On May 2, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) made an emergency decision to tighten recreational fishing regulations on striped bass without public comment or open discussion with stakeholders, scientists, and managers; on May 11, the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council (Council) refused to act in kind. Not yet at least!
More specifically, the Council voted 6-1 to table an emergency regulatory vote in New Jersey until sometime in June in order to collect more input from New Jersey’s recreational fishing community and perhaps get a look at the actual science guiding ASMFC’s restrictive new mandate.
The 5 p.m. Council meeting at the Stafford Township Administrative Office Building in Manahawkin was not exactly well-attended, with just 20 or so members of the public in attendance and roughly 94 additional webinar attendees. By the time the emergency striped bass discussion began just before 7 p.m., there were only nine members left of the public who actually offered the public comment that the Council was looking to receive.
“I don’t like the way the ASMFC has been acting for the past few years,” said Capt. Eddie Yates as representative of the United Boatmen of New Jersey, an organization representing the fishing for-hire community in New Jersey. According to Capt. Yates, most of his members in Ocean and Monmouth County were willing to go out of compliance with the mandate and just say no to the ASMFC decision. “I’ve been pushed over the edge with this one,” he said.
Ray Bogan, a longtime advocate for the recreational fishing industry called the ASMFC mandate “arbitrary and capricious” and said the way in which the emergency decision was handed down is troubling to many members of the fishing community. “This process should bother us all,” Bogan said, calling it “a completely unjust system” while saying the ASMFC’s May 2 vote “is contrary to any type of due process.”
Council members echoed concerns brought up by members of the community. “Where was the socioeconomic report from ASFMC,” asked Council member Rob Rush. “We don’t even have the Technical Committee data,” replied Jeff Brust, chief of New Jersey’s Bureau of Marine Fisheries.
“As a scientist I don’t know how I can vote on this without science,” said councilor Dr. Eleanor Bochenek who is former director of the Fisheries Cooperative Center of the Haskin Shellfish Laboratory at Rutgers University. “How can this be an emergency if they (ASMFC) don’t have the Technical Committee numbers,” Dr. Bochenek said, adding “There are questions we really need answers to, and there’s no public comment anywhere.”
Many folks in attendance for the Council meeting felt that the way the ASMFC decision came down was politically or perhaps even ideologically driven. “These bigger groups are taking over our fisheries,” said Noel Feliciano, owner of One Stop Bait & Tackle in Atlantic City, charging certain segments of the recreational fishing community who support an exclusive catch and release striped bass fishery helped lead the charge for a 28- to 31-inch harvest limit for striped bass. “I think there’s a bigger agenda here,” he said.
“This is about an ideological push,” Bogan said.
One potential option for the Council on May 11, a concept that is still in play again this month when an emergency Council meeting is expected to convene, was to ignore the ASMFC and be found officially out of compliance by the commission and federal government. Brust and fellow staffers at the Bureau of Marine Fisheries explained however that such a finding would result in a New Jersey striped bass moratorium, which means no fishing for striped bass and a suspension of use of the Striped Bass Bonus Program. “Come into compliance by July or have no fall fishery,” warned New Jersey Marine Fisheries administrator Joe Cimino.
Greg Cudnik, second generation owner of Fisherman’s Headquarters spoke before the Council and said while he agreed with many of the comments in the room about missing scientific data and lack of public process, he was personally and professionally concerned about a non-compliance designation and potential moratorium. “I’m really sad here,” Cudnik told the Council adding “without striped bass my livelihood, my business is gone.”
“We need the best available data,” Cudnik said, while adding “but going out of compliance, I fear for my life.”
In offering up the motion to delay a final vote until a to-be-determined emergency meeting in June, Council member Pat Donnelly said, “I don’t feel comfortable about taking a vote until we talk to our Striped Bass Advisory folks.” Donnelly said the ASMFC’s disregard for the public process should not be the process by which the Council conducts business. “I’m supposed to be a conduit from and to the anglers,” Donnelly said, adding “the process involves public comment and public input.”
The Council assembles special advisory committees to discuss issues for a particular species, consisting of three to five Council members and several citizen advisors. The committees are responsible for reaching out to various stakeholder groups on given fisheries in the Garden State to provide advice and guidance to the Council. After the Striped Bass Advisory convenes to discuss the situation, the Council is expected to call an emergency meeting in June to take up a final vote.
Mike Waine, Atlantic Fisheries Policy Director for the American Sportfishing Association (ASA) sat through the entire Council webinar and hopes that the concerns of the New Jersey sportfishing community don’t go unheard. “If ASMFC thought the May 2 emergency action was a public process they should’ve been at the New Jersey fisheries council meeting on May 11 to hear directly from the heart of the striper fishery,” said Waine, adding “For ASMFC to herald emergency action as being responsive to the public without even hearing these voices is not a good look whether it was a high-pressure situation or not.”
“While recent fishing mortality estimates are cause for concern relative to striped bass achieving its rebuilding targets, ignoring concerns about the emergency action’s impacts erodes confidence in the public comment process and ASMFC needs to take that very seriously, especially given ongoing known mistrust in the process,” Waine added.
An additional measure taken by the Council in Stafford Township was a unanimous vote in favor of requesting additional Technical Committee scientific information and socioeconomic data from ASMFC to justify the emergency action and provide an impact analysis of the new measures. Council members are hoping to have that information back from ASMFC in time for their June vote.
