On Wednesday Jan 26, the New England Fishery Management Council will have a full day of business concerning issues in the Atlantic Herring fishery mostly related to mid water trawl gear. The meeting will be at the Sheraton Harborside Hotel in Portsmouth, NH.
First on the agenda is 8:30am until - 10:15 when the NEFMC Groundfish Committee will report to the full council the progress of "Framework 46" which is a developing regulation aimed at increasing the Haddock By Catch Cap allocated to the Atlantic Herring Fishery, specifically the mid water trawlers. If you want to stop the needless waste of Haddock, please attend this meeting.
The more important issues (only because they are further down the road of development) will come up during the Herring Committee report that starts at 10:30 am and will last the rest of the day. Last week the scheduled Herring Committee meeting to continue development of Amendment 5 was cancelled by the NEFMC Executive Committee and it is expected that the full council will be doing the Am 5 development from now on because the Herring Committee was bogged down through too many meetings.
It is expected that all ideas are on the chopping block and any new ideas are possible at this meeting. Rumor has it that River Herring Protection may be in danger and that would be a big set back for river herring advocates that have been promised at other management bodies that Am 5 would finally take action to reduce River Herring By Catch.
100% monitoring and the idea that the Herring Industry should pay for those monitors are also expected to bring controversial votes on the agenda.
Council staff have put together a document that they are hoping will be used at this meeting, I have put the link below incase you want to see the issues that may come up.
http://www.nefmc.org/herring/council...11%20FINAL.pdf
More information can be found on the Council site by going to the following link and clicking on the "January 25-27" link, and then clicking on the "Herring Committee Report" link.
NEFMC
Honest By Catch Rates this meeting an 8 out of 10 as far as need for stakeholder attendance.
Honest By Catch Staff will be in attendance to organize anyone that shows up. Just ask someone in the meeting room who is from HonestBy Catch and you will find us.
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