The suit was filed by Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, on behalf of the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association, based in Port Clyde, Maine. The suit alleges that NMFS violated the law in denying a petition to prohibit fishing vessels engaged in midwater trawling for herring from fishing in areas closed to groundfishing.
In filing its request for Amicus status in the case, attorneys for the Sustainable Fisheries Coalition noted that the Coalition has “a vital stake” in the outcome of the litigation, and that “the thrust of the plaintiffs’ case is that by-catch in the herring fishery is an urgent problem that had not been properly dealt with by the Council and NMFS.”
The Coalition’s request, filed on March 19, said that “groundfish by-catch by midwater trawlers is actually extremely low and does not significantly impact groundfish stocks, the fishery is closely monitored by NMFS, extensive measures are in place to ensure that by-catch remains within acceptable levels and the Council and NMFS are actively engaged at this very time in evaluating the adequacy of such measures.”
Eldon Greenberg, an attorney for the Coalition, said that “when NMFS approved midwater trawling in groundfish closed areas, the agency determined that the activity would not have a biologically significant impact on recovering groundfish stocks. The issue has been further addressed by the New England Fishery Management Council, and there is no scientific evidence suggesting that a different conclusion is warranted.”
Greenberg said that bycatch of haddock in the Georges Bank area last autumn was permitted under NMFS guidelines. Fisheries scientists have determined that haddock are a fully-recovered species, and the herring fishery is authorized to catch up to 542,000 pounds, or 0.2 percent, of the Total Allowable Catch for haddock, which currently stands at 271 million pounds.
The herring fishery has landed less than 10 percent of its permitted haddock allocation for the current season, which ends in April. Nevertheless, upon finding unexpected amounts of haddock in the Georges Bank groundfish closed area, midwater trawl vessels voluntarily abandoned fishing efforts there.
Midwater trawl nets are designed to exclude groundfish, although haddock sometimes swim higher in the water column that most other groundfish species and occasionally end up in the cod end of a midwater net. Data compiled by the federal government’s fisheries observer program supports the Coalition’s position that bycatch of other groundfish species is also biologically insignificant.
“We’re a little puzzled as to why Earthjustice is continuing with the suit,” Greenberg said. “NMFS denied their original petition based on the fact that Earthjustice provided no relevant new information suggesting that the presence of midwater trawl vessels in these areas constituted an emergency, and that the matter was best left to the normal give-and-take of the Council process. Nothing has changed in this regard.”
