Council averts moratorium on monkfish catch New England panel recommends limits in southern part of region

BOSTON – The monkfish industry has apparently averted what it said would be a devastating spring shutdown of the fishery by federal regulators.

A rule recommended last week by the New England Fishery Management Council – which advises federal managers on regional fishing policy – would keep the fishery open past a scheduled May 1 closure. But it also would impose a daily catch limit in the fishery’s southern area that fishermen complain is not economically feasible for larger boats.

“It’s better than shutting it down,” said Nils Stolpe of the Monkfish Defense Fund, an industry group. “No one on the management side is looking at the fishery with the doom-and-gloom perspective they had a year ago.”

Monkfish brought the fifth-highest fishing revenues among all Northeast species in 2000, bringing in $52.7 million on 45 million pounds caught between Maine and North Carolina.

In 2000, more than 8 million pounds of monkfish was brought to Maine ports, according to figures from the state’s Department of Marine Resources. The catch was valued at $8.9 million, making it the fourth most lucrative catch in the state, behind lobsters, sea urchins and softshell clams.

The council’s recommendation will be considered by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council on Wednesday. If it’s approved, it must be cleared by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The recommendation comes after a recent ocean survey that showed a healthier stock of monkfish than federal managers expected. The joint industry-government trawl survey was conducted last March to May.

“The stock seems to still be technically overfished, but not as much as first thought,” said Steve Murawski, a federal scientist who worked on one of the research vessels.

Stolpe said one flaw in the proposal is a 550-pound limit per day in the southern part of the fishing grounds, an area from southern New England to North Carolina.

New Bedford fisherman Henrique Franco, 29, said it costs about $700 per day in gas just to get his dragger out to the southern area’s deeper water. At $1 to $1.80 per pound for monkfish tails, there’s no point for any large boats to make the trip, he said.

Franco was captain of the Mary K, one of two boats that conducted the survey trawls last spring.

“I’m very, very disappointed and very sad, too,” he said. “We showed them what they wanted. We showed them a lot of fish.”

Phil Haring, a monkfish policy analyst for the New England council, said the council agreed on the catch limit to stretch the total allowed catch out over the 40 fishing days allotted. Forty monkfish fishing days, with no limit, also are allotted in the northern area.

Monkfish, also called goosefish, are a bottom-dwelling fish up to 35 inches long with a flat head, huge mouth and sharp teeth. Monkfish were caught mostly by accident in the 1970s, but were targeted by fishermen as other stocks declined.

Haring said the spring survey gave regulators a good idea of the total mass of monkfish in the sea, but more research is needed to determine if monkfish stock is truly as healthy as fishermen insist.

Stolpe said the government and industry would be teaming up for more surveys this year.