April 25, 2018 — Fishing boats in New England’s Sector IX groundfish fleet that were in danger of being barred from leasing groundfish quota moved into Sector VII in late March in order to recoup losses from a post-Carlos Rafael trip shutdown of the New Bedford groundfish industry. But the process of approving new operating plans will keep that quota frozen until midsummer at the latest.
NMFS reported that Sector IX was shut down completely in order to determine how much of the sector’s quota was illegaly used to cover Rafael’s quota evasion scheme.
Under a new plan operating plan put forward by the sector, which was narrowly recommended for approval by the New England Fishery Management Council with a 7-5-5 vote, NMFS will treat illegal catch in each fishing year as if it was known immediately after the end of the season, eliminating any carryover of unused quota into the next fishing season if there was any illegal fishing.
The council recommended that that NMFS authorize the “lease only” operations plan “with the condition that all overages attributable to the known misreporting are paid in full.
Read the full story at National Fisherman