The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation called on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to conduct and expedite a better assessment of the fluke population along the Eastern Seaboard to help reduce fluke harvest cuts, according to a press release from the agency. On Wednesday, August 12, the Mid Atlantic Fisheries Management Council (MAFMC) and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission(ASMFC) both proposed a decreased reduction of 29 percent in 2016, instead of the 43 percent originally proposed.
“This change is an improvement but it will still be hard on New York’s commercial fishermen, recreational anglers and associated maritime businesses,” DEC Acting Commissioner Marc Gerstman said. “We know some action is necessary and New York worked to minimize the impact to our fisheries and to ensure all states on the East Coast are treated equally. Better monitoring of fluke populations must happen now to ensure only vitally necessary reductions are made in future years.”
The reductions are based on several consecutive years of lower than average reproductive success. For more than a decade, New York’s recreational and commercial fishing community has been at a disadvantage for fluke harvest because managers used old data to establish limits. New York’s neighboring states enjoyed longer seasons, smaller size and larger bag limits in the recreational fishery. In 2014 Governor Cuomo took action, advocating for similar limits among New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
A 43 percent reduction in harvest would have been devastating for New York’s recreational industry and anglers since the only way to achieve such a reduction would have been to dramatically reduce the length of the season. Even at 29 percent some shortening of the season is almost a certainty. A reduction of 20 percent was also on the table but was voted down by representatives of the member states.
Once again, the data used to trigger these reductions is being widely criticized, much like the data used to reduce the harvest of sea bass, which in New York translated to the season not opening until July 15. Reductions were made despite an obvious abundance of black sea bass throughout the region, and huge numbers of sea bass in areas not normally frequented by the species.
