Tag Archives: Great South Channel

Fishermen backing surf clammers in fight over harvest area

Groundfish stakeholders are supporting the surf clam industry’s efforts to retain fishing rights in pockets of the Great South Channel of the Nantucket Shoals as long as the approved management policy does not prompt “mitigations or further habitat restrictions on the groundfish fishery.”,,, On Tuesday, the New England Fishery Management Council, meeting in Newport, Rhode Island, is expected to decide whether one of the more lucrative fishing grounds for the surf clam fishery — 10 to 20 miles east and southeast of Nantucket — will remain open to surf clamming or restricted or closed as part of a protectionist effort to designate the full area as an essential fish habitat that would be off limits to surf clamming dredging gear. >click to read<06:55

NEFMC Approve Some Habitat Changes – blocks no-fishing zone for scientific research on Stellwagen Bank

Federal fishery regulators say they will keep much-debated protections for Cashes Ledge in the 100_1407in place as part of a broad effort to alter the scope of New England’s fishing grounds. Peter Baker, director of northeast U.S. Oceans for Pew Charitable Trusts, said that with the recent approvals, the council remains “on a course to eliminate thousands of square miles of important fish habitat areas” in favor of commercial fishing concerns. He said the council has ignored conservationists’ (shrugs shoulders),,, Read the rest here 20:48

Cape Cod scallop fleet cries foul

Much of the best fishing terrain lies in and around the Great South Channel that separates Georges Bank from the mainland, and north in the Gulf of Maine, according to the council’s habitat study, and is listed as a likely site for closure or restrictions. Requiring these new habitat protection zones could be considered as an ecological trade-off for allowing fishermen access to areas currently closed to most fishing, according to the council. http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121115/NEWS/211150334