Comment from Allyson Jordan

Dear Mr. Bullard, I am writing today to comment on Monkfish Emergency Action. NMFS response to remove the monkfish trip limit while on a monkfish DAS in the Northern Fishery Area. The council voted (13/2/0) on April 25th to the following motion: the Council requests the NMFS to expedite modification of the final rule on the monkfish Emergency Action to increase the monkfish possession limit while fishing on a groundfish DAS as follows: 600lbs (tail weight) per groundfish DAS for Category D vessels and 1,2500lbs (tail weight) per groundfish DAS for Category C vessels in the NMFA only. For the past few years the NMFA has not exceeded nor landed the TAC for monkfish. The way the system is set up is that you must use a monkfish DAS for every day you are fishing if you exceed the daily trip limit. For example- we have Category C permits and if we fish 6 DAS and have more than 1,800lbs(tail weight) we must use 6 monkfish DAS- this is not working...... Nor is it making any sense for us to fish with rules like this, which does not allow us to harvest at optimum sustainable yield. The process was set up for Council to have some sort of imput- NMFS has ignored the majority of council votes and actions recently- and it is time to listen to the Council and their vote in favor of this action. This would not at all put the monkfish fishery in danger of over fishing or vessels from the North heading to the South. The PDT has determined this. I urge you to change this monkfish action to allow fishermen to harvest responsibly- as the original intent of the Federal Government was to do this...Not to import 92 % of our seafood from foreign countries. Thank you for allowing my comments. Allyson Jordan Gloucester, MA