The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NFMS) announced in the October 17, 2008, Federal Register that the requirements set by Executive Order 13449 which established striped bass and red drum as gamefish have been fulfilled. NMFS determined that the current rules banning the sale of striped bass and red drum caught in federal waters in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico achieve the intent of Executive Order 13449, signed by President George W. Bush on October 20, 2007.

“This ruling ensures that striped bass and red drum will survive and grow for generations of anglers to enjoy,” ASA President and CEO Mike Nussman said. “We are very pleased that NMFS has completed this ruling ensuring that federal waters will be closed to commercial fishing for these important gamefish.”

Executive Order 13449 established gamefish status for striped bass and red drum in federal waters. Gamefish status means that the two species are provided regulations and management measures to promote their well-being as a fish sought for recreational fishing and not for sale if caught in federal waters.

This announcement insures the recreational, economic and environmental benefits of two of the most popular gamefish in the United States. The order protects the fisheries in federal waters from commercial harvest, which include three miles to 200 miles offshore. The Order does not cover state waters, which go from the coastline to three miles offshore. Many states have conferred gamefish status for these species and the executive order encourages those that have not conferred gamefish status to do so. The announcement on October 17, 2008 signifies that the regulatory requirements of the executive order were fulfilled.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Herring Section approved initiation of an addendum to explore additional options to control harvest in Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine).  Five specific measures will be considered for inclusion in the final draft: (1) monthly or bimonthly quotas with payback and carry over; (2) determination of landing and fishing days; (3) no fishing prior to June 1; (4) timely reporting of state-registered landings; and (5) restricted harvest of juvenile fish.

Currently, effort in Area 1A is controlled through a days at sea restriction. However, a 25 percent decrease in the Area 1A total allowable catch and a federal mid-water trawl ban from June 1 to September 30 have significantly changed the fishery since Amendment 2 implementation, limiting the overall effectiveness of the days at sea restriction to control harvest and effort.  The new addendum will seek to identify additional management tools to better control effort in the fishery.

The Section will seek input from its Technical Committee, Advisory Panel, and the Commission’s Law Enforcement Committee on the five measures and provide guidance to the Plan Development Team at the next Section meeting, scheduled for February 2009. For more information, please contact Christopher Vonderweidt, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at cvonderweidt@asmfc.org  or (202) 289-6400.

I received a call from fishing buddy Wild Bill yesterday saying he was reading an article in Smithsonian Magazine that was talking about how the size and numbers of fish have decreased over the years. The Senior Editor, Laura, of the Smithsonian printed pictures of typical catches from a Key West boat named Gulf Stream in 1957 and again in 1958 , 1983 and 2007. The boat has been updated to the Gulf Stream III and runs from the same slip. The contrast in the catches is striking. A link is not year on their site. If you have access to the Smithsonian, look at pages 56 to 58 in the September issue for a pictorial of how the fishing has changed. The catch in 1957 compared to 2007 is beyond startling. Laura fished a day on the Gulf Stream III and ends the editorial with: ” It was poignant to see so much excitement over catching [little] fish. The people on the boat don’t have any sense that it has changed so much.”

Wild Bill’s call sparked some interest so I went to the Smithsonian website to look around. I came across an article titled “Our Imperiled Oceans: Victory at Sea“which talks about a large reserve that was created in the Phoenix Islands in the Pacific, “Phoenix Islands, a remote, largely unpopulated archipelago 1,000 miles east of Tarawa. The 158,000-square-mile Phoenix Islands Protected Area, covering about 12 percent of Kiribati’s watery domain, holds some of the world’s most pristine coral reefs as well as a great abundance and diversity of tropical marine life. And it’s the first reserve to place such a large area of open ocean off-limits to commercial fishing. The reserve is one of the planet’s ecological bright spots, the boldest, most dramatic effort to save the oceans’ coral reefs, the richest habitat in the seas.”

While the reserve part of the article is interesting, what is even more interesting is a discussion relating a syndrome called “the shifting baseline syndrome”

It was only in the 1990s that marine scientists became aware of what Daniel Pauly, a fisheries biologist at the University of British Columbia, calls the shifting baseline syndrome—the problem of establishing historic populations of marine life in a given species or community. Just what is a healthy number of, say, red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico? “Each generation [of scientists] accepts as a base line the stock size and species composition that occurred at the beginning of [that generation’s] career,”says Pauly. The result is that, over time, the expectation of the natural number of fish in the sea gets smaller and smaller—until the population is so small that even a modest environmental perturbation, or a tad more fishing, causes it to unexpectedly collapse as the cod population collapsed off Newfoundland and Labrador in the early 1990s. Sound familiar?

• Think that happened with blue crabs in the Chesapeake?….sure did.
• Think that happened with sea trout in the Chesapeake and along the east coast?…..sure did
• Think that happened with sturgeon in the Chesapeake?……sure did, wiped them out
• Think that happened with [u]oysters in the Chesaepake?….sure did, in fact our fisheries managers are so wacko that while they say we are at 1% of historic levels, they still allow for a commerical fishery that is clearly NOT sustainable…total joke (still waiting for CBF to come to their senses and make a statement like they did 10 years ago)
• Think that is what happened with Atlantic [U]blue fin tuna[/U].?..sure did, they will be gone soon, the NC fishery is about all gone already
• Think that is what happened with[U] tile fish [/U]in Florida, and almost happened in Virgina?…sure did
• Think that is what happened with [U]cod[/U] in the Northeast? ….sure did
• Think that is what is happening/happened with [U]menhaden [/U]along the east coast and now in the Chesapeake Bay?….bet it is…well in fact we know it happened, used to be 100 factories along the coast doing menhaden catching and processing, now we have one(1). Why is that? It’s because there are no more freaking menhaden to support the factories.
• Think that is what is happening again with [U]striped bass[/U]? (you would have thought we learned our lesson the first time)……I bet it is!

And I could go on, but I think everyone gets the point. If we do not get our head out of our rears sooner then later fishing for our next generation is going to put mildly, stink if not non-existent for many species. Will among the list of species not around in 50 years be striped bass? Is striped bass management a victim of shifting baseline syndrome? What do you think? Leave your comments, I’d be interested in hearing them

Brandon

The Billfish Foundation is asking for your help in pressing our fight against recent action by Mexico’s fisheries agency to allow for a bycatch of sailfish, dorado, marlin and other sport fishing species in the shark longline fishery (Nom-029). Senator Luis Coppola of Los Cabos is championing our cause in the Mexican Senate. He wants to hear from billfish conservationists around the world showing their support to repeal the bycatch allowances.

Please visit one of the Sea Watch hosted websites below and choose an email letter to send Senator Coppola. The letters are very simple to modify and can be personalized as you please. This will only take a minute of your time, but will make a world of difference to the fish and sportfishing! Thank you for taking a moment to participate in this important task.
Photo courtesy of Thomas Adrien.

Mail Campaign Bycatch Letter

First yesterday the report of a low young of the year index for Maryland Striped Bass and now an email I received from Stripers Forever about three miles of dead striped bass off Cape Cod. There were unfortunately no pictures which just gives the commerical fishing fraction reason to suggest it was a false report. If you witness anything like this you should document it with pictures, even if you take the pictures with a camera phone. A picture says a million words more then just a letter. Having said that we commend this angler for reporting the incident and taking the time to write a letter to the New England Fishery Council.

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From Stripers Forever: Recently we received a copy of a letter from an eyewitness referring to discarded bycatch of striped bass in an area east of outer Cape Cod.  You can read the letter by clicking on this link.  This bycatch, whether by mid-water herring trawlers or groundfish draggers, is well known to be an annual occurrence during the peak of the fall migration.  This kind of waste, combined with the bloated take of the legal and black market commercial striped bass fisheries, certainly contribute to the numerous reports we’ve received this season about poor striper fishing from many areas along the Atlantic coast.

These dead fish should certainly be counted towards commercial striped bass quotas, but they are not.  In fact, we think that they are uncounted not only for quotas but also when calculating the overall fishing mortalities that fishery managers use in setting harvest levels.  The bottom line is that this is just another important reason that there should be no commercial striped bass fishery.

N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries Director Louis Daniel has reduced the commercial red drum harvest limit by more than half this year to pay back overages from last year.

The commercial red drum harvest limit for the fishing period Sept. 1, 2008, through April 30, 2009, is set at 60,000 pounds, which is 90,000 pounds less than the 150,000-pound seasonal allowance for North Carolina’s commercial fall fishery under the state’s Red Drum Fishery Management Plan.

Additionally, Daniel plans to close the commercial red drum fishing season Dec. 1, if the harvest limit is not caught before then.

North Carolina waters closed to commercial red drum fishing April 3 this year because the harvest was approaching a 250,000-pound annual commercial cap. The season normally runs Sept. 1 through Aug. 31.

Traditionally, the highest incidental catches occur in the fall gill net fisheries. But this year, landings in the winter were just as high, indicating some commercial fishermen may have been targeting red drum.

Red drum is a commercial bycatch fishery; it is illegal for commercial fishermen to target red drum.

However, the closure caused concern that fishermen would be forced to throw back dead or dying fish caught as bycatch while targeting other fish. Also, because the discarded fish would not be landed, they would not be counted against the overall commercial harvest limit.

To reduce these regulatory discards of dead fish, Daniel reopened the commercial red drum harvest season April 28 with a four-fish limit (three fish fewer than the usual bycatch limit) with a provision that the red drum catch must not weigh more than the combined catch of flounder and/or striped mullet.

The trip limit for this fall remains at 4 fish per day, and the red drum catch must not weigh more than the combined catch of flounder, spotted seatrout and striped mullet.

Oppose the two pound net requests coming before the Virgina Marine Resource Commission (VMRC). The prposed nets are located between Cape Henry and Lynnhaven Inlet (pictured to the left are the proposed pound nets.) There are already several existing pound nets in these areas. Not only should we not have more nets in the Chesapeake Bay, but these pound nets are a navigational hazard. The proposed nets are located in a high boat traffic area.

Consider sending a letter similar to the one below  to Travelstead.  This discussion is a heated topic on Tidalfish this week as some commercial angler has requested two more nets in addition to some already in the area between Lynnhaven and Cape Henry.

Let VMRC know how your feel.   They want to know.

Sample Email or Letter to send:
Email To: Jack.Travelstead@mrc.virginia.gov

To: Jack.Travelstead

Subject: Two pound net requests coming before VMRC  located between Cape Henry and Lynnhaven Inlet

Jack Travelstead
Virginia Marine Resource Commission

Dear Mr Travelstead,

I am opposed to additional pound nets that are being requested in the area in and around Lynnhaven Inlet towards Cape Henry.   This is a safety issue for boaters in the area.  Often there is high boat traffic before and after daylight and the present unmarked nets and poles are dangerous. The addition of two more nets will only make the conditions worse.

Please do what you can to prevent additional nets being permitted.

Thank you,

Your name
and address

A new study by Maryland Department of Natural Resources biologists highlights the detrimental impact of development, loss of forest, and temperature changes on brook trout, Maryland’s only native trout species, in six Baltimore area streams.

“Over the last 30 years brook trout numbers have declined drastically in many Maryland streams and disappeared completely from several streams in the rapidly developing Baltimore metropolitan area,” said the study’s lead author Scott Stranko, a biologist with DNR’s Resource Assessment Service. “Brook trout are very sensitive to landscape alterations and stream temperature increases.”

The study analyzed brook trout distribution and abundance data collect by the DNR’s Fisheries Service over the last 3 decades against stream temperatures and land cover in Baisman, Goodwin, Timber and Red Runs, Sawmill Branch and Stillwater Creek. For every one percent increase in impervious land cover (parking lots, roadways, rooftops, etc.) in a stream’s watershed, the odds of brook trout survival decreased by nearly 60 percent.

In addition to warming temperatures due to climate change, forest clearing and development also often increase stream water temperatures which negatively affect brook trout, a cold water fish. The brook trout living in Maryland are near the southeastern edge of the species’ native habitat range and only occupy streams with summer water temperatures that stay below 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

Maryland’s population is expected to expand to more than 6 million people over the next decade, nearly doubled from 1970 levels.

“Our population growth and land use decisions have and continue to drastically alter the natural landscape and severely threaten many stream animals, especially Maryland’s remaining brook trout populations,” added Stranko.

The full study recently published in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management is available online.