MLA News: Herring Updates

Herring Updates

2018 Herring Landings

The Atlantic herring fishery season opened on June 3 with four consecutive landing days per week. There is a 480,000 pound (12 trucks) weekly landing limit per vessel of which 80,000 pounds (two trucks) can be transferred. Those with category C and D permits that use small mesh bottom trawl may land seven consecutive days/week. Catcher vessels may transfer to other catcher vessels to avoid dumping or wasting fish.

Atlantic Herring Landings For data through June 21, 2018Area Cumulative Catch YTD Total Annual Quota % of Quota 2017 landings as of 6/251A* 3,247 31,962 10% 1,9561B 0 3,649 0 1,1382 6,674 31,137 21% 3,6813 1,178 43,853 2.7% 8,728Total 7,697 100,969* 1% 15,504*Quota June 1 thru Sept 30 = 21,910; Oct 1 thru Dec 31 -= 8,192

Benchmark Stock Assessment (from the New England Fishery Management Council) The 2018 herring benchmark stock assessment will be peer reviewed by independent scientists during the last week of June. The NEFMC received a draft executive summary of its working group’s findings. Preliminary results indicate that recruitment — incoming year classes of newly born fish — has been poor for several years.

The draft assessment expresses concern that the herring population now contains more age 6 fish than age 1 and age 2 fish combined. If these estimates hold true, then the spawning stock biomass of Atlantic herring is apt to remain relatively low without improved recruitment. The working group stated that four of the six lowest estimates of herring recruitment occurred in 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017.

As a result, the Council recognized that very large quota reductions may be inevitable in the specifications package which will establish the herring quota for 2019-2021. In order to lessen the impact of these reductions in 2019, the Council voted to ask NMFS to use its authority to cap the 2018 harvest of Atlantic herring at 2017 catch levels in Herring Management Areas 1A, 1B, and 3 (see map); and set the Area 2 sub-annual catch limit (sub-ACL) at 8,200 metric tons (mt) for 2018. The 2018 quota (ACL) for Atlantic herring is 111,000 mt, the same as it was in 2017. The fleet only harvested roughly 50,000 mt of the ACL in 2017.The Council said that by “freezing the footprint” at 2017 catch levels and capping catches at approximately 50,000 mt in 2018, reductions in 2019 would not be as severe as if the fleet harvested the full 111,000 mt ACL.

Under current regulations, the 2018 specifications will roll over on January 1 and remain in place until NMFS implements a final rule. If the Regional Administrator implements the Council’s request, then the adjusted 2018 ACL of roughly 50,000 mt will roll over on January 1, 2019 and help lessen the impacts in 2019 should the forecasted reductions in the draft benchmark assessment come into play following the peer review.