Very Important For Tuna Fishermen

[JackK]

Just finished reading the source documents.... see attached.

Basically in years past the longline discards were taken out of the longline quota... This year with the opening of a new area the quota was taken off top to allow for those boats to land anything. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I see why they did it. Some of Dom's #'s and percentages are off (LL quota is not increasing to 28%, it is proposed for 8.09% in 2011... and 69.5 mt for longliners is down from 2010's 75.0 mt), but overall it's definitely a reduction from the 2010 quota, and will have an impact on all of the other fisheries (angling loses about 25% of its 2010 quota, general loses 24%, those two should affect us the most).

** Guess it makes sense that if you add the 160 mt of discards to the LL quota, it ends up around 27%. So that's correct.

I will be attending the meeting on the 21st in Gloucester if anyone would like to join me.