The Elver & Glass Eel Bills :

We won the battle to protect glass eels for the 1998 season. For the first time ever in New Jersey, there was no legal harvest of glass eels. This was accomplished through the hard work of many people. We would not have been successful without the full support of the outdoor writers who wrote many columns keeping everyone informed, including many people who do not belong to a club or get our newsletter. They provided the public information necessary to get people to write, call and fax their legislators. We have heard from many legislators that they got more mail and calls about this issue than on any other during this session. We need to make our appreciation known not only to the individual outdoor writers but to the papers that publish their columns. The outdoor columns are not always treated as equals on the sports pages and the outdoor writers are frequently competing with what their editors think of as more popular sports. We need to let these papers know that we read these columns regularly and we recognize the wonderful work the outdoor writers did on this issue. They need to know many of us buy their papers just for the outdoor columns. So, check the paper that you read and write directly to the publisher. Mention the outdoor column and its author by name.

If you wrote, faxed or called, congratulations! You helped us accomplish the impossible. We heard again and again from legislators about the volume of mail and the number of calls they received and, believe me, that’s why they changed their minds about this issue. Having proved what we can do, now is not the time to rest on our laurels. Read on in this newspaper to find out what needs to be done on other issues.

The eel bill never came to the Senate floor for a vote. That means that the bill could still come to the floor at any time. Since it is too late to open the season for this year, I don’t believe the bill will be posted any time soon. That does not mean its dead, just resting. It could well be posted before the next season and we will let you know when you need to get back in touch with your legislators. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has not scheduled a meeting of the Eel Board. I am disappointed but not surprised. Senator Bassano has called and is pushing them to get started. We are hoping the Eel Board will meet at the June ASMFC meeting.

Below is the last letter sent to the legislators regarding the eel bill. It is important that you see how many groups were supporting us. We did not list all JCAA’s member clubs, just the ones in targeted districts. Believe me, we let every legislator know who we represented and they are well aware that your club was involved in this fight. We simply could not list every club belonging to JCAA and the NJ State Federation of Sportsmens Clubs in the letter head. That would put over four hundred names on the letter head.

Again, thanks for all your hard work.

March 30, 1998

Dear Senator:

Today you will vote on S457 and A675 (Baby Eel Bills). Your response should be a clear NO to special interests. You have already received information about why you should vote no. It is hard to imagine why any Senator would vote yes to deplete a public resource and endanger the entire marine ecosystem.

Standing firmly against A675 and S457 are the Jersey Coast Anglers Association and their 72 member clubs, the New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs and their 150,000 members, the organizations listed above and a growing number of concerned, traditional commercial fishermen. State directors and politicians from neighboring states that had the foresight to ban the harvest of baby eels including New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, also oppose this harvest in New Jersey. These states ban the harvest of glass baby eels for the shipment overseas; New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission does not have a fisheries management plan for eels at this time. This should not be seen as an approval of A675 and S457. At this time, most states have closed this fishery or restricted it on an experimental basis. I believe that any vote taken at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will reflect this reality and move to close the fishery on glass eels or restrict it to a very limited capped harvest.

Over 45 editorials and articles opposing these bills and the harvest of baby eels have appeared in the New York Times, Trentonian, Trenton Times, Bergen Record, Asbury Park Press, Star Ledger, Atlantic City Press, the Sand Paper, Home News, The Fisherman Magazine, South Jersey Angler and other New Jersey publications.

Do you wish to have one of the first bills passed by the 208th Senate to be a small, special interest friendly piece of legislation that has the potential to severely damage this public resource and further degrade the state’s and the region's marine ecosystem? Will the Senate choose to ignore the concerns of over one million recreational anglers in this state and hundreds of thousands of concerned environmentalists and act in favor of legislation promoting the risky harvest of wild fish stocks? S457 and A675 are defining pieces of legislation for this session. In the past we have blamed Federal regulations or the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission for the collapse of any marine resource. In this case, if you vote yes the blame will fall squarely on you and your colleagues in the Senate. We will be present for the debate and the vote today and will report to our members. Your vote will be published in newspapers, newsletters and on a variety of websites.

Thomas P. Fote
Legislative Chairman
Jersey Coast Anglers Association and New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen’s Club

The Striped Bass Board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission met in Philadelphia on Monday April 6^th. The Board decided to stay at status quo for 1999 and 2000. After a two hour discussion, we still haven’t determined what status quo means. The Board has a target date of June 2000 for approval of Amendment 6 to the Striped Bass Management Plan. This gives a period of time to really plan ahead. The June 1998 meeting will have a workshop by the American Sportfishing Association on quality fishing. This should be a starting point for managing striped bass for the next decade. It is important that we all stay informed and become actively involved in the process. These decisions will be extremely important for the long term management of striped bass.

 Menhaden Protection Bill S722/A1827

Please read the letter below that was sent to every club president. It contains the information you need about the recently introduced Menhaden Protection Bills (S722/A1827). You proved how effective you are when you wrote and called about the eel legislation. Now you need to repeat this work to help us get this crucial legislation passed. Without your help these bills will not be passed. Additional information including the charts and graphs developed by the Menhaden Project is posted on our website. I have included a sample letter and the Menhaden Fact Sheet. You need only tell your legislator that you live and vote in this district, you support the JCAA position on Menhaden and you want them to vote yes on S722/A1827.

As a New Jersey registered voter concerned about the marine resources of the State of New Jersey, I want you to support the Menhaden Protection Bills, S722/A1827. These bills are designed to preserve the Menhaden stocks in New Jersey’s waters. I want you to sign on as a cosponsor of these bills and vote for these bills. I support the position of Jersey Coast Anglers Association and the NJ State Federation of Sportmen’s Clubs on these bills. As my legislator I expect that you will give these bill your full and enthusiastic support and I will stay informed about how you vote on Bills S722/A1827.

April 15, 1998, Toms River, NJ……Join the Barnegat Bay Estuary Program in the festivities at the Second Annual Barnegat Bay Festival. Saturday May 16^th is the date for a full day of activities celebrating the Bay. There will be boat trips, field trips, demonstrations and ecotours to scenic locations throughout the Barnegat Bay Watershed, encompassing most of Ocean County. The Barnegat Bay Music Festival joins the day’s activities at noon with non-stop live entertainment at Berkeley Island County Park from noon to dusk. There will be vendors, crafts, food, demonstrations, special children’s programs and lots of free family fun.

The goal of the Barnegat Bay Festival is to bring people out to appreciate the multiple faces of the Barnegat Bay Watershed; and of course to have fun at the same time. "Everyone can participate in the activities dealing with the Bay and its watershed," notes Terry O’Leary, Program Director of the Barnegat Bay Decoy and Baymen’s Museum in Tuckerton. "Even those people who have spent their entire lives on or near the water know that there’s always something new to learn about the dynamics of the Bay and watershed, " he added.

The more than 20 different programs offer opportunities to explore areas not often accessible or open to the public such as the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. With support from the Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders, the County Parks and Recreation Department have offered the help of not only their experienced staff but also the many County Park facilities. They have offered to help lead boat trips, field trips and ecotours. "Dragging a 50 foot seine net through the shallow bay waters always turns up something interesting," says Shaun O’Rourke, Chief Naturalist at Cattus Island County Park. "It’s important for people to realize that the bay is there not only for boating and other recreational use but that the life beneath and within the water is a vital link in the system that nurtures and feeds all marine life, from fish to waterfowl to submerged aquatic vegetation." Jersey Coast Anglers Association will be sponsoring a clinic for young people. Greg Kucharewski, JCAA’s Youth Committee Chairperson, and Eleanor Bochenek, NJ SeaGrant, will be teaching children ages 7 – 12 saltwater fishing techniques at Berkeley Island Park.

The Festival is being organized by the Citizens Advisory Committee of the Barnegat Bay Estuary Program. The dedicated committee volunteers want to get as many people involved as possible in an effort to inspire a positive environmental ethic for the Bay. "What better way to inspire people than by getting them out to see what a great place they live in and showing them things they might otherwise miss. And have fun doing it!" exclaimed Sandy Gingras, coordinator for the afternoon Music Festival and co-chair of the Citizens Advisory Committee. "It’s so important that people realize that there’s a give and take with nature and its time for people to give a little bit back to the Bay," she added.

Many dedicated individuals and organizations will be supporting this event by lending their resources and expertise. The 80 foot paddle boat "River Lady" in Toms River will host a tour led by Capt. Donald Launer, author of the foremost water guide "Cruising Guide to New Jersey Waters". Alliance for a Living Ocean will lead an ecotour of Long Beach Island. The Atlantic Saltwater Flyrodders will offer hands-on demonstrations of their sport. The Baymen’s Museum is sponsoring on-going live demonstrations of waterfowling, decoy carving, clamming and crabbing techniques. WJRZ radio will be on hand to support the event with a live broadcast from Berkeley Island County Park. These are just a few of the many activities to be held at the Festival.

"There are a lot of people who care what happens to the Bay and the surrounding area," voiced Terry Fowler, Director of the Barnegat Bay Estuary Program. "We want to try and let everyone who enjoys the benefits of the Bay, learn how they can help take care of it too. It’s a team effort," she added. "Working for improved water quality is something everyone agrees to and it's our job to help people see what they can do to do their part. The Festival is a good way to get the messages out and for people to have fun too."

"Oceans Without Fish"

February 26, 1998
Environmental Research Foundation.
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, Md 21403
Fax(410) 263-8944; Internet: Erf@Rachel.Clark.Net

The destruction of life in the oceans has progressed farther than anyone had suspected, according to a new report in SCIENCE magazine.[1] The causes are overfishing and pollution,[2] but the focus of the new report is overfishing alone. SCIENCE is the voice of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The world's catch of ocean fish peaked in 1989 and has been declining since.[3] In the early 1990s, scientists reported that 13 of the world's 17 major fisheries were depleted or in steep decline.[2] Typical is the Grand Banks fishery off the shallow coast of Newfoundland in the north Atlantic. There, after 350 years of commercial exploitation, the haddock, cod and flounder have all but disappeared and the fishery was officially closed a few years ago.

The depletion of the world's most popular fish species has set off three trends, each of which is adding to the oceans' troubles: (1) fisherman are adopting new technologies that (2) allow them to fish in deeper waters, and (3) they are fishing lower on the food chain.

New Technologies

** Don Tyson, the Arkansas chicken magnate and supporter of Bill Clinton, has gone into the fishing business in a big way. Commercial fishing can be very profitable if conducted on a grand scale. In 1992, Tyson bought the Arctic-Alaska Fisheries Company, and three other fishing companies. They operate a fleet of industrial super-trawlers that each cost $40 million to build and reach the length of a football field. These trawlers pull nylon nets thousands of feet long through the water, capturing everything in their path --400 tons of fish at a single netting. These super-trawlers stay off-shore for months at a time, processing and freezing their catch as they go, thus giving them a major advantage over smaller land-based boats.

Approximately 40 percent of what these super-trawlers catch is considered trash and is ground up and thrown back into the ocean. They call it "bycatch" and, according to investigative reporter Jeffrey St. Clair, it can include endangered sea lions, and seals, as well as unwanted fish.[4] (In the northeast Atlantic alone, the bycatch in a year's time amounts to 3.7 million tons.[1])

** Trawlers are now using technology developed by the military to fish waters as deep as a mile, catching species that few would have considered edible or useful a decade ago. Now that the shallow fisheries are in serious decline, trawl nets fitted with wheels and rollers are dragged across the bottom of the deep oceans, removing everything of any size. Squid, skate, rattails, hoki, blue ling, black scabbard, red crabs, black oreos, smooth oreos, deep shrimp, chimeras, slackjaw eels, blue hake, southern blue whiting, sablefish, spiny dogfish, and orange roughy are now being harvested from the deep ocean and sold in seafood stores, cooked into "fish sticks" at McDonald's, or processed into fake "crab meat" for seafood salads.

Part of the problem is consumer ignorance. For example, orange roughy began to appear in fish stores and on the menus at fancy restaurants in the U.S. just a decade ago. Yet in that short time the species has become threatened with extinction. The orange roughy lives up to a mile deep in cold waters off New Zealand. Now scientists have learned that species living in deep, cold waters grow and reproduce very slowly. The orange roughy, for example, lives to be 150 years old and only begins to reproduce at age 30. Recently, the principal stocks of orange roughy around New Zealand collapsed. Still, today in Annapolis, Maryland, fish stores, orange roughy is available for $8.99 per pound, and there's no sign telling consumers that the species is threatened. "People wouldn't eat rhinoceros or any other land creature that they knew was threatened with extinction. But they're eating fish like orange roughy without a clue to what's happening," says Greenpeace fisheries expert Mike Hagler in Auckland, New Zealand.[3]

Radar allows ships to operate in the fog and the dark; sonar locates the fish precisely; and GPS (geographical positioning system) satellites pinpoint locations so that ships can return to productive spots. Formerly-secret military maps reveal hidden deep-sea features, such as mountains, which are associated with upwelling currents of nutrient-rich water, where fish thrive. Combined with larger nets made from new, stronger materials, modern fishing vessels guided electronically can sweep the oceans clean --and that is precisely what is happening. As a result, the ocean's fish are disappearing, and so are the family-scale fishing operations that used to dominate the industry.

** Because modern fishing equipment is immensely expensive, the stakes are high. With big money on the line, the fishing industry has curried political favor. As a result, modern fishing factories like Tyson's are subsidized by federal and state governments. Tyson's company has received more than $65 million in low-interest loans from the federal government, to help build 10 of these super-trawlers. According to Jeffrey St. Clair, the Seattle-based factory-trawler fleet has received $200 million in federal subsidies.

Furthermore, because so much is at stake, deep-water factory trawlers cannot afford to let up. They must keep fishing until the last fish is gone.

But it gets worse. The new report in SCIENCE shows that humans are now fishing not only in deeper waters, but also lower on the food chain.[1] This has ominous implications, because as the lower levels of the food chain decline, the chances of revival at the top of the food chain are diminished even further.

Scientists are now discussing the "wholesale collapse" of marine ecosystems.[5] "It is likely that continuation of present trends will lead to widespread fisheries collapses...," says Daniel Pauly, the author of the new study.[1] "If things go unchecked, we might end up with a marine junkyard dominated by plankton," he says.[6]

Pauly's new study examined the diets of 220 fish species, then gave each species a numerical ranking in the food web, between 1 and 5. Those assigned a 1 are plankton --tiny floating plants that photosynthesize, using the energy of sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates, thus forming the bottom of all aquatic food chains. Level 2 is zooplankton –tiny floating animals that eat plankton. Top predators, such as the snappers inhabiting the continental shelf off Yucatan, Mexico, receive a ranking of 4.6.

These data were combined with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) data on fish landings worldwide. The result is an estimate of the average place in the oceanic food web (the average "trophic level") where humans are harvesting fish. The new study reveals that the average trophic level has been steadily declining for 45 years, meaning that humans are progressively taking fish from lower on the food chain. The steady decline has been about 0.1 trophic levels per decade. "Present fishing policy is unsustainable," says Pauly. Of the 220 species studied, at least 60% are being overfished, or fished to the limit.[6]

Pauly believes that the true situation is somewhat worse than his study indicated, principally because many countries under-report their fishing harvest.

Even if a fishery does not collapse completely, fishing down the food chain can have serious consequences. In the north sea, the cod population has been so depleted that fishermen are now concentrating on a second-level species called pout, which the cod used to eat. The pout, in turn, eat tiny organisms called copepods and krill. Krill also eat copepods. As the pout are removed, the krill population expands and then the copepod population declines drastically. Because copepods are the main food of young cod, the cod population cannot recover.[5]

Fish farming might seem like a way out of this problem, but it is not --at least not as presently practiced --because farmed fish are fed fish meal made from unpopular fish such as herring or menhaden.[6] It would seem to be only a matter of time before the herring and menhaden too are depleted.

Dr. Pauly believes that in 3 or 4 decades, many oceanic fisheries will "collapse in on themselves." The result will be a loss of high-quality protein for humans, even before the fisheries collapse completely. Humans eat somewhere between trophic levels 2.5 and 4. Lower then that, there isn't much that people eat. "There is a lower limit for what can be caught and marketed, and zooplankton [at trophic level 2] is not going to be reaching our dinner plates in the foreseeable future," Dr. Pauly wrote in SCIENCE.

Solutions? Government could limit the kinds of fishing technology that are allowed --to give the fish a chance –but this would put "the public interest" up against the likes of Don Tyson. In today's political climate, with private money dominating our elections, Don Tyson would win because he's wealthy and he supports all the right politicians. Dr. Pauly believes there is an urgent need to create protected areas where fishing is simply not allowed. He sees no-fishing zones as easier to implement and enforce than fishing quotas, limiting fishing time at sea, restrictions on allowable fishing gear, and controls on pollution --though these steps, too, are needed, he believes. No-fishing zones can be created quickly and can be enforced. In Britain, the fishing industry has begun to accept no-fishing zones as a way to save the industry in the face of declining fish stocks.[7]

The most important idea, proposed in SCIENCE magazine February 6th, would be to shift the burden of proof onto the fishing industry.[8] Those who profit from public resources such as the oceans should have to demonstrate, before they can begin fishing, that their activities will not harm the public resource. At present, it is assumed that fishing will not damage life in the oceans, and the burden is on the general public to prove otherwise. At this point, abundant evidence has come to light indicating damage, so it is definitely time to shift the burden of proof onto the fishing industry. For example, owners of uper-trawlers should have to show that their yield will be sustainable before their ships can put to sea.

Here again, it seems unlikely that the present Congress --snuffling around in a trough of filthy lucre, as it is –will act to protect the public interest. Therefore, it is urgent that we get private money out of our elections completely. Elected officials need to be answerable to the people who elected them, not to wealthy benefactors.

Otherwise our children will inherit oceans without fish.

--Peter Montague

[1] Daniel Pauly and others, "Fishing Down Marine Food Webs, "SCIENCE Vol. 279 (February 6, 1998), pgs. 860-863.
[2] Timothy Egan, "U.S. Fishing Fleet Trawling Coastal Water Without Fish," NEW YORK TIMES March 7, 1994, pgs. A1, B7.
[3] William J. Broad, "Creatures of the Deep Find Their Way to the Table," NEW YORK TIMES December 26, 1995, pgs. C1, C5.
[4] Jeffrey St. Clair, "Fishy Business," IN THESE TIMES May 26, 1997, pgs. 14-16, 36.
[5] William K. Stevens, "Man Moves Down the Marine Food Chain, Creating Havoc," NEW YORK TIMES February 10, 1998, pg. C3.
[6] Susan Diesenhouse, "In New England, Battle Plans for Survival at Sea," NEW YORK TIMES April 24, 1994, pg. F7.
[7] Nigel Williams, "Overfishing Disrupts Entire Ecosystems, "SCIENCE Vol. 279 (February 6, 1998), pg. 809.
[8] Paul K. Dayton, "Reversal of the Burden of Proof in Fisheries Management," SCIENCE Vol. 279 (February 6, 1998), pgs. 821-822.

Descriptor terms: fish; fishing industry; fishing technology; oceans; grand banks fishery; newfoundland; don tyson; ar; science magazine; daniel pauly; burden of proof; precautionary principle; atlantic ocean; orange roughy; new zealand; fao; studies;