NOAA announced interim fishing measures last week that protect the Northeast groundfish stocks most in trouble, while still allowing the fishing industry to target some healthy stocks as the fishery rebuilds.
The new rules, which take effect May 1, balance economic and conservation concerns, and are an important step toward ending overfishing by 2010 as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
“This decision balances healthy fishing communities and sustainable fisheries,” Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said. “It builds a solid bridge to a larger, long-term solution for managing the fishery through catch shares, which will help restore the ecosystem and the economic health of the fishing communities. The system will give fishermen more of a stake in how the fishery is managed.”
The new measures will:
• Continue to allow commercial fishermen to target healthy stocks such as haddock on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine. The healthy state of the haddock fishery shows that stocks respond when appropriate management action is taken to reduce catches, if needed.
• For hook gear fishermen, expand the size of the area where they have special access to haddock and lengthen the fishing period in it from three months (October to December) to nine months (May to January).
• Decrease minimum legal size for haddock by one inch, allowing more fish caught to be landed.
• Give businesses more flexibility by allowing roll-over of unused bycatch allocations during the first three quarters of the fishing year, and freer transfer of groundfish permits and leasing of days-at-sea.
• Enlarge the fishing area in southern New England waters where each fishing day-at-sea is counted as two days against an individual vessel's total days-at-sea allotment to give greater protection to winter flounder, the stock most in need of protection.
• Prohibit vessels from keeping southern New England winter flounder, northern windowpane flounder, and ocean pout.
• Limit witch flounder landings to 1,000 pounds per day-at-sea, or up to 5,000 pounds per trip.
“While the new interim rule is a critical step to restoring depleted fish stocks and ensuring a profitable fishing industry for future generations, I understand it is a difficult one for many fishermen and their families,” said Ms Lubchenco. “That’s why I have directed my staff to conduct a review of NOAA’s budget to see how we can mitigate costs to the industry during this transition.”
