Philadelphia, PA – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (Commission) and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) have established commercial quotas and recreational harvest limits for summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, and bluefish for the 2013 fishing season and beyond. The Commission’s actions are final and apply to state waters (0-3 miles from shore). The Council will forward its recommendations to NOAA’s Northeast Regional Administrator for final approval. The table below summarizes those actions/recommendations (2012 values are provided for comparison purposes). Please note that specifications for years beyond 2013 may be adjusted based on changes in the fishery or…
Press Releases
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Addendum II to Amendment 1 Considers Increases to Commercial Trip Limit & Expansion of Recreational Season for Gulf of Maine State Waters Fisheries
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Alexandria, VA – The Commission’s American Lobster Board has approved Addendum XVIII to Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for American Lobster. The Addendum establishes a consolidation program for lobster conservation management areas (LCMAs) 2 and 3 (Southern New England and offshore waters, respectively) to address latent effort by reducing the overall number of traps allocated. It is estimated that latent effort is 40% and 30% in LCMAs 2 and 3, respectively. Implementation of the Addendum’s measures is contingent upon NOAA Fisheries’ implementation of transferability and trap reduction rules for federal waters. LCMA 2 trap allocation will be…
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ASMFC Atlantic Striped Bass Board Approves Mandatory Commercial Tagging Program through Addendum III
Alexandria, VA – The Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board has approved Addendum III to Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass. The Addendum establishes a mandatory commercial tagging program for all states and jurisdictions with commercial striped bass fisheries and recommends increasing penalties for illegally harvested fish. The tagging program includes requirements for timely catch reporting, increased accounting of unused tags, improved standardization of tag type, and the use of biological metrics for determining state/jurisdiction tag quantity. These measures are intended to prevent commercial striped bass quota overages and the illegal harvest of striped…
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Arlington, VA – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will begin work on the 2014 American lobster benchmark stock assessment this fall. The assessment will be used to evaluate the health of the lobster stocks. The Commission’s stock assessment process and meetings are open to the public (with the exception of discussions of confidential data when the public will be asked to leave the room). The Commission welcomes the submission of data sets that will improve the accuracy of the assessment. For data sets to be considered at the workshops, the data must be sent in the required format, with…
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Arlington, VA – Members of the horseshoe crab and whelk industry from the Chesapeake Bay Packing, LLC and Bernie’s Conchs, LLC, have collectively pledged $10,000 to support the Horseshoe Crab Trawl Survey for 2012. An additional $500 was contributed by Parenteral Drug Association, a biomedical organization. This is the second year the commercial fishing industry has provided much needed funds to help support the Horseshoe Crab Trawl Survey. Last year, the survey was funded in total through the combined contributions of the commercial fishing and biomedical industries with a matching grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. “On behalf…
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Alexandria, VA – The Commission’s Spiny Dogfish and Coastal Sharks Management Board increased the 2012/2013 spiny dogfish quota from 30 to 35.6 million pounds. The increase is consistent with proposed regulations for federal waters as well the recommendations of the ASMFC Spiny Dogfish Technical Committee and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council Spiny Dogfish Monitoring Committee. The table below shows preliminary regional and state commercial quotas for the 2012/2013 season as adjusted for overages and rollovers. Table 1. Preliminary 2012/1013 regional and state commercial spiny dogfish quotas adjusted for overages and rollovers from the 2011/2012 fishing season (in pounds). Quotas are subject…
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Alexandria, VA – An independent panel of scientists endorsed the findings of the 2012 Benchmark Stock Assessment for River Herring, concluding the overall coastwide population of river herring (alewife and blueback herring) stocks on the US Atlantic coast is depleted to near historic lows. The “depleted” determination was used instead of “overfished” and “overfishing” because many factors, not just directed and incidental fishing, are contributing to the declining abundance of river herring. In addition to reducing harvest, recovery of river herring will need to address issues such as fish passage, predation, water quality, and climate change. River herring are an…
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