At its November meeting, the Council set management priorities for 2012 and addressed issues related to groundfish, herring, monkfish, spiny dogfish and scallop management. It also discussed actions related to the Touchstone Report, Review of the New England Fishery Management Process, prepared by Mr. Preston Pate and the SRA Consulting Group.
Additionally, a number of presentations were received on the following topics:
-A report from the U.S. Coast Guard on the implementation of the Coast Guard Authorization Act
-An overview of the Northeast Regional Ocean Council’s (NROC) most recent activities
-A Northeast Fisheries Science Center report about standard bycatch reporting methodololgy and recommendations for observer allocations for next year
-A briefing from the Science Center about the transition to a new stock assessment process for the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions, and
-A summary, for scoping purposes, of a new amendment to the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan that will address issues relevant to managing sandbar, dusky, blacknose and scalloped hammerhead sharks.