PORTLAND, ME – Despite calls from industry for a 500-metric-ton (mt) research program or, alternatively, a very short shrimp season to at least provide a limited amount of product for consumers, things didn’t turn out that way, to no one’s real surprise.
Instead, during a Nov. 5 meeting here, the Northern Shrimp Section of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) adopted a fishing moratorium for the 2015 season, making it the second year in a row that the commercial fishery will be completely closed.
The section made this decision based on advice from its Northern Shrimp Technical Committee (TC), which recommended the moratorium after determining that the current “fishable biomass” of shrimp is the lowest on record (see story page 19 for stock status report).
The ASMFC section did agree to allow up to 25 mt to be harvested under the shrimp plan’s research set-aside (RSA) program. But that was a pittance of what industry asked for…
Read the rest of this story and much, much more in the December issue of Commercial Fisheries News. Buy this issue or Subscribe.
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