NOAA Fisheries announces the extension of a temporary rule to extend portions of the fishing year 2019 carryover provisions in the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan into fishing year 2020. On June 1, 2020, at the request of the New England Fishery Management Council, NOAA Fisheries published an emergency action to implement these measures.
This previous action:
- Allowed limited access general category individual fishing quota vessels to carryover all fishing year 2019 unharvested quota into fishing year 2020.
- Allowed any access area carryover pounds and unharvested research set-aside compensation pounds from fishing year 2019 to be available for harvest through August 31, 2020.
- Closed the Nantucket Lightship-West to scallop fishing beginning on September 1, 2020.
Although access area carryover pounds and unharvested research set-aside compensation pounds from fishing year 2019 expired on August 31, 2020, extending this action:
- Provides additional time for Limited Access General Category Individual Fishery Quota vessels to land the 2019 carryover allocation granted by the original emergency action.
- Provides the New England Fishery Management Council additional time to develop a plan for the management of the Nantucket Lightship-West Access Area while it remains closed.
