The Spot Prawn Fishery: A Status Report - Earth Economics

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The Spot Prawn Fishery: A Status Report Puget Sound. Its goal is “to preserve, protect, and perpetuate Puget Sound pandalid shrimp resources; provide for their sustainable harvest; protect the habitat necessary to sustain these harvests; and minimize bycatch mortalities of other species” (WDFW 2001a). The Tribes and the State are required to regulate their respective fisheries using the following management tools and measures: •the dates and hours that a given fishery will be open •the area(s) open for harvest •the type of fishery open •the type of gear allowed •requirements for record keeping and harvest reporting •management techniques aimed at controlling effort, such as weekly limits •strategies for monitoring and enforcement (WDFW 2001a) The fishery is divided into four types of management and allocation zones: Management Areas, Marine Fish/Shellfish Catch Areas, Shrimp Districts, and Special Management Areas. Harvest shares (quotas) are allocated for each Management and/or Catch Area based on historical landings and catch rates. Allocations are based on a 50:50 sharing of the allowable catch between Tribal and non-Tribal fishers, and are managed so as not to exceed the quota. Harvest shares are adjusted annually in order to take into account any harvest overages that occurred during the previous season, and increased or decreased annually in consideration of catch rates during the previous season. TIMING OF THE PUGET SOUND FISHING SEASON •Certain Catch Areas (24B, 24C, 26A, 26B) open early (before April 11) to spot prawn fishing if test fishing shows that fewer than 2% of females are ovigerous. Samples must contain a minimum of 100 spot prawns with a carapace length of at least 30 mm (1.18 in.), and sampling must take place twice in two different sampling areas. Fishing is allowed in these areas through October 15, or until the harvest shares are reached. •The general season for commercial pot fishing is April 16 through October 15, or until harvest shares (quotas) are reached. In 2001, the State season opened June 11 and continued until October 15 or the quotas were reached. Shrimp Districts 1 (Discovery Bay), 3 (Port Angeles Harbor), and 5 (Hood Canal), and Management Areas 1A and B, have distinctive regulations governing season openings and Tribal and non- Tribal participation in the fishery. •The Tribal pot fishery in Shrimp Districts 1 and 3 is managed as a test fishery. The test fisheries are aimed at gathering data on: “1) the status of spot and coonstripe shrimp populations in the Districts; 2) ovigery timing in spot and coonstripe shrimp; and 3) status of spot shrimp populations in areas adjacent to Shrimp District 3” (WDFW 1998). Samples are to be collected each week and are analyzed jointly by Tribal and WDFW biologists. The Tribal test fishery runs from May 9 through October 15, or until the quota is caught. •Districts 1 and 3 are also open to non-Tribal recreational harvest. This fishery runs from the first Saturday in June through September 30, or until the quotas are reached. •The recreational fishery in Hood Canal opens the third Saturday in May and continues on a Saturday and Wednesday schedule until the quota is reached. The season has spanned only 5–7 days for the past three years. •Ceremonial, Subsistence, and Recreational Fisheries are open in all areas (except Shrimp Districts 1 and 3) from April 11 through October 15, or until the quotas are reached. (See “Nature of the Fishery Today—The Offshore Spot Prawn Fishery” section above for the timing of the offshore fishing.) SUMMARY OF PUGET SOUND TRIBAL AND NON-TRIBAL FISHERY REGULATIONS Puget Sound’s spot prawn regulatory and management system is guided by a number of different measures and tools. This summary provides an overview of the system, and is by no means an attempt to definitively enumerate all the idiosyncrasies of the spot prawn management regime in Puget Sound. •Pots are the only legal spot prawn fishing gear. •The shrimp trawl fishery may not retain spot prawns caught incidentally. •It is unlawful to pull or set prawn pots from one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise. 33
The Spot Prawn Fishery: A Status Report •Retained spot prawns must have a minimum carapace length of 30 mm (1.18 in.), except in Districts 3 (Port Angeles Harbor) and 5 (Hood Canal). A pot mesh restriction of 7/8 in. in Hood Canal regulates that the carapaces of most prawns caught are longer than about 30 mm. •All spot prawns landed must be sold to licensed Washington State wholesale fish dealers. Spot prawns may not be landed without immediate delivery to a licensed wholesale dealer; or, if transferred at sea, without transfer to a licensed wholesale dealer. •All pot gear must possess biodegradable escape mechanisms. •The San Juan Island Marine Preserve, Shrimp District 4 (Sequim Bay), and Catch Area 28B (Carr Inlet) are closed to all shrimp [prawn] harvest. •Shrimp Districts 1 and 3 and Hood Canal are closed to all non-Tribal commercial shrimp harvest. •Recreational fishers in Hood Canal are restricted to a daily limit of 80 spot prawns, a pot limit of one pot per person and four pots per boat, and a four-hour fishing day (9:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.) on selected days of the week. •The harvest allocation for the State spot prawn fishery in CMR 2 and 4 (Central Sound/Whidbey Basin) is 40% commercial, 60% recreational. •Quota overages must be deducted from the next year’s quota in order to pay “the overharvest back to the resource” (WDFW 1998). •State commercial shrimp pots cannot be fished in more than one Marine Fish–Shellfish Management and Catch Reporting Area per day. Pots can be moved to other areas if a harvest report is made before the gear is moved and the number of pots being moved and the area they are being moved to are specified. •State commercial pots cannot be set or pulled from a Marine Fish–Shellfish Management and Catch Reporting Area if the fisher is in possession of shrimp harvested from another Area. •Both the Tribes and the State will collect and compile harvest data. This information is to be shared on the first and 15th of every month the fishery is open. When the total harvest in any area reaches 80% of the quota, commercial harvest data must be exchanged every Monday for the remainder of the time the fishery is open. •Total Tribal catches will be reported by: 1. The Lummi Tribe—Management Area 1 2. The Tulalip Tribe—Management Area 2 3. The Elwha S’Klallam Tribe—Management Area 3 4. The Suquamish Tribe—Management Area 4 5. Tribe(s) to be determined, if necessary— Management Area 6 •Fishers are required to submit monthly harvest logs to Tribal or WDFW biologists. Logs will detail, among other data, the number of pots, soak times, Catch Area, location fished, pounds landed by species, and total pounds landed. This information must be recorded immediately after a pot or string of pots is pulled. Harvest logs are numbered and must be used and submitted in consecutive order. •Daily commercial catches must be hailed by telephone each day prior to leaving the catch site. Hailing reports should include the fisher’s name, the Catch Area fished, the total number of pots fished, total number of pots pulled, the total pounds of prawns caught, and the port where the catch will be landed. •Landings from Fish Receiving Tickets are used to assess the annual Tribal and non-Tribal commercial harvests. •For the State commercial fishery, all buyers of spot prawns, including fishers that buy their own catch, must call WDFW each Monday by 10:00 a.m. to report their total purchases from the previous week. •The State and Tribes will collect information on recreational, ceremonial, and subsistence harvests. In addition, the State will carry out surveys to evaluate total recreational catch and effort in key fishing areas. These data will be used to estimate total non-commercial catch and will be included in the setting of State and Tribal harvest shares (quotas). •Following the close of the commercial fishing seasons, a Tribal/State Shrimp technical group will “assess the season including harvest by fish- 34
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