COMMERCE
Subscriber Services
Classified Ads
Subscribe
Advertise
NEWS
This Month
Editorial
Letters
F/V Safety
Past Issues
ABOUT US
Contact Us
Latest Issue
Subscribe
History
MORE CONTENT
CFN Archives
Links
Each month exclusively in the PRINT edition of CFN
Along the Coast
Ask the Lobster Doc
Bearin’s
Classifieds
Coming Events
Editorial
Enforcement Report
FISH SAFE
Fleet Additions
Letters
Lobster Market Report
New Boats
News Catch
Quahog Market Report
|
Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 4
December 2007
Scallop Framework 19, what the council OK’d
WAKEFIELD, MA – The following is a brief summary of the primary components of Framework Adjustment 19 to the federal scallop plan as approved by the New England Fishery Management Council on Oct. 25.
• Hudson Canyon (existing area) – The original Hudson Canyon access area is scheduled to revert to an open area effective March 1, 2008. The council voted to have all allocated but unused 2005 trips to this area expire on Feb. 29.
• Hudson Canyon (new area) – The council voted to establish a new Hudson Canyon access area to protect the large number of small scallops still remaining there. The new area has the same boundaries as the old Hudson Canyon access area, excluding the southwest portion that overlaps with the current Elephant Trunk Area.
• Open-area days-at-sea – Full-time limited-access scallopers will be allocated 35 open-area days in fishing year 2008, which is a 16-day or 31% reduction compared to 2007, and 42 days in 2009, which represents a nine-day or 18% reduction from 2007.
• Access-area trips – Full-time limited-access scallopers will be allocated five access-area trips each fishing year: one trip to the Nantucket Lightship area and four trips to the Elephant Trunk Area in 2008; and one trip to Closed Area II, three trips to the Elephant Trunk Area, and one trip to the Delmarva area in 2009.
• Elephant Trunk, Delmarva – The council “considered but rejected” putting in place seasonal closures for both of these areas to protect turtles but did approve a procedure to allow the National Marine Fisheries Service regional administrator to reduce the number of allocated trips to these areas in 2009 if surveys in 2008 indicate a sharp enough reduction in biomass to warrant a reduction.
• Crew size limit – The council did not put a crew size limit on vessels making access-area trips.
• Deckloading – Under Framework 19, no vessel will be allowed to leave an access-area with more than 50 bushels of in-shell scallops onboard.
General category, ME
• General category total allowable catch (TAC) – The hard TAC for the general category fishery during the transition period to an individual fishing quota (IFQ) program under Amendment 11 will be equivalent to 10% of the projected catch for the entire scallop fishery. The council voted to divide this 10% TAC into quarterly periods as follows: 35% for Quarter 1; 40% for Quarter 2; 15% for Quarter 3; and 10% for Quarter 4.
• General category TAC for access areas – During the transition period, the general category fishery will be allocated 5% of each access-area TAC with the allocation being issued as a total number of fleetwide trips. Assuming Framework 19 is approved, the general category fleet in 2008 will be allocated – in trip form – 5% of the TAC for the Elephant Trunk Area and 5% of the TAC for the Nantucket Lightship area.
General category vessels also will be permitted to fish in open areas up to the quarterly hard TAC. Catch in both the access areas and open areas will count against the quarterly TAC.
• General category “post transition” – Once the IFQ program under Amendment 11 is implemented, the general category fishery allocation to access areas will continue to be issued as a fleetwide maximum number of trips equal to 5% of the TAC for all open access areas except Closed Area II, where the allocation will be zero.
Vessels will not be subject to the quarterly hard TAC under the IFQ program. Instead, they will be allocated an individual quota based on their history. At that point, IFQ vessels will be able to fish for their quota in access areas or open areas.
• Cost recovery program – The IFQ holder will be required to pay the costs associated with implementing the IFQ program as now required by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Framework 19 will contain the details of this cost recovery program.
• Northern Gulf of Maine – The council voted to set the hard TAC for the Northern Gulf of Maine program at 70,000 pounds.
• Incidental catch – The council voted to remove 50,000 pounds of scallop meats off the top – meaning before allocations are made – of each year’s total projected catch to cover incidental catch mortality in the overall fishery.
Overfishing, VMS
• Overfishing definition – The latest scallop stock assessment was conducted using a new CASA model, and assessment scientists developed new reference points for the stock (see CFN November 2007 for details).
As a result of the assessment, the council voted to adopt a biomass target of 108,600 metric tons (mt) and biomass threshold of 54,300 mt. It furthermore adopted an overfishing threshold of 0.29 using the CASA model and reaffirmed its existing fishing mortality target of 0.20.
• Observer program – The council adopted a number of improvements to the industry-funded observer set-aside program for scallops.
• Vessel monitoring system (VMS) – In response to a request from industry, the council approved a VMS power-down provision that would allow scallopers not engaged in any fisheries to power down their VMSs for a minimum of 30 days. And
• Leaving port on access-area trips – The council clarified that a vessel can leave port on an access-area trip before the area opens, but it cannot begin fishing inside the area until it officially opens.
Back to story list
|
|
Tell us what you think.
