A new bycatch reporting system will be implemented in a month for Atlantic fisheries. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced on Thursday, June 30, 2015 that it is adopting a final Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology Omnibus Amendment, effective July 30. The amendment covers fishery management plans in the Greater Atlantic Region.
NMFS proposed the rules last winter in response to a court order that said it needed clearer policies regarding how to allocate observers when the agency lacked funding to put them everywhere it theoretically should. The amendment offers stricter guidelines for reporting and monitoring bycatch, new ways to allocate observers, a new standard for estimating discards, etc. NMFS says it has updated its impact analysis. The U.S. District of Columbia Court of Appeals in the case of Oceana v Locke had ruled that NMFS’ standards weren’t strict or clear enough.
So from now on, NMFS will use a standardized bycatch reporting mechanism that uses data from states and the Marine Recreational Information Program. The rule incorporates existing mechanisms for estimating discards. The methodology still says that the discard estimate could be up to 30 percent off.
The rule clarifies how NMFS will distribute on-board observers when they lack enough of them, which has been the case since at least 2011. it also clarifies certification procedures for observers. The rule also contains several corrections, clarifications and minor changes. It makes only one minor clarification from the proposed rule regarding the scallop fishery. NMFS says it is exploring using electronic monitoring as a substitute for observers but the state of the science isn’t good enough yet.
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