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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 10
June 2006
Dogfish specs set for 3 years; 4-million-pound annual quota
GLOUCESTER, MA – It’s hard to imagine that fishermen felt a bit relieved when the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) published final 2006 dogfish specifications setting a 4-million-pound annual quota for the next three fishing years.
Four million pounds is a pittance for dogfish, and it doesn’t allow for a directed fishery, but it’s far better than what could have come down.
Based on advice from the Spiny Dogfish Monitoring Committee, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council had recommended an annual quota of just 2 million pounds (see CFN January 2006 for details).
NMFS instead followed the recommendations of both the New England council and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), which each supported a 4-million-pound commercial harvest cap with 600-pound possession limits for Quota Periods 1 and 2. The quota periods run May 1-Oct. 31 and Nov. 1-April 30 respectively. For the past several years, the possession limit during the second quota period was only 300 pounds.
In a May 8 Federal Register notice, NMFS said, “Maintaining the limits of 600 pounds for both quota periods would allow for the retention of spiny dogfish caught incidentally while fishing for other species but discourage directed fishing and therefore provide protection for mature female spiny dogfish, the portion of the stock that has been traditionally targeted in the directed fishery and the stock component that is most in need of protection and rebuilding.”
Three years
Both the New England council and ASMFC recommended that NMFS set specifications for 2006 alone, but NMFS opted to go the three-year route. The fisheries service said the specifications could be altered if necessary based on new information, but it emphasized the “administrative benefit” of going with the extended timeframe.
“Setting the specifications for three years also (will) give fishermen the opportunity to have a longer time horizon for business planning,” said NMFS.
Unless altered by future action, the 4-million-pound commercial quota and 600-pound possession limit will remain in place for fishing years 2006, 2007, and 2008, which collectively run from May 1, 2006 through April 30, 2009.
The annual quota will be allocated as follows:
Quota Period 1 – 2,316,000 pounds; and
Quota Period 2 – 1,684,000 pounds.
4 million OK for dogs
As for accepting the 4-million-pound recommendation over the scientifically endorsed 2-million-pound one, NMFS said the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, after reviewing the matter, “concluded that the higher quota would not significantly alter the rebuilding period” by more than one or two years, though the center added that “continued low recruitment could change this conclusion.”
Another factor that clearly swayed NMFS was ASMFC’s 4-million-pound recommendation.
“As demonstrated in previous years when measures differed in state and federal waters, the benefits of a more restrictive quota in federal waters would likely be slight because fishing would continue in state waters under the less restrictive ASMFC quota,” said NMFS.
Despite being relieved about the 4-million-pound vs. 2-million-pound verdict, most fishermen still consider the entire dogfish situation to be ludicrous. They view dogfish as the plague of the ocean and as an inhibitor to the rebuilding of so many other commercially important fish stocks.
One industry member said fishermen had finally decided to go intensely political.
“I think you’ll be hearing a lot more about dogfish in the near future,” he said.
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