June 27, 2012 – Craig MacDonald's effort to bar some or all recreational and commercial fishing and make room for research in 39 percent of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary he governs as its superintendent has been given the cold shoulder by its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The director of the Office of National Marine Fisheries at NOAA's National Ocean Service rejected a request in May to transmit the plan for a 251-square mile Sanctuary Ecological Research Area, or SERA, to the New England Fishery Management Council whose Habitat Committee has been straining to complete work on an omnibus amendment that would open to fishing in many and much of the closed areas.
"The SERA doesn't fit with our goals at this point," Habitat Committee Chairman David Prebble, of Narragansett, R.I., said Tuesday. "As a courtesy, we allowed him to make a proposal and presentation to our committee (at its April 6 meeting).
"He was pretty much ripped apart," Prebble said. "The committee was not at all receptive."
MacDonald could not be reached for comment on this story.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.