Saving Seafood

MAFMC Solicits Public Input on Blueline Tilefish Management

March 9, 2016 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council is soliciting public input on a draft amendment to address management and conservation of blueline tilefish in the Mid-Atlantic. Four public hearings will be held between March 21 and March 29, 2016. Written comments will be accepted until Wednesday, March 30, 2016.  

The draft amendment considers adding blueline tilefish (Caulolatilus microps) as a managed species in the Golden Tilefish Fishery Management Plan, effectively turning that plan into the Golden and Blueline Tilefish Fishery Management Plan. The management measures proposed in the amendment are needed to constrain fishing mortality on the blueline tilefish stock and effectively manage the blueline tilefish fishery in waters off the Mid-Atlantic and New England coasts. 

Additional information and documents, including a public hearing document (to be posted by March 14), may be obtained from http://www.mafmc.org/actions/blueline-tilefish.

Members of the public are invited to comment on any aspect of the draft amendment. Following a review of comments received, the Council will choose preferred management measures and submit the Amendment to the Secretary of Commerce for approval and publication of proposed and final rules, both of which have additional comment periods. 

For more information, contact Jason Didden at (302) 526-5254 or jdidden@mafmc.org. 

Public Hearing Schedule

There will be four hearings with the following dates/times/locations:

  1. Monday March 21, 2016, 6 pm.  Dare County Administration Building, Commissioners Meeting Room, 954 Marshall C. Collins Drive, Manteo, NC 27954; telephone: (252) 475-5700.
  2. Tuesday March 22, 2016, 7 pm.  Hilton Virginia Beach Oceanfront, 3001 Atlantic Ave, Virginia Beach, VA 23451; telephone: (757) 213-3001.
  3. Monday, March 28, 2016, 7 pm.  Hilton Suites Oceanfront, 3200 Baltimore Ave., Ocean City, MD 21842; telephone: (410) 289-6444.
  4. Tuesday, March 29, 2016, 7 pm.  Hilton Garden Inn Lakewood, 1885 Route 70, Lakewood, NJ 08701; telephone (732) 262-5232.

Written Comments

Written comments will be accepted until Wednesday, March 30, 2016, 11:59 pm. Comments may be sent by any of the following methods:

  • Email – jdidden@mafmc.org (Include “Blueline Tilefish Comments” in the subject line)
  • Mail – send comments to: Dr. Christopher Moore, Executive Director, MAFMC, 800 North State St., Suite 201, Dover, DE 19901 (Mark the outside of the envelope “Blueline Tilefish Comments”)
  • Fax – (302) 674–5399.

These public hearings are accessible to people with disabilities. Requests for sign language interpretation or other auxiliary aids should be directed to M. Jan Saunders, (302) 526-5251, at least 5 days prior to the meeting date.

View this press release on our website or as a PDF

Fishery managers weigh options as blueline tilefish boom in mid-Atlantic

June 29, 2015 — LEWES, Del. — An angler in Lewes set a new state record with a blueline tilefish caught earlier this month — even as regulators scramble to get control of the region’s booming tilefish harvest.

The record-setting fish was caught 65 miles off Delaware’s coast in Baltimore Canyon. It tipped the scales at 19.7 pounds — and it’s not the only one that local anglers have hauled in recently. Once most common in the Southern Atlantic, blueline tilefish have begun to make a splash further north.

Stewart Michels is a marine fisheries program manager with Delaware’s Division of Fish & Wildlife. He says the species is a whitefish sold domestically.

“It’s a sedentary fish for the most part — bottom-dwelling, slow-growing, so that makes it susceptible to over-harvest,” he says. “We don’t have a lot of data for the species; it’s a data-poor species, and particularly north of North Carolina, there’s not a lot of data available.”

That kind of data helps fishery managers set catch limits. But in the past, blueline tilefish were caught so infrequently in the mid-Atlantic that the harvest wasn’t controlled by regulators at all.

Read the full story and listen to the audio at Delaware Public Media