Public hearing for Draft Addendum II to Amendment 6 for striped bass
The turnout was a bit disappointing, only 20 people showed (not including council members) if you count the one media outlet that was there to cover the meeting. About half gave public comment. The major groups in attendance were the The Recreational Fishing Alliance, Jersey Coast Anglers Association, Hi-Mar Striper Club, Manasquan Fishing Club, Bay Head Shores Fishing Club and the Newark Bait & Flycasting Club. If I missed anyone I am sorry…going by memory.
Some very good feedback and suggestions were made for changes to the addendum in regards to the reference point changes. All that gave comment were against Issue I, any increase in commercial quota and in favor of Issue II, the reference point change.
Basically the reference point change is a good thing. It will allow the council to take immediate action if for three years in a row there is recruitment failure. ‘Under this option, recruitment failure would be defined as a value that is below 75% of all values in a fixed time series appropriate to each juvenile abundance index.’
For NJ the council decided to drop the data for 1980-1985. The reason being they were really just learning where the fish were after spawning and what they thought was extremely poor recruitment was really their inability to find the juvenile fish and figuring out methods and means to do the young of the year survey in the Delaware.
With dropping these few years of the data set it is basically lowering the juvenile abundance index (JAI). In doing so what was once thought to be fair or good recruitment years for 2002 and 2006 now fall below the index value of 0.89 and qualify as recruitment failures. Which at the end of the day means that we have a lower threshold and the council will be quicker to act on protecting the stock if recruitment failure does occur.
Public written comment is being accpeted until October 1, 2010.
This is the link to Draft Addendum II to Amemendment VI
Info on submitting public comment is below, you can either e-mail, call, fax or mail public comment.
Email: nmeserve@asmfc.org
Phone: 202-289-6400
Fax: 202-289-6051
Mail: Nichola Meserve
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
1444 ‘Eye’ Street, NW, 6th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20005
Tags: ASMFC, legislation, NJMFC
