On April 1, 2010, Representatives Delahunt, Bordallo, Frank, McGovern, Pingree, and Tierney together with Senator Kerry wrote to Commerce Secretary Locke with questions regarding four areas of concern with regard to Skate, Pollock, Yellowtail Flounder and Dogfish.
On April 29, 2010 the Secretary responded.
Secretary Locke wrote, “On March 23, 2010, NMFS, on my behalf, approved Amendment 3 to the Skate Complex Fishery Management Plan as developed and submitted by the New England Fishery Management Council. However, as the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee meeting on March 17, 2010, new data indicated the stock was in better condition than previously thought. Given the new data, NMFS has been working with the Council to incorporate this new information as quickly as possible. Toward that end, the Council’s Skate Plan Development Team met on April 8, 2010. Once its analysis is final, NMFS will consider how to incorporate the results into management.
With respect to Pollock, NMFS is actively working on the Pollock benchmark stock assessment and recently completed three of the five steps in the stock assessment process: a meeting with fishermen; a complete re-examination of all relevant data; and the development of a more advanced, age-based stock assessment model.
The only recent assessment of Cape Cod (and Southern New England) yellowtail flounder was conducted as part of the Groundfish Assessment Review Meeting in 2008. Georges Bank yellowtail is assessed annually as part of the Transboundary Resources Assessment Committee process. We are aware that a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, School for Marine Science and Technology, used information collected from a Georges Bank yellowtail tagging study to estimate yellowtail flounder abundance in the scallop access are of Closed Area II….the potential implications of the student’s thesis for current and future stock assessments will be considered when setting catch levels for fishing year 2011.
With respect to the spiny dogfish assessment, substantial progress has been made on redefinition of the biomass reference point. It appears that new biological reference points will be accepted by NMFS and that spiny dogfish will be deemed rebuilt….Therefore, if spiny dogfish is determined to be rebuilt, a higher quota for 2010 can be set in the final specifications.”
Read the letter to Secretary Locke.
Read the Secretary's response.