July 16, 2014 — The following was released by NOAA:
Effective August 14, NOAA Fisheries will be implementing new measures for the Spiny Dogfish Fishery (Amendment 3). The measures, developed by the Mid-Atlantic and New England Fishery Management Councils include: implementing a research set-aside program, updating essential fish
habitat definitions, allowing rollover of quotas, and eliminating the seasonal allocation of the commercial quota.
Click here to view final measures
July 11, 2014 — National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, in consultation with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, representatives from the commercial troll fishery, and the Pacific Fishery Management Council, has taken in-season actions with respect to the commercial troll salmon fishery.
The commercial salmon fishery from the U.S./Canada border to Cape Falcon is reopened from now through Tuesday, with open period landing and possession limits of 35 chinook salmon, and 60 adipose fin-clipped coho salmon south of the Queets River, or 35 chinook salmon and 40 adipose fin-clipped coho salmon from north of the Queets River.
Read the full story at the Daily Astorian
July 7, 2014 — The following was released by NOAA:
NOAA Fisheries is seeking public input on a proposal to lift a Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning closed area off the coast of New Hampshire and Massachusetts to the harvest of surfclams and ocean quahogs for human consumption. The public comment period closes on July 22, 2014.
For a copy of the proposed rule, which contains detailed information on this action, and information on how to submit comments, click here.
NEW BEDFORD, Mass.– June 30, 2014 — The new rule will require pound-for-pound payback if the combined catch total goes beyond the current year's quota. That means fishermen would lose a pound of quota for every pound of fish that exceeded their limit. NOAA on Friday issued a final rewriting of fishing quota carryover rules that were thrown out last spring in federal court.
The old rule stated that a certain percentage of a year's uncaught quota could be carried over into the next fishing year. It was seen as a safety valve to end the practice of going out in dangerous conditions just to beat the calendar and use up quota.
But environmentalists objected because that practice often caused the following year's total quota to exceed scientifically imposed limits.
The court agreed and said that carryover is only legal when the catch totals do not exceed the permissible levels.
The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. voided the old rule on April 4, leaving a gap in the regulations.
The new rule will require pound-for-pound payback if the combined catch total goes beyond the current year's quota. That means fishermen would lose a pound of quota for every pound of fish that exceeded their limit.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times
June 26, 2014 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
Federal laws protecting marine mammals require NOAA Fisheries to take action to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries of whales in fishing gear to as close to zero as possible.
Today, NOAA Fisheries is announcing new targeted measures to reduce the risk of large whale entanglements in commercial trap/pot gear and minimize serious injuries and deaths of large whales should an entanglement occur along the US east coast.
Measures were developed with input from the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team, which is a multi-stakeholder team that includes fishermen, state managers, gear specialists, non-government organizations and scientists. Management measures were modified based on public input gathered during a series of 16 public hearings along the east coast in the summer of 2013.
Click here for more information.
June 20, 2014 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
Please note that changes have been made to the yellow fishery management section of Draft Addendum IV to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for American Eel, specifically Options 2-4 (on pages 18-23 of the document). These changes correct a rounding error in state allocation percentages (Table 5) and includes revised finalized landings data. The resulting quota changes were minor for the majority of states but were slightly more significant to a few states (Tables 6 and 7). The revised document can be obtained at http://www.asmfc.org/files/PublicInput/AmericanEelDraftAddIV_RevisedJune19_2014.pdf.
June 19, 2014 — The following was released by NOAA:
NOAA Fisheries has approved the 2014 final specifications for the Atlantic bluefish fishery.
June 13, 2014 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
NOAA Fisheries announces that new management measures for the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery will go into effect on Monday, June 16th.
These measures, being implemented through Framework 25 to the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan, revise fishing year 2014 catch limits with specifications for days-at-sea, access area trip allocations, and individual fishing quota fleet allocations; establish default fishing year 2015 specifications; enable pounds that went unharvested in Closed Area I Access Area in 2012 and 2013 to be landed in a future year; develop Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic windowpane flounder accountability measures; and provide full-time scallop vessels the option to exchange their allocated Delmarva Access Area trip for 5 DAS.
For more detailed information, you can view the final rule implementing Framework 25 by clicking here.
Attached are two fishery bulletins explaining the new measures; one for limited access vessels and one for the limited access general category vessels. These bulletins will also be available on our website on Monday, June 16th.
SEAFOODNEWS.COM by John Sackton — June 13, 2014 — NOAA fisheries has finalized 2014 scallop quotas, two months after the season has begun. They have approved the quotas for Framework Adjustment 25 recommended by the New England fishery management council under the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan.
The area TAC for Atlantic sea scallops is just over 42 million pounds, and the preliminary projection for 2015 is to go up about 7 million pounds, to close to 50 million pounds.
However this number will be reviewed several times before taking effect.The sea scallop volume is up from around 34 million lbs last year, and is at the high side of industry expectations for this year. It appears that we are entering an upward abundance cycle for scallops where the pattern of rotating closures will be yielding higher total landings.
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.
June 13, 2014 — The following was released by NOAA:
Today NOAA Fisheries announced proposed managed measures for the Atlantic herring fishery (Framework Adjustment 3 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan). To provide public comments on these proposed measures click here for more information. The deadline for comments is July 14.