Reducing Bycatch and Discards Council Visioning Workshop October 2014 Facilitator: Chip Collier, Council Staff

Statement of Purpose/Objectives: Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) states: “conservation and management measures shall, to the extent practicable, (A) minimize bycatch and (B) to the extent bycatch cannot be avoided, minimize the mortality of such bycatch.” Fishermen at the port meetings continually cited concerns with bycatch and wasting fish released dead.

Background/Context: The snapper grouper fishery is a multi-species fishery and several species are caught as bycatch. Some of the bycatch is retained; however, much of the bycatch is discarded as economic or regulatory discards. Fishermen would like to reduce discards by altering management particularly to retain fish that are discarded dead. Management can reduce the incidence of discards in two ways: eliminate rules that cause regulatory discards (e.g., remove minimum size limits) or develop practices to prevent fishermen from catching fish that will need to be discarded (e.g., mesh size in black sea bass pots; closures). If regulatory discards cannot be avoided, management can require fishing practices that increases the survivorship of regulatory discards. Management measures in the South Atlantic that increase regulatory discards include: annual catch limits, size limits, bag/trip limits, and seasonal closures. • Annual catch limits were established by the SAFMC to keep harvest below overfishing limits as required by the MSA. The overfishing limits cannot be exceeded and keeping catch below the limits may require a combination of management measures including: changing the size limit, altering bag/trip limits, and closing the season. Eliminating annual catch limits would require a legislative change to the MSA. • Size limits for snapper grouper species were established to reduce the harvest of small, less valuable and potentially immature fish. Typically this regulation is designed to increase the potential for a fish to spawn prior to being harvested. The Council has used size limits to reduce total harvest to reduce or prevent overfishing. Eliminating size limits on snapper grouper species would change the selectivity used in stock assessments and projections; and, therefore the associated sustainability parameters would change (likely to lower annual catch limits). • Bag and trip limits were originally established to reduce the amount of harvest of snapper grouper species. Currently, many bag and trip limits are being established to extend fishing seasons by spreading harvest out over many months. Altering or eliminating bag/trip limits for some species could reduce discards, but for species with extremely low annual catch limits, harvest without bag or trip limits would likely result in closed seasons. The stepped down approach used by the SAFMC for bag and trip limits when an ACL is approached seems to be a preferred option by many fishermen. • Seasonal closures were established to protect fish during spawning seasons and to reduce harvest or prevent overfishing. Seasonal closures can also be used to allow harvest during more profitable fishing times. Ideally fishermen would avoid areas where fish with closed seasons are aggregated. However some fishermen have indicated avoiding some species is difficult and results in increased discards. Eliminating closed seasons for snapper grouper species would eliminate discards during that time frame, but another management measure would be needed to prevent exceeding current ACLs. In addition to management measures to reduce discards, the SAFMC may recommend management measures to increase survivorship of discards. Currently the SAFMC requires the use of non-stainless steel circle hooks north of 28º N latitude when fishing with natural bait for snapper grouper species to reduce discard mortality. Some fishermen have expressed concern about the effectiveness of circle hooks to reduce discard mortality and reduced catch of other species. Other methods such as descending devices have shown promise in other areas but results have yet to be published for the South Atlantic.

Example(s): • The deepwater closure was designed to protect warsaw grouper and speckled hind from fishing mortality associated with regulatory discards in water greater than 240 feet. • The red snapper spatial closure was proposed in Amendment 17A to reduce continued interactions with red snapper. • The Council developed a rule requiring circle hooks and dehooking devices to reduce discard mortality.

Strengths of Reducing Bycatch/Mortality • Potential to change a dead discard into retained catch. • ACL could be set closer to the ABC if discard mortality is reduced/eliminated. • Increase the efficiency of a trip if no fish are discarded. • Full retention would ease the burden on enforcement and fishermen.

Weakness of Reducing Bycatch/Mortality • Changing a discard into landed catch does not change the sustainability of the stock. • Changing the size selectivity for a species will change ABC and OFL. • Fishing on spawning aggregations has collapsed some snapper grouper stocks.

Obstacles and Opportunities • Release mortality estimates from published reports can vary dramatically and differ from what is observed by fishermen. • Cooperative research with fishermen can be used to develop best fishing practices to reduce bycatch, to avoid regulatory discards, and to decrease release mortality.

Things To Consider: • What are some potential fishing practices/management actions to reduce bycatch and dead discards while keeping harvest below ACLs? • What are preferred options to reduce regulatory discards by sector: 100% retention for the snapper grouper fishery, an aggregate poundage limit for fishermen, closed areas or seasons with no fishing effort, or no size limit for all species? • How would changing from past management regimes alter fishermen behavior regarding: high grading, fishing effort, and targeting of select species/areas? • What are some best practices the Council would be willing to adopt to increase survival of discards if bycatch cannot be avoided?

Recommended Reading: • Magnuson-Stevens Act • FishSmart • NOAA Release Mortality Technical Memorandum • Catch and Release Fishing