Editor's Note: Winter flounder is not the same species as Yellowtail flounder, the allocation levels on which were also recently increased. Yellowtail allocation was increased as a result of a legislative correction related to the U.S.-Canada transboundary agreement championed by Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). It does not face the issues described in this article.
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. – It sounds like good news for fishermen. Catch limits for Southern New England winter flounder have been raised by 40 percent for the next fishing year, which begins May 1, federal regulators have announced.
However, under the existing regulations they cannot legally possess or land this fish.
With the limit up to 1.6 million pounds from 1.1 million, the increase means that a further 500,000 pounds of winter flounder, a vulnerable stock, can be discarded. Dead.
"For the National Marine Fisheries Service to put this forward as an example of flexibility is really a slap in the face," said Steve Cadrin, a professor at the School for Marine Science and Technology at UMass Dartmouth, and chairman of the New England Fishery Management Council's science and statistical committee."What this allows is more discard of winter flounder … Fishermen don't benefit a bit from that increase because it's still a no-possession fishery. It's 40 percent more fish being discarded overboard."
Cadrin said that the science and statistical committee was explicit in advocating that it not be discarded. But there is no consensus for allowing fishermen to harvest even a portion of the increase.
Bringing some in is not a solution, according to Tom Nies, a senior analyst with the New England Fishery Management Council. "The council put forward the zero catch limit because we don't want people targeting it," he said. "Also, we don't really know if fishermen are actually throwing 1.1 million pounds over now."
Low catch limits on weaker stocks, known as choke species, prevent fishermen from harvesting their full quota on others that are more abundant. The total allowable catch for the New England groundfishery this year is approximately 140,000 tons, but only around 40,000 tons of that will be landed because of such constraints, according to Brian Rothschild, former dean of SMAST and the Montgomery Charter Professor of Marine Sciences and Technology at UMass Dartmouth. "They talk about helping fishermen but we're leaving millions of dollars worth of fish in the water," he said.
Read the complete story from The South Coast Today.