COMMERCE
Subscriber Services
Classified Ads
Subscribe
Advertise
NEWS
This Month
Editorial
Letters
F/V Safety
Past Issues
ABOUT US
Contact Us
Latest Issue
Subscribe
History
MORE CONTENT
CFN Archives
Links
Each month exclusively in the PRINT edition of CFN
Along the Coast
Ask the Lobster Doc
Bearin’s
Classifieds
Coming Events
Editorial
Enforcement Report
FISH SAFE
Fleet Additions
Letters
Lobster Market Report
New Boats
News Catch
Quahog Market Report
|
Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 1
September 2006
NMFS-backed 2007 fluke cuts bode ‘disaster’
PHILADELPHIA, PA – Citing the 10-year stock-rebuilding requirement of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has shaken the commercial and recreational fishing worlds by floating a 2007 coastwide summer flounder total allowable landings (TAL) level of just 5.2 million pounds.
That compares to the 23.6-million-pound coastwide fluke TAL that NMFS implemented for 2006, which itself was nearly 7 million pounds less than the year before and nearly 10 million pounds below what the council originally proposed for the 2006 quota back in 2004.
The specter of this latest severe cut came into focus during the July 18 meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council summer flounder monitoring committee when George Darcy of NMFS offered a motion to recommend the 5.2-million-pound TAL “based on best available science that should lead to rebuilding of the stock in the statutory timeframe.”
The motion failed, but the controversy kicked into high gear.
Sportsmen’s groups like the Recreational Fishing Alliance mobilized their members to voice their outrage over the prospective cut, and members of Congress, particularly from New Jersey, were soon expressing grave concern over the potential effect on recreational and for-hire fisheries.
Not overfished
“In my opinion, summer flounder will be an absolute disaster in 2007,” said council Executive Director Dan Furlong in a July 20 e-mail to council members and others.
Furlong explained that the situation had come about because:
• The biological reference point for summer flounder maximum sustainable yield is 204 million pounds;
• The stock size is currently at about 112 million pounds; and
• The summer flounder rebuilding deadline is 2010.
Stock assessment scientists meeting last June determined that the summer flounder stock is not overfished but overfishing is occurring relative to the council’s biological reference points.
The NMFS TAL recommendation is basically an attempt to cut fishing back so severely that the amount of summer flounder in the ocean will reach that 204-million-pound target by 2010.
Furlong questioned the need to cause such economic havoc to meet a paper target. He pointed out that, since 1993, the annual summer flounder TAL has never dropped below 17.9 million pounds and, during that time, the stock’s biomass has more than doubled and the spawning stock biomass has nearly tripled.
“The issue is, how do we increase the stock size by 90 million-plus pounds in the next three years?” Furlong said, adding that this situation has made it clear to him that Congress needs to change the 10-year rebuilding requirement.
Council backs 19.9 million
After rejecting Darcy’s motion, as well as a Mid-Atlantic council staff motion to recommend a 19.9-million-pound TAL, the monitoring committee settled on a recommendation of a 13.89-million-pound TAL, but just barely – the committee chairman had to break a tie vote.
However, during the council’s Aug. 1-3 meeting, fisherman and council member Jimmy Ruhle of North Carolina offered a motion to set the TAL at 19.9 million pounds.
That motion passed 18 to two.
In a follow-up phone interview, Ruhle described the council’s frustration with the NMFS position.
“We had very little notice. Until that monitoring committee meeting, which was two weeks before the council meeting, we all thought that we were on an upward trajectory,” he said. “This is no way to deal with the fishing industry.”
Meets standards
Ruhle explained that the 19.9-million-pound TAL meets a federal court mandate of having at least a 50% probability of meeting the summer flounder plan’s rebuilding schedule, though “not including the retrospective analysis.”
NMFS did consider this retrospective analysis in determining its recommended TAL level.
Scientists use that analysis basically to look back through time and correct assumptions made in the stock assessment model. The model used for summer flounder apparently has a track record of being off when it comes to gauging fishing mortality rates (F) in the most recent years.
“We think we’re fishing at the target F when we’re not,” said council staffer Jessica Coakley.
Added Ruhle, “NMFS is hanging its hat on the retrospective analysis and 10-year rebuilding. I have not seen any indication that this stock is in any kind of biological trouble. Plus, fishermen are seeing small fish that the (NMFS) survey is not seeing.”
Rec overages
However, Ruhle did agree that there have been overages in the recreational summer flounder fishery. In fact, managers and scientists estimate that recreational fishery overages in 2000, 2001, and 2003 totaled 15.88 million pounds.
In acknowledgement of this fact, Ruhle also made a motion to have the council develop an amendment to its summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass plan “for the sole purpose of revising the 10-year rebuilding schedule established in Amendment 12 due to the unintended overages from the recreational fishery during the early years of the plan.”
After some discussion, the motion was tabled until the council’s next meeting, which is scheduled for Oct. 10-12 in Kitty Hawk, NC.
For its part, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission summer flounder board, which met jointly with the council, postponed consideration of both the 2006 TAL and amending its interstate summer flounder plan until the commission’s annual meeting, which is scheduled for Oct. 22-26 in Atlantic Beach, NC.
NMFS is expected to come out with its proposed specifications for the summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass fishery in October.
Lorelei Stevens
Back to story list
|
|
Tell us what you think.
