Southern Offshore Fishing
            Association

Robert Spaeth and Glen Brooks have drafted and sent the following letter to Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the new Director of NOAA.   Please contact her to express your own support. 

Dear Dr. Lubchenco:

We, the undersigned Florida commercial fishing organizations, consisting of several thousand fishermen, seafood dealers, other seafood dependent businesses, and their employees, contact you to convey our utter shock and sincere disappointment regarding last week’s action by the NMFS’ Southeast Regional Office to close commercial longline fishing for reef fish in the eastern Gulf of Mexico for five months via emergency rule effective May 18, 2009.

(See 74 FR 20229). The announced closure extends out to the 50-fathom contour; however, the longline fishery’s principal resource is red grouper, and this species along with other species in the “shallow water grouper” complex are scarce at greater depths. Once the limited quota for deeper-living reef-fish has been harvested, this will be a de facto total closure for most of the longline fleet.

Since first learning of the federal government’s concerns regarding sea turtle interactions with our longline gear in October 2008, we have actively engaged with NOAA/NMFS leadership, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, our Members of Congress and their committee staff, scientists, fishery managers and several NGOs to resolve this issue in a manner consistent with the law and respectful of process, science, turtles, commercial fishermen and Florida’s coastal economy. Together, we were making substantial progress towards effective and viable solutions but all of our collective efforts have been undermined by this closure. Simply put – the decision by the NMFS Southeast Regional Office to close the fishery was an inappropriate reaction to litigation (not ours) and was wholly inconsistent with the policies of the Data Quality Act and the Administration’s climate of openness, collaboration, transparency and accountability in government.

There is no question that loggerhead turtles need our help, and members of the Florida commercial fishing industry are very concerned about the state of the turtle populations, as are Floridians in general. We are commercial fishermen – we set our gear to catch fish, not turtles, and we have a very good record of avoiding incidental captures. The latest estimate from the NMFS Southeast Fisheries Science Center suggests that less than 350 turtles are taken on reef-fish longlines annually (a majority of which are released alive). That is only about 0.1% of the western Atlantic loggerhead taken by all fisheries combined and much less than 0.001% of the total annual mortalities of such turtles. Our impacts on the population are truly minimal, yet we are fully willing and prepared to do what we can for turtle conservation. We have been working towards that end since the fall of 2008 and we want to continue. We cannot, however, endure such onerous and indefensible actions such as the pending closure.

Let us also be clear about how engaged our industry has been on this issue. By way of chronology: after being notified of NMFS’s newfound concern early in October, on November 5, 2008 we first met with Dr. Balsiger and his staff in Silver Spring to begin to understand the situation. We presented our perspectives at Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council meetings in October and January, and at scoping hearings for an FMP Amendment to address the turtle issue that were held in December. On February 20, 2009 we contacted NOAA Acting Under Secretary Mary Glackin and Dr. Balsiger via a letter with 350 signatures protesting the need for a premature 6-month closure (See enclosed letter).

Our letter precipitated a second meeting with Dr. Balsiger on March 20, 2009 during which we sought some middle ground and discussed scientific research that we proposed to help us all better understand the issue. Dr. Balsiger encouraged us to meet with Dr. Roy Crabtree in the Southeast Regional Office to develop a viable resolution. We met with Dr. Crabtree and his staff on April 10, 2009, requested prompt completion of an updated Biological Opinion (the current BiOp is dated 2005) and offered several management alternatives for NMFS consideration – including among other things a shorter closure period and possible alternatives to address effort reduction. Unfortunately, Dr. Crabtree was unwilling to make an agreement after hearing our proposals or to suggest an alternative middle ground that could allow the fishery to remain viable while also protecting the turtles.

Next, we participated at the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council meeting during April 14-17, 2009 where we reached a hard-fought consensus agreement with Oceana and Ocean Conservancy to prohibit longline gear in approximately 9,000 square nautical miles inside the 35 fathom line in the Gulf of Mexico, during the months of June through August – an area and season encompassing most of the observed sea turtle interactions with reef-fish gear. (See enclosed joint press release). The Gulf Council selected this consensus proposal as their preferred alternative for the upcoming FMP amendment, which is expected to be approved later this year.

Unfortunately, all of our efforts to avert a lengthy closure and find a workable short-term solution appear to have been in vain and the closure has been imposed. Florida reef-fish fishermen cannot survive for five months without access to their resources. The State of Florida will lose jobs and economic stability. This longline fishery directly supports approximately 1,848 jobs, including approximately 475 owners, captains and crewmen who work aboard some 150 fishing vessels. It is valued at approximately $20-$25 million annually (ex-vessel) and contributes an overall value of at least $60 million annually to the Florida coastal economy (using the standard NMFS economic multiplier and data in FMP Amendment 30B). The fishery supports numerous fish houses, suppliers of ice, bait, fuel, etc., as well as wholesalers, grocery stores, retail fish markets and seafood restaurants, for which the grouper landed by our longline fishermen is a Florida icon. All will be adversely impacted by the proposed closure.

Perhaps most frustrating to us is the agency’s overt fear of litigation, without consideration of the merits of the suit, and its representation of that litigation as necessitating pre-emptive management decision making. There also appear to us to be a palpable unwillingness to find workable solutions, an absence of proper procedure, and a paucity of credible scientific information upon which to found such far-reaching decisions.

It is important to note that the agency has never once advanced any justification showing this to be an emergency situation. It has never once told us how much reduction in turtle interactions is necessary. It has never once reached a determination in any Biological Opinion that reef-fish longlining is placing recovery of loggerhead turtles in jeopardy. Indeed, we have come to suspect that the Southeast Regional Office is determined to regulate in advance of any analysis in a “BiOp” precisely because the agency knows full well that such analysis could only conclude that the small number of interactions between turtles and reef-fish gear pose no jeopardy and hence offer no justification for draconian restrictions.

The low point in all of this is that, in the last six months, we have had three different estimates of sea turtle interactions with longline gear (with each successive estimate lower than the preceding one) and there is still disagreement on a final number between the Southeast Science Center and the Southeast Regional Office. It was this inability to estimate the number of interactions, itself the result of inadequate data, which precipitated our current problems starting back last fall. It is now clear that, in 2005, the Southeast Regional Office grossly underestimated turtle “takes” by reef-fish longliners when preparing an Incidental Take Statement for the Biological Opinion prepared that year. It is no less clear that, in 2008, the Southeast Fisheries Science Center grossly overestimated the takes that had occurred in 2006–07, using the very limited observer data then available. It was the offset between those under- and overestimates which created the appearance of a serious concern – though the offset was only ever a paperwork problem that should have had a paperwork solution through a new Biological Opinion.

When the regular observer programs recorded zero turtle takes by the reef-fish fishery in 2008, the Science Center’s revision of its analysis (in March 2009) produced an estimate that is much closer to the common experience in our fishery: 345 “takes” per year, including those released alive, as an average over 2006–08. That level of interactions poses no risk whatever to the loggerhead population, even though it is regrettable and calls for practicable measures to reduce the number. Thus, the new estimate from the Science Center removed any perception of an emergency situation, as the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council recognized at its meeting last month. Yet the Southeast Regional Office has moved to close the fishery regardless.

Finally, NMFS is using the Magnuson-Stevens Act to close the fishery, purportedly to address an Endangered Species Act requirement, without following the ESA process of preparing a Biological Opinion, with new Reasonable and Prudent Measures. To do so, NMFS is claiming that the emergency closure is needed “to reduce sea turtle bycatch” under National Standard 9 of the MSA. That standard, however, makes no mention of any reduction in bycatch but only its minimization to the extent practicable. We do not believe, and the case law does not support the notion, that any five-month closure of a $60 million per year fishery is a practicable means to lower bycatch levels.

The emergency action will result in NMFS treating classes of fishermen in various fisheries differently under the ESA. In the past, a Biological Opinion determined that the Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishery was jeopardizing sea turtles. The number of interactions between that fishery and turtles was many times larger than those of the reef-fish fishery. Despite that higher level of takes, the NMFS and the Council never closed shrimping but used the ESA process to develop effective mitigation measures over many years. That constructive approach has been used in numerous other fisheries around the nation when interactions with threatened or endangered species have been noted. Currently, NMFS is working on ESA issues in New England (in the scallop fishery) and Alaska (pollock fishery), yet in each case a formal Biological Opinion is driving the process, not preemptive fishery closures. The pending closure in the Gulf of Mexico does not afford the same treatment to the Gulf longline fishery, despite its low level of interactions with turtles.

We fully recognize the challenges you face as the new NOAA Administrator and that our concerns are an additional burden. Perhaps, however, there is no better time for you to restore scientific and procedural integrity to the process – not only for our fishery but for everyone who is subject to management by the NMFS. We earnestly hope that you will work with us in the short term to protect both sea turtles and Florida’s commercial fishing industry.
 

Respectfully submitted,
Robert Spaeth, Southern Offshore Fishing Association
Glen Brooks,  Gulf Fisherman's Association


Also endorsed by:
Southeastern Fisheries Association Tallahassee, FL
Southern Offshore Fishing Association St. Petersburg, FL
Gulf Fisherman's Association Clearwater, FL
Bill Houghton, Madeira Beach Seafood Owner Madeira Beach, FL
Steve Rash, Waterstreet Seafood Owner Apalachicola, FL
Greg Abrams, Abrams Seafood Owner Panama City, FL
Karen Bell, Bell Seafood Owner Cortez, FL
Ken Danials, Manatee Fish Owner Bradenton, FL
Ron Barron, Hernando Seafood Owner Hernando Beach, FL
Gib Migalino, Saveon Seafood Owner St. Petersburg, FL
John Cox , Cox Seafood Owner Tarpon Springs, FL

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS IN PDF FORMAT

This letter

4/29 Press Release

4/17 Press Release

Feb Petition