EASTON, Md.,– June 1, 2013 — Proposed menhaden regulations by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources were approved by the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission during the commission's recent spring meeting.
DNR was required by ASMFC to propose regulations on menhaden after the commission established a 5.12 million-pound quota for Maryland of menhaden catchable and a bycatch allowance after the quota is met.
The bycatch allowance was set at 6,000 pounds per bycatch landing licensee and 12,000 per vessel with two licensees on it.
Only those with licensed pound net sites will be able to work with the 6,000 and 12,000 pound bycatch, Lynn Fegley, deputy director of fisheries services for DNR, said.
Also, Fegley said if someone doesn't have a bycatch landing license, they might be working with a "much smaller" bycatch allowance.
The regulations came when the ASMFC menhaden board choose to reduce the coast-wide menhaden harvest by 20 percent based on what scientists told the commission after looking at a stock assessment from 2009 through 2011 and telling the board that menhaden were being over-fished, Fegley said.
But, Fegley said what scientists told the menhaden board was "unusual."
What the scientists told the board … was that we know for sure fishing is too high, but we don't know how much, so in the stock assessment before that … it was just barely over that threshold," Fegley said.
Read the full story at The Star Democrat