You Can Help Regulate the Industrial Mid Water Trawl Fleet

Take Action Today--Submit a Public Comment

Written Public Comments must be received on or before
5pm EST Monday April 9, 2012:

Email: Comments@nefmc.org,
Subject: Comments on Draft Amendment 5

Attn: Comments on Draft Amendment 5
Paul J. Howard, Executive Director
New England Fishery Management Council
50 Water Street Mill #2
Newburyport MA 01950

Attend a Public Hearing

Wednesday, March 14, 2012
MA DMF Annisquam River Station
30 Emerson Avenue, Gloucester, MA 01930
7:00 – 9:00 pm

Thursday, March 15, 2012
Sheraton Harborside Hotel
250 Market Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801
7:00 – 9:00 pm

Monday, March 19, 2012
Seaport Inn
110 Middle Street, Fairhaven, MA 02719
7:00 – 9:00 pm

Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Holiday Inn By the Bay
88 Spring Street, Portland, ME 04101
7:00 – 9:00 pm

Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Radisson Hotel Plymouth Harbor
180 Water Street, Plymouth MA 02360
7:00 – 9:00 pm

Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Hilton Garden Inn
One Thurber Street, Warwick, RI 02886
7:00 – 9:00 pm

Thursday, March 29, 2012
Congress Hall Hotel
251 Beach Avenue, Cape May, NJ 08204
7:00 – 9:00 p

The New England Fisheries Management Council Amendment 5 Public Comment Document is 83 Pages and the full Amendment 5 Draft Environmental Impact Statement is 530 pages. Both of these documents can be found on the Atlantic Herring pages of the NEFMC web site: NEFMC (http://www.nefmc.org)

Honest By Catch humbly suggests that you consider the following information as you choose your words and formulate your own comments, both for the public hearings & in your very important written comment letters & emails.

Critical Alternatives That Must Be Approved in Amendment 5:

NEFMC must approve a comprehensive monitoring and management reform program that brings greater accountability and oversight to the industrial trawl fleet. At minimum, the following actions must be approved:

• Honest By Catch supports Section 3.2.1.2 Alternative 2
100 percent at-sea monitoring on all midwater trawl fishing trips (i.e., Category A& B vessels) in order to provide reliable estimates of all catch, including bycatch of depleted river herring and other marine life

• Honest By Catch supports Section 3.2.3.4 Alternative 4D
An accountability system to discourage the wasteful dumping of catch, including a fleet-wide allowance of five slippage events for each herring management area, after which any slippage event would require a return to port

• Honest By Catch supports Section 3.4.4 Alternative 5
No herring mid water trawling in areas established to promote rebuilding of ground fish populations

• Honest By Catch supports Section 3.3.5, if modified to require immediate implementation of a river herring catch cap
An immediate catch limit, or cap, on the total amount of river herring caught in the Atlantic herring fishery

• Honest By Catch supports Section 3.1.5 Option 2
A requirement to accurately weigh and report all catch is essential to any monitoring system

Thank you for all your hard work on this Patrick. The least we can do as anglers to support these measures is submit a comment.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Thanks Patrick, e-mail sent.

Email- sent
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Conservationists applaud ruling on river herring - Boston.com (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/03/13/conservationists_applaud_ruling_on_river_herring/)

PORTLAND, Maine—Conservationists have won a round in a legal battle trying to force fishery regulators to offer more protection for declining populations of river herring.

A federal judge in Washington ruled Friday that that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hasn't done enough to protect river herring -- a collective term referring to alewives, blueback herring, American shad and hickory shad -- from commercial trawlers that catch Atlantic herring in the ocean.

The ruling will force regulators to take steps to give the fish added protections, said Roger Fleming, a Maine-based lawyer with Earthjustice who represented a recreational fisherman, a charter boat captain and the Ocean River Institute in the lawsuit, which was filed in 2011.

River herring once migrated in large numbers up rivers in the Northeast to spawn, but that their populations have fallen sharply, he said.

"This is a big ruling for river herring and shad," Fleming said. "The agency is going to have to go back to its Atlantic herring fishery management plan, add river herring and shad, and set catch limits and other conservation measures."

A NOAA spokeswoman said the agency is reviewing the ruling.

River herring live in the ocean and return to freshwater rivers and streams to spawn.

While at sea, they intermingle with Atlantic herring, which are caught by commercial fishermen who sell it primarily for lobster bait, Fleming said.

Done , thank you.

Email sent.

I'll be at the Rhode Island meeting to make my feelings known -- loud and clear!

Pat, any idea of how the recent court decision will affect the NEFMC process?

I am a part of the strategy team behind the recent law suit (shocking huh? LOL).

No word form the feds and the remedy hearing is a ways away. IT is likely to have some behind the scenes pressure but we really need these hearings to be overfilled with people.

Anglers need to not just show up but just go to the mic and state you are in favor of whatever...I hope all support the above list but just state what you support...dont just say MWT suck as that is not helping the hearing process....say I want 1005 monitoring, I want dumping prohibitions etc etc

Fairhaven is MONDAY NIGHT...WHO IS GOING?????
\

I will be going to Warwick
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I counted 74 people at the hearing in Fairhaven this evening. We need double that in Plymouth next Tuesday, 7pm Raddisson down by the waterfront. We got a shot to reign these boats in if we show up.