October 2, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:
On September 25 during its meeting in Plymouth, MA, the New England Fishery Management Council approved Amendment 8 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan. The Council also asked the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS, NOAA Fisheries) to develop an in-season action to set 2019 specifications for the herring fishery.
ABC Control Rule:
- The acceptable biological catch (ABC) control rule is a formula that will be used to set annual catch limits. The Council considered close to a dozen alternatives that would allow different levels of fishing mortality depending on the estimated level of herring biomass in the ecosystem. In the end, the Council adopted a control rule that balances many objectives by capping overall fishing mortality at 80% of sustainable levels. Previously, fishermen were allowed to harvest up to 100% of sustainable catch levels. Under the proposed control rule, a portion of the available catch would be set aside to explicitly account for the important role of Atlantic herring as forage with in the ecosystem. The new control rule also will better address uncertainty in year-to-year variation in biomass estimates. While the control rule will reduce catches in the near term, it has a lower probability of resulting in overfishing than previous methods used to set catch limits.