The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council manages 13 stocks under 6 Fishery Management Plans (FMPs). The Council also shares a Monkfish FMP with the New England Fishery Management Council under which New England has lead authority. Catch limits are set for each stock but recreational fishery overages are common, resulting in the chronic overfishing of summer flounder. Bycatch and discards in the commercial trawl fisheries are poorly monitored but may be a significant source of mortality for severely depleted species such as river herring. Bluefish and summer flounder were removed from list of stocks subject to overfishing and/or overfished in 2008, but black sea bass has been added to the list of stocks experiencing overfishing in 2009.

Council Update - October 2009

An emergency closure of the recreational black sea bass fishery has taken place in the EEZ, north of Cape Hatteras, NC. The total black sea bass recreational harvest limit for 2009, published in the Federal Register on January 2 2009 set the limit at 1.14 millions lb (517 metric tons). The catch report recently released for the 3rd Wave of landings (from January-June) were conservatively totaled at 947,819 lb (430 metric tons), ranging between 83% to 89% of the year’s recreational harvest limit. Data for the 4th Wave has not yet been reported, however historically this Wave of harvest (July-August) has been nearly 27% of the total annual limit and an additional 24% of the total limit is caught during the 5th Wave of landings (September-October). The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council estimates that if the recreational fishery had not been closed, an overage between 84% to 225% of the harvest limit (953 to 1,678 metric tons) may have occurred. Even after a closure of the federal fishery occurs however, additional landings above the established recreational harvest level will inevitably continue, barring the closure of state-water recreational sea bass fisheries. The federal fishery will be closed for the duration of the year, December 31, 2009.

A link to the full federal registry article is provided below:

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-23945.pdf

Annual Catch Limits - Omnibus Amendment

The Council has a proposed an Omnibus Amendment to address the requirement for annual catch limits (ACLs) and accountability measures (AMs) for all target stocks. The Council is considering amending all its FMPs through this Omnibus Amendment. Exempt from the requirements are annual life cycle species not subject to overfishing, and the New England Fishery Management Council will develop measures for monkfish.

The Science and Statistical Committee will be responsible for application of control rules to set acceptable biological catch for target species stocks.

Status of Open Amendments/Framework Actions

Timeline

Preliminary MAFMC Work Plan