PROVIDENCE - New regulations will go into effect tomorrow -- Saturday, December 4 -- that will prohibit licensed commercial fishermen from harvesting scup in Rhode Island waters until January 1, 2000. The regulations also prohibit licensed scup dealers from purchasing scup from commercial fishermen.

The regulations are being enacted by the Department of Environmental Management's Division of Fish and Wildlife, in order to prevent the state from exceeding its 4.6 million-pound annual scup quota. Any overages of a federal quota would require deductions from the next year's quota.

The closure of Rhode Island's commercial scup fishery complements the recently-imposed federal moratorium on the scup fishery. On November 26, the National Marine Fisheries Service imposed new regulations prohibiting commercial fishermen holding federal permits from harvesting scup in federal waters for the remainder of 1999. The restrictions also ban federally-licensed scup dealers from purchasing scup from commercial fishermen with federal licenses.

Every year, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission assign catch quotas for scup harvested in Rhode Island and other East Coast states. Quota management is designed to restore the scup stock to sustainable levels, and to provide a sustainable scup stock for the future.