hartattack
04-18-2018, 08:06 AM
( Atlantic coastal states are set to battle it out over scraps from a fishery that is 240% of the target biomass, sparking yet another fisheries war that can only end badly for all anglers from north to south. )
article from The Fisherman, Jim Hutchinson Jr.:
On May 3, the ASFMC policy board is expected to address an appeal by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York, over the disparity in coastwide black sea bass regulations with New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Late last week, a panel convened by ASMFC officially validated the northern appeal to allow their fight against the southern states to move forward during the first few days of May in Arlington.
Earlier this year, ASFMC’s Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Management Board approved Addendum XXX to the Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan establishing a regional allocation of the coastwide Recreational Harvest Limit (RHL) of black sea bass. The final 6-4 vote across geographic lines separating north and south established three management regions for black sea bass; Massachusetts through New York (61.35% of the RHL), New Jersey as its own state-specific region (30.24% of the RHL), and Delaware through North Carolina (8.41% of the RHL). States within each region are collectively responsible for managing harvest to their regional allocation through cooperative measures.
When ASMFC members were considering their decision during their winter meeting in February, states from Delaware through North Carolina didn’t want New Jersey included in their southern region. On the other hand, northern states were already facing an 11% reduction in black sea bass landings for 2018, where New Jersey alone was expected to get hit with a significantly higher 20% reduction. Though New Jersey historically has the most participation in the black sea bass fishery and qualified for the highest RHL percentage coastwide, delegates from New York through Massachusetts viewed the 20% reduction as a potential liability, so they didn’t want New Jersey part of their northern region either.
SMOOTHING IT OUT
Capt. Adam Nowalsky, New Jersey’s legislative proxy to the ASMFC and recently elected vice-chair of the Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Management Board, said a lot has happened since that 6-4 vote by the ASMFC in February. At an April 5 meeting of the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council, Nowalsky said the technical committees responsible for evaluating these proposals implemented a new approach to dealing with statistical data on recreational harvest numbers, “smoothing” off the highs and lows which is a little like grading on a curve to help bring more parity.
“This is what we’ve been asking for, for a long time with the recreational catch data,” said Nowalsky, adding “What they’re doing in and of itself I don’t think is in the wrong direction, it’s quite the opposite I think a lot of really good, hard work went it to it.”
“The implication of it however is that it tremendously benefitted New Jersey and gave almost no benefit to other states this year,” he said. “Now the states are looking at a document that was meant to equitably divide the reduction needed for 2018 and now you’ve got a subset of states that need a reduction, a number of states that get a huge liberalization.”
The lack of parity between states liberalizing regulations by as much as 40% where others are required to reduce harvest by 11 or 12 percentage points is ultimately what prompted the northern states to sign off on a letter to the ASFMC on March 16, 2018 which appeals to the Policy Board to go back to the Management Board to initiate an addendum or amendment to that original decision. At the very least, the northern appeal asks that their sea bass reduction be cut in half for states from New York to Massachusetts; the only way to do that would be for states from the south, from New Jersey to North Carolina, to give up a portion of their increase.
But given the lower 8.41% RHL for states from Delaware to North Carolina, there’s very little that those lower Mid-Atlantic states could really give up that would be of any significant help to the northern states. That means that should the appeal move forward successfully, the real bank of sea bass harvest would more than likely come out of New Jersey’s 30.24% RHL.
According to Jim Gilmore who heads up the Division of Marine Resources at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC) and is current chairman of the ASMFC, the appeal has been successful thus far because of the argument that Addendum XXX is inconsistent with objectives of the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) and runs contrary to the primary objective to reduce disproportionate impacts on states.
“We will explore every option to fight this,” Gilmore told an assembled crowd at Stony Brook University on Long Island on March 27, telling anglers and for-hire captains that Governor Andrew Cuomo and NYDEC Commissioner Basil Seggos were equally committed to carrying out this appeal to the end. “This is way too long that you guys have been taking reductions like this,” Gilmore told the crowd on March 27.
In a Newsday interview prior to the March 27 meeting, Seggos said he had been directed by Governor Cuomo to make sure state fishermen don’t suffer as a result of federal regulations that seek to limit a fishery that’s considered healthy.
“Black sea bass populations have increased substantially,” Seggos told Newsday reporter Mark Harrington. “Nonetheless, we’re stuck with the prospect of cuts, which never made sense to me, never made sense to the governor, or to our fisheries managers.”%page_break%
While New England and lower Mid-Atlantic states have kept mostly quiet, the real civil strife is once again taking place along the New York, New Jersey border - just like in the fluke days of yore – with members of Congress now getting involved in the fray.
“With the vast majority of Long Island fishing taking place in waters shared with New Jersey and Connecticut, such as the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound, it is unfair that New York anglers are, once again, being penalized with smaller fishing quotas than neighboring states,” said Rep. Lee Zeldin, a republican congressman representing the East End of Long Island. “For my constituents, who are both fishermen and small business owners trying to attract customers, the ASFMC’s decision to, once again, cut New York off from its fair share while allowing New Jersey’s allocation to grow, is unacceptable.”
“At the state level, New York’s representatives must fight more aggressively within these regional bodies to advocate for New York’s anglers who rely on fishing as a way of life that supports so much of our local economy,” Rep. Zeldin added, an apparent swipe at appointees tasked with representing New York fishermen at the ASFMC. “If our state representatives on the ASMFC-- who supported this terrible proposal and failed to fully advocate for New York-- aren’t willing to fight for our anglers, then they should step aside.”
MORE NON-COMPLIANCE
In 2017, New Jersey took exception to regionalized fluke regulations that would’ve required an increase in the size of keeper fluke to 19 inches while maintaining similar regulations with New York and Connecticut. Unlike the current protest by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York, New Jersey’s fluke appeal to the ASFMC Policy Board was denied in 2017. Ultimately, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) went directly to NOAA Fisheries and the Department of Commerce to present their statistical data showing how a 19-inch size limit would’ve resulted in discard mortality rates exceeding the actual harvest of keepers.
Ultimately, the state was granted an allowance by the federal government to maintain a lower size limit than nearby Connecticut and New York, though it resulted in three fewer weeks of allowable fishing season. In the process, it separated New Jersey once again from the regionalized approach to fluke management allowing for state-specific, coastwide equivalency.
This time however, with regard to black sea bass, if the four northern states refuse to accept the current reductions and are found out of compliance by ASMFC and ultimately the Department of Commerce, it will cause coastwide issues for all involved.
“The federal fishery management plan for summer flounder has the term coastwide equivalency built into it which allows individual states to have different regulations, therefore when a single state is not in compliance the federal government can take action specifically against that specific state,” Nowalsky explained of the compliance measures. “The black sea bass plan, as it exists right now does not have coastwide equivalency built into it, so they can do nothing other than enact coastwide measures.”
In other words, if the May 3 appeal were to ultimately fail, thereby prompting any of the northern states to take the non-compliance route, the entire coastwide black sea bass regulations would fall to the “backstop measure” of a 14-inch size limit, five fish possession limit and a May 15 to September 15 for every state, north to south. Rep. Zeldin appeared at rally at Mascot Dock in Patchogue, NY on Sunday where several attendees from the recreational for-hire community spoke in favor of New York ultimately going the non-compliant route. . . . Continued in next post . . . .
article from The Fisherman, Jim Hutchinson Jr.:
On May 3, the ASFMC policy board is expected to address an appeal by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York, over the disparity in coastwide black sea bass regulations with New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Late last week, a panel convened by ASMFC officially validated the northern appeal to allow their fight against the southern states to move forward during the first few days of May in Arlington.
Earlier this year, ASFMC’s Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Management Board approved Addendum XXX to the Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan establishing a regional allocation of the coastwide Recreational Harvest Limit (RHL) of black sea bass. The final 6-4 vote across geographic lines separating north and south established three management regions for black sea bass; Massachusetts through New York (61.35% of the RHL), New Jersey as its own state-specific region (30.24% of the RHL), and Delaware through North Carolina (8.41% of the RHL). States within each region are collectively responsible for managing harvest to their regional allocation through cooperative measures.
When ASMFC members were considering their decision during their winter meeting in February, states from Delaware through North Carolina didn’t want New Jersey included in their southern region. On the other hand, northern states were already facing an 11% reduction in black sea bass landings for 2018, where New Jersey alone was expected to get hit with a significantly higher 20% reduction. Though New Jersey historically has the most participation in the black sea bass fishery and qualified for the highest RHL percentage coastwide, delegates from New York through Massachusetts viewed the 20% reduction as a potential liability, so they didn’t want New Jersey part of their northern region either.
SMOOTHING IT OUT
Capt. Adam Nowalsky, New Jersey’s legislative proxy to the ASMFC and recently elected vice-chair of the Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Management Board, said a lot has happened since that 6-4 vote by the ASMFC in February. At an April 5 meeting of the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council, Nowalsky said the technical committees responsible for evaluating these proposals implemented a new approach to dealing with statistical data on recreational harvest numbers, “smoothing” off the highs and lows which is a little like grading on a curve to help bring more parity.
“This is what we’ve been asking for, for a long time with the recreational catch data,” said Nowalsky, adding “What they’re doing in and of itself I don’t think is in the wrong direction, it’s quite the opposite I think a lot of really good, hard work went it to it.”
“The implication of it however is that it tremendously benefitted New Jersey and gave almost no benefit to other states this year,” he said. “Now the states are looking at a document that was meant to equitably divide the reduction needed for 2018 and now you’ve got a subset of states that need a reduction, a number of states that get a huge liberalization.”
The lack of parity between states liberalizing regulations by as much as 40% where others are required to reduce harvest by 11 or 12 percentage points is ultimately what prompted the northern states to sign off on a letter to the ASFMC on March 16, 2018 which appeals to the Policy Board to go back to the Management Board to initiate an addendum or amendment to that original decision. At the very least, the northern appeal asks that their sea bass reduction be cut in half for states from New York to Massachusetts; the only way to do that would be for states from the south, from New Jersey to North Carolina, to give up a portion of their increase.
But given the lower 8.41% RHL for states from Delaware to North Carolina, there’s very little that those lower Mid-Atlantic states could really give up that would be of any significant help to the northern states. That means that should the appeal move forward successfully, the real bank of sea bass harvest would more than likely come out of New Jersey’s 30.24% RHL.
According to Jim Gilmore who heads up the Division of Marine Resources at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC) and is current chairman of the ASMFC, the appeal has been successful thus far because of the argument that Addendum XXX is inconsistent with objectives of the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) and runs contrary to the primary objective to reduce disproportionate impacts on states.
“We will explore every option to fight this,” Gilmore told an assembled crowd at Stony Brook University on Long Island on March 27, telling anglers and for-hire captains that Governor Andrew Cuomo and NYDEC Commissioner Basil Seggos were equally committed to carrying out this appeal to the end. “This is way too long that you guys have been taking reductions like this,” Gilmore told the crowd on March 27.
In a Newsday interview prior to the March 27 meeting, Seggos said he had been directed by Governor Cuomo to make sure state fishermen don’t suffer as a result of federal regulations that seek to limit a fishery that’s considered healthy.
“Black sea bass populations have increased substantially,” Seggos told Newsday reporter Mark Harrington. “Nonetheless, we’re stuck with the prospect of cuts, which never made sense to me, never made sense to the governor, or to our fisheries managers.”%page_break%
While New England and lower Mid-Atlantic states have kept mostly quiet, the real civil strife is once again taking place along the New York, New Jersey border - just like in the fluke days of yore – with members of Congress now getting involved in the fray.
“With the vast majority of Long Island fishing taking place in waters shared with New Jersey and Connecticut, such as the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound, it is unfair that New York anglers are, once again, being penalized with smaller fishing quotas than neighboring states,” said Rep. Lee Zeldin, a republican congressman representing the East End of Long Island. “For my constituents, who are both fishermen and small business owners trying to attract customers, the ASFMC’s decision to, once again, cut New York off from its fair share while allowing New Jersey’s allocation to grow, is unacceptable.”
“At the state level, New York’s representatives must fight more aggressively within these regional bodies to advocate for New York’s anglers who rely on fishing as a way of life that supports so much of our local economy,” Rep. Zeldin added, an apparent swipe at appointees tasked with representing New York fishermen at the ASFMC. “If our state representatives on the ASMFC-- who supported this terrible proposal and failed to fully advocate for New York-- aren’t willing to fight for our anglers, then they should step aside.”
MORE NON-COMPLIANCE
In 2017, New Jersey took exception to regionalized fluke regulations that would’ve required an increase in the size of keeper fluke to 19 inches while maintaining similar regulations with New York and Connecticut. Unlike the current protest by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York, New Jersey’s fluke appeal to the ASFMC Policy Board was denied in 2017. Ultimately, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) went directly to NOAA Fisheries and the Department of Commerce to present their statistical data showing how a 19-inch size limit would’ve resulted in discard mortality rates exceeding the actual harvest of keepers.
Ultimately, the state was granted an allowance by the federal government to maintain a lower size limit than nearby Connecticut and New York, though it resulted in three fewer weeks of allowable fishing season. In the process, it separated New Jersey once again from the regionalized approach to fluke management allowing for state-specific, coastwide equivalency.
This time however, with regard to black sea bass, if the four northern states refuse to accept the current reductions and are found out of compliance by ASMFC and ultimately the Department of Commerce, it will cause coastwide issues for all involved.
“The federal fishery management plan for summer flounder has the term coastwide equivalency built into it which allows individual states to have different regulations, therefore when a single state is not in compliance the federal government can take action specifically against that specific state,” Nowalsky explained of the compliance measures. “The black sea bass plan, as it exists right now does not have coastwide equivalency built into it, so they can do nothing other than enact coastwide measures.”
In other words, if the May 3 appeal were to ultimately fail, thereby prompting any of the northern states to take the non-compliance route, the entire coastwide black sea bass regulations would fall to the “backstop measure” of a 14-inch size limit, five fish possession limit and a May 15 to September 15 for every state, north to south. Rep. Zeldin appeared at rally at Mascot Dock in Patchogue, NY on Sunday where several attendees from the recreational for-hire community spoke in favor of New York ultimately going the non-compliant route. . . . Continued in next post . . . .