The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Bluefish Management Board (Board) recommended approval of the Bluefish Allocation and Rebuilding Amendment during a joint June meeting of the Council and Board. 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 December 2017 to consider revisions to the commercial and recreational fisheries allocations and the state-specific commercial allocations. In 2019, an operational stock assessment for bluefish indicated the stock was overfished, and the Council and Board subsequently decided to incorporate the rebuilding plan in the Amendment.
During a joint meeting last week, 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.
The Council and Board ultimately selected the rebuilding plan that utilizes a constant fishing mortality approach and is projected to rebuild the stock in 7 years. Rebuilding progress will be analyzed through management track stock assessments every two years. The management track assessment scheduled for later this month will be the first step in forming specifications for the 2022-2023 fishing years.
The revised sector allocations increase the recreational allocation from 83% to 86% of the acceptable biological catch and decrease the commercial allocation from 17% to 14%. The Council and Board used catch data from 1981-2018 as the basis for sector allocations since it more accurately captures the cyclical nature of the fishery, while providing each sector with sufficient access to the resource considering historical usage.
The Amendment also updates the sector transfer process to allow for quota transfers in either direction between the commercial and recreational sectors. Previously, quota could only be transferred from the recreational sector to the commercial fishery. The transfers will now be capped at 10 percent of the acceptable biological catch for a given year.
Finally, the Amendment modified the management uncertainty tool within the FMP to a sector-specific approach. It allows the Council and Board to apply a buffer to either sector, in the form of a quota reduction, to account for management uncertainty during specifications. While this tool has not been used often, the modified approach allows managers to better target areas of uncertainty within one sector without reducing the quota or harvest limit in the other sector.
As next steps, the Council will forward its recommended approval of the Amendment to NOAA Fisheries for final consideration and implementation. The Commission will consider final approval of the Amendment at its August meeting.
Please visit the Bluefish Allocation and Rebuilding Amendment page for amendment documents and related information.
For questions or more information about this action, contact Matthew Seeley, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, mseeley@mafmc.org, 302-526-5262 or Dustin Colson Leaning, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, dleaning@asmfc.org, 703-842-0714.
