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by John T. Koegler, Chairman
(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association February 2002 Newsletter)
NMFS has been busy with new proposed angler restrictions in the HMS fisheries.
Three major changes that have been proposed so far are:
1- New swordfish limits at one swordfish per vessel per trip- reply before 2/26/02
2- Reports required on all Marlin and sailfish landed by recreational- reply before 2/26/02.
3- A petition to list white marlin as an endangered or threatened species.
NMFS has proposed new swordfish rules that will limit anglers to one swordfish per boat
per trip. Anglers were never the problem in the swordfish population decline. The one fish rule is just a feel good rule that makes it appear that NMFS is doing their job.
NMFS proposes to require a toll-free mandatory call-in system to collect catch-associated information for all non-tournament landings of Atlantic blue and white marlin to ensure compliance with Phase I of the 2000 ICCAT Atlantic marlin rebuilding plan. While we are doing that, NMFS proposed to require reporting of sailfish and swordfish too.
What is gravely wrong with this proposal for Marlin is that the ICCAT numbers being used to manage the fishery was generated by NMFS personnel who attended a mere handful of major marlin tournaments. They counted the marlin landed during the tournament for scientific purposes. These counted marlin accounted for a minor part of the total US Marlin landings. NMFS must not be allowed to use their ICCAT tournament generated numbers to mange the US recreational marlin fishery. The count given to ICCAT is absurdly low. For this count to now be used as the base number to manage a fishery is lunacy. To use NMFS tiny numbers and then, after the fact, subtract all previously uncounted incidental catches of blue and white marlin should be illegal. The recreational fleet's total marlin, sailfish and swordfish landings have never been counted. In fact, no total fleet estimate was ever added to the US ICCAT numbers. This is useless management and, in my opinion, if imposed, an endangered species listing will end billfish tournaments.
In addition, our canyon fishing area is in grave jeopardy not only for marlin but also for everything else we catch at the canyon edges. The endangered species act is super tough. The act includes a key provision that no interaction with the endangered species is permitted in the area they list as "critical habitat.”
The petition identifies longline fishing as the cause of the white marlin decline and states the recreational angling is not the problem. The petition requests time and area closures where longline fishing will not be permitted. Named as the area to be closed is the area from the 100 fathom line to the 1000 fathom line from Cape Hatteras to the eastern tip of George's Bank. The time when this area is to be closed is from June 1 to October 31. In the Gulf of Mexico it limits fishing from the US Border with Mexico to the east of the De Soito Canyon from May 1 through October 31.
Those who promise they will read carefully the 62 pages of the petition can send me their report as to the likely result of the requested NMFS action. My e-mail address is jtkoegler@junomcom. Send your name address and phone number. I will mail you a copy promptly. I will have a few extra copies at the January JCAA meeting. The full report with references and addendums is hundreds of pages long and reads as if the conservation group supporting the petition fully intends to go to court if NMFS takes no action.
Why the green groups in the name of conservation have recently targeted recreational fishermen is unknown and truly very strange. Perhaps anglers do not complain to their congressmen enough or effectively. Regardless of the reasons, it is becoming more and more apparent that our former comrades from the conservation community are hell bent on eliminating recreational fishing in the bays and ocean waters of the United States.
The US commercial and recreational fishermen account for less than 5 % of the reported deaths of white marlin and less the .01% of the marlin brought to dock. The whole process seems useless as far as meaningful rebuilding of the Marlin species. Last fall, ICCAT's European members and other Eastern Atlantic members refused to accept their next four year quota for bluefin tuna. This species was ICCAT's Holy Grail of fishery management. Since the Eastern zone countries have refused to accept ICCAT quota management, then ICCAT Atlantic Ocean management by ICCAT has become a farce. Why continue to support ICCAT when it does not work.
Is this petition a do good, feel good petition, since it will have absolutely no impact on the recovery of any Marlin species? At the same time huge amounts of business generated by white marlin fishing plus tournaments will be eliminated if approved. Absolutely nothing will have been accomplished, except that much recreational business will be destroyed. This is conservation?
Copies of the petition are available from NMFS office of protected resources at 1-301-713-1401. Ask for David O'Brien.
The group with the money to fund all this is The Biodiversity Legal Foundation of Louisville,
CO conservation group and James R. Chambers, a fishery consultant, a long time NMFS employee.
