Highly Migratory Species Report

Large sharks are an important part of eco-system management since each shark has specific preferred food species. The current shark management plan ignores their preferred food needs. Even worse, NMFS ignores sharks long life, live birth biological and long time to sexual maturity restraints. NMFS ignores the fact that no directed large shark directed commercial fishery has ever been sustainable. So, regardless of any rules NMFS can impose on commercial shark fishers, this fishery can never be sustainable. Despite the facts, NMFS permits a commercial directed large shark fishery to exist.

The most desirable shark species for food had been the sandbar shark. This species was mostly landed in the GOM and in the Atlantic Ocean below Virginia. NMFS proposed closing this fishery many years ago. But commercial lobbying kept the fishery open until 2008 when only sandbar shark species was closed to direct commercial fishing. But NMFS permits a sandbar Research quota of 87.9 MT DW which is 193,784 lbs DW. Is a research quota of 193,784 DW lbs not an absurd high quota?

Large coastal sharks are primarily bottom feeders. To keep the large coastal shark fishery open for the other shark species makes zero biological sense. Scientists consider this NMFS commercial fishery to be clearly impossible. Landing only non-sandbar sharks will have a major impact caused by the dead discard of sandbar sharks. These dead sandbar shark discards makes it impossible for sandbar sharks to ever rebuild their numbers.

The other large shark fishery is the Pelagic shark fishery including Mako, Porbeagle and blue sharks. Blue sharks are not reported as being commercially targeted due to their poor eating quality. Recreational fishermen report blue shark numbers have sharply declined in the last 10 years. So, clearly something is going on that is not being reported.

For the fifth year in a row, US giant bluefin tuna landings have been less than 45% of the International Convention on the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) allocated quota. Many reasons have been proposed for this major collapse of a fishery that was among the most lucrative in the world. The good news is 2009 landings was a major improvement of over 100 MT from 2008. The best catches were made in the Cape Cod area last August and September. Recreational catches of large school and small mediums were the best from NJ in many years. Previous years reported the most landings being made from ports in MD. and VA. Since NJ was the historic home port for the first bluefin tuna landings as far back as the 1930’s, it may just be that this was their historic home and NJ fishing is returning to normal.

No single fishery is more import to anglers and their suppliers than Yellowfin tuna. This is a huge fishery. From Florida to Maine this tuna fishery is the fishery where more money is spent for boats, supplies, trips and fuel than any other recreational fishery. If you include the larger boats purchased for this fishery, the spending was over 100 million dollars per year. That is one huge amount of money. It supports many thousands of jobs on the east coast. Its loss will have a major economic impact!

Over 5 years ago ICCAT mandated that members curtail their Yellowfin tuna landings. This mandate was ignored by everyone but the US. European countries continued to build huge purse seine boats that could target the mid-Atlantic between Africa and Brazil. Their mid-ocean landings have exploded over the last 5 years while US recreational Yellowfin landings have continued to drop lower each season. Last year was the worst since this fishery began in the 1970’s.

Anglers must demand from their congressmen pressure on NMFS to demand ICCAT Yellowfin rules be observed. If congressional pressure is still ignored, then only sharply cutting NMFS-HMS and ICCAT budget will get their attention.