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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 5
January 2007
NMFS shuts down SE gillnetters to protect whales
SILVER SPRING, MD – To the dismay of Mid- and South Atlantic fishermen, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has proposed not only prohibiting gillnetting during right whale calving season in the Southeast US Restricted Area set out in the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan (ALWTRP), but pushing the boundary of the restricted area north and extending the closure period.
The trigger for the proposed rule was the death of a right whale calf off Jacksonville Beach, FL on Jan. 22, 2006. Although no gear was recovered, a necropsy supported NMFS’s determination that the animal was seriously injured in a gillnet entanglement and subsequently died.
As a result of the whale death, NMFS issued an emergency gillnet closure of the area in February. Then on Nov. 15, the agency issued a second emergency rule, closing a larger area north to the South Carolina border to gillnetting from Nov. 15, 2006 through April 15, 2007. That emergency rule took effect immediately and with little if any notice to affected fishermen, according to an industry spokesman.
On that same day, Nov. 15, the agency issued the proposed rule that seeks to further broaden the gillnet restrictions and make them permanent. In that rule, NMFS proposed the following:
Expanding the Southeast US Restricted Area from central Florida to the North Carolina border from the beach out to 35 nautical miles from shore, with an additional request for comments on further expanding the area out to 40 nautical miles from shore;
Dividing the restricted area at 29°N latitude into Southeast US Restricted Area North and Southeast US Restricted Area South and imposing restricted fishing periods of Nov. 15-April 15 and Dec. 1-March 31 respectively, with an additional request for comments on lengthening the restricted fishing period through April 30 for the Southeast US Restricted Area North; and
With some exemptions, banning fishing with or possession of gillnets in the Southeast US Restricted Area North and banning fishing with gillnets in the Southeast US Restricted Area South during the restricted periods.
According to NMFS, the rule is expected to have the greatest impact on gillnet fishermen targeting whiting, shark, and Spanish mackerel and would cost fishermen thousands of dollars in lost landings.
Who’s next?
Fishermen in the Northeast are being warned it could happen here, too.
“We feel the regional implications for all fisheries are extremely serious,” said Greg DiDomenico, executive director of the Garden State Seafood Association, who has been closely watching these developments.
“All of this was done without any gear recovered and no known cause of death. Science and (notification) procedures were ignored,” he said.
According to the Nov. 15 Federal Register notice announcing the proposed rule, the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan includes contingency measures that require NMFS to further restrict fishing in the Cape Cod Bay Critical Habitat, Great South Channel Restricted Area, and the Southeast US Restricted Area “if a right whale mortality or serious injury resulted from the use of certain fishing gears in those areas during specific times of the year.”
The public comment period on the proposed rule closed on Dec. 15, but DiDomenico said his and other fishing organizations were working to convince NMFS to extend the comment period.
The proposed rule is available online at <www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr>. For more information, call NMFS’s Laura Engleby at (727) 824-5312.
Lorelei Stevens
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