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Highly Migratory Species Reportby John T. Koegler (from Jersey Coast Anglers Association March 2006 Newsletter) Contents: Bluefin Tuna Issues
Last week, the National Coalition for Marine Conservation sent their members an important action alert. This alert reminded their members that NOAA’s New Highly Migratory Species Management Plan released on August 18, 2005 has a comment period that will end on March 1 2006. NOAA Fisheries new plan proposes major changes in recreational HMS rules that will have a major negative impact. Several of the proposed changes will have major economic impacts as well. Is recreational HMS fishing and especially recreational HMS fishing tournaments being regulation targeted? What is most discouraging about the proposed rules is that they contain no specific new commercial rules. This is so wrong that a federal judge ruling on the NOAA fisheries HMS proposal that would have ended all recreational White Marlin landing immediately commented that the proposed HMS plan lacked any new commercial regulations. In fact, NOAA fisheries new rules propose approving two new types of very efficient commercial fishing gear. (see JCAA letter) We have included JCAA’s letter to NOAA Fisheries on the proposed new HMS regulations. If you have not read the plan you can do so at NOAA Fisheries web site. Please send your letter or a copy of JCAA’s on your stationary, plus if possible on your club’s letterhead to NOAA’s Highly Migratory Species division immediately at the below address. You should be able to scan this letter and print it on yours or you club’s letterhead:
NMFS/NOAA Dear Karyl Brewester-Geisz,
1- We do not support the consolidation of the Atlantic Billfish FMP with the HMS FMP. The Billfish plan is specified as a recreational only fishery. It has no place in a combined FMP that under ATCA is mandated to land the entire US quota allocated by ICCAT. 2- Elimination of the Billfish Management Advisory Board would have a major negative impact on future recreational billfish management regulations. Therefore, we strongly oppose this proposal. 3- A plan proposal to eliminate all recreational landings of White Marlin starting in January 2007 will do nothing to improve the white marlin stocks. NMFS must do a better job working with ICCAT to have all other nations impose meaningful and enforced controls on their catch of white marlin. This proposal must be rejected. 4- There is no proposed regulation to impose time and area closures on any commercial HMS fishery. Imposing commercial limited time and area closures would make a major contribution to improving the White Marlin stocks. The Magnuson/Stevens Fishery Conservation Act has a National Standard that mandates "fair and equitable" regulations. NMFS proposals clearly ignore this National Standard. 5- NMFS proposes to authorize two new types of commercial fishing gear. Permitting new commercial gear types can only increase the harvest of HMS species. This will not permit the overfished stocks to rebuild. Additional new commercial gear can only result in fully harvested HMS species becoming overfished. These two types of commercial gear must be banned. 6- NMFS proposes to approve the use of buoy gear in the current closed areas. This new commercial gear violates both the intent and purpose of the closed areas. Commercial HMS hand line gear, buoy gear and greensticks must ALL be prohibited in closed HMS areas. 7- Maintain the current recreational bluefin tuna North/South dividing line. National standards require “fair and equitable” distribution of the bluefin quota. This is the law. Without the N/S line fair and equitable distribution is impossible. 8- A January 1 bluefin tuna season opening has been proposed. If NOAA Fisheries desires a January 1 opening, then school fish and a 10 MT quota for large school and small medium bluefin is required.
The proposed consolidated FMP contains proposals that must be changed. #14- Optimize the social and economic benefits to the nation by reserving the billfish resource for its traditional use, which in the continental United States is almost entirely a recreational fishery. Please eliminate the word “almost”. #16 “Create a management system to make fleet capacity commensurate with resource stocks so as to achieve the dual goals of economic efficiency and biological conservation for both commercial and recreational fisheries, while reducing latent effort and over capitalization as needed and providing access for traditional gears and fishermen to participate fully as the stock recovers. Item #16 must be rewritten or eliminated since what it proposed is impossible for recreational interests to live with. To date, there has not been a method developed to measure over capitalization in the recreational fleet. Recreational fisheries must not be managed using commercial terms such as fleet capacity and over capitalization.
Bluefin Tuna Issues Most recreational fishermen are not aware that in 2005 anglers were fishing for school bluefin tuna using their 2006 quota. It is expected that in 2006 there will be a closed season on the landing or keeping of school bluefin tuna. (27” to 47”) It will be a catch and release fishery only. I have not seen HMS division estimates of anglers 2005 bluefin tuna landings. But it is believed that anglers will have their entire 2006 large school and small medium category (47” to 73”) available. There may be a carry forward of some 2005 large school and small medium quota into 2006.
Weather Alert The recent intense NE blizzard along our coast was more than a gentle reminder that storms intensity is increasing. During the wee morning hours, at the height of that blizzard there was an extended period of rolling thunder and lightning in my area... What surprised me most was that my fireplace ashes were blown into my family room, despite a glass screen and a chimney shield. What makes this frightening is the same thing happened to my daughter who lives 11 miles away. Are such storms a wake-up call for anglers to pay real close attention to weather fronts during our fishing season? Are such storm front features now dangerous to all fishermen in addition to being unwelcome?
New Jersey Passes Strict New Boating License I have not seen any articles about the New Jersey legislators recently passing of a tough new boat operator licensing law. See www.Boating-Industry.com and go to recent archives. I have not considered every issue raised by this new law but there are several that are troubling and several that seem important that are not covered. Given that there are few fatal boating fatalities in NJ it is difficult to understand why any new law has to be so tough. Why were such short time frames mandated? Example: Any NJ resident under 26 years of age must take the boating course immediately. Any NJ resident between 26 and 36 must take the boating course by June 1, 2006. Any NJ resident between 36 and 46 must take the boating course by June 1, 2007. Any NJ resident between 46 and 56 must take the boating course by June 1, 2008 All other NJ persons must take the boating course by June 1, 2009
“Out of state” boaters 18 years of age and older who operate a power vessel for less than 90 days in New Jersey are exempt from the course IF they can show proof of similar education from NASBLA , the Coast Guard or other states.??? The NJ state police are allowed to develop an “experienced boaters test” for long time boaters. (7 years of boat ownership). Experienced Persons taking and passing this test will not be required to take the boat safety course. Personal Watercraft drivers are all required to take the new boating test and be licensed. This applies to everyone over 16 years of age. Rental PWC and boat rental customers are exempted because the rental companies provide safety instructions. If the above items do not aggravate your ulcer then I guess you will have to read the entire boater education law for yourself.
NJ Sea Grant Holds 4th Annual Charterboat Workshop New Jersey Sea Grant will hold a business and fisheries management meeting on Thursday, March 23 for charterboat operators. The location is the Clarion Hotel in Atlantic City West and the cost is $30.. For additional information call Jenny McCormick at 1-732-872-1300 ext 24. or check www.njmsc.org for details. In Science magazines January 17, 2003 issue starting on page 389 there is a shocking scientific report from a Canadian University about the condition of the shark population in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.(www.sciencemag.org) Using NMFS data sets researchers from Dalhousie University’s Department of Biology wrote an article titled: “Collapse and Conservation of Shark Populations in the Northwest Atlantic”. This article was based on NMFS data from 1986 to 2000. Consider that US commercial shark fishing is documented to have begun in the mid- 1960’s. Their conclusions are shocking: “We estimate that all recorded shark species, with the exception of makos, have declined by more than 50% in the past 8 to 15 years.The trend in abundance is most striking for hammerhead sharks; we estimate a decline of 89% since 1986 with a 95% confidence interval…. The trend for white sharks was an estimated 79% decline (85% CL)… Tiger shark catch rates declined by an estimated 65% since 1986 (95%CL) The coastal species recorded from 1992 declined by an estimated 61 %( 95%CL). The trends for oceanic sharks have also shown decline. We estimate that thresher sharks have declined by 80 %( 95%CL) Observed declines suggest that these populations have collapsed. Blue sharks declined by and estimated 60% (95%CL). Our results show that overfishing is threatening large coastal and oceanic sharks in the Northwest Atlantic…The magnitude of the declines estimated here suggests that several sharks may also now be at risk of large-scale extirpation. NMFS continues to allow large scale commercial shark long line fishing that involve all the shark species covered by the above report summary. I will have a complete report about these sharks in next month’s newsletter. .
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