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I always think that I cannot get more outraged at members of the ASMFC Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Board.
But they succeeded at this last meeting. We went to public hearings with a new addendum (Addendum XXVI) to the Summer Flounder, Black Sea Bass and Scup Plan to address the 2015 fishing year for summer flounder. There was sparse attendance at most of the hearings but when it came to the options, the number of people supporting some relief for the Delaware Bay situation was close to 50%. Remember, that the problem in Delaware Bay was caused by the actions of this same board last year over the objections of New Jersey. New Jersey was placed in a region with New York and Connecticut. NMFS sent the regional director to support a proposal that would address a perceived disparity in the size of fish that were being harvested recreationally in New York and New Jersey’s waters. With the support of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, New Jersey was forced into this regional district with no regard for problems that would be created for those who fish in Delaware Bay. This caused New Jersey’s Delaware Bay fishermen to fish at 18 inches for a 128 day season. At the same time the new regions allowed Delaware anglers to fish at 16 inches with a 365 day season.
This had a devastating effect on the tackle stores, party and charter boat industry in 2015. Instead of coming to Fortescue or other New Jersey ports along Delaware Bay, the Pennsylvania anglers went to Delaware.
There was an option in the plan in the addendum that would have corrected this problem and given some relief to the New Jersey anglers that fish in Delaware Bay and the businesses that rely on all the anglers who fish in Delaware Bay. There was a motion made for an option that would not address the problems in Delaware Bay. Adam Nowalski, the Legislative proxy for Assemblyman Bob Andrzejczak, made the motion to amend the original motion and provide relief for these anglers and businesses in Delaware Bay. No one would second the motion. Because Adam and I both represent New Jersey, I was not allowed to second the motion. I turned to the people sitting next to me who represent the Fish and Wildlife Service and NMFS, both of whom ignored my plea and would not second the motion. I asked the regional director who created this problem in 2014 to advise his representatives to help solve the problem they created in Delaware Bay. There is no evidence that he did anything to support a solution, showing his total disregard again for the Delaware Bay anglers and New Jersey as a whole.
Where do we go from here? New Jersey needs to work on collecting the economic impact data. We also need to lay the groundwork so we have a second to the motion in 2016. After my blistering speech, accusing everyone of total disregard for New Jersey, several commissioners expressed their regret. I told them they were a day late and a dollar short. But I will be depending on them to correct this error in 2016. The bottom line is New Jersey’s anglers will have the same basic regulations as last year.
Now, in 2015, we are still failing to address problems I recognized and brought to the attention of ASMFC, the MidAtlantic Marine Fisheries Council and NMFS in 1994. In 1994 we began to draft a plan to regulate black sea bass. I pointed out that the data we had was so bad that any plan would have negative consequences in the future. The three groups all agreed and said they would correct the problem. The last five years we have not been able to fully harvest the approved quota. Would you want to guess why? We still have the lack of credible fisheries data that would be necessary to use the models appropriately. We have not done anything in the last 20 years to get more reliable fisheries data since there is no funding. What NMFS has done is create new models to handle the bad data. The Scientific and Statistical Committee of the MidAtlantic Council places a penalty on the finished stock assessment by reducing the allowable quota. This has cost both the commercial and recreational fishery untold hardship in recent years. In 2015 it is no different with an additional 33% reduction. Anyone who spends any time on the water can tell these models make no sense. We are not catching black sea bass in New Hampshire and Maine because the stock size had increased throughout the expanding range. Because of the lack of good data, we are not registering the actual size of the black sea bass stock. The SSC continues to use a precautionary approach in response to the lack of data. By underestimating the stocks, the SSC forces us to go over the faulty quota every year. We have proven that creating new models to deal with bad data is not a solution to this problem. I see nothing in the future to correct this problem, again due to a lack of funding for better stock assessment data.
ASMFC Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Board Continues Summer Flounder Recreational Regional Management for 2015 & Approves State Plans for 2015 Recreational Black Sea Bass & Scup Fisheries
Alexandria, VA –The Commission’s Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Management Board approved Addendum XXVI to the Summer Flounder and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan, continuing adaptive regional management for the 2015 recreational summer flounder fisheries. The approved regions are Massachusetts; Rhode Island; Connecticut through New Jersey; Delaware through Virginia; and North Carolina. The Addendum provides the option for the Board to extend the adaptive regional management approach into 2016 through Board action.
Addendum XXVI was initiated to consider a continuation of regional management approved in Addendum XXV. Both addenda address concern that summer flounder management measures under state-by-state conservation equivalency were not providing recreational fishermen along the coast with equitable harvest opportunities to the resource. The adaptive regional management approach is designed to respond to changes in resource availability and effort in the fishery. The Board decided to continue 2014 management measures for the 2015 fishing season.
For black sea bass, the Board approved the methodologies used by the states of Massachusetts through New Jersey to establish their minimum size, bag limits, and season lengths to achieve a 33% reduction in the 2015 recreational harvest levels from the 2014 harvest level. The 33% reduction is required in order to achieve but not exceed that 2015 recreational harvest limit.
For scup, the Board approved the maintenance of 2014 recreational management measures for the 2015 fishing season, with the exception of Connecticut which will increase its size and possession limit to be consistent with the other states’ private and for-hire fisheries. States will finalize their regulations over the next couple of weeks for the recreational summer flounder, black sea bass, and scup fisheries.
Addendum XXVI will be available on the Commission website by the end of February. For more information, please contact Kirby Rootes-Murdy, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at krootes-murdy@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.
ASMFC Atlantic Striped Bass Board Approves State Implementation Plans to Reduce Harvest
Alexandria, VA – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board approved Addendum IV implementation plans and conservation equivalency proposals for all the states and jurisdictions. The implementation plans, which were reviewed and approved by the Technical Committee, contain state-specific management options that achieve a 25% reduction in harvest from 2013 levels for the coastal fishery and 20.5% reduction in harvest from 2012 levels for the Chesapeake Bay fishery. Given the wide range of options being considered, the Board recommended neighboring states and jurisdictions work together to implement consistent management measures, especially on shared water bodies. This recommendation was also supported by the Commission’s Law Enforcement Committee. Additionally, the Board reminded states there is greater certainty in the percent reductions of simple management measures (i.e., changes in bag or size limits) relative to more complex measures (e.g., slot/trophy fish and mode-specific options).
The Board also tasked the Technical Committee with expanding the exploration of stock-specific reference points to include the other producer areas, such as the Delaware Bay and the Hudson River stocks, in addition to the Chesapeake Bay. The Board will review progress on the stock-specific reference points at its Spring Meeting in May.
States and jurisdictions must have final measures for implementing Addendum IV in place by the beginning of their 2015 fishing seasons. For more information, please contact Mike Waine, Senor Fishery Management.
Atlantic Menhaden Benchmark Assessment Finds Resource not Overfished and Overfishing not Occurring
For Immediate Release, 2/4/15
Press Contact, Tina Berger, 703.842.0740
Alexandria, VA – The 2015 Atlantic menhaden benchmark assessment indicates the resource is not overfished nor experiencing overfishing relative to the current maximum spawning potential (MSP) based biological reference points. Population fecundity, a measure of reproductive capacity, is estimated to be 71% higher than the target value (100 trillion eggs). Additionally, total fishing mortality is estimated to be 0.27, below both the fishing mortality threshold (2.98) and target (1.03). The Atlantic Menhaden Management Board approved the benchmark stock assessment for management use.
“The assessment findings bring good news regarding the status of the Atlantic menhaden resource and sets the stage for the Board to begin to discuss how it wants to move forward in sustainably managing Atlantic menhaden. This discussion will include Board management objectives that address the needs of the reduction and bait fisheries as well as the ecological services menhaden provides as an important prey species,” stated Board Chair Robert Boyles from South Carolina. “The assessment results are different from prior assessments and this is in large part due to the tremendous efforts of stakeholders, and state and federal scientists to improve upon both the data and modeling approaches used in the assessment. We are grateful for their hard work and dedication in advancing our understanding of the Atlantic menhaden stock status.”
Atlantic menhaden is harvested by both commercial reduction and bait fisheries. From 2010 to 2012, reduction fishery landings averaged 172,600 metric tons and are substantially lower than historical levels. Conversely, total bait landings have been increasing in recent years, averaging about 52,900 metric tons during 2010-2012, with peak landings of about 63,540 metric tons in 2012. In 2013, landings for both fisheries were reduced by 20%, consistent with the requirements of Amendment 2.
Through the consideration of new and existing datasets and the exploration of alternative model configurations, significant changes were made during the 2015 assessment to address the issues identified with the 2010 assessment. Below are a few of the major changes that led to significantly different assessment results.
Using new datasets, maturity at age was corrected, resulting in a higher estimated proportion of mature fish at ages 1, 2, and 3. This higher proportion of mature fish at the earlier ages resulted in a stock that had higher reproductive potential (i.e., increased fecundity) than previously estimated.
Two composite adult indices of relative abundance were created using nine new standardized fishery-independent indices that spanned a much broader spatial scale. This was a significant improvement from the 2010 benchmark assessment that used one Chesapeake Bay fishery-dependent pound net index to characterize adult abundance for the entire stock.
Dome-shaped selectivity for all fishery fleets was used to account for the fact that larger sized individuals were observed in multiple fishery-independent surveys than captured by the bait and reduction fisheries during the entire history of sampling. This ultimately results in more fish at older ages because the larger fish are not being captured by the fisheries.
All these improvements combined led to significantly different assessment results. A more detailed description of the stock assessment results is available on the Commission’s website at this link.
Following the acceptance of the assessment, the Board tasked the Technical Committee with conducting a thorough review of the peer review findings and performing projections that explore different constant harvest scenarios based on the results of the assessment and the current stock status. The Board will review the projection analyses at the Commission’s Spring Meeting and further deliberate on management objectives that address the needs of the reduction and bait fisheries as well as the ecological services menhaden provides. The final assessment and peer review will be posted to the Commission website the week of February 9th, www.asmfc.org, on the Atlantic Menhaden webpage. For more information, please contact Mike Waine, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at 703.842.0740 or mwaine@asmfc.org.
People I meet have many questions about JCAA and fisheries management and the JCAA Fluke Tournament. I always ask if they read the current JCAA newspaper. Or I ask if they are on the JCAA email list for frequent updates. Too many of them say no to both. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there is considerable effort put into every JCAA newspaper and all the email alerts. If you don’t read them, all that time and energy doesn’t have much payoff. If I don’t have your email address, you miss the alerts entirely. If you want to be on the email list, go to the JCAA webpage (www.jcaa.org) and click on the word “subscribe” about half way down the page. Or send me an email and I will add you to the list. All I need is your name and email address. This list is confidential and is never shared with anyone outside of JCAA. What is also disappointing is that every club does not have a representative on the email list. This is something your club can remedy easily. Just send me an email at tfote@jcaa.org and say you are the club representative.
