The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) in late April approved changes in the way fishing catch limits are calculated for the Gulf of Maine.
Agreeing with motions made by commercial fisherman. biologist and New Hampshire council representative, David Goethel, the council voted to map changes to spawning sites as well as the general distribution of all groundfish and the impact on the long-term yield from the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, Cape Cod and southern New England.
NEFMC, the fisheries policy advisory arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also voted to consider development of an ecosystem management plan as a priority for 2014 and calculate new ‘biological reference points’ – and use them to modify existing catch limits.
However, NEFMC members turned aside Goethel’s motion to petition the Secretary of Commerce to approve interim rebuilding plans for a number of stocks with severe landings cuts scheduled for May 1—among them Gulf of Maine cod landings which were to be reduced by 77 percent. In recent years the fishing fleet has been reduced from 750 to 135 due to cuts in landings.
The council also tabled a motion by Goethel to send a letter to Congress “to educate them about the exigent environmental circumstances that have occurred off the New England coast in regards to a new warm water regime,” and to request congressional guidance on how to deal with circumstances not anticipated by the law governing federal fisheries management, the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
Top Massachusetts elected officials —such as Gov. Deval Patrick, Attorney General Martha Coakley and more than 60 state lawmakers — petitioned NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard in Gloucester to avoid the cuts, but he did not reverse the decision.
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