schoolie monster
03-06-2002, 03:45 PM
Here is a summary of the article from Saltwater Sportsman (July 2001) regarding problems in the fisheries mgmt in North Carolina.
It starts out with a story about a guy who used to catch around 500 fish during a 30 day period in the Roanoke river. The fish averaged 8lbs. In the past 10 years, he only gets one fish over 8lbs. each year. Reason: gillnetting bycatch.
The article sites too many managers as first problem. The stocks are managed by three bodies:
The NC Wildlife Resources Commission(WRC), the US Fish and Wildlife Service(FWS), and the Division of Marine Fisheries(DMF). These three apparently report to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission(ASMFC).
The WRC and FWS claim that their input is generally disregarded and that the DMF alone has legal authority and has imposed rules that usually favor the commercial sector. In general, the article states that the NC commercial fishing community has been well connected for decades. The majority of political pressure is in favor of continued gillnetting. And although NC falls under the jurisdiction of the ASMFC which mandates that striped bass are protected, NC has been given unusual autonomy in lawmaking. In fact, in 1995 the DMF removed some existing conservation measures without consulting the other bodies and reinstated 7 day a week gillnetting, upped the bass quota, and deleted gillnet attendance requirements (I'm assuming this means they don't need to check the nets as often leading to higher mortality of bycatch). When the FWS and WRC objected, the DMF apparently defended themselves with stats citing reduced gillnet mortality yet presented no evidence. They claimed they could have gotten the evidence if they wanted to... in addition, they claimed the rules had become "to cumbersome" for the gillnetters.
Gillnetting: Stripers are not allowed by law to be targeted by gillnetters, however they are allowed to sell a few stripers as "incidental catch" based on a small yearly quota. BUT, since the gillnetters are targeting shad, flounder and other species, the nets still catch alot of stripers long after the quota is filled. Based on stats gathered by the netters themselves, they killed and discarded twice as many bass as they kept for sale. This totalled nearly twice as many dead fish discarded than rec anglers caught in over 32000 trips that year.
See chart below (sorry its a bit of a hack job, but the point is clear) for breakdown of bass mortality. Almost 3/4 of fish killed, are killed by commercial netter's. And nearly 1/2 the fish killed by all parties are wasted. This data was from 1998, but no changes have been made, so should be about the same.
Interesting facts: each netter makes about $400 per year off striped bass sold. There are less than 400 netters vs. thousands of recs who make over 32000 trips per year.
My take: quotas are the biggest farce in the game. I think they only lead to more waste and don't help the fish at all. The methods that kill without prejudice (longlining, gillnetting, dragging) will do damage no matter what quotas or regs are set.
It starts out with a story about a guy who used to catch around 500 fish during a 30 day period in the Roanoke river. The fish averaged 8lbs. In the past 10 years, he only gets one fish over 8lbs. each year. Reason: gillnetting bycatch.
The article sites too many managers as first problem. The stocks are managed by three bodies:
The NC Wildlife Resources Commission(WRC), the US Fish and Wildlife Service(FWS), and the Division of Marine Fisheries(DMF). These three apparently report to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission(ASMFC).
The WRC and FWS claim that their input is generally disregarded and that the DMF alone has legal authority and has imposed rules that usually favor the commercial sector. In general, the article states that the NC commercial fishing community has been well connected for decades. The majority of political pressure is in favor of continued gillnetting. And although NC falls under the jurisdiction of the ASMFC which mandates that striped bass are protected, NC has been given unusual autonomy in lawmaking. In fact, in 1995 the DMF removed some existing conservation measures without consulting the other bodies and reinstated 7 day a week gillnetting, upped the bass quota, and deleted gillnet attendance requirements (I'm assuming this means they don't need to check the nets as often leading to higher mortality of bycatch). When the FWS and WRC objected, the DMF apparently defended themselves with stats citing reduced gillnet mortality yet presented no evidence. They claimed they could have gotten the evidence if they wanted to... in addition, they claimed the rules had become "to cumbersome" for the gillnetters.
Gillnetting: Stripers are not allowed by law to be targeted by gillnetters, however they are allowed to sell a few stripers as "incidental catch" based on a small yearly quota. BUT, since the gillnetters are targeting shad, flounder and other species, the nets still catch alot of stripers long after the quota is filled. Based on stats gathered by the netters themselves, they killed and discarded twice as many bass as they kept for sale. This totalled nearly twice as many dead fish discarded than rec anglers caught in over 32000 trips that year.
See chart below (sorry its a bit of a hack job, but the point is clear) for breakdown of bass mortality. Almost 3/4 of fish killed, are killed by commercial netter's. And nearly 1/2 the fish killed by all parties are wasted. This data was from 1998, but no changes have been made, so should be about the same.
Interesting facts: each netter makes about $400 per year off striped bass sold. There are less than 400 netters vs. thousands of recs who make over 32000 trips per year.
My take: quotas are the biggest farce in the game. I think they only lead to more waste and don't help the fish at all. The methods that kill without prejudice (longlining, gillnetting, dragging) will do damage no matter what quotas or regs are set.