Herring Amendment Heads to Final Approval

The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) approved measures for Amend- ment 4 to the Herring Manage- ment Plan, at the January meeting.

Council members heard a presentation on A4 from NEFMC fishery analyst Talia Bigelow. A4 identifies the process for establishing annual catch limits (ACL) and accountability measures (AM) for the fishery.

Overfishing limits (OFL), the allowable biological catch (ABC), and annual catch limits will be set through the 3-year specification process. The ABC is the total quantity of fish taken in commercial, recreational, subsistence, tribal, and other fisheries. It includes all retained and discarded fish.

ACLs represent total catch and must account for discards. The ABC will be determined by NEFMC’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, which will take into account sources of scientific uncertainty. Possible sources of uncertainty include: mixing of herring stocks components, retrospective pattern in the stock assessment that indicate that herring biomass has been overestimated or fishing has been underestimated, and the amount of herring that is consumed for predation.

The annual catch limit is the catch level selected for harvest, and will take into account sources of management uncertainty. The level of management uncertainty will depend on catch monitoring programs. Possible sources of management uncertainty include: bycatch and discards; Canadian and state waters catch; and the impact of Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) measures on fishing patterns.

The ACL will be established for the herring stock complex as a whole, and NEFMC will divide the ALC into sub-ACLs for the fishery’s four management areas. The system will be similar to the current system, which establishes management area total allowable catches (TAC).

A4 will implement two accountability measures (AM) in addition to the (AM) now in place, which closes the fishery when 95 percent of the TAC is project to be reached. This measure minimizes the risk of overshooting the TAC.

The first new AM measure provides that an overage from one fishing year will be deducted in the year following the final tally. This means there will be a one-year lag between an overage and a deduction. The final tally will include incidental catch from all fisheries.

For example: an overage occurs in 2011, the tally of all herring taken is compiled in 2012, and the amount of the overage is deducted from 2013’s ACL. Overages are expected to be small, if they occur at all, because of the provision that closes the fishery when 95 percent of the quota is reached.

The second measure allows an area to be closed when the catch cap for haddock bycatch is reached. The amendment is considered to be mostly administrative, with little impact on the resource or the fishery.

During hearings on the amendment last year, members of the public spoke to a need for a catch monitoring system to be in place before ACLs and AMs can be implemented, asked that non-target stocks such as river herring and Atlantic mackerel be identified as stocks interacting with the fishery and said that the role of herring as a forage fish needs to be better addressed. Amendment 4 is scheduled to be submitted to National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) by April 1, and will become effective in time for the start of the 2011 fishing year on January 1, 2011.