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1 ) Areas defined in Amendment 5 for seasonal or occasional closures (Areas I 

 and II and the Nantucket Lightship Area) were closed to all fishing, this 

 now included scallop dredging (of immediate concern to the fishing 

 industry was the prohibition of transit through these areas just for the 

 expediency of enforcement) 



2) Prohibit all fishing with mesh smaller than the regulated minimum size 

 except in fisheries determined by the Regional Director to have a regulated 

 groundfish bycatch of less than 5% 



3) Vessels in certified small-mesh fisheries were prohibited from possessing 



regulated species 



Council, recognizing that emergency action can only be extended to a maximum of 

 180 days, uses framework for abbreviated rulemaking (established under 

 Amendment 5) to make emergency rules permanent. 



Council includes several changes in Framework #9 in a misguided attempt to 

 relieve some of the economic and regulatory burden on the industry: 



1) they now will allow transit through closed Area I and the Nantucket 



Lightship Area under certain provisions 



2) The Council stated that it viewed these rules only as interim rules which 



could be superseded by Amendment 7 



June 28-29, 1995 At the June 28-29 meeting Council agrees on the range of options 



to take out to public hearings for Amendment 7. It must be noted that there was 

 no preferred alternative for this plan when it was taken out to public hearings. 

 Neither management nor the fishers could guess what the final plan would 

 resemble. It was also at this time that the various fishing organizations began to 

 put forward the argument that the fish stocks were already showing signs of 

 recovery. The Massachusetts Fishermen's Partnership (led by the New Bedford 

 Seafood Coalition, Offshore Mariners' Association and the Gloucester 

 Fishermen's Wives Association) stated that the Amendment 5 should be allowed to 

 continue and necessary adjustments could be made to address any shortcomings in 

 the present management plan. 



While it has been stated that days-at-sea was the primary management tool of Amendment 

 7, what began as emergency rules to expand in size and extend in time the area and duration of the 

 closed areas, has in fact become the dominant management tool. For along with the reduction of 

 days-at-sea to as low as 88 days a year (for fleet DAS vessels) we are faced with full-time closure 

 of more than 50% of Georges Bank. While the days-at-sea management measure by itself remains 

 a major restriction for the groundfish fleet, the sudden and continued closure of these areas now 

 not only applies to the groundfish fleet, but they now include the entire scallop fleet as well. 



The fact is that scallopers can and do catch groundfish, and a case might be made to show 

 a need to prohibit them from fishing in the closed spawning areas as well as the groundfish fleet 

 during the spawn. But, the losses sustained by the scallop industry's incidental exclusion from 

 these areas far exceeds any impact they might cause to the regulated species once the spawning 

 season ends. We believe this is also true for the for the groundfish fleet. If, and I say if there is a 



