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Herring Fishermen Ask for More Haddock Bycatch

PORTLAND, Maine — Herring fishermen will ask the New England Fishery Management Council for an emergency action that could include raising their limit for haddock bycatch.

The council will consider the request at a meeting Friday. Federal regulators say Atlantic herring fishermen who fish from midwater trawl boats are on track this year to exceed their limit for incidental catch of haddock in Georges Bank. That would trigger rules that would effectively shut down the herring fishery.

Many haddock fishermen oppose such a move because they say it would contribute to the depletion of their own fishery.

The management council's decision will come less than a month after the National Marine Fisheries Service said part of the Gulf of Maine's Atlantic herring fishery needed to be shut down for nearly a year.