On December 11th, the Garden State Seafood Association hosted a Fisheries Workshop and members of the recreational community were invited to attend it. It was an all-day meeting and I, along with JCAA members Bill Figley (Beach Haven Marlin & Tuna Club) and Ron Nachmann (South Jersey Saltwater Anglers Club) attended it. There were about 50 people in attendance and they were from the NJ DEP, Rutgers, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and other organizations that have deep ties to the fishing industry, both commercial and recreational. Greg DiDomenico, Executive Director of the Garden State Seafood Association, chaired this meeting and he did a great job in moving the meeting along and keeping us on schedule. There were so many issues discussed and I cannot begin to put all of it in this column. If I did it would be too long and you would not read it anyway. So, I will cover just a few major points that may be of interest to you.
The first speaker was Rick Robins, Chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Council (MAMFC). He went quickly through the process of the factors that go into the development of our quotas. It is complicated and at times, quite frankly, I had trouble following it with the different terminologies used in the fishing industry. When he was done, the floor was open to questions.
I said that while do not want to be disrespectful, I said, "We do not have any confidence in the numbers MAMFC comes out with." I said, "NOBODY believes your numbers!" They are so bad that I refuse to even try to explain them to my Bergen County fishing club. While I did not have specific numbers on hand at this meeting, I said that how did we catch more fluke during the time period of Sandy when boats were destroyed and missing. How are we catching more fluke when boat registrations are down so bad that our legislature just recently reduced the taxes on boat sales to spur more people to buy boats! And how did you come up with a 45% reduction for our fluke quota in 2016 and that we are supposed to be so happy that you are spreading this pain over several years? Are your numbers so wrong that instead of a more reasonable 5 % or 10% reduction in our quota you come out with a whacky 45% reduction! The livelihood of businesses are on the line while we are trying to play by the rules of your quotas. Jeff Reichle, President of Lund's Fisheries, said that he agreed with me and also said, "We do not need more data but the right data." I don't think Mr. Robins expected these comments, but I could not sit still and let this pass without saying anything. Mr. Robins responded with something like, "We will try harder.”
Pat Sullivan, Associate Professor from Cornell University working with the Save Our Summer Flounder staff (SSFFF), and Eleanor Bochenek from Rutgers and representing the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCeMFIS.org), reported on their efforts to develop a model that can give a much better picture of the stocks of summer flounder. This model will include sex of both male and females, length of fish and discard information. All of this information is to give us a better picture of fluke stocks that we don't currently have that can be useful in making a case against the reductions we are currently facing. Dr. Sullivan reported his new model is not expected to be in place for 2016, but hopefully in the near future.
John Manderson from NMFS and Josh Kohut from Rutgers talked about the difficulty in getting the right data to develop a good picture of fishery stocks and the time it takes to decipher what they see and what fishing managers use to develop our fishing regulations. They also pointed out that climate change is altering their information with fish on the move from their traditional grounds and moving northward.
Attending this Workshop was a Dr. Kevin Chu, Assistant Regional Administrator for Constituent Engagement, and he said that he has heard this lack of confidence statement a number of times and asked how this situation can be improved. While the obvious answer is to "get the right data," I said that I have attended many management meetings and the groups running them like the MAMFC and others ask for public comment, but in most cases never look at the person making the comments and don't even make a Thank You comment at the end of the comments. This lack of engagement gives the person making comments that his comments are worthless, decisions have already been made and the managers running these meetings know everything and we know nothing. Mr. Chu thanked me for this information and said he would pass it to John Bullard, Director of NMFS. Hopefully, we will at least see some changes in how meetings are conducted.
