A frustrated New England Fishery Management Council yesterday found reasons to rethink the seven-year rebuilding program for yellowtail flounder.
The 10-7 vote to "initiate an action" to adjust the rebuilding strategy reflected a deeply conflicted council and was taken after hours of fruitless discussion and debate aimed at controlling the bycatch of yellowtail in the scallop fishery.
The dilemma was framed by the imminent imposition of catch limits in the groundfishery next year, as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act. With hard catch limits, the mixing of yellowtail in the scallop stocks brought on a conflict that had councilors exasperated for more than three hours.
The council tacitly conceded the need to give the scallop fleet its needed allocation of yellowtail. The most lucrative and healthiest stock in New England, scallops have made New Bedford the No. 1 value port in America, so there was no sentiment to limit the scalloping which is conducted up and down the coast through the Middle Atlantic states.
Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.