November 18, 2016 — The New England Fishery Management Council, meeting in Newport, Rhode Island, this week, got an advance peek at three proposals that ultimately could limit access to the small-mesh multispecies fishery that includes whiting.
The three proposals, generated by the council’s whiting advisory panel and the whiting committee, will serve to provide the council with a fuller slate of alternatives, said Andrew Applegate, the council’s senior fishery analyst for small mesh multispecies.
Applegate stressed the analysis of the three proposals by the whiting plan development team is in the very early stages.
“We still have a lot of work to do, but we hope to present the council with something sometime next January,” Applegate said.
The initial discussion on the three proposals, Applegate said, “is just to update the council on our progress.”
The whiting fishery currently is an open-access fishery. The proposals to potentially limit access to the fishery are contained in Amendment 22 currently being developed by the council for the 2017 fishing season.