Feds OK Secret Clam-Mixing Fishing Trips for Science!
Published Date: 3/21/2025
Notice
Summary
Fishing companies and researchers want special permission to catch and keep surfclams and ocean quahogs together, which is usually not allowed. This helps them study how these species mix during fishing trips to improve future rules. People have until April 7, 2025, to share their thoughts before a final decision is made.
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 1 costs, 0 mixed.
Temporary permission to land both clam species
If you operate a federally-permitted fishing vessel, the requested Exempted Fishing Permit (EFP) would let up to 15 vessels fish for, retain, and land both surfclams and ocean quahogs on the same trip (in mixed or separate cages) for one year from issuance. The project could allow up to 1,200 trips (up to 2 days per trip, up to 2,400 total days), using dredge gear with up to 25 one-hour tows per trip, and would exempt participating vessels from 50 CFR 648.14(j)(1)(iii) and (iv) during the EFP period.
Scientists may board trips to collect mixing data
Project scientists may board approximately two trips per month to collect independent at-sea estimates of surfclam-ocean quahog mixing using scientific protocols, and will also collect estimates at processing plants; all independent estimates will be submitted to Rutgers University and summarized for the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office. The study area is Southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic and runs for one year from issuance.
Processors must sort and document project catch
Processors handling catch from participating trips would independently sort and document the surfclam and ocean quahog catch at the plant as part of the study, and project scientists would also collect plant-level estimates (not necessarily from the same trips where at-sea estimates were made). The project covers processing of catch landed under the EFP during the one-year study.
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