February 28, 2018 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — After years of debate, the New England Fishery Management Council last month took final action on new rules aimed at protecting deep-sea coral from damage by fishing gear.
Meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., the council adopted its Omnibus Deep-Sea Coral Amendment and voted to submit the document to the National Marine Fisheries Service for review and approval.
Last June, the council adopted three coral protection zones in the Gulf of Maine. They are the area around Outer Schoodic Ridge southeast of the Schoodic Peninsula, the area around Mount Desert Rock, and the Jordan Basic Dedicated Habitat Research Area. This zone is roughly 40 square miles and located 50 miles offshore where the sea floor rises in a “bump” to a depth of about 208 meters or about 682 feet.
At its January meeting, the council approved a 600-meter (1,969-foot) minimum depth “broad zone” for the continental slope and canyons south of Georges Bank. Once the NMFS accepts the amendment, this entire zone — with one exception — will be closed to all fishing with any kind of bottom-tending gear, including both mobile equipment such as trawls or dredges dragged behind a boat and fixed gear such as traps, pots and gillnets. The council exempted gear used in the small but growing the Atlantic deep-sea red crab fishery.
The 600-meter minimum depth broad zone was one of several options considered by the council during its deliberations, Known as “Option 6” in the Coral Amendment, it was the council’s preferred alternative for protecting the continental slope and canyons prior to extensive public hearings last year. The council postponed taking final action last June so it could consider a proposal put forward by a coalition of environmental groups.
Known as “Option 7,” that proposal covered more of the ocean bottom, including shallower areas with depths ranging between 300 meters (984 feet) and 550 meters (1,804 feet). It, too, would have banned mobile gear but not fixed gear.
Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander