Since the topic has arisen, I thought I would fill in the blanks a bit as to exactly why this is happening, the Sea Bass closure that is, who is actually responsible for it, etc.
First, you must go back to the recent reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), the FEDERAL law tha governs our fisheries. Suffice to say, it is not a law that is voted on by Trenton, NJ
In the new MSA the council and Fisheries Service is not allowed to set quotas higher than the Science and Statistical Committee (SSC) recommends. They may set quotas lower, but not higher. So, Absolute Power has been given to the SSC in setting quotas.
In years past (up until this one) Sea Bass had been considered overfished, with overfishing occurring many years, and the stock was considered to still be in need of rebuilding. Sea Bass were also considered to be a "data poor stock," meaning there was very little information used by scientists to "assess" the health of the stock. Actually, there was not even a true stock assessment for Sea Bass, they were an "indexed" stock, meaning they were indexed to the federal trawl surveys that are done each year. Notice I keep using the word "federal," meaning none of this happens in Trenton, NJ nor is it influenced by anything that happens in Trenton.
This past year, the scientific community held a "Data Poor Workshop" to try and find ways to better assess and deal with stocks where the information was lacking, not used, etc. This was a genuine attempt to do a better job than had been done in the past, which is always a good thing. This workshop determined, whether intentionally or not, that fishermens assertions for years were correct, and the previous claims by the science were wrong, at least in the case of both Sea Bass and Porgies. We have been told what the state of the stock was as I previously mentioned, and that the "retrospective analysis" always showed higher mortality then in the terminal year. What that means is whatever they thought the mortality was in the current year, when they looked at it a few years later they discovered it was always higher in "retrospect." Not a good thing if you are always underestimating mortality. At this Data Poor Workshop, at least in the case of Sea Bass, it was determined that not only are Sea Bass NOT overfished, not only is overfishing NOT occurring, not only was the retrospective analysis WRONG FOR THE LAST TEN YEARS, but Sea Bass are actually at 103% of their rebuilt level, and have been for nearly a decade!
Now fast forward to problem # 2, the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey (MRFSS), MRFSS is what is used to determine what recreational anglers catch. This system is not administered by Trenton, NJ nor is it a state run system. Is is done by the FEDERAL management body, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) through the contractor it hires to do the survey and then the data is processed by the statistical arm of the FEDERAL fisheries service....which is not located in or administered by Trenton, NJ.
MRFSS, which was determined a couple years ago to be a flawed system and is in the (slow) process of being replaced, stated at the end of June that Sea Bass landings had been exceptionally high. And, if things continued at the same pace we would likely overfish our quota for the year. Despite some of the bizarre assertions from MRFSS (for example: apparently, according to MRFSS, PRIVATE BOATS in NJ outfished the party boat fleet in MARCH AND APRIL for Sea Bass, despite the fact that most boats are not in the water at that time of year and Sea Bass are not available inshore at that time)
Now we move forward to the August Mid-Atlantic Council (MAFMC) meeting where the quotas for the year are set. The council receives three recommendations for what to do, in this case for Sea Bass is all we will deal with. One quota recommendation comes from the Monitoring Committee, one from the council staff and one from the SSC. Under the new MSA, only the SSC one counts. Now the staff and monitoring committee recommendations were for a quota significantly higher than the SSC's, by almost double or more. When the SSC was questioned as to why this was, it was made clear that the new data from the Data Poor Workshop was not used when the SSC met, which was before the staff and Monitoring Committee. Now, NONE of this occurs at the state level (in Trenton) nor does Trenton have any involvement in this process, just to be clear.
So, the SSC made their recommendation based on data that still said the stock was not rebuilt, was being overfished and was in generally poor shape, even though the new scientific information clearly stated that the opposite is now true.
So then, the MAFMC voted to send the Sea Bass discussion back to the SSC so they could take into account this new assessment of Sea Bass......
The vote failed in a tie, 10 to 10.
Now it has been suggested that the "new" council members that have ties to the enviro/anti-fishing lobby, one of which is filling a NJ seat on the council, are part of the cause for this vote. Of course, this ignores the fact that the councilmen from NJ has not yet taken his seat and had no vote at the August meeting and it was council members from states other than NJ that voted against the motion. Last time I checked, Trenton, NJ has no say in who's name gets put on the list of potential council members from other states.
Then you have the closure itself. NMFS (a FEDERAL BODY) has determined that since the preliminary MRFSS data suggests recreational fishermen MIGHT overfish their quota for 2009 that they would shut down FEDERAL WATERS to recreational Sea Bass fishing. This was done through the Emergency Rule Making process. It is a FEDERAL process that does not involve Trenton, NJ, nor does it involve any other state. In reality, when the states (through the state waters management body call the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) were asked to take action in state waters, the ASMFC voted NOT to close Sea Bass in state waters by a majority vote. One of those states that voted AGAINST closing Sea Bass was NJ. So to date, Trenton, NJ's only action in regards to Sea Bass was
TO KEEP THE FISHERY OPEN.The issue we face here exists on several levels, but suffice to say that even with the ridiculous numbers coming from MRFSS, had the quota for 2010 for Sea Bass been set at the level the current stock assessment says is allowed, a level based on the fishery being rebuilt and not overfished, then we would have actually caught LESS Sea Bass this year then we would be allowed to catch next year. That is always what you want, landing as close to the following year's quota as possible without exceeding it.
But because we have a quota for 2010 based on out dated information that says the stock is not rebuilt and is being overfished, it remains artificially low and therefore our landings are higher than they are supposed to be based on that artificially low quota.
That, combined with landings data that cannot be justified (as another example VA supposedly saw a 982% increase in Sea Bass landings while MD barely landed 2000 fish...guess they all swam right past MD and were caught in VA
) is why we have this problem, and if you noticed throughout this long explanation none of these event had or have anything to do with Trenton, NJ, it's actions or it's policies.
Hope this helps clear some things up. There is more, but this is a long enough post as it is.
Capt. Tony Bogan
