Oceana this week filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for its failure to require adequate observer coverage for the New England groundfish fishery for cod, haddock and flounder.
According to Oceana, NMFS has a duty to set quotas to prevent overfishing and ensure that those quotas are not exceeded. That process depends upon data NMFS receives from trained and independent scientists — observers — who work onboard fishing vessels to monitor how many fish are caught, including discards.
This information is also used to estimate the amount of catch in the entire fishery. The law requires that enough fishing vessels have observers onboard to make the precise, accurate and timely catch estimates needed to guide fishery management decision-making. In the lawsuit, Oceana alleges the federal government set monitoring at extraordinary low levels, using an unlawful interpretation of the legal minimum requirement for observers.
Oceana challenged some of the methods used to set these monitoring levels in 2010, and again in 2012. According to the terms of a January settlement agreement with Oceana, the federal government was required to publish an analysis of the groundfish fishery’s monitoring needs for the upcoming fishing year, however Oceana’s lawsuit alleges that NMFS did not adequately consider what level of observer coverage was needed.
“By filing this lawsuit, we hope to compel NMFS to take seriously its task of determining the level of observer coverage needed and to get those observers out on the water, instead of allowing overfishing to further harm New England’s fisheries,” said Eric Bilsky, Oceana assistant general counsel. “Without observers reviewing fishing activity, the reduced quotas will be impossible to monitor and enforce, threatening the fishery’s overall future.”
