April 3, 2017 — The traveling roadshow for public comment on proposed changes to the Gulf of Maine northern shrimp fishery is set to hit Gloucester the first week of June.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates the northern shrimp fishery, has scheduled four public hearings on the draft of Amendment 3. The draft includes state-by-state allocations and increased accountability measures, but does not call for limiting the number of shrimpers allowed into the fishery.
The Gloucester public hearing is set for June 5 at 6 p.m. at the state Division of Marine Fisheries’s Annisquam River Station on Emerson Avenue. The deadline for all public comment is June 21.
The AFMSC closed the northern shrimp fishery in December 2013 and it remains shuttered because the stock has been plagued by historic lows in recruitment and spawning stock biomass.
Initially, the commission’s northern shrimp section said it was going to consider a limited access program “to address overcapacity” in the fishery that draws shrimpers from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. It later changed course.
“Due to the uncertainty about if or when the resource would rebuild and the fishery reopen, the section shifted the focus of draft Amendment 3 to consider measures to improve management of the northern shrimp fishery and resource,” the AFMSC stated.