BLUEFISH OUTRAGE !!!By Tom Fote
(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association -August 1995 newsletter)
BLUEFISH OUTRAGE !!!
3 Bluefish a Day Allowed in
1996 ??
On July 28, 1995, there was a meeting of the Bluefish Monitoring Committee in Essington, PA. There’s nothing unique about that, except that from July 25 through 27, there was a meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission held at the Double Tree Hotel in downtown Philadelphia, a 15 minute drive from Essington. The Commission meeting was attended by many of the members of the Bluefish Monitoring Committee and other commissioners who expressed an interest in the Monitoring Committee’s findings that were to be presented on the 28th.
The poorly scheduled Monitoring Committee meeting ended up not being attended by many participants who should have been there, even though it was only 10 miles away. That was because it added another day’s travel expenses for many commission members and would have kept them from their jobs in their home states for a fifth consecutive day, since the Commission meetings began early on Tuesday morning requiring most members to fly in on Monday. For that reason, the Bluefish Monitoring Committee, which was holding an extremely important meeting, was attended by only a handful of people and only four voting members. The ironic part of this scenario was the full committee meeting in Philly was over at noon on the 27th and the Bluefish Monitoring Committee meeting could have been held on that afternoon in the same hotel where most of the committee members were already staying . The meeting room had already been paid for by the government for the remainder of the day.
It would have saved time, expense money, the cost of an additional meeting room and lodging at a totally different hotel, in addition to making it possible for the greatest number of commissioners and committee members to attend. Instead, the meeting was a wasteful expenditure of scarce tax dollars that prevented participation by many of the people who wanted to attend.
Added to the scheduling nightmare was the Bluefish Board’s meeting, held the following Tuesday in conjunction with the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council in Wilmington, Delaware. This meeting, where some very important decisions were made, was only three days after the Monitoring Committee Meeting, which meant that the public received no notice of the findings of the Monitoring Committee prior to the Board pushing these issues to a premature, yet final vote. In fact, I don’t know of one Governor’s or Legislative Appointee from any of the member states that was notified of the findings of the Monitoring Committee or were notified that the Bluefish Board was even meeting. Only voting members of the Bluefish Board received notice. Keep in mind that the Governor’s and Legislative Appointees presently make up 2/3s of the ASMFC. Even worse, the public, including representatives of the recreational and commercial fishing industries, were denied the opportunity to comment on these critically important regulatory decisions because they did not know the meeting was being held.
The ASMFC, the Councils and NMFS better get there act together. These three entities are supposed to be working in a spirit of cooperation in the best interests of the marine fisheries of the United States. The more the Councils and the Commission send mixed messages to the fishermen they are attempting to regulate, the weaker the trust in the data and the system becomes. And if anyone thinks that these fishermen don’t know just how weak the enforcement capabilities behind these regulations are, they better stop kidding themselves. We depend heavily on voluntary compliance to the regulations we impose and when the fishing public says "to hell with you and your rules," our ability to regulate fisheries will evaporate.
As a Commissioner from New Jersey, I am already kept busy trying to explain to fishermen why they are allowed to keep eight fluke when caught in state waters, but only six when caught in Federal waters. That imaginary line found three miles off our beaches is becoming very blurred by this confusion. Now I have to try and explain the discrepancy between the Mid-Atlantic Council and ASMFC in the regulation of bluefish. The Bluefish Board pushed through a three fish bag limit in state waters, while the Council, after listening to the very same monitoring committee report and the same rhetoric from a small group of state directors or there designates, realized several important things. They understood that there had not been a reasonable level of public notice and public comment and that Amendment 1 was the way to answer the problems in this fishery. They voted to make no changes in the present management regime in the EEZ. That’s right, they kept the bag limit at ten fish in Federal waters.
The ASMFC, under the new Atlantic States Conservation Act, is supposed to keep the management process open to public input and participation at all levels of plan development and implementation. It looks great on paper, but apparently, that is not the way it is being played out by the Commission. If the ASMFC cared even a little bit about the impact its decision to reduce the recreational bag limit by 70% would have on fishermen and members of the sport fishing industry, they would have encouraged the full participation of the Bluefish Advisory Panel. That Panel was already assembled and in place for just that reason, but again, that was not the case. By coincidence, the chairman of the Bluefish Advisory Panel, Bob Rhodes, was in attendance because he had just been appointed to a seat on the Council. He was amazed at what the Bluefish Board was doing. He didn’t even know such a vote was in the offing and commented on the record after the vote was taken, that it was inappropriate without conferring with the Advisory Panel and without adequate public input into the process. It was certainly not in compliance with the tenants of the Atlantic Coast Conservation Act.
After counting the number of votes that decided the 70% reduction in the bag limit, it became obvious that not only wasn’t the public involved in the process, but neither were the voting members of the ASMFC Bluefish Management Board. The vote count reported to me showed that only seven vote were cast in favor of the reduction. The Bluefish Management Board consists of 19 members. That means that 12 members either abstained from voting, voted no, or simply were not present due to scheduling conflicts. It was not like this vote was an emergency matter, since the reduction was not to go into effect until 1996 and Amendment 1 is supposedly on a "fast track." Public input could have been garnered and a vote on these changes could have been taken at a later ASMFC meeting.
In my opinion, the ASMFC really stubbed its toe badly on this vote. Most of the anglers on the East Coast were unhappy with decisions made by the Commission, even when those decisions were made with a high level of public participation. Witness the resentment and distrust generated when the Commission unilaterally decided to increase the commercial harvest of striped bass from 20% TO 70% in the final version of Amendment 5, against overwhelming advise from the public and its own Striped Bass Advisory Panel. Can you imagine how they are going to feel when they see that the ASMFC is now making decisions that will negatively impact the major contingent of the fishing public and industry with total disregard for public input altogether. What the ASMFC must do immediately is call for a meeting of the Bluefish Advisory Panel to allow them to review the decisions made by the Board. It should promptly hold public hearings in those states that will be dramatically impacted by this 70% reduction in the bag limit, because to not do so would be extremely detrimental to the entire management process.
With regard to the Bluefish Management Plan, a plan that has been recognized as being flawed from its inception and that some have called, "the worst management plan ever devised," there should be no major changes in the present management regime under framework procedures like this bag limit reduction, and the entire plan should be reviewed and corrected in the Amendment 1 process. Let me point out just one of the really glaring inequities in this plan. The commercial quota is based on the "total recreational catch." Most uninformed fishermen would assume that "total recreational catch" means all the sport caught fish retained. That is not what it means at all. In this plan, "total recreational catch" represents all those fish caught, included the hundreds of thousands of fish that are released alive by sport fishermen. Lets look a little closer at this way the commercial harvest is determined using plain numbers.
For sake of argument, let’s say that the total recreational catch was 500,000-lbs., but because of bag limits, size limits and those fish released voluntarily by anglers because of their ingrained conservation ethic, they only kept 100,000-lbs. of those fish and the rest were release alive. When this plan calculates the commercial quota, it is based on 20% of the 500,000-lbs. of bluefish recreational anglers caught, including released fish, and not on just the fish they harvested. Not surprisingly, 20% of 500,000-lbs. is 100,000-lbs., or the same number of fish that sport fishermen killed. Through the use of fancy accounting methods, the commercial sector is harvesting far in excess of 20% of even the "total recreational catch," but they are not held accountable for any discards in the commercial fishery because commercial discard was never even considered in this plan. We all know that commercial discards and bluefish bycatch in other fisheries is excessive, yet there is no effort to account for this large quantity of dead bluefish on the commercial side of the equation. Some feel it is far in excess of even the most liberal estimates.
Ladies and gentlemen, Please let the ASMFC know in no uncertain terms how you feel about this or you will have a three bluefish bag limit imposed on your fishing or your sport fishing dependent business as sure as the sun rises. Incredibly, less than one week after this controversial vote, the ASMFC upped and moved its offices and changed its phone numbers. But don’t despair, I will give you the new address and phone number so the staff and commissioners can not hide from the public any longer. Please write or call:
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
1444 Eye Street NW
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-289-6400
Fax: 202-289-6051
When you write or fax them, please copy me on your correspondence for my records. My fax number is 908-506-6409 and my address is Tom Fote, 22 Cruise Court, Toms River, NJ 08753.
The ASMFC voted overwhelmingly to support the closure of the EEZ to commercial and recreational fishing for and harvest of weakfish by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The odds makers are saying that this closure will never be imposed. NMFS’ track record, when it comes to measures that affect the commercials, has them betting the Service will back down as it has so many times before when a conservation issue- no matter how badly needed, negatively impacts the commercial sector. It seems NMFS is only capable of acting responsibly when it comes to restricting sport fishing regardless of the impact it has on the sport fishing industry.
As long as the continued harvest of sexually immature weakfish, fish as small as 10 inches, is permitted to continue, this fishery will never recover. The weakfish’s range will continue to be inhibited and the stock will stay truncated and in a precarious situation.