Northeast Multispecies (Groundfish) Fishing Year 2019 Commercial Regulations

July 18, 2019

We have changed commercial groundfish quotas for seven stocks for the 2019 fishing year.

Bulletin |

New England/Mid-Atlantic

New England, Mid-Atlantic

We approved Framework Adjustment 58 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan and are announcing final quotas for fishing year 2019.

The groundfish possession limits announced for May 1, 2019, are not changed by this action.

These quotas are effective on July 18, 2019.

We also changed the annual days-at-sea leasing deadline to April 30, implemented new rebuilding plans for five stocks, and revised an accountability measure for the scallop fishery.These measures are not included in this bulletin, but you can find more information about these in the final rule.

Fishing Year 2019 Catch Limits

Framework 58 changes the 2019 commercial groundfish quotas for seven stocks compared to the 2019 quotas previously set by Framework 57 in 2018.Additionally, we adjusted the Gulf of Maine cod quota to pay back an overage from 2017.Fishing year 2019 quotas for all other groundfish stocks are not being changed by this action.

Commercial groundfish quotas are increasing for three stocks: Georges Bank haddock (+19%), witch flounder (+1%), and Georges Bank winter flounder (+6%).
Commercial groundfish quotas are decreasing for four stocks: Georges Bank cod(‑20%), Georges Bank yellowtail flounder (-64%), Gulf of Maine winter flounder (-1%), and Atlantic halibut (-3%).

The 2019 annual catch limits (ACL) are listed in Table 1. Sector annual catch entitlements (ACE) are shown in Table 2. The U.S./Canada quotas are shown in Table 3.

Sector and common pool allocations are based on the final fishing year 2019 rosters and have been adjusted to pay back the Gulf of Maine cod overage (Tables 4, 5, and 6). This information is the same as the information provided in potential sector contribution letters dated February 6, 2019. After we finalize fishing year 2018 catch information, we will subtract any sector or common pool overages from the 2019 catch limits in a future management action.

Table 1. Fishing Year 2019 Catch Limits (mt, live weight)

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Stock	Total ACL	Groundfish sub-ACL	Final Sector sub-ACL	Final Common Pool sub-ACL	Recreational sub-ACL	Midwater Trawl Fishery	Scallop Fishery	Small-Mesh Fisheries	State Waters sub- component	Other sub-component
Stock		A to H	A+B+C	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
GB Cod*	1,741	1,568	1,514	54	-	-	-	-	18	155
GOM Cod	637	581	350	11	220	-	-	-	47	9
GB Haddock*	55,249	53,276	52,432	844	-	811	-	-	581	581
GOM Haddock	11,803	11,506	8,216	96	3,194	116	-	-	91	91
GB Yellowtail Flounder*	103	85	82	2	-	-	17	2	0	0
SNE/MA Yellowtail Flounder	66	32	26	6	-	-	15	-	2	17
CC/GOM Yellowtail Flounder	490	398	377	21	-	-	-	-	51	41
American Plaice	1,532	1,467	1,436	31	-	-	-	-	32	32
Witch Flounder*	948	854	831	23	-	-	-	-	40	55
GB Winter Flounder*	786	774	742	32	-	-	-	-	0	12
GOM Winter Flounder*	428	355	337	18	-	-	-	-	67	7
SNE/MA Winter Flounder	700	518	444	74	-	-	-	-	73	109
Redfish	11,208	10,972	10,915	57	-	-	-	-	118	118
White Hake	2,794	2,735	2,714	21	-	-	-	-	29	29
Pollock	38,204	37,400	37,152	248	-	-	-	-	402	402
N. Windowpane Flounder	86	63	na	63	-	-	18	-	2	3
S. Windowpane Flounder	457	53	na	53	-	-	158	-	28	218
Ocean Pout	120	94	na	94	-	-	-	-	3	23
Atlantic Halibut*	100	75	na	75	-	-	-	-	21	4
Atlantic Wolffish	84	82	na	82	-	-	-	-	1	1

KEY: na: not allocated to sectors. ACL = annual catch limit, GB = Georges Bank, GOM = Gulf of Maine, SNE/MA = Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic, CC/GOM = Cape Cod/Gulf of Maine, N = northern, S = southern.

*These stocks have changes from the 2019 allocations previously approved in Framework 57.

Table 2. ACE (in 1,000 lb), by stock, for each sector for fishing year 2019#^

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Sector Name	GB Cod East	GB Cod West	GOM Cod	GB Haddock East	GB Haddock West	GOM Haddock	GB Yellowtail Flounder	SNE/MA Yellowtail Flounder	CC/GOM Yellowtail Flounder	Plaice	Witch Flounder	GB Winter Flounder	GOM Winter Flounder	SNE/MA Winter Flounder	Redfish	White Hake	Pollock
Fixed Gear Sector	69	500	6	815	2,079	39	2	1	19	22	24	1	99	15	+158	69	3,160
Maine Coast Community Sector	10	71	91	1,038	2,648	1,628	3	1	30	398	181	17	27	21	2,091	798	10,407
Maine Permit Bank	1	4	9	15	37	206	0	0	3	38	14	0	3	0	199	100	1,398
Mooncusser Sector	51	372	27	1,351	3,447	556	0	0	21	21	31	0	19	17	652	351	4,478
NEFS 2	27	199	217	3,544	9,042	4,278	4	1	224	367	280	55	198	49	3,770	572	12,336
NEFS 4	17	126	87	1,767	4,508	1,614	4	2	54	304	164	12	55	10	1,605	497	5,413
NEFS 5	2	15	0	270	688	1	2	14	2	14	11	7	0	137	4	6	35
NEFS 6	13	93	24	1,108	2,828	773	5	3	32	142	107	26	35	20	1,646	272	3,013
NEFS 7	50	362	24	3,488	8,901	1,356	45	6	86	303	172	511	22	167	2,190	383	5,190
NEFS 8	32	236	9	2,439	6,222	124	27	6	50	96	67	370	36	118	209	63	965
NEFS 10	2	16	20	58	149	235	0	0	38	35	39	0	71	7	81	40	629
NEFS 11	2	12	98	12	29	526	0	0	22	55	31	0	17	0	470	271	7,343
NEFS 12	3	19	23	31	79	186	0	0	69	16	11	0	59	2	55	17	639
NEFS 13	49	354	6	6,739	17,196	173	65	16	54	274	163	295	15	174	1,043	129	2,166
New Hampshire Permit Bank	0	0	9	0	0	6	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	5	5	92
Sustainable Harvest Sector 1	9	69	25	651	1,662	665	2	0	29	142	63	97	35	9	698	255	2,638
Sustainable Harvest Sector 2	4	30	38	321	820	576	5	2	24	138	64	11	24	23	825	381	4,842
Sustainable Harvest Sector 3	63	458	58	8,899	22,709	5,171	18	4	76	800	410	233	26	208	8,363	1,775	17,162
Common Pool	14	104	25	524	1,337	212	5	14	47	69	51	70	40	163	126	47	547
Sector Total	402	2,936	771	32,545	83,047	18,112	181	57	830	3,166	1,831	1,636	742	979	24,063	5,984	81,906

# Numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand pounds. In some cases, this table shows an allocation of 0, but that sector may be allocated a small amount of that stock in tens or hundreds pounds.

^ The data in the table represent the total allocations to each sector.

Table 3. 2019 Fishing Year U.S./Canada Quotas (mt, live weight) and Percent of Quota Allocated to Each Country
Quota	Eastern GB Cod	Eastern GB Haddock	GB Yellowtail Flounder
Quota	Eastern GB Cod	Eastern GB Haddock	GB Yellowtail Flounder	Total Shared Quota	650	30,000	140
U.S. Quota	189 (29%)	15,000 (50%)	106 (76%)
Canadian Quota	461 (71%)	15,000 (50%)	34 (24%)

Gulf of Maine Cod Overage and Payback

In fishing year 2017, Gulf of Maine cod catch exceeded the total ACL (Table 4). The commercial groundfish fishery did not exceeds its quota, but must pay back a portion of the overage by other segments of the fishery. Table 5 shows the proportion (as a percentage) of the unallocated overage attributed to each component of the fishery, the amount (mt) of the unallocated overage attributed to each sub-component, the amount (mt) of any underage of each component’s sub-ACL, and amount (mt) that must be paid back by each component. Table 6 shows revised fishing year 2019 GOM cod allocations incorporating these payback amounts. These revised allocations were incorporated in the quotas set for 2019 in the tables above.