Noah's Ark Helps Revive Monterey Bay Groundfish Market
That a trawler is leading a sustainability push may surprise some, which makes sense.
For many, trawling remains a dirty word, and not without good reason.
One particular trawler, however, is helping change that in dramatic ways—while also changing the way Monterey Bay is being fished, managed and understood.
Enter the F/V Noah’s Ark, which is completing its first months working local waters. Its impact may not rise to the Biblical proportions of the other Noah’s Ark, but as its crew focuses on harvesting groundfish species (i.e. fish that live on or near the bottom, like rockfish and sole) sustainably, it’s working wonders, even miracles, of its own.
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Done irresponsibly, trawling can kill unmarketable juvenile fish, ensnare dogfish, and damage sensitive corals and other ocean floor habitats. Without adequate monitoring and enforcement, it can also lead to overfishing.
And that’s precisely what happened on both the East Coast (with the 1994 collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery) and on the West Coast, where in 2000 the groundfish fishery off California, Oregon and Washington was declared a disaster by The Secretary of Commerce.
Noah’s Ark co-manager Brad Pettinger was following along closely, as he always has.
Not only has he been fishing for nearly a half century, he has been appointed to the Pacific Fishery Management Council for three terms and has participated with it for 25+, helping manage commercial, recreational and tribal fisheries along the West Coast.
He also spent 15 years as the director of the Oregon Trawl Commission, which led an effort in 2014 for the West Coast groundfish trawl sector to receive a sustainability certification from the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), one of the leading seafood certification groups in the world.
A tireless champion of the groundfish fishery, he even helped launch a nonprofit marketing association called Positively Groundfish, which aims to reintroduce U.S. seafood consumers to all the nutritious and delicious possibilities that West Coast groundfish delivers.
Back in the early 2000s, Pettinger and his team observed a choice: 1) Embark on a global campaign to change the traditions of (and opinions on) a form of fishing that’s done recklessly in many places; or 2) Tidy up their own trawling practices—with tools like surveys, catch shares and quota management—so the West Coast might present a sustainable alternative.
“We figured we can try to improve the image and fail miserably because eaters paint trawling with broad brush, and it is bad at worldwide scale,“ Pettinger says. “Or we could work to [MSC] certify ours.”
The effort involved significant gear modification design, new partnerships and technology innovations on their boat to reduce bycatch, including specific types of net designs for different species, a video camera in the net, and excluder devices that give smaller fish a chance to escape.
In addition, the crew of Noah’s Ark has participated as a charter vessel doing independent fishery surveys in partnership with the The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA Fisheries), including The West Coast Groundfish Bottom Trawl Survey.
The emerging data sets—including abundance, spatial distribution, sex, length, maturity, weight, and age— inform groundfish stock assessments and enable effective management of West Coast waters.
The reformed groundfish trawl sector required 100% observation of fishing activity (by human observers), which the industry had to pay for after 2015. Going a step further, Pettinger and his crew have also participated in electronic monitoring (EM) technology as a potentially more cost-effective alternative to human observers. They voluntarily contributed their learnings to the PFMC, which supported the development of the EM as a regulatory program that others could use in lieu of observers.
After many years of hard work to recover stocks and implement accountability in harvest and discard practices, the West Coast groundfish fishery was certified as a well-managed and sustainable fishery by the Marine Stewardship Council in 2014.
“One hundred percent accountability was the final thing to get us across,” Pettinger says. “That changed people’s minds. No one’s perfect, but we’ve done a good job.”
Ryan Wulff, assistant regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries' West Coast Region, works with Pettinger on the PFMC.
“Brad's success proves the point that sustainable fishing based on science provides lasting economic benefits to fishing communities and gives all of us more healthy and affordable choices for our dinner tables,” Wulff says. “The Pacific Fishery Management Council process provides the right formula of science, policy, and economics to work for everyone, and to take care of the species the fisheries depend on.”
Now Noah’s Ark is engineering another sort of comeback—or, to stick with the Biblical theme, resurrection.
A partnership with Lusamerica helped make that possible: The Morgan Hill-based, family-owned seafood buyer-processor-wholesaler wanted to connect local eaters with local catch—and working with Noah’s Ark proves key.
Peter Adame directs sustainability for Lusamerica, which leases its Moss Landing dock to operations like Noah’s Ark. (Meanwhile Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust leased Noah’s Ark some Central Coast groundfish quotas to enable worthwhile harvests.)
Without that dock, Noah’s Ark—which is based in Brookings Oregon—would have to truck the fish to Morgan Hill from faraway ports like Fort Bragg. And without Noah’s Ark bringing in groundfish in scaleable quantities, the dock deal wouldn’t make economical sense for Lusamerica.
“To get groundfish locally, and support the local fishing economy, is great, and it also increases the quality of the fish,“ Adame says. “Noah’s Ark has been such a great vessel to work with: They fish consistently, are very experienced and are helping make our dream, to distribute more local seafood from a local dock, a reality.”
He ticks off other cascading benefits from the arrival of Noah’s Ark, like less dependence on imported fish and healthier sustenance at a reasonable price point.
“The trawler makes it possible for local fish to be affordable enough for retirees, working class, everyday Americans,“ he says.
Meanwhile, the prospect of having more affordable local fish for the Community Seafood Program makes MBFT Executive Director Melissa Mahoney super excited.
“Since 2020 we’ve donated over 30,000 seafood meals to food relief agencies in the region; with the addition of lower-cost rockfish and sole to Moss Landing, we hope to double that number of seafood meals in less time” she says, “making nutritious local seafood accessible to more people in our region.”
Pettinger’s thoughts dovetail with those. “We harvest probably the most sustainable protein in the world,“ he says. “It’s natural, pristine and healthy for people in California.“
Adame and Pettinger also harmonize on the power of the ocean and its ecosystems to recover when treated mindfully.
“The ocean is resilient!” Adame says. “If we manage it properly it can be very sustainable, which makes for an awesome conservation success story right here in our backyard.”