Contact: Gordon Helm FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
8/14/97The National Marine Fisheries Service is seeking public comment on a proposal designed to reduce interactions between harbor porpoises and commercial fishermen in the sink gillnet fishery in New England waters from Maine through Rhode Island, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.
The Gulf of Maine sink gillnet fishery is listed as a Category 1 fishery under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), because of this high level of interaction with marine mammals, particularly harbor porpoises. The MMPA requires the fisheries service to reduce the incidental mortality and serious injury of these animals. To accomplish this task, the fisheries service convened a take reduction team to develop a consensus plan on which all affected parties could agree.
A comprehensive take reduction plan was developed by consensus of the full Harbor Porpoise Take Reduction Team consisting of representatives of the fishing industry, conservation organizations, the scientific community, coastal New England states and the fisheries service. The plan was submitted to the fisheries service in August 1996, and was based largely on a review of data collected during fisheries service abundance surveys, from the sea sampling observer program and a 1995 pinger experiment. The proposed take reduction plan would implement the team's recommendations, with some modifications, and establish a comprehensive approach to reducing incidental takes of harbor porpoise in the Northeast multispecies sink gillnet fishery.
The components of the proposal include:
(1) A management plan that includes a schedule of time/area closures and periods when pingers would be required for each of the established management areas.
(2) An implementation plan that includes recommendations regarding a detailed census of the gillnet fleet; outreach, training and certification programs for fishers who wish to use pingers; coordination and consultation with Canadian counterparts regarding the reduction of harbor porpoise takes in Canadian waters; enforcement of the take reduction plan; coordination of bycatch reduction efforts with those of the Mid-Atlantic Take Reduction Team, which is looking at porpoise bycatch in mid-Atlantic gillnet fisheries; investigation of impacts on the harbor porpoise by the state gillnet and bait gillnet fisheries; and the reconvening of the team to provide periodic evaluations of the take reduction plan.
(3) A series of recommendations regarding the fisheries service's collection, analysis, and management of data on the status of the harbor porpoise stock, sink gillnet fishery effort, by-catch rate, and total by-catch estimates; and recommendations regarding design of pinger experiments and gear technology research.
The combination of these strategies is expected to reduce mortality and serious injury by 80 percent, to a level below the Potential Biological Removal as prescribed by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Under the MMPA, the proposed action would govern fishing with sink gillnets and other gillnets capable of catching multispecies in the inshore and offshore waters of New England from Maine through Rhode Island.
Comments on the draft plan, the fisheries service's proposed changes to the plan, and the proposed rule to implement the plan must be received by Oct. 14, 1997. Send comments to Chief, Marine Mammal Division, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910-3226.
Copies of the draft Harbor Porpoise Take Reduction Plan and Environmental Assessment are available upon request from Douglas Beach, Northeast Region, NMFS, One Blackburn Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930, or from Donna Wieting, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910-3226.