The New Bedford and greater Massachusetts sea herring industry has made its case to the secretary of commerce for emergency action as the industry is in dire need of help from the secretary to fix a far more simple, and already settled, regulatory issue that the National Marine Fisheries Service northeast regional office has chosen to ignore: the recalculation of the haddock catch cap on Georges Bank herring, based on current federal observer coverage of 100 percent.
According to the information this issue was brought to the New England Fishery Management Council and NMFS in June and remains unresolved. The cap is constraining the harvesting of $22 million in sea herring that must be caught before Dec. 31, when the sea herring fishing year expires. The investment from sea herring industry in Massachusetts is nearly $100 million in plants and vessels.
Massachusetts sea herring industry has been the target of a multi-million-dollar campaign financed primarily by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Pew Environment Group, and orchestrated by the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association of Chatham.
