Closure (Fishery)

A fishery closure is a regulatory order that stops fishing for a stock or in an area, used to protect spawning aggregations, allow stock recovery, or stop quota overruns. Closures run on three triggers: a calendar (seasonal closure), a place (time-area closure or no-take zone), or a quota that has been reached. An in-season closure shuts a fishery the moment landings hit the annual catch limit, the standard accountability measure under US rules. Emergency closures follow stock collapse, as in the Northwest Atlantic cod moratorium declared by Canada in 1992.