ELLSWORTH, Maine — December 28, 2015 — The new year will soon be here, and with it comes a new round of significant changes to the rules governing the herring fishery.
Next week, the Department of Marine Resources will hold a public hearing on what is known as “Draft Amendment 3 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Herring.”
Hearings are also scheduled in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The new rules proposed by the interstate Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will bring big changes to the fishery that is the primary supplier of bait to Maine’s lobster industry. In 2014, the last year for which DMR has data, still preliminary figures show that fishermen landed just over 104 million pounds of herring, worth some $16.3 million, in Maine. Scientists from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute have determined that about 70 percent of that herring (some 70 million pounds) is used by Maine lobstermen as bait.
According to the ASMFC, the new rules would affect the inshore Gulf of Maine — called Area 1A — herring fishery to reflect changes in both the herring resource and the fishery itself. The key changes deal with the closure of the fishery during spawning season and would impose a requirement that herring boats completely empty their fish holds before starting each fishing trip.
Regulators generally consider the herring stock to be abundant, especially compared with just a few years ago when overfishing had seriously depleted the fish population.
The herring stock in Area 1A now includes more fish that are larger and older compared with the time when overfishing was a problem. The evidence suggests that the larger fish spawn earlier than smaller herring, and that the start of the spawning season varies from year to year.