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FISHERIES MANAGEMENT & LEGISLATIVE REPORT
by Tom Fote
FISHERIES MANAGEMENT & LEGISLATIVE REPORT
by Tom Fote
(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association June 2000 Newsletter)
I did my first fishing trip of the season May 19 in all that nasty weather. Steve Sloan called and said, "you need to go fishing and get away from those meetings". So I got in my car and fished on Steve Sloan's boat in a CCA Manhattan Cup Tournament. It was a catch and release tournament. We fished off Brooklyn and Manhattan from 1:30 till 6:00. It always amazes me that we can be fishing off one of the most populated cites in world and still have good fishing. The New York and Brooklyn skylines always impress me. I think of all those millions of people working in those tall building while I am out here fishing. It also brings back memories of my youth since I grew up there. I saw the building where I worked at teenager before going into the service. It was home to the New York Journal American Newspaper then. I worked as a route man delivering newspapers to stores and newsstands all over the city. This was the same job my grandfather, great uncles and my father had. They are all gone now, as is the New York Journal American. It is now where the New York Post is published. Ken Moran joined us. I though how ironic that was since he works as the fishing columnist for New York Post.
I managed to catch two weakfish, both over 23 inches, one bass and one bluefish. Steve and Ken Moran caught the bigger fish, all stripers. Not bad for a day with the wind blew above 20 knots and the rain fell. What a great way to start the season. Good fishing, good memories and good company. Thanks Steve and Ken.
I am the volunteer editor and a contributing writer for the JCAA Newspaper. I guess I cannot get away from the newspaper business after all these years.
JCAA and the New Jersey State Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs wish to thank Senator DiFrancesco for signing the Striped Bass Bill. Since Governor Whitman is in Japan, Senator DiFrancesco is acting governor. In response to requests from JCAA, the New Jersey State Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs and the RFA, Senator DiFrancesco took action to end the wait. Effective 12:00 AM, May 17, 2000, the new regulations become law. In addition to allowing anglers to take home a wider size range of fish for personal consumption, the new regulations will also have a positive, conservation impact on the older year classes. Remember, this slot limit was enacted to achieve a 36% reduction on the larger fish. This is even more than the 14% reduction required by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
This also allows anglers to take home a safer fish. We know that PCB levels are lower in the smaller fish. Rhode Island and Delaware have already used their commercial slot limits to provide this benefit to those who purchase fish. Now New Jersey is providing the same advantage to the anglers who catch and consume their fish.
Again, we are delighted with the actions of Senate President DiFrancesco. He has demonstrated his leadership and concern for the anglers of New Jersey in this work to achieve the passage of this bill. It was Senator DiFrancesco who made sure this bill passed the Senate in a timely manner in early April. It is appropriate for you to call or write him to thank him for his efforts. Thanks to him, on May 17th you can harvest one striped bass at least 24 inches but less than 28 inches and conserve the larger fish.
I attended two of the three hearings in New Jersey. The attendance was awful. I had hoped many of you would express you opinions about how you want striped bass managed in the future. This was your chance and you missed it! I could assume you are pleased with the job your representatives to ASMFC are doing and felt no need to attend. But I get a lot of email about information being posted on the net attacking our positions. Where were these folks? This was the time to put up or shut up. The officers and members of JCAA who attended these meetings are all volunteers. We have no more time than anyone else but we make the time for important meetings. Before anyone finds the time to criticize, they need to put in the time at the public forums.
Following are copies of the testimony Al Ristori and I submitted on Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act Reauthorization And Related Issues to the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans Hearing in Toms River, NJ on April 28,2000. I also testified in person.
Tom Fote's Congressional TestimonyMy name is Thomas Fote. I am here today representing Jersey Coast Anglers Association and New Jersey State Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs. These two organizations are comprised of 150,000 concerned sportsmen and women throughout New Jersey. As their legislative liaison, I speak for the citizens of New Jersey who harvest and consume striped bass from the bays, rivers and the Atlantic Ocean. I would like to thank Congressman Saxton and Pallone for conducting this hearing.
JCAA & NJSFSC believe that Congress should reauthorize the Striped Bass Bill and continue to treat it as separate legislation. This bill was passed because we recognized the importance of striped bass from Maine to North Carolina. Their importance has not diminished and, in some respects, has grown. With the demise of other species due to overfishing, striped bass is even more important for a viable recreational fishing industry. A healthy striped bass stock equates to jobs, salaries and stronger economies for communities throughout the fish's range.
Did the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service prematurely declare striped bass a recovered species?
The majority of anglers from all the states on the Atlantic coast believe the fishery is far from recovered. Even with very strict recreational controls along the coast, which have not been relaxed since 1989, the 1999 addendum provides further restrictions. Remember, when the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted to open this fishery in 1989 we were allowed two fish at 18 inches in the bays and two fish at 28 inches along the coast. The only reason they can even consider striped bass recovered is because many states have had more restrictive rules in both the producing areas and the ocean. If this fishery is recovered, we should, at the very minimum, implement the size and bag limits proposed and passed in 1989. Anything less is an insult to the anglers of New Jersey.
What should we do about the moratorium on striped bass fishing in the EEZ?
Unlike the management of other species, striped bass management must consider the "game fish status" or "no sale status" imposed by some states within the range. Until other states get as smart as New Jersey, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. and make striped bass a game fish, the opening of the EEZ will continue to present serious management problems. At the present time, anglers have little or no trust in the ability of the National Marine Fisheries Service to manage any species in the EEZ. They are managing scup, summer flounder, blue fin tuna, sharks and yellowfin tuna so poorly that we can think of no reason to give them the opportunity to add another species to their list of failures. The only way we can see to allow striped bass to be caught outside of the three-mile limit is to revise the management rules for striped bass at the federal level and give that responsibility to the individual states. I know this is a complicated process but it would address the concerns of recreational anglers and individual states. Unless you can devise a method to allow individual states to manage this fishery, even in federal waters, we call on Congress to keep the EEZ moratorium in place.
How can we improve the harvest statistics of striped bass?
I find this to be a very interesting question. Although I have some concerns about the Marine Recreational Survey, I do recognize that the survey is not being manipulated by recreational anglers. It is applied fairly across all the states. This recreational survey is not dependent on law enforcement or the honesty of recreational anglers. The sampling techniques take into account poaching and the harvesting of undersized fish. Unfortunately, this is not true of the methods used to collect commercial statistics. There have been numerous reported cases of illegal commercial sale of striped bass in New Jersey and shipment of striped bass from New Jersey to other states for sale in violation of both fisheries and federal interstate commerce laws. It stands to reason that if this is happening and is not reported in the landing statistics in New Jersey, where the commercial harvest is banned by law, we an only imagine what goes unreported instates that have a legal commercial fishery for striped bass.
It is interesting that many states with a legal commercial fishery continue to ask for larger quotas while the statistics suggest they are not filling their current quotas. Have the commercial fishermen learned to manipulate the landing figures to such an extent that they don’t even report meeting the current quota?
How can we improve the harvest statistics of striped bass?
Until we spend the necessary funds to guarantee an accurate recording of commercial landings, we will not have statistics we can rely on. The cost of collecting honest statistics is probably so prohibitive that it would be cheaper to buy out the commercial interests and make striped bass a game fish along the entire coast. There may be state directors and federal bureaucrats who will disagree with my criticism of the statistics. If you want to know the truth, ask any recreational angler or any honest commercial fisherman about their landings.
My main concern is that we frequently change the recreational regulations - quotas, seasons, bag limits and minimum size - so frequently, we never have the opportunity to gauge the impact, positive or negative, of the previous regulations. We are making decisions in 2001 based on regulations put in place in 1999. Those are not the same regulations that will be in place in 2000. This makes no sense at all. We replay this ludicrous cycle over and over again. The statistical data we need generally comes to us after decisions are made and another set of regulations are already in place. I believe Amendment 6 needs to address this problem.
By the middle of May New Jersey will have legislation in place that provides for the same size limits in both our producing areas and the coast. By providing a slot limit we will spread the harvest across a wider range of year classes rather than concentrating on just the older fish. If we could maintain this management regime for more than two years, we could collect statistics that could really show if this is a viable management tool. That would make all future decisions much easier. Every scientist knows that you need to let an experiment work through an entire cycle to test the benefits. This should be addressed in Amendment 6.
When we passed the striped bass "no sale" bill in New Jersey in 1991, many fisheries managers and commercial fishermen said this legislation was unnecessary. They stated that this fishery could be carefully managed for both sectors. I believe the events of the past 10 years prove that JCAA was correct and the fisheries managers and commercial fishermen were in error. Just look at Amendment 6 to the striped bass management plan. Under Amendment 5 ASMFC allowed the commercial fishery along the coast to expand to 70% of their harvest during the base years. In the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay the commercial catch far exceeds the base years while the individual recreational catch is far below the base years. At the same time recreational anglers have maintained the same restrictive limits since 1989. In practice, most individual recreational anglers bring home fewer striped bass for their own consumption than they did in 1989. In order to keep the commercial fishery open we are subsidizing that fishery with millions of dollars at the state and federal level. At the same time, the money available for all research and management continues to shrink. If striped bass were exclusively a recreational species, they would require little or no management at all! We could establish appropriate bag and size limits, maintain these limits for set periods of time and provide the necessary research from recreational tag and release studies. Since commercial landings and commercial discards are seriously underreported, we spend millions of dollars on constant changes in management plans to account for "unexplained mortality". I honestly believe that government spends more in tax dollars to manage the commercial fishery than generates in income to the actual participants. If we look at the statistics for the income generated by the recreational sector, we can see how little we actually spend on management and research.
We are planning three public hearings in New Jersey on Amendment 6. I can guarantee that the concensus in the recreational community will be to make striped bass a game fish along the entire coast. New Jersey's recreational anglers are frustrated and angry. They cannot understand how other states and the federal government can be so blind to their concerns. Until we make striped bass a game fish along the entire coast we will continue to waste money maintaining an inefficient, unsustainable commercial fishery that could easily be replaced through aquaculture, while downplaying the importance of an easily managed, sustainable, income producing recreational fishery.
Sincerely,
Thomas P. Fote
Legislative Chairman JCAA & NJSFSC
Captain Al Ristori's TestimonyThanks for the opportunity to submit testimony relative to the most important inshore game fish from the Mid-Atlantic through New England. The Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act was a milestone in fisheries management as the federal government finally got involved in assuring conservation of species which migrate primarily inshore along the coast and cross through many jurisdictions.
When I first became involved with striper conservation about 35 years ago, each state had it’s own regulations which were designed not really for conservation but to ensure maximum harvest. When I innocently suggested to those involved in management at the time that the federal government should get involved in this migratory fishery for the common good, just as in interstate commerce, I was assured that the states would never give up their rights. There was little incentive for them to do so at the time, as striped bass were abundant and a series of good spawning years kept the population high despite virtually unlimited harvest of a readily available inshore species.
I was a voice in the wilderness during the 1960s while attempting to have the striped bass made a game fish in New York. At the time I testified before the state legislature that stripers, despite their present abundance, would not continue to multiply like Al Capp’s schmoos in order to satisfy everyone’s desires. We narrowly missed achieving game fish status when the Assembly speaker refused to let a bill already passed unanimously in the Senate come to the floor for a vote—and my prediction came true little more than a decade later when overfishing combined with a lack of spawning success resulted in the crisis which finally resulted in the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act.
That crisis could have been mitigated if the states had taken conservation actions beforehand. Given the huge economic value of the striper as a game fish and its relatively minor value as a commercial fish, I still feel that we’re playing with dynamite by continuing the attempt to balance the two. Though the Act has led to one of the great marine conservation success stories of the 1990s, scientists issued warnings of overfishing of spawning size stripers last year and cutbacks were imposed this year. Yet, if the commercial portion of the catch were eliminated there would be no such need for denying the public their opportunity for a relatively small harvest.
In looking back at the huge quantities of stripers landed prior to the Act, when the release of any bass over 16 inches along the coast (18 inches in New Jersey) or 12 inches in Chesapeake Bay was unusual, the recent recreational harvest based on two bass at 28 inches has been miniscule as release rates have been in the 90% range.
Yet, there are so many recreational fishermen seeking stripers that even under those circumstances the 8% mortality assumed for released bass is creating a possible overfishing condition on what was assumed to be a recovered stock. The first and most important step to avoid future problems and to provide the recreational fishing public with the fishery they deserve should be passage of Rep. Frank Pallone’s striped bass game fish bill. It was over a century ago that Congress ensured preservation of recreational fishing in the nation’s fresh waters by passing the Black Bass Act prohibiting interstate commerce in those game fish. It’s well past time that Congress takes similar bold action in regard to the striped bass.
The Act has provided funds with which to conduct studies of striped bass, and Rep. Saxton deserves our thanks for bringing such previously ignored problems as striper interaction with bluefish to the forefront. That is but the tip of the iceberg in relation to realistic marine fisheries management. Ever since serving on the first Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, I’ve been urging a move toward ecosystem management rather than the present system of managing each species as if they existed independently in the ocean.
he ASMFC and the councils are seeking to rebuild all predator populations to historic highs, while completely ignoring prey species. Freshwater management, even in bodies as large as the Great Lakes, is based on balancing predators and prey. When I asked a saltwater manager what a vastly increased bluefish population would be consuming he assumed that if they found enough to eat when they were previously superabundant they’ll probably do so again. That reply overlooked the fact that the sand eels which were available in huge quantities then have almost disappeared from the Mid-Atlantic. More importantly, it illustrates the fact that there is virtually no knowledge of predator-prey relationships in marine fisheries management at this time. How can we manage major food and game species when managers know practically nothing about sand eels and bay anchovies while continuing to manage menhaden to maximize commercial harvest rather than balancing that catch with the needs of the predators they’re also trying to build up?
Though the ocean is a far more complicated than even the largest of lakes, the present state of computers should provide the opportunity to manage marine fisheries in similar fashion. I sincerely feel it’s only a matter of priorities. When Congress became committed to putting a man on the moon, it was not only done but also accomplished within a decade. Today we probably know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the oceans that surround us and I regard that as a sad commentary on our priorities. If during this period of prosperity and budget surpluses we cannot find the funds with which to fuel a race to create marine ecosystem management the alternative may well be a future crisis which will impose the necessity to do so at much greater costs to society.