PORTSMOUTH, NH – The region’s battered groundfish industry, still struggling to cope with this year’s sharp reductions in Gulf of Maine cod and Georges Bank yellowtail flounder allocations, recently learned that annual catch limits (ACLs) for six key groundfish stocks could be reduced by as much as 73% for the 2013 fishing year.
This jarring revelation was first publicly discussed during a July 30 meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council’s executive committee, which was attended by the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) entire top-tier leadership team, including: NMFS Chief Sam Rauch, who flew up from Washington, DC; Northeast Acting Regional Administrator Dan Morris and Deputy Director George Darcy; and soon-to-beinstalled Regional Administrator John Bullard, who was scheduled take over his new post on Aug. 6.
Read the rest and much, much more in the September issue of Commercial Fisheries News.
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