- Division of Marine Fisheries
Atlantic Herring: 10,613,053 pounds (coastwide quota)
The Atlantic herring fishery will be severely restricted in 2021. The stock was officially declared overfished by NOAA Fisheries in October 2020, triggering a two-year timeline for the New England Fishery Management Council to implement a rebuilding plan. This comes on the heels of the latest stock assessment indicating that spawning stock biomass in 2019 was at its lowest value since the late 1980s and well below its threshold level (just 58% of it). The coastwide catch limit for 2021 represents a 58% reduction from 2020, and is just a fraction (<5%) of what is was in 2017. The coastwide limit is allocated among four management areas. The NEFMC has recommended status-quo allocations of 28.9% to Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine), 4.3% to Area 1B (offshore Gulf of Maine), 27.8% to Area 2 (south of Cape Cod), and 39% to Area 3 (Georges Bank). The next stock assessment is scheduled for 2022.
Atlantic Menhaden: 5,422,022 pounds (MA quota)
The coastwide commercial quota—and MA’s 1.27% share of it—are down 10% from 2020 per action of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) to establish a harvest limit that is consistent with its newly-adopted ecological reference points (ERPs) for menhaden. These ERPs are more conservative than the single-species reference points in order to account for menhaden’s role as forage. The ASMFC set the coastwide quota at 194,400 metric tons (or ~428.6 million pounds) for both 2021 and 2022, a level projected to approach a 50% probability of achieving the ERP target in its second year. Massachusetts’ initial quota of roughly 5.4 million pounds has the potential to be increased by state transfers of quota, and the state may also opt into the episodic event fishery which provides access to a 1% set-aside of the coastwide quota (~4.3 million pounds for 2021 which is available to ME–NY when certain conditions apply). In 2020, the MA fishery landed over 8.4 million pounds of menhaden, which was made possible by an additional 2.35 million pounds of quota via state transfers and access to over 400,000 pounds of episodic event set-aside quota.
Black Sea Bass: 791,700 pounds (MA quota)
The ASMFC and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) previously set a 5.58 million-pound coastwide commercial quota of black sea bass for both 2020 and 2021, which represented a 59% increase from the 2019 quota. More recently, the management bodies revised the 2021 quota to incorporate changes to the MAFMC’s risk policy and to update the discard projections, resulting in an additional 9% increase and a coastwide quota of 6.09 million pounds. Massachusetts share is 13%, or 792,165 pounds. Despite the challenges of COVID, the Massachusetts fishery was able to fully make use of its quota increase in 2020, with a fishery that extended into early November (compared to more typical quota closures in late summer) with commensurate increases to the trip limits and open fishing days. Massachusetts’ 13% allocation of the coastwide commercial quota may be subject to revision in the near future, as the ASMFC and MAFMC are expected to vote on possible reallocation options in February 2021 that aim to incorporate changing stock distribution and fishery conditions into the state shares that are currently based on historical landings.
Bluefish: 185,904 pounds (MA quota)
Massachusetts’ bluefish quota is unchanged from 2020. The coastwide quota was set a 2.77 million pounds for 2020 and 2021, a 64% reduction from 2019, based on a decline in biomass that has resulted in an overfished stock determination. MA’s fishery was not constrained by its 6.72% share of the coastwide quota in 2020, landing roughly 60% of it. Our remaining quota was transferred to two other states that experienced better fishery conditions than MA. A draft amendment is under development that has the potential to result in revised state-by-state commercial allocations (as well as a revised commercial/recreational allocation) in time for the 2022 fishery.
Horseshoe Crab: 165,000 crabs (MA quota)
Massachusetts’ 2021 commercial quota for horseshoe crabs is unchanged from 2020. This quota is for crabs harvest for bait purposes (primarily used in the whelk and eel pot fisheries). Horseshoe crabs harvested for other purposes (primarily biomedical use) are not counted against this quota. After the fishery experienced an early quota closure in 2019 that had the potential to result in unwanted discarding in the mixed-species trawl fishery and insufficient supply of crabs for biomedical use in the fall, the Division made several modifications to the management measures which served to provide a full season of harvesting in 2020. About 3% of the quota remained at year’s end.
Scup: 1,723,757 pounds (MA Summer Period quota)
At 20.50 million pounds, the 2021 coastwide commercial quota is down 8% from 2020, a level still above typical landings. The quota is divided among three seasons. The Winter I Period (January–April) and Winter II Period (October–December) receive 45.11% and 15.94% of the coastwide quota, respectively; this equates to 9.25 and 3.27 million pounds for 2021. Quota during these periods is open to all states at federally-set trip limits. The fisheries have not been constrained by these quotas in recent years. Of the 38.95% (or 7.98 million pounds for 2021) allocated to the Summer Period fishery (May–September), Massachusetts receives roughly 21.6% (or 1.72 million pounds). Our Summer Period harvest in 2020 was roughly 571,000 pounds, continuing a downward trend. Overall, the commercial scup fishery is unconstrained by its quota due to insufficient market demand for this abundant stock.
Spiny Dogfish: 17,144,556 pounds (ME—CT regional quota)
The coastwide commercial quota is increasing 27% to 29.56 million pounds for the May 1, 2021 through April 30, 2022 fishing year. The Northern Region of Maine through Connecticut receives 58% of the coastwide quota. Most of the landings in our region occur in Massachusetts and between the months of June and November. This year’s Northern Region fishery is nearing its conclusion with less than 8 million pounds landed, well within its 13.4-million-pound limit and leaving plenty of quota available for transfer to more southern states (whose fisheries primarily occur between November and April) should it be needed. The federal waters and our region’s trip limit will remain at 6,000 pounds, although more consideration of changes to the trip limit is expected to occur after additional socio-economic analyses planned for the coming year are completed.
Striped Bass: 735,240 pounds (MA quota)
Massachusetts’ 2021 commercial striped bass quota will be unchanged from 2020. All states’ commercial quotas were reduced by 18% beginning in 2020 in order to end overfishing and achieve the target fishing mortality rate. The MA fishery landed only 52% of its quota in 2020, due to a combination of factors including reduced abundance of large fish that meet the commercial 35” minimum size limit, the impacts of changing oceanographic conditions and predator/prey distribution on striped bass spatial availability, and the cumulative effect of an increasing number of restrictions placed on the fishery over the last half dozen years, many of which were tailored to prior fishery conditions (e.g., near unprecedented abundance) that no longer exist. DMF will be considering options to increase the fishery’s access to its available quota in 2021.
Summer Flounder: 1,014,509 pounds (MA quota)
The 2021 coastwide commercial quota of 12.48 million pounds is up 8% from 2020 due to the application of the MAFMC’s recently revised risk policy that allows a higher catch given the stock’s status. However, Massachusetts’ state quota of summer flounder will increase 29% due to implementation of the ASMFC and MAFMC’s joint amendment revising the state-by-state allocation method. Previously, the state allocations were based on 1980-1989 landings, which for Massachusetts resulted in a 6.82% share (or a 786,399-pound quota in 2020). Under the new allocation scheme, the first 9.55 million pounds of the coastwide quota are allocated in this same manner, while any quota above this “trigger” is allocated in equal shares of 12.375% to all states (except ME, NH, and DE which share 1% of the additional quota). This method is intended to increase equity in the state allocations when the stock is in better condition and results in an effective share of 8.12% of the 2021 commercial quota for MA. Massachusetts’ summer flounder harvesters landed more fish in 2020 than 2019 but still struggled to achieve their allocation in large part due to reduced participation in the inshore fishery and low daily summertime limits that constrain seasonal participation by offshore vessels. Several factors reportedly reduced effort in the inshore fishery including COVID-related impacts on personal safety and market demand, offshore redistribution of larger fish, and large amounts of filamentous algae clogging fishing nets. DMF will be considering additional tools for 2021 to assist the fishery in achieving its allocation.
Tautog: 64,753 pounds (MA quota)
Massachusetts’ 2021 tautog quota will be set at its baseline amount of 64,753 pounds. This is marginally larger than 2020 (62,797 pounds), given no prior-year quota overage to account for (as was the case in 2020). The 2020 quota sustained the fishery until early November, similar to recent years. Novel to 2020 was the successful implementation of the first year of mandatory tagging of all commercial harvested tautog in Massachusetts, per the new interstate management plan requirement. Close to 30,000 DMF-purchased tautog tags were distributed to permitted tautog harvesters despite the complications of COVID-19. The Division intends to purchase a larger amount of tags for 2021 (to augment the initial distribution amounts) and produce instructional videos on proper tagging method (to ensure tag retention and fish survival) to further improve this program. The tagging requirement, while meant to curtail non-compliance and aid enforcement of tautog harvested for commercial purposes, has the added benefit of providing state of origin to seafood consumers. A recent assessment of consumer preferences for seafood in Massachusetts (supported by the Division’s Seafood Marketing Program) revealed a demand for seafood that is both sustainable and locally sourced.
By Nichola Meserve, Fisheries Policy Analyst
