MAFMC Council to Hold Scoping Hearings for Action on Unmanaged Forage Species
The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council has scheduled a series of scoping hearings to gather public input for a proposed action to protect unmanaged forage species. The proposed action would consider a prohibition on the development of new, or expansion of existing, directed fisheries on unmanaged forage species in the Mid-Atlantic until adequate scientific information is available to promote ecosystem sustainability. Eight hearings will be held between September 15, 2015 and October 1, 2015 in locations throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. Written comments may also be submitted through October 2, 2015.
Round herring (Source: NEFSC)
Forage species are small, low trophic level fish and invertebrates that play an important role in sustaining the productivity and structure of marine ecosystems. Many forage species in the Mid-Atlantic are not currently subject to significant directed fishing, but increasing global demand for fishmeal, fish oil, and bait could encourage the development of new fisheries for these species. With this action, the Mid-Atlantic Council is taking a proactive approach to conserving unmanaged forage species and the ecosystem services they provide.
The Council has not yet decided which forage species will be addressed by this action; however, this action will only address species that are not currently managed by the Mid-Atlantic, New England, or South Atlantic Fishery Management Councils, or by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
Scoping Process
Scoping is the process of identifying issues, potential impacts, and a reasonable range of alternatives associated with a management action being developed by the Council. Scoping is the first and best opportunity for the public to make suggestions and raise concerns about new Council actions. Comments may be submitted in-person during the hearings listed below or in writing.
Additional information and updates about this action can be found in the scoping document and on the Unmanaged Forage Action page of the council’s website.
SCOPING HEARING SCHEDULE
Click here for a printable schedule of hearings
- Tuesday September 15, 2015. 6:30–8:30 pm. — North Carolina Department of Marine Fisheries Washington Regional Office Hearing Room. Washington Square Mall, 943 Washington Street, Washington, NC, 27889. Telephone: 252-946-6481.
- Wednesday September 16, 2015. 6:00–8:00 pm. — Virginia Marine Resources Commission 4th Floor Meeting Room. 2600 Washington Avenue, Newport News, VA, 23607. Telephone: 757-247-2200.
- Thursday September 17, 2015. 6:30–8:30 pm. — Congress Hall Hotel. 200 Congress Place, Cape May, NJ, 08094. Telephone: 844-264-5030.
- Monday September 21, 2015. 6:30–8:30 pm. — Kingsborough Community College Building T-3. 2001 Oriental Boulevard, Brooklyn, NY, 11235. Telephone: 718-368-5000.
- Monday September 28, 2015. 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm. — University of Rhode Island Bay Campus Corless Auditorium. 215 South Ferry Road, Narragansett, RI, 02882. Telephone: 401-874-6222. (Directions)
- Tuesday September 29, 2015. 6:30–8:30 pm. — New York Department of Environmental Conservation Bureau of Marine Resources Hearing Room. 205 North Belle Mead Road, Suite 1, East Setauket, NY, 11733. Telephone: 631-444-0430.
- Wednesday September 30, 2015. 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm. — Worcester County Library Ocean Pines Branch Meeting Room. 11107 Cathell Road, Berlin, MD, 21811. Telephone: 410-208-4014.
- Thursday October 1, 2015. 6:30–8:30 pm. — Webinar. Information on how to connect to the webinar will be available on the events page of the Council website: www.mafmc.org/council-events/. There will be an audio only option which will require a phone connection.
These meetings are physically accessible to people with disabilities. Requests for sign language interpretation or other auxiliary aid should be directed to M. Jan Saunders, 302-526-5251, at least 5 days prior to the meeting date.
WRITTEN COMMENTS
The Council will also accept written comments through 11:59 pm on Friday October 2, 2015. Written comments may be sent through any of the following methods:
- Online at www.mafmc.org/comments/unmanaged-forage
- Mailed to: Dr. Chris Moore, Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, 800 North State Street, Suite 201, Dover, DE, 19901. (Please write “unmanaged forage scoping comments” on the outside of the envelope.)
- Emailed to: Julia Beaty, Assistant Fishery Plan Coordinator, at jbeaty@mafmc.org. (Please write “unmanaged forage scoping comments” in the subject line.)
- Faxed to: Dr. Chris Moore, Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council at fax number 302-674-5399. (Please write “unmanaged forage scoping comments” in the subject line.)
Striper Fishing- Season To Date Report
Most of us have the limited perspective of the quality of fishing in our own area, but stripers do range up and down the coast. With all the concerns raised last year about the latest striper population estimates and the effectiveness of the reduced bag limits, Stripers Forever decided to survey some folks we know along various parts of the coast and find out their impression of how striper fishing is going this season. Here is what we found.
© 2013 Dean Clark.
Striper Fishing: Season To Date Report
by Brad Burns President of Stripers Forever
For the 2015 season the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission – the regulatory body responsible for managing East Coast striped bass – reduced coastal catches by about 24% and the harvest in the Chesapeake Bay producer area by 20%. This was done in reaction to a stock assessment that said the striped bass population was declining and was likely to decline further because of a continuing trend of moderate to very poor year classes of young fish. According to the ASMFC this reduction had only a 50% chance of reversing the population decline. Some of the northern states really wanted something much more stringent, while the commercial fishermen in Chesapeake Bay wanted no reductions at all. Things were bad enough in the coastal states, which are coming to realize the value of the recreational fishery that they have already in good part lost, that the pro conservation votes prevailed and the measures were in enacted.
With that in mind, how is the 2015 season going so far, and what is the prognosis for the future?
I poled the Stripers Forever board members, a group that include some highly experienced fishermen, guides, outdoor writers, and veterans of many fishery management boards and advisory groups. The question was “how is the striper fishing going in your area” trying to look at the breadth of sizes and areas of congregation. The responses I received ranged from Maryland to Maine, but they were remarkably consistent.
In a few words, the striper fishery can be summed up as inconsistent at best and continuing to trend downward. Northern New England – north of Cape Cod – has a fair number of small fish. Some folks are regularly catching small stripers, but it is a faint shadow of the school bass fishing 10 years ago. One guide from the North Shore of Boston area had a couple of solid days in June on the school bass he specializes on catching with light fly rods, but then has had tiny catches and even blank trips the rest of the summer. In Massachusetts waters, a couple of momentary hot spots excepted, large stripers are very hard to come by. Stripers, though, are a school fish, and if you happen to be where they are right now then you have good fishing. One very experienced fisherman from MA reports that what was once a Cape-wide summer fishery for large bass has been reduced to one good-sized school showing here and there unpredictably, and being pursued frantically by highly-mobile, opportunistic fishermen getting upwards of $6.00 per pound! A regular Cape Cod outdoor writer reported recently that some commercial permit holders he was talking to had given up because even with the high prices they just can’t find enough fish to make it worthwhile to go out.
Fishery managers have placed much of their hope for the future in the 2011 year class, which this summer represents fish in the 18” to 24” range. Most of the reports I got were that these fish are showing in decent numbers here and there. They are actually said to be more numerous than the smaller fish, which is not the way it is supposed to be. Still, the number of these 2011 fish, which are supposed to represent one of the biggest year classes of modern times, just doesn’t live up to the billing.
Things aren’t any better down in Jersey where one crack, lifetime surf and boat striper man said this: “I fish from the shore and from my boat in central NJ and the fact that I caught one striper over 20 lbs. this year as compared to 125 over 20 lbs in 2011 about sums it up. For me this was the worse it has been in about 30 years.”
The brightest report I have is from a friend in Maryland who also knows his striper fishing. Admittedly my friend works for the Maryland Dept of Natural Resources, but he tells me that while larger fish are lacking in the Bay, that sub 20-inch stripers – these would come from what are officially quite small year classes – are quite numerous, and that while the charter boats aren’t happy the light tackle anglers are having a ball. He also said that while there is nothing official yet the young of the year for this year appears to be looking up.
So what does all this mean? When will this fishery turn around? The answer is, based on the fish that are already born, that it won’t. The average young of the year count in Chesapeake Bay from 1995 through 2005 was 21.06. This was the pinnacle of the striper boom. The average from 2005 to 2014 dropped to 9.73. That means that there were only about 40% as many young stripers born during the last decade as the one before. More ominously, during the last three years that number has been an average of only 3.52 which is just 15% as many. If we are looking at a declining fishery now, imagine how it will look when the last of the fish born during the boom are gone.
Why are the year classes smaller now than 15 years ago? No one knows the answer to that for certain. It could be the effects of myco, of pollution in Chesapeake Bay, the wrong kind of weather, or killing too many of the large breeders. Stripers have always been sporadic in their spawning success, and that is why nature had these large female breeders carry so many eggs and live such long lives – to spawn many times. This would carry the striper population’s spawning potential over the naturally occurring weak reproductive years. We really don’t understand how important the size of the spawning stock biomass is to the potential of striped bass to produce good year classes. But it certainly seems counter to the biology of the creature to be directing so much harvest at these large old breeding fish.
A more risk adverse approach would be to not kill any of these big fish until the population recovers and then to kill relatively few, taking the harvest instead from smaller fish, since something like 20% of these will die each year of natural causes. This is exactly opposite of the way we have been doing things. It appears that one way or another we will eventually stop harvesting so many large fish, simply because there will be so few left to catch.
Cape Cod Times Op-Ed By Dean Clark (SF Board Member)
WHEN A KEEPER IS NOT A KEEPER
Originally Printed in the Cape Cod Times – April 20, 2015
By Dean Clark
The much anticipated arrival of striped bass is only a few weeks away however this year fishing for them will be different. Because of the documented downturn in the number of large breeding females in the striper population, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has regulated a 25% reduction in the striped bass harvest. To achieve this goal recreational fishermen in MA will only be allowed to keep one fish over 28 inches instead of two and the commercial harvest is being reduced 25%.
NOAA claims that the recreational striper fishery in MA has recently been off by more than 65%. This has troubling and far-reaching economic consequences. Our recreational striped bass fishery on the Cape once drove a multi-million dollar tourist industry that folks depended on. Without stripers to catch, jobs have been and will continue to be lost and our economy suffers. We need to bring these bass back not be killing them off conscience free.
Recent changes governing the commercial striper fishery have extended the season, reduced the number of casual permit participants and helped to stabilize market prices which are all good but not enough. In MA commercial striper fishermen are still required to only harvest fish over 34 inches. This guarantees that every striper brought to market is a large breeding female: the very fish that should be protected if the striped bass population is to recover.
Killing breeding females is counter intuitive and self-defeating. If stripers were fresh water bass, commercial fishing for them would not be allowed in the first place. Even more telling is the fact that recreational anglers catching a large or smallmouth bass will release them unharmed 99% of the time not because it is the law but because it makes selfish and ethical sense.
Killing every “keeper” striper makes no sense at all on any level. Pictures of large, dead stripers grotesquely laid out on a dock or being held high with blood coming from their gills once were proof of bragging rights but no longer. Macho driven ego trips are a thing of the past and behaving with such disrespect for these valuable fish is quickly becoming a mark of shame. The real heroes are those that brag about the “keepers” they caught and then released not the “keepers” they selfishly killed.
Striped bass belong to all of us. Let’s value and treat them with the respect and importance they deserve. Sure, take a fish home for dinner once in a while but release most of the females (fish over 34 inches) and know you are doing the right thing for the economy, each other and the recovery of these valuable fish.
Towards that end, Stripers Forever, an all-volunteer conservation organization, has created the Release a Breeder Club which recognizes and is even giving out prizes to individuals that have caught and released a large breeding female striper. More information can be found on their web site stripersforever.org.
Dean Clark
Co-Chair, Stripers Forever MA
Bear’s Den 17th Annual Fly Fishing Expo
The Bear’s Den in Taunton continues to be a great supporter of striped bass conservation. Their annual expo is coming up next Saturday the 21st 11am-6PM. Stripers Forever will have a booth there, so stop by, say hello and pick up a new hat. This show features some of the top names in fly fishing. Chris Owens of Geobass headlines the 2015 show! For full information check out the Bear’s Den website.
