February 7, 2020 — Amendment 23 to the Northeast groundfish management plan will go out to public hearings this spring, featuring its unexpected possibility of 100 percent at-sea monitoring.
The New England Fishery Management Council says that number is just a starting point to discuss the costs of improving catch reporting — with onboard observers, or increasingly with electronic monitoring by onboard cameras looking over fishermen’s shoulders.
On Wednesday the council outlined the menu of alternatives that will be presented at those hearings, likely to be scheduled for late March and early April. The council will take in comments from that process to help it make final decisions at its June 23-25 meeting in Freeport, Maine.
The goal of the amendment is “to improve the reliability and accountability of catch reporting in the commercial groundfish fishery to ensure there is precise and accurate representation of catch,” including both landings and discards, according to the council.
Boosting at-sea coverage could be achieved by placing more observers on all trips, or alternatively with electronic monitoring, or EM as NMFS officials now refer to it.