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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 6
February 2007
NMFS delays scallop Elephant Trunk Area opening; cuts trips
GLOUCESTER, MA – Responding to an extraordinary request from the scallop industry and the New England Fishery Management Council, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) implemented a temporary “interim rule” to delay the opening of the Elephant Trunk Area by two months and significantly scale back fishing activity in the area once it does open (see CFN January 2007 for full details about the request).
NMFS implemented the interim rule on Dec. 22 to “reduce overfishing on the scallop resource in 2007.” In the Federal Register notice announcing the decision, NMFS said overfishing could “undermine the goals and objectives of area rotation,” which is the “cornerstone of the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan (FMP).”
Attorney David Frulla, representing the Fisheries Survival Fund, said his group appreciated “the hard work from NMFS that went into implementing the council’s recommendation so quickly.”
“The industry believes this is the right thing to do for both scallops and the fishery,” he said.
US Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), who also had urged NMFS to take this action, called the decision “good news.”
In a statement issued on Jan. 5, Reed said he was “pleased” NMFS took this “important” step to “support our fishermen.”
Large resource
The Elephant Trunk Area is located southeast of Delaware Bay and is roughly 1,565 square nautical miles in size. It contains the highest density of scallops ever recorded in the Northeast region.
Industry sought additional protection for the area in order to husband the resource and avoid a boom-and-bust fishery there, and the New England council supported this approach by voting in mid-November to ask NMFS for interim action, especially after learning that excess fishing pressure in the Elephant Trunk Area might have led to an overfishing designation of the resource overall.
Jim O’Malley, executive director of the East Coast Fisheries Federation, said, “The two-month delay will take advantage of the very fast rate of growth of scallops, and waiting until the winter is over will be safer for the fleet.”
Allocated trips
In addition to delaying the opening of the Elephant Trunk Area from Jan. 1 to March 1, the interim rule reduced the number of 2007 trips that full-time scallopers can make in the area from five to three. The possession limit is unchanged at 18,000 pounds per trip.
Part-time scallopers, initially allocated three trips among all access areas, were scaled back to two trips. Part-time scallopers can elect to fish both of their access-area trips in the Elephant Truck Area or they can take one or both trips in other approved access areas, which for 2007 are Closed Area I and the Nantucket Lightship area.
The possession limit for part-time scallopers on access-area trips was increased from 16,800 pounds to 18,000 pounds. The increase, said NMFS, was to “ensure that the total access-area catch for part-time vessels remains at 40% of the full-time access-area catch as intended” by the scallop FMP.
Occasional scallopers were initially allocated one trip, which could be taken in any of the access areas, and the number didn’t change under the interim rule. However, the possession limit for occasional vessels was reduced from 10,500 pounds to 7,500 pounds. This reduction, said NMFS, was to ensure that “the total access-area catch for occasional vessels remains at 8.3% of the full-time access-area catch.”
GC, shellstock
The interim rule also reduces the fleet-wide number of general category trips allowed into the Elephant Trunk Area from 1,360 to 865.
And it prohibits vessels on an Elephant Trunk Area trip from retaining more than 50 US bushels of in-shell scallops when outside of the area’s boundaries.
The council and industry had asked that the shellstocking cap apply to all scallop access areas, not just the Elephant Trunk, but NMFS concluded that it could not justify this request under interim action.
The rule is effective until June 20 but could be extended by NMFS until Dec. 17, 2007. For more information, call NMFS at (978) 281-9315 or visit the NMFS web site at <www.nero.noaa.gov/nero/>.
Janice M. Plante
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