A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling and ordered NOAA to clearly and consistently quantify bycatch in the Northeastern Atlantic fisheries.
The decision has the potential to compel the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to seek more funds for observers, alter its budget or create an unfunded mandate for fishermen.
The ruling by Justice Douglas Ginsberg in the U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. will force NOAA to spend more money and play a more active role in observing the work of commercial fishermen at sea from the Canadian border through the Carolinas — a region regulated from NOAA's Northeast regional headquarters in Gloucester's Blackburn Industrial Park.
The ruling will also likely force ungraded bycatch methodologies in the Southeast and Gulf of Mexico. The term bycatch refers to fish that is incidentally caught and hauled up with the fish stocks fishermen are targeting.
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