Bluefish Rebuilding Moves Forward
The Mid-atlantic Fishery Management Council and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Bluefish Management Board jointly recommended approval of the Bluefish Allocation and Rebuilding Amendment.
The amendment updates the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) goals and objectives, initiates a rebuilding plan, establishes new allocations between the commercial and recreational sectors, implements new commercial allocations to the states, revises the process for quota transfers between sectors, and revises how the management plan accounts for management uncertainty.
The council and board initiated the amendment in 2017 to consider revisions to the commercial and recreational fisheries allocations and the state-specific commercial allocations. But in 2019, a bluefish stock assessment indicated it was overfished, and the council and board decided to incorporate the rebuilding plan.
The council and board reviewed a summary of the five virtual hearings and written comments submitted by 378 individuals and organizations, in addition to the recommendations of their joint advisory panel. After weighing the pros and cons of shorter and longer rebuilding-plan time frames, the plan with a constant fishing mortality approach, projected to rebuild the stock in seven years, was selected.
At press time, the management assessment—the first step in providing specifications for the 2022-23 fishing years—had not yet been released. But the revised allocations will increase the recreational allocation from 83 to 86 percent of the acceptable biological catch, and decrease the commercial allocation from 17 to 14 percent.
The council and board based allocations on data from 1981-2018, which accurately captures the cyclical nature of the fishery, while providing each sector sufficient access to the resource considering historical usage. As a next step, the approved amendment goes to NOAA Fisheries for consideration and implementation.