The fish everyone wants

First published in Landings, July, 2016.

Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) is a fat, oily little fish that has long been the mainstay of Maine lobstermen’s bait. It congregates in large schools off the East Coast each year, eventually migrating up the coast and offshore into the Gulf of Maine. Today herring are fished for lobster bait and fish oil. Yet increasingly they are also recognized for the role they play in the marine food web, as prey for other creatures.

Management of herring falls to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), which regulates species that cross state boundaries, and to the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC), the federally-mandated body that sets the annual catch quota for herring. Maine and other states in which herring are caught must comply with regulations set by these two entities.

A specified amount of herring can be harvested each year from four defined areas (Area 1A is inshore Gulf of Maine) at specific times of the year. The NEFMC reduced that quota of herring abruptly in 2009 based on the belief that the herring stocks were overfished. That change had a ripple effect on lobstermen throughout New England. What once had been a stable and relatively inexpensive bait became more expensive and, at times, hard to find. Many made the shift to using what is known as “hard bait,” frozen species imported from around the world.

Following a benchmark stock assessment of the species, the quota for herring was increased and the stock is not considered overfished nor is overfishing occurring. Yet the allocation of herring remains a bone of contention among herring fishermen, environmental organizations, government managers, lobstermen and ancillary businesses such as recreational tuna charter companies.

Landings begins a summer series on Clupea harengus by looking at changes to how the herring quota is monitored in Area 1A this year in the wake of the abrupt shutdown of the fishery in 2015.

Each year a small number of fishing vessels set forth to the nearshore waters of Area 1A to catch herring. From June through September, the 1A fishery is limited to purse seine vessels. Larger boats that typically midwater trawl for herring can serve as carriers for the seine boats or re-rig and fish with seine gear. These are not small boats. The New England Fish Company’s F/V Providian is 113 feet long and can carry 20,000 cubic feet of fish in her hold. Her colleagues in the herring fleet are comparable in size and capacity. “The capacity of the four or five vessels out there is 1100 tons a night,” explained Matt Cieri, a biologist at the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR). “And 2015 was a different sort of year.”

Herring typically school in massive groups and stay deep in the water column during the daylight hours. At night they may rise closer to the surface pursuing the tiny copepods and other creatures that are their prey. In 2015 unusually large schools of herring moved along the coast in late summer. The vessels, rigged with purse seines for that area at that time, set and caught large volumes of herring and did so very quickly. While the quota for the year in Area 1A was 30,585 metric tons, the amount that could be caught during that period, called Trimester II, was approximately 20,000 metric tons.

“Both ASMFC and the NEFMC monitor where we were in terms of quota,” Cieri continued. “But there were problems in the regulators’ office last year, people out on vacation or sick.”

The herring boats fished hard; carriers returned to port with a lot of herring, often. By the time the regulators were aware of the volume, the boats had landed more than 95% of the total quota, causing the fishery to be shut down with virtually no warning in late August.

“The Period 2 quota was exceeded as a result of a problem with the federal reporting system that prevented effective and timely monitoring of landings to sufficiently slow down the fishery,” added Terry Stockwell, DMR director of external affairs and chair of the NEFMC. “Additionally there were other contributing issues including the aggregation of a large body of fish close to shore and the increased use of large carriers.”

“Keep in mind that the vessels report on a trip level basis every day,” Cieri said. “But they report on paper so there is a lag. A closure takes place within five business days. It’s hard to predict the future, particularly when the vessel trip reports aren’t finalized until March or April of the next year.”

Lobstermen don’t like it when they can’t get fresh herring. Bait dealers don’t like it when they can’t sell the bait that lobstermen want. The DMR doesn’t like it when lobstermen get on the phones and complain about lack of bait. As a consequence of the abrupt shutdown in Area 1A last year, DMR in May promulgated new rules concerning herring landings as a way to ensure a steady supply of the fish throughout the lobster season. The changes focused on limiting the amount of herring that could be landed in a Maine port. Specifically, no vessel can fish or land more than once in a 24-hour period. DMR also implemented the ASMFC’s restrictions on landing days. Vessels can only land during four sequential days in a week, from Sunday night to Thursday night.

“The intent is that fishing days and landings days will be the same,” said Meredith Mendelson, DMR deputy commissioner. When herring boats harvest large volumes of herring from a huge school, they may employ smaller carriers to transfer the fish from their holds to port, thereby allowing the larger boats to keep fishing. Under this rule, harvesting the fish and then loading a carrier to carry the fish to port would be curtailed.

“We also are not following the ASFMC rules concerning days out,” Mendelson continued. Typically when the herring season starts in June, boats may fish seven days a week. During a conference call held among the states in early July, the catch rate is reviewed and the number of permitted days may be altered. This year Maine is instituting more restrictive controls on how many days fishing is allowed each week well before July.

“DMR intends to begin monitoring and posting the herring landings on a daily basis but this timeline is completely dependent on full collaboration with NOAA Fisheries Service,” Stockwell said. DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher may promulgate the new state rules in July.

At press time, lobstermen were expressing concern that Area 1A herring were being landed too quickly which could lead to another early shutdown. The MLA raised these concerns with DMR and herring management officials. MLA’s executive director Patrice McCarron noted, “I’m hearing from lobstermen that the O’Hara boats are rigged for seining and that the other midwater vessels are serving as carriers. The fishing capacity created by these midwater boats participating in the 1A fishery poses the potential to land fish at a pace that far exceeds any of the projections made to date. Of major concern to MLA are the hundreds of smaller lobster buyers and bait dealers who do not have adequate storage to put up bait in the event of a shortage. This will translate into lobstermen without access to bait, effectively shutting them out of the lobster fishery. And of course, bait prices for everyone will skyrocket. Action needs to be taken.”