PORTLAND, Maine — The National Marine Fisheries Service on Friday announced that that it will close the Gulf of Maine herring fishery effective at 1 a.m. Sunday.
The closure initially prohibits fishermen from taking more than 2,000 pounds of herring per trip or calendar day from Management Area 1A, or the inshore Gulf of Maine between 1 a.m. Sunday and the end of the year, according to a release from the fisheries service.
Fishing for Atlantic herring in the designated Gulf of Maine area will be entirely prohibited from Jan. 1, 2015, through May 31, 2015. Dealers also are warned not to accept herring caught between those dates.
The closure at this time of year is not unusual. The federal fisheries management service similarly limited the herring all last year, announcing a closure effective Oct. 24, 2014.
The National Marine Fisheries Service closed the offshore Gulf of Maine to herring fishing in May when it announced that the projected Atlantic herring fishery in Management Area 1B had already exceeded 92 percent of the total allowable catch for 2014.
In 2013, fishermen brought in 44,579 metric tons of Atlantic herring, or nearly 100 million pounds, according to figures from the Maine Department of Marine Resources. At 16 cents per pound, the fishery was valued at $15.39 million — more money than ever before, and double what it was worth in 2009.