Arlington, Va. — FEBRUARY 5, 2013 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section will meet via conference call on Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 4pm to consider adding landing day(s) to the fishery in order to provide trawl fishermen with greater flexibility and access to the resource. Landings have been low since the start of the northern shrimp trawl season, which began on January 22, and has been limited to landing on Mondays and Wednesdays only. The trap fishery began today, February 5, with the ability to land on every day but Sunday. The Section will meet to review available landings information and consider possibly expanding the number of landing days provided to the trawl fishery.
The public is welcome to listen in on the discussion by phone (888.394.8197; passcode 815277) and view the webinar using this link. Time permitting, there will be a limited opportunity to provide comments at the end of the agenda. The Section Chair will provide additional information on the procedures for accepting public comment at the beginning of the conference call. We ask the public and other nonparticipating attendees to please mute their phones in order to minimize distractions to the Sections deliberations.