Council Actions

May 6, 2013 — The New England Fishery Management Council released its April 2013 Council Report. The Report "summarizes major actions approved at NEFMC meetings or highlights items of interest to stakeholders."

At its April 23-25, 2013 meeting, the Council:

– Discussed and approved a number of groundfish-related motions

– Received the Groundfish Closed Area Technical Team’s first report

– Developed a position on NOAA Fisheries monkfish interim emergency action

– Initiated Framework 25 to the Scallop Plan

– Established a Risk Policy Working Group

Please contact Patricia Fiorelli with any questions or concerns at (978) 465-0492 ext. 106 or pfiorelli@nefmc.org.

Read the full report

April 30, 2013 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Herring Section members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts set a ‘days out’ effort control measure to allow seven (7) landing days a week for Trimester 2 of the Atlantic herring 2013 fishing season for Area 1A. Trimester 2 spans from June 1 through September 30, 2013 and has a total allowable catch (TAC) of 20,378 metric tons. This amount is 72.8% of the 31,200 mt annual catch limit sub-component for Area 1A approved by both the Commission and New England Fishery Management Council after accounting for the 1,425 mt overage in 2011, 295 mt set-aside for fixed gear, and 5% bycatch allowance.

With seven landings days, or zero (0) days out for Area 1A’s Trimester 2, the entire TAC is projected to be caught close to the end of the trimester. Landings will be monitored closely and the directed fishery will be closed when the trimester’s quota has been harvested.

Fishermen are prohibited from landing more than 2,000 pounds of Atlantic herring from Area 1A until June 1, 2013.

The Atlantic Herring Section members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts will reconvene on Monday, July 8, 2013 at 10:00 a.m. to review the fishing effort resulting from seven landing days per week. The meeting will take place at the New Hampshire Fish and Game Region 3 Office and Marine Fisheries Division, 225 Maine Street, Durham, NH 03824.

AUGUSTA, Maine — April 30, 2013 — Maine elver fishermen are being given a chance to comment on a proposed range of new regulations for the American eel fishery.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is holding a hearing Tuesday at the Augusta Armory.

The proposed regulations are the result of a stock assessment that concluded the eel population is technically depleted. Possible management options include quotas, gear restrictions, seasonal closures or closing the fishery.

Read the full story by the Associated Press at The Boston Globe

April 29, 2013 — The New England Fishery Management Council, NOAA’s grassroots policy writing and advisory arm, is urging the U.S. Commerce Department to create a sustainability certification system with federal oversight for seafood caught by American boats from U.S. ports.

The council voted 16-0 at the end of its three day meeting in Mystic, Conn., to ask Congress to include in its rewrite of the Magnuson-Stevens Act language establishing a certification program for seafood — similar to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s stamp of approval for meat, according to the debate at the council.

Today, seafood seals of approval — for sustainability or issues of perceived environmental degradation in the harvesting, such as trawling for cod — are issued by a range of certifiers, each with a unique structure, history and set of values or biases, from the Marine Stewardship Council — a global giant that certifies for Wal-Mart and many major brands — to the New York author-environmentalist Carl Safina’s Blue Ocean Institute, which essentially takes the position that “if you’re eating seafood, you’re eating mercury.”

There is also the Seafood Watch, established by the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, Cal. A leading influence on fisheries policy and recipient of grants from the Packard Foundation, Seafood Watch explicitly condemns the eating of fish caught by trawl gear, even though the federal government protects ocean bottoms susceptible to harm from trawl gear. Most trawling is done over sandy or pebbly bottoms that are disrupted but not harmed by the force of the trawl gear. These and the other seafood certifying companies charge fees to conduct the research into the products of the contracting companies, and due to the biases and values of the certifying companies, the consumer is left in uncertainty, the New England councilors said in debate at the meeting in Mystic.

Drew E. Minkiewicz — an attorney at Kelley Drye & Warren in Washington, D.C., who was representing the Fishery Survival Fund, a scallop industry group — told the regional council last week that the system of private, primarily nonprofit certification has become something of a re-enforcing trend. It’s like “the broken windows syndrome,” he said, referring to the theory that a broken window in a neighborhood will encourage the breaking of others.

“You have to pay them to have them sell your product,” Minkiewicz said.

”We have the strictest regulations, with buffer upon buffer” to ensure against overfishing, said Councilor Mary Beth Tooley of Maine, who made the motion for a government certification program. “It would be wonderful if the government stood up and said, ‘We are responsible.’ It would be wonderful. We know the percentage of imports is ridiculous.”

About 90 percent of seafood consumed in the U.S is imported.

The motion also drew the support of NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard.

”I always thought it was wrong that environmental groups encourage boycotting species managed under the Magnuson Act,” Bullard said. “It penalizes fishermen twice.

”I’m proud of our management system,” he said. “It’s tough, but puts a huge burden on fishermen, and involves a lot of sacrifice, and if we are proud of it, we should proclaim that one thing the public can do is be more discerning and inquire where they fish come from.”

Laura Foley Ramsden of Foley Fisheries in New Bedford, noted that the U.S. commercial fishing industry has one of then most conservative management programs in the world.

”We deserve to get credit for this,” Ramsden said.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

April 26, 2013 — The following was released today by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

Next week the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council will hold five public hearings throughout the Mid-Atlantic region to collect public input on the Draft Omnibus Recreational Accountability Measure Amendment. The amendment was initiated in December 2012 to evaluate alternatives to the existing accountability measures for 5 recreational fisheries—summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, bluefish, and Atlantic mackerel.

Current regulations require that a recreational overage (when the catch exceeds the Annual Catch Limit) be paid back in a subsequent year. The amendment will consider a range of alternatives to a pound-for-pound payback, including both proactive and reactive management measures. Combinations of proactive and reactive measures can be used to prevent overages from occurring and address overages when they do occur.

Additional information about the alternatives being considered is available in the Draft Public Hearing Document.

Submit Written Comments

Written comments must be received on or before 5 p.m., EST, on May 15, 2013.  Comments may be submitted in one of the following ways:
– Emailed to info1@mafmc.org with "RECREATIONAL AM Amendment" included in the subject line.
– Mailed to the Council office at: 800 North State St., Suite 201, Dover, DE 19901 should be mailed to the Council office at the address below and marked ‘‘RECREATIONAL AM AMENDMENT’’
– Online through the Council website

Please direct questions to Jim Armstrong, Fishery Management Specialist, through email (jarmstrong@mafmc.org) or telephone 302-526-5250.

Public Hearing Schedule

All hearings begin at 7:00 p.m.

April 29- Warwick, RI
The Crowne Plaza
801 Greenwich Ave.
Warwick, RI  02886
Phone: 401-732-6000

April 30- Riverhead, NY
Hyatt Place Long Island/East End
431 East Main Street
Riverhead, NY  11901
Phone: 631-574-8008

May 1- Manahawkin, NY
Holiday Inn- Manahawkin, NJ
151 Route 72 East
Manahawkin, NJ
Phone: 609-481-6100

May 2- Ocean City, MD
Clarion Fontainebleau
10100 Coastal Highway
Ocean City, MD 21842
Phone: 800-638-2100

May 3- Virginia Beach, VA
The Hilton VA Beach
3001 Atlantic Ave.
Virginia Beach, VA 23451
Phone: 757-213-3000

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) is one of eight regional councils established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976. The Council has primary responsibility for twelve species of fish and shellfish in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) between 3 and 200 miles off the Mid-Atlantic coast. Member states include New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.

For more information visit the MAFMC website here

April 25, 2013 — Acknowledging climate regime change, notably fast warming water in the once fish-rich Northwest Atlantic, the New England Fishery Management Council Wednesday approved a trio of changes in deciding how catch limits are calculated, outlined earlier by biologist and commercial fisherman David Goethel.

The council agreed with near unanimity to motions derived by Goethel from his March 4 letter to the council which cited six peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that together, he wrote, “demonstrate that the current management program will guarantee the destruction of the groundfish fleet with negligible benefits to the fish.”

At its three day meeting in Mystic, Conn., the council, a policy advisory arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also voted to:

”Map changes to spawning sites and the general distribution of all groundfish” and the impact on the long-term yield from the waters of the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank as well as the waters of Cape Cod and Southern New England;

”Consider the development of an ecosystem management plan for a priority in 2014; and,

“Calculate new “biological reference points” – the foundation of fishermen’s catch limits — and put them to use as available to modify existing catch limits.

David Pierce, the council representative for Massachusetts and the state’s deputy director of marine fisheries, described Goethel as a “Copernicus,” a reference to the Renaissance astronomer who theorized that the earth circulated the sun, rather than serving as the center of the universe as the Church had always insisted.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

April 25, 2013 — The New England Fishery Management Council’s (NEFMC) Groundfish Committee met on Tuesday, April 16, and Wednesday, April 17, to consider recommendations from the Council’s Closed Area Technical Team (CATT) on closed areas in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank.

The CATT made several proposals for year-round closures to protect juvenile fish habitat and seasonal closures to protect spawning fish habitat. The recommendations were developed from ten years worth of survey data that identified “hot spots,” habitats in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank which consistently have large amounts of juvenile or spawning fish. The majority of the proposed juvenile closures are located in the Gulf of Maine, but two juvenile closures in Closed Area II and the Northern Edge have been proposed for Eastern Georges Bank.

The proposed juvenile habitat closures in Georges Bank are based on an analysis of haddock hot spots, while several of the other proposals are structured around cod hot spots. Some members of the Groundfish Committee noted that a year-round closure for Georges Bank haddock areas may not be advisable. The haddock population is currently at an all-time high, and is not overfished or under threat. The juvenile haddock that would be the target of these closures are considered to be one of the less vulnerable species based on an analysis conducted by the CATT.

Most of the proposed seasonal spawning closures are also located in the Gulf of Maine, with spring closures in Georges Bank recommended for cod, haddock, and yellowtail flounder. There was some controversy over the recommended spring yellowtail closure, as the scallop fishery had begun to abandon similar closures as a result of new research from the Scallop Research Set-Aside Program (RSA). The CATT agreed to attempt to reconcile information from its report with information from the RSA.

The CATT presented its findings to the NEFMC at its April 24 meeting in Mystic, Connecticut. The Council took no immediate action on the recommendations. The CATT will meet with the Habitat Plan Development Team on Monday, April 29, in Mansfield, Massachusetts.

Listen to Vito Giacalone, of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, discuss juvenile fish hot spots, and whether or not the habitat in these areas is actually as vulnerable as the CATT suggests

Listen to Drew Minkiewicz, of the Fisheries Survival Fund, discuss haddock hot spots and proposed haddock closures

Listen to Drew Minkiewicz discuss the proposed spring closures for yellowtail flounder, and how they potentially conflict with recently conducted research

Listen to Vito Giacalone question the scientific link between conserving juvenile fish stocks and preserving juvenile habitat

Listen to fisherman Jim Odlin ask the CATT about the discrepancies between their recommendations and the recommendations from the Habitat Committee, and about the species being targeted by the CATT’s proposals

April 23, 2013 — The Mid‐Atlantic Fishery Management Council considered a broad range of issues at its meeting on April 9-11, 2013 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The meeting  report summarizes the major decisions and topics of discussion.

SPECIES AND ISSUES CONSIDERED

– 2014 Tilefish Management Measures

– Omnibus Recreational Amendment

– Research Set‐Aside

– Squid Workshop

– Magnuson‐Stevens Act

– Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology (SBRM)

Read the full meeting summary here

April 22, 2013 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

Dear Stakeholders and Interested Parties:

The public is invited to attend the April 23 – 25, 2013 New England Fishery Management Council meeting beginning at 10:00 a.m. at the Hilton Hotel, 20 Coogan Boulevard, Mystic, CT. For further information about the location click here.

The webinar will be activated beginning at 8:30 a.m. and end at approximately 5:00 p.m. EDT or when the meeting adjourns.

Webinar Registration: For online access to the meeting, please register by clicking here. Once registered, you will receive an email confirmation with the information you will need to join the webinar.

Charges for Listening: There are no charges for accessing the webinar via your computer. If you would like to listen to the meeting on your telephone, please be aware that regular phone charges will apply.

Dial in number: 1 (415) 655-0057
Access Code: 181-295-660

Meeting Materials: Please consult the Council’s website at www.nefmc.org.

Questions: Feel free to call the Council office at (978-465-0492, ext.102), or email Pat Fiorelli at the meeting, pfiorelli@nefmc.org.

Read the agenda for the meeting here

Read directions to the meeting here