Fishery Management Plans

Comprehensive plans detailing the strategies and regulations for managing specific fishery resources, aimed at ensuring their sustainability and productivity.

  • This addendum codifies the use of 15% maximum spawning potential (MSP) as an interim threshold reference point and 30% MSP as an interim target reference point to avoid overfishing and increase abundance and spawning stock biomass. It is the intention of the Board to move towards a multi-species approach for Atlantic menhaden reference points in the future, after additional work has been completed by the Multispecies Technical Committee.

  • Therefore, draft Amendment 2 is designed to provide flexible management options including a clarification of fishing mortality reference points, a timely and comprehensive reporting system, trip limits, trap limits, and days out of the fishery.

  • This Addendum sets the fishing mortality (F) rebuilding target (Ftarget) at 0.15. Based on the coastwide F from the 2011 Assessment Update, a 56% reduction in coastwide exploitation is necessary to achieve Ftarget.

  • This Addendum dissolves the Southern Region (NY – VA) allocation established in Addendum II and sets state shares for New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. Northern Region states, from Maine through Connecticut will continue to share 58% of the annual quota.

  • This Addendum is adopted under the adaptive management/framework procedures of Amendment 12 and Framework 2 that are a part of the Fishery Management Plan for summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass. The Addendum applies only to the black sea bass fishery management plan. The adaptive management possibilities authorized by Amendment 12 include recreational fishery measures. The black sea bass fishery is managed cooperatively by the states through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission for state waters, and the federal government through the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service for federal waters. The management unit for…