long-term productive capacity of the resource. The most effective and perhaps only way to manage these types of fish stocks for sustained production is to control development and capitalization of the fishery at the outset. The biological nature of these species seems to preclude their recovery from overfishing while still supporting any semblance of a viable and productive fishery. Second, the more general or diverse the target of multispecies management is, the more biologically conservative the management policy must be to maintain the long-term production of the resource.