Asbury Park Press

 

January 22, 2008

Bill Brings Flexibility to Fisheries Management

By JOHN GEISER
CORRESPONDENT

Rep. Frank Pallone Jr.'s, D-NJ, bill to add flexibility to the Magnuson-Stevens Act and save the summer flounder fishery should receive strong support in Congress.

The measure is designed to correct a fisheries management problem that should never have arisen in the first place: a rigid schedule for an element of nature.

The attempt typifies a growing hubris in the environmental community. Protectionists are unwilling to admit that statistics, models and beliefs have no effect on the recruitment of summer flounder this year or any year.

Management officials, backed by law enforcement, could close the summer flounder fishery in 2009, but they cannot by will or fiat put 100 million juvenile fluke in the ocean at the same time.

This is where Pallone's bill comes in. Fisheries management officials must have flexibility - the ability - to adapt to the vagaries of nature.

The Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund's rally in Manasquan on Monday night was designed to get additional public support for this effort.

Money is being sought from fishermen to scientifically prove what is really going on in the marine environment where fluke are concerned, and persuade Congress to pass legislation to enable management officials to adapt to change without threatening the food supply, livelihoods and recreation of those who depend on the fishery.

Pallone persuaded the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans to hold an oversight hearing Dec. 5 on rebuilding overfished fisheries, particularly summer flounder.

The congressman said the fishermen who testified at the hearing convinced him that current rebuilding targets set by the National Marine Fisheries Service and mandated by Congress are unattainable in the time frame.

In other words, reaching a total biomass of 214 million pounds and a spawning stock biomass of 197 million pounds at the end of 2012 is impossible.

The estimated spawning stock biomass at present is somewhere around 93 million pounds and the total biomass around 104 million pounds.

James A. Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, made some hard-hitting comments when he was in Washington for the subcommittee hearing.

"Fishing mortality has decreased over 80 percent, and the total stock biomass and spawning stock biomass have increased 251 percent and 280 percent, respectively," he said. "No one, not even the environmental community, can deny that this represents good progress.

"To put the summer flounder's recovery in context, let's compare it to striped bass," he continued. "During the same period from 1988 to 2004, the striped bass biomass increased 202 percent.

"As we all know, the rebuilding that occurred in the striped bass fishery has been described by NMFS, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and many others as a rebuilding success," he added.

Despite the building of the biomass to record levels, some environmental groups claim the stocks are unhealthy and must be increased.

"Some in the environmental community are calling for a shutdown of the summer flounder fishery," Donofrio said. "In fact, one group recently called for a 10-year moratorium on all summer flounder fishing."

Greg Hueth, one of the co-founders of Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund, said a paramount aim of the organization is to hire fisheries biologists who will address basic problems in the summer flounder research.

These include outdated tuning indices, inadequate sampling techniques, unrepresentative data collection and unfounded modeling assumptions.

Tony Bogan, another of the founders, stressed that pressure on Congress is vital in giving management officials flexibility, and that effort will be pushed by SSFFF with as much vigor as the scientific approach.

Dave Arbeitman, also a founder of SSFFF, said contributions are pouring in to fund SSFFF's initiatives.

"We get checks in the mail every day, and more and more people are stepping up to offer their support," he said. "This is what is needed, if we are going to solve the problems in this fishery."

The weather has been the problem in current fisheries, but the fish are there.