June 26, 2024 — The following was released by New England Fishery Management Council:
The New England Fishery Management Council discussed two issues related to Atlantic herring when it met in Freeport, Maine for its June 2024 meeting. It also received an update from its On-Demand Fishing Gear Conflict Working Group and approved a list of 2024-2028 research priorities and data needs.
Atlantic Herring Amendment 10: The Council conducted six scoping meetings in March and April 2024 on Amendment 10 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan.
This amendment proposes to (1) minimize user conflicts, contribute to optimum yield, and support rebuilding of Atlantic herring; and (2) enhance river herring and shad avoidance and catch reduction.
The Council received a comprehensive overview of the scoping process, which covered: the number of attendees at in-person and webinar scoping meetings; the number commenters at each meeting; a breakdown of commenters by affiliation or home state; the number of written comments received; general sentiments, major themes, and perceptions of current problems expressed during the meetings; desired outcomes from Amendment 10; the types of potential measures the action could contain; suggested data sources; and more.
Many of the comments focused on river herring and shad, emphasizing the role these species play in the ecosystem and their social and economic importance to many communities.
The compiled summary of all oral and written comments in available in this document.
After hearing the summary, the Council then provided additional guidance to its Herring Committee on next steps. The Council did sovia three motions to direct the Herring Plan Development Team (PDT) on where it should focus its efforts down the road. The tasking specified that the Herring PDT:
Assess data availability and analyze and develop alternatives for Amendment 10 that implement time/area closures for portions of Atlantic Herring Management Areas 2 and 3 where aggregations of river herring and shad overlap with the directed Atlantic herring fishery;
Assess data availability and analyze and develop alternatives for Amendment 10 that implement revisions to the basis of river herring and shad catch cap values that: (1) are reflective of regional river herring/shad abundance, and (2) scale with ceilings and floors to changes in Atlantic herring abundance and/or regional river herring abundance; and
Analyze and develop recommendations for implementing improvements to the accuracy and precision of river herring and shad catch estimates in the directed Atlantic herring fishery.