The Spiny Dogfish Committee will meet via webinar on Thursday, September 19, 2024 from 9 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
The purpose of this meeting is for the Committee to review 2025 fishing year specifications and consider if any changes are appropriate.
MAFMC Contact: Jason Didden - jdidden@mafmc.org; 302-526-5254
Webinar Connection
Click here to join the meeting. If prompted, enter Meeting number: 2342 908 9567; Meeting password: AMceZwpJ654
For phone only access: 1-415-655-0001; Access Code: 2342 908 9567. Please only use this option if you are not connecting to the webinar on your computer or device. Otherwise follow the audio connection prompts to call in when you join the webinar.
Meeting Materials and Background Information
Background Materials are available at the September SSC Meeting page.
Due primarily to catch changes/increases in 2022 and 2023, projections were updated using the current stock assessment model, and the ABCs were lower.
The SSC provided Acceptable Biological Catches (ABCs) for 2025/2026 of either: 7,230 metric tons (MT) for both years or 7,031 MT for 2025 and 7,446 MT for 2026.
The current ABC for 2024 of 7,818 MT implemented by NOAA was higher than SSC/Councils’ ABC (NOAA set ABC = over-fishing limit)
The Committee’s regulatory task is to recommend a quota that will ensure that the Annual Catch Limit (ACL) is not exceeded, which means that discards must be accounted for.
Recent higher discards and the need to avoid ACL overages appear to make it very difficult to avoid quota reductions, but industry members of the Monitoring Committee and public comment highlighted that their observations do not indicate any lack of spiny dogfish and that quota reductions could end the industry and have wide ranging negative impacts on fishery participants and related businesses.