May 2, 2012 – In a letter to Commerce Secretary John Bryson, Massachusetts' U.S. senators and four representatives Tuesday asked for an emergency increase in the size of the Georges Bank yellowtail flounder catch limit, which has been pared by more than 50 percent based on an update of the 2008 benchmark assessment showing a shrinkage in the biomass of the prized flatfish.
The industry was facing a cut in the total allowable catch of Georges Bank yellowtail as high as 80 percent before the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday it would allow groundfishing boats to land yellowtail not caught as bycatch for the scallop boats.
Even with the excess bycatch from the scallop fishery, the groundfishing fleet working offshore faces a 61 percent cut, which could make yellowtail a "choke" stock and bar landings of other stocks once the yellowtail limit were reached.
Signed by Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown and Congressmen John Tierney, Barney Frank, Stephen Lynch and William Keating, the letter went out to Bryson at the opening of the third year of a regulatory system that promised conservation and prosperity but so far has produced mysterious scientific evidence of widespread losses in biomass across much of the groundfishery and consolidation of the fleet.
Urged on by NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, the New England Fishery Management Council opted to launch a commodities market "catch share" fishery in May 2010, just as the industry faced statutory catch limits and impending 10-year deadlines for reconstruction of weakened stocks.
The congressional delegation also urged Bryson to "begin forming a joint agency working group similar to that convened to address the recent crisis in the reductions of Gulf of Maine cod," and said the National Marine Fisheries Service should "explore every option available to maximize the allowable catch of Georges Bank yellowtail stocks."
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.