Despite opening the blue-backed herring fishery for the first time in six years, Waldoboro did not receive any applications for blue-backed herring harvest licenses this year. Town officials are concerned that lack of harvest may lead to a complete closure of the fishery in the coming years.
Had there been a harvest this year, samples would have been collected from the fish taken, which would have helped the town to demonstrate a sustainable fishery – the requirement for the fishery to comply with new federal regulations that will close the entire East Coast to alewife harvesting in 2012.
The approved harvest would have allowed two licenses to be sold to Maine fishermen, harvesting blue-backed herring, by purse seine only, between Aug. 1 and Dec. 31, down river of a line from Woltz Point to Hollis Point, according to the harvest plan.
The state and federal government do not draw any distinction between alewives and blue-backed herring for purposes of fishery management, said Mike Brown, with the Dept. of Marine Resources.
The last time Waldoboro had an alewife harvest was in 2004, and the limited harvest this year would have allowed the town to update their data on the condition of the fish population, members of the Waldoboro Board of Selectmen said when they approved the harvest plan.
A natural resource warden would have worked closely to monitor the catch, and scale samples would have been taken from fish each week. The plan specifically required harvesters to cooperate fully with the warden and researchers.
This data would have been used to help show Waldoboro has a sustainable alewife harvest.
Earlier this year, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) passed an amendment to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Shad and Herring. Amendment 2, as it is known, prohibits the taking of river herring in all state waters on the East Coast unless a town or state submits a “sustainable management plan,” according to a press release issued by the ASMFC.
The ASMFC defines a sustainable fishery as “a commercial and/or recreational fishery that will not diminish the potential future stock reproduction and recruitment,” according to the press release.
The coast-wide moratorium on river herring harvesting takes effect Jan. 1, 2012, according to the press release.
What this means for Maine is by next year, each town needs to have a harvest plan in place that allows DMR to demonstrate the population of river herring is in line with the amount of fish being harvested, said Pat Keliher, director of the DMR Bureau of Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat during a meeting with fishermen and town officials in Bremen.
Next year, DMR will likely enforce closures of the river herring harvest during key months, in an effort to establish a fishery that will pass the ASMFC definition of sustainable, Keliher said.
This is true of all Maine’s municipal river herring harvests, and DMR will be meeting with each of Maine’s lobster zone councils to discuss the problem and the future of the harvest, Keliher said.
After those meetings have been conducted, the DMR will schedule public hearings in each of the affected municipalities, Keliher said.
“When we hit 2012, we want to be in a place where we can show that we’re harvesting sustainably, or else we’re looking at complete closure,” Keliher said. “We don’t want to drag our feet too much.”
One of the most important pieces in establishing the harvest is sustainable is gathering data to demonstrate population size.
The DMR is reliant on fishermen to cooperate in the research efforts, and without anyone taking out a harvest license, there are no fishermen to provide the samples.
