Announcement of crawfish fishery closures in 2024
Building on recent announcements relating to the move to a harmonised MCRS for crawfish and publication of the crab and lobster FMP, Marine Management Organisation (MMO) can now confirm the decision on the proposal to close English waters ICES area 7 for fishing crawfish.
© Natural England/Ross Bullimore
Having considered the consultation responses, scientific evidence, socio-economic impacts and relevant legislation and policy, the UK Fisheries Administrations have agreed to introduce a closure of the crawfish fishery for all UK and EU vessels in:
- English waters of ICES area 7 from 5 February to 30 April 2024.
This decision was a result of a consultation MMO ran on potential closure options from 13 November to 27 November 2023. MMO received forty responses to the consultation and would like to thank everyone who participated.
The closure has been designed to offer protection to crawfish during their spawning season, support future growth in the population, limit the risk of mortality due to fish being caught in poor condition and nets being lost in poor weather.
This closure length will protect berried and juvenile crawfish whilst balancing socio-economic considerations, fulfilling EU notification obligations and allowing the shellfish industry time to adapt business processes.
The closure will be enacted through a vessel licence variation.
Further information on a summary of responses received and reasoning behind the decision is available here.
For a full account of how and why these new measures was developed, visit https://www.gov.uk/guidance/regional-fisheries-groups-south-west-7efg.