August 9, 2012 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
Alexandria, VA – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Atlantic Menhaden Management Board has selected the options to be included in Draft Amendment 2 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden. Among the series of options approved for public comment are a range of harvest reduction options from 0-50% for 2013. Given that substantive changes were made to the document at the meeting, the Board approved the Draft Amendment for Public Comment contingent upon an additional round of review by Board members and final review and approval by a subcommittee of the Board. Release of the document for public comment is slated for early September, followed by an extensive public comment period and state hearings. The Board’s intent is to take final action on the Amendment this year for implementation in 2013.
The Board was also presented the findings of the 2012 stock assessment update, which included the addition of data for 2009 – 2011 to the peer review approved assessment model. The update results contained considerable uncertainty because the model fit the data poorly; however, similar issues were observed in the 2010 benchmark stock assessment that passed peer review. Despite the uncertainty in the update results, the Technical Committee believes the stock is experiencing overfishing, but is not overfished based on the current reference points used to assess the stock. The Technical Committee plans to address the issues with the stock assessment at the next scheduled benchmark assessment.
The final Amendment had been scheduled for approval at the Commission's Annual Meeting in October. Given the Commission’s public comment procedures, which requires the Draft Amendment be released 30 days prior to the first public hearing and must be extended two weeks after the final hearing is conducted, the Board will meet sometime after the Annual Meeting to take final action on the Amendment for 2013 implementation. A subsequent press release will announce the availability of the Draft Amendment for public comment, the state hearing schedule, as well as the timeline for the Amendment’s final approval. For more information, please contact Mike Waine, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at mwaine@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.