Atlantic herring fishery facing new rules

March 25, 2007

Ashbury Park Press
March 25, 2007
By Kirk Moore

First it was horseshoe crabs, then the great shoals of menhaden that swim along New Jersey beaches. Now ocean regulators are reining in the Atlantic herring fishery, a source of once seemingly limitless fish that many say are more valuable for supporting the northwest Atlantic ecosystems.

The National Marine Fisheries Service this month published new rules that will ban mid-water trawling for herring in the Gulf of Maine close to the coastlines of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. Only purse seining, a more traditional type of net fishing, will be allowed to supply New England’s massive demand for herring as lobster bait.

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