New England Groundfish Fishery—Maine, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts

New England fish harvesters are entering year four of implementing Electronic Monitoring (EM) as a replacement for human at-sea monitors (ASM) to meet the monitoring and compliance requirements for the 2019 fishing year, May 1, 2019- April 30, 2020 (FY2019).

This third-party program will supplement the existing Northeast Fisheries Observer Program (NEFOP) and provide the necessary data for accurate discard estimation to account for sector ACE (annual catch entitlement) utilization.

The EM partners have been working closely with National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to develop and submit an exempted fishing permit (EFP) application for the upcoming fishing year to test and refine EM technology in the New England multispecies fishery.