Saving Seafood

Jonah crabs booming in value as managers seek fishery plan

June 22, 2015 — PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — New England lobstermen are catching and selling more of a long-overlooked crab species in their traps, leading regulators to try to craft a management plan for the fishery before it becomes overexploited.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is working on regulations for Jonah crabs, a species common along the Eastern Seaboard that is rapidly growing in market share as an economic alternative to more expensive Dungeness and stone crabs. The crabs are popular with diners and cooks alike for their meaty claws and as a low-cost source of processed crab meat.

Jonah crab catch increased sixfold from 2000 to 2013, with fishermen catching nearly 7,000 metric tons two years ago, federal data show. The crabs also increased more than 700 percent in value in that time, with the fishery worth nearly $13 million in 2013.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Times

Changes likely in striped bass limits

September 18, 2014 — While absolutely nothing is certain when it comes to fishery management, it does seem fairly likely that a reduction in the catch limit for striped bass is coming in 2015.

The current limit for striped bass is two fish at 28 inches and it looks like it's heading for one fish at a still undetermined size.

The ASMFC is holding a series of meetings to ask for public comment on Draft Addendum IV to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Striped Bass which aims to set new biological reference points for the stock.

The reason behind the new amendment is that the 2013 benchmark stock assessment showed that, while the stock was not overfished and overfishing was not occurring, fishing mortality (F) was on the increase and the spawning stock biomass (SSB), was decreasing. Obviously, if a stock is dying faster than it can be replaced, the outcome will never be good.

So even though the stock is not being overfished, projections show that the SSB will likely fall below its threshold in coming years. As a result the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission elected to initiate an addendum to address the situation. The fishery management plan is designed so that if these threshold numbers are approached, something has to be done to address the problem

Another reason for the addendum was that fishery managers saw too many similarities in the current striped bass situation to the one that preceded the crash of the stock in the 1980s, which led to a moratorium on the fishery. Few wanted to see a repeat of that bit of history.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press