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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 8
April 2007
NMFS seeks monkfish interim action; delays FW 4 decision
GLOUCESTER, MA – Concerned about the status of the monkfish resource, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced on March 20 that it was delaying a final decision on Framework Adjustment 4 to the monkfish plan pending the results of a new stock assessment in July.
Meanwhile, the agency, in a move that caught industry by surprise, is proposing these two options for interim management measures to be implemented on May 1, the start of the 2007 fishing year:
• Option 1 – Implement the proposed 2007-2009 target total allowable catch (TAC), trip limit, and days-at-sea measures contained in Framework 4 for the Northern Fishery Management Area but maintain the lesser 2006 limits for the Southern Fishery Management Area; or
• Option 2 – Implement the 2007-2009 measures in the north and close the directed monkfish fishery in the south.
Under either option, the interim rule also would revise monkfish incidental catch limits in the north, move the northern boundary line for the seven qualified limited-access North Carolina/Virginia-based Category H permit holders to 38°40'N latitude, and reinstate the 300-pound per-day monktail limit for limited-access scallopers fishing inside a scallop access area.
In the Federal Register notice proposing this strategy, NMFS said it was troubled because monkfish was heading into its seventh year of a 10-year rebuilding program and both the northern and southern stocks were “again below their minimum biomass thresholds and considered to be overfished.”
Tough regs either way
Northern area fishermen are already bracing for major changes because to date, they have never worked under monkfish trip limits or worried much about monkfish days-at-sea. They simply landed monkfish under their groundfish days.
Now, both Framework 4 and the interim rule propose to allocate northern area fishermen 31 monkfish days and restrict landings to 1,250 pounds of tails per day for Category A and C permit holders and 470 pounds for Category B and D permit holders on those days.
And when those run out, that’s it. The incidental catch limit for all other days in the north is proposed to be 300 pounds of tails or 25% of the total weight of fish on board, whichever is less, based on tail weight.
The interim action will have a huge impact on southern area fishermen as well, especially under Option 2’s outright closure. Even under Option 1, people would be capped at fishing 12 days in the south.
Framework 4 as developed by the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils proposes to allow people to use 23 monkfish days in the south with landing limits of 550 pounds of tails per day for Category A and C permit holders and 450 pounds for Category B, D, and H permit holders. These are unchanged from 2006 limits.
Target TAC comments
NMFS said it was particularly concerned about the 2007-2009 annual target TACs proposed for Framework 4. The councils set the targets at 5,000 metric tons (mt) for the north and 5,100 mt for the south.
According to NMFS, the northern proposed target TAC is 35% lower than the 2006 level and 67% lower than the average target TAC since fishing year 2002.
But the council’s 5,100-mt 2007-2009 proposal for the south is 1,433 mt or 39% higher than 2006.
Given the stock status concerns, NMFS said it was especially seeking public comments on the southern area target TAC.
• The comment deadline for the interim action measures is April 4. The deadline for Framework 4 comments is April 19.
Fax comments to (978) 281-9135 or e-mail them to <monkfishFW4@noaa.gov>. For more information call Allison McHale at (978) 281-9103. /cfn/
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