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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 9
May 2008
Herring fishermen face huge Area 1A cutback
DURHAM, NH – In a drastic move intended to stretch out the smallest quota ever allocated to the Area 1A herring fishery, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlantic Herring Section has agreed to a total shutdown of the Area 1A directed fishery until June 1 and then an immediate four-days-out of the fishery per week thereafter until further notice.
The section took this action at a March 20 meeting here. It also agreed to reconvene during the first week of August or when 50% of the Area 1A total allowable catch (TAC) is projected to be harvested, whichever comes first. The purpose of this second meeting will be to “reassess the days-out measures.”
ASMFC said, “The 2008 catch rates and remaining quota will be analyzed at the meeting, and states will take measures that are likely to leave between 12,500 metric tons (mt) – the historic average – and 15,000 mt of the 1A TAC for Oct. 1.”
With the lobster fishery in full swing, bait demand is particularly high in the fall, which is why industry and ASMFC have worked hard in recent years to prevent an early shutdown of 1A. The area typically provides a large percentage of the lobster industry’s bait supply.
But preventing an early closure will be much harder to do this year. The 2008 TAC for Area 1A is 45,000 mt – minus 1,350 mt for research set-aside, minus 500 mt put aside for the fixed gear fishery, and minus 5% to accommodate bycatch in other fisheries.
That puts the remaining available poundage for the directed fishery in Area 1A at right around 40,900 mt, according to Maine officials.
Split vote
Many industry members with an enormous stake in the outcome attended the March 20 meeting and provided extensive input into the discussion.
The section’s three Area 1A actions – the directed fishery shutdown through May 31, the four-days-out starting June 1, and the commitment to hold a second meeting to ensure 12,500 mt to 15,000 mt of quota remains available for the fall fishery – were packaged into one motion.
The states of Maine and New Hampshire voted “yes” in support of the motion, but Massachusetts, initially concerned that 12,500 mt was too little to reserve for the fall fishery, voted no.
However, after reconsidering, Massachusetts agreed a week later to implement the package. As a result, all three states have put in place a prohibition on directed herring fishing in Area 1A through May 31.
The fishery will reopen on June 1, but only to purse seine and fixed gear vessels due to the existing June through September ban on midwater trawling in Area 1A.
Days out
Vessels authorized to fish as of June 1 will have to take four days out of the fishery each week. At press time, however, it still wasn’t clear which four days those would be.
Initially, ASMFC announced that the “no fishing” days were Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
However, herring section Chairman Terry Stockwell of the Maine Department of Marine Resources said those days were being reconsidered at the request of industry and, in all likelihood, would be changed prior to June 1.
“The industry wants to have fresh fish available for the bait market on Monday morning, so they’re looking at options,” said Stockwell. “We’ll be able to work this out before June 1.”
Mary Beth Tooley of the Small Pelagic Group said fishermen at the March 20 meeting understood that the 45,000 mt TAC could be harvested extremely quickly. Consequently, they supported taking four-days-out starting June 1 in the hope that days-out could go down to three come August.
But no one really discussed which days of the week should be designated as “out,” and the subject only came up at the very end of the meeting when people generically agreed to “do it the same way as last year.”
That was interpreted in the ASMFC notice as a prohibition on “directed commercial fishing” on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday after June 1.
“The bait dealers were very concerned when they saw the notice,” said Tooley.
States typically implement days-out as a landing restriction within specifically designated hours, which Tooley believed could be resolved successfully in keeping with the four-days-out requirement.
“People need to go out on Sunday night to catch fish for Monday,” she said. “That’s the bottom line.”
Janice M. Plante
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