Herring trawlers will have to stop fishing and end the fishing trip if they lower their nets and dump bycatch, such as a haddock and alewife, according to new rules being recommended by the New England Fishery Management Council.

The proposal should “greatly improve accountability” in the Atlantic herring fishery and provide more protection for river herring, shad and haddock, which are sometimes caught accidentally by herring trawlers, said Terry Stockwell, director of external affairs for the Maine Department of Marine Resources and chairman of the New England Fishery Management Council.

Alewife, blue back herring and shad spawn in freshwater streams but spend most of their adult lives in the ocean and occasionally are found in the same fishing grounds as Atlantic herring.

At a meeting last week in Mystic, Conn., the council voted 15-1 to endorse the proposal.

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