Implementation of New Fishery Management Activities

The U.S. Coast Guard and the National Marine Fisheries Service have joint enforcement responsibility to manage both domestic and foreign fishing within 200 miles of the U.S. coastline. Nine fishery management plans have been approved and implemented, and about 70 will ultimately be developed. A review of the Atlantic Groundfish Plan and Surf Clam Plan showed that enforcement of regulations has not been effective because: (1) the nature of the regulations make them difficult to enforce; (2) enforcement goals and strategies have not been established; (3) coordination within the Fisheries Service and between the Fisheries Service and the Coast Guard has been inadequate; and (4) appropriate penalties have not been assessed in a timely manner. Effective enforcement of the Surf Clam Plan cannot be achieved until the Plan is revised to require dockside enforcement and restrictions are imposed on the quantity of clams that each vessel may land. The quarterly quotas established for Atlantic groundfish cannot be enforced because it is impossible to determine in which location the fish are caught without continuous surveillance of the fishing vessels. Dockside inspections can verify the total quantity being landed, but not the source. Dockside enforcement has been further complicated by weekly quotas rather than trip quotas for cod and haddock. Some States have no regulations for their territorial sea, and others have regulations which differ from those established for the fishery conservation zone. As a result, enforcement personnel must determine where fish were caught in order to prove a violation, and this is impossible to do. The Fisheries Service Enforcement Program is also affected by the limited number of personnel available. The Service has not defined the role of its agents or provided guidance to them on how to use their time most productively, and many Coast Guard personnel are not trained in fish identification and do not understand the regulations. It is suggested that the Fisheries Service and the Coast Guard should confirm the accuracy of catch statistics reported by foreign vessels.