Herring Fishery to See More Flexibility
by Laurie Schreiber
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. – The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) was in the process of refining Framework Adjustment 2 to the herring management plan, at its Jan. 29 meeting.
Framework 2 parallels the 2013-2015 fishery specifications and authorizes the NEFMC to split annual catch limits (ACLs) assigned to four herring management areas (sub-ACLs) seasonally (by month) during the specifications process. It also establishes a general policy for authorizing annual carryover of unutilized sub-ACL (up to 10 percent) under specific conditions.
The Atlantic herring fishery is managed as one stock complex, but this stock is comprised of inshore and offshore components that segregate during spawning, according to the NEFMC. “In recognition of the spatial structure of the herring resource, sub-ACLs are assigned to four herring management areas. Area 1 is the Gulf of Maine (GOM) divided into an inshore (Area 1A) and offshore section (Area 1B); Area 2 is located in the coastal waters between Massachusetts and North Carolina; and Area 3 is on Georges Bank (GB).”
Assessments and specifications are made every three years. NEFMC fishery analyst Lori Steele said that, as a policy document, Framework Adjustment 2 would expand the splitting option – already allowed in Area 1A, from January through May, and June through December – to authorize splitting all of the quotas in any season.
The total ACLs were exceeded last year for the first time, Steele told the NEFMC.
The herring plan development team was concerned about increasing effort too much in inshore areas, Steele reported. But some quota reallocated offshore is expected to provide more opportunity for offshore fishing.
An accountability measure under consideration was to close the directed fishery in an area when 92 percent of the sub-ACL is projected to be reached. Currently, the directed fishery in an area closes when 95 percent of the sub-ACL is projected to be reached. Proposed also was the establishment of 95 percent as a stockwide trigger for closing the fishery.
To tally overage deductions, Steele explained, the framework would switch from using year-end figures, which results in a year’s lag time, to in-season monitoring.
“NMFS [the National Marine Fisheries Service] has been making changes to quota-monitoring all along,” which is expected to improve the match between actual and projected numbers, she said.
A combination of triggers, overages, carryovers, and monitoring measures were under consideration under additional alternatives.
The framework would retain the current accountability measure for haddock catches: It closes the directed herring fishery when the haddock catch cap is reached in a particular stock area.
Steele said the industry has generally supported the Area 1A split, but is skeptical about splits in other areas.
“The industry would prefer to just get the fish when they’re available and not have to potentially stop the fishery,” Steele said. “So the consensus is, if there’s enough fish in Area 2/3, there’s no need for a split.”
The 2008 class is moving through the fishery now, said Steele, and the stock remains rebuilt well over biomass target.
The analysis of the fishery is complicated by its inshore and offshore components, Steele said.
“We know they mix, but we don’t have assessments for either stock component, so we don’t know for sure what the biomass of each is, relative to the total. And we don’t know if the same reference points apply.”
The goal is to spread the available fish across the areas and through the year, as well as to manage the fishery in a more timely manner and not have overages, she said. The NEFMC has previously said that options for seasonal splitting are intended to better distribute the available yield throughout the fishing year.