September 25, 2024 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:
The New England Fishery Management Council received annual reports for three of its fisheries – skates, whiting, and monkfish – when it met September 24-26, 2024 in Gloucester, Massachusetts. It then discussed options for standardizing and streamlining these reports in the future.
The Council also reviewed the status of the Monkfish Research Set-Aside (RSA) Program and agreed to ask NOAA Fisheries to pause issuing solicitations for new RSA projects until outstanding economic and programmatic issues can be addressed by: (1) the New England and Mid-Atlantic Councils, which jointly manage monkfish; and (2) the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO) of NOAA Fisheries. The two Councils also will ask GARFO to consider enabling partners involved in the two current monkfish RSA projects to continue selling RSA days-at-sea into Monkfish. NOAA Fisheries photo 2025 and 2026 if needed.
FISHERY MONITORING REPORTS: Here’s how to access the three monitoring reports and presentations.
• Skate Annual Monitoring Report for Fishing Year 2023: This report provides an update on the status of the seven species in the skate complex (see graphic next page). It also includes information on landings and discards in the skate wing and skate bait fisheries, impacts from other fisheries on skates, research updates, and more. The report is posted here with an accompanying presentation.
• Small-Mesh Multispecies (Whiting) Annual Monitoring Report for Fishing Year 2023: This report was produced in a presentation format. It contains stock status and fishery information, including economic and effort trends, for northern silver hake, southern whiting, which folds in offshore hake, northern red hake, and southern red hake.
• 2024 Monkfish Fishery Performance Report: This report provides an overview of the biology, stock condition, management system, and fishery performance for monkfish, with an emphasis on the 2022 and 2023 fishing years. The report is posted here, along with a presentation.