Thanks.
Save the Pogies, err, Herring.
It is really is a fairly simple concept.
- Err on the side of caution when deciding regulations on a fish, based on the best available scientific data especially you have.
- Work increasingly hard to make your data better.
- The increasingly low confidence in the quality of your data - you (the fish geeks) are thinking you may have started with less fish than you originally thought, and are increasingly worried that you do not now have as many as you thought.
- Make decisions based on science, not politics / business as usual.
- Err on the side of caution.
- Nip it in the bud.
- Toss in your other idioms here.
Arguably the herring family may be the second most important fish in the sea (behind their Menhaden cousins).
The Atlantic Herring quota has been not been met for several years now by a large margin. Why, because there are not enough to catch? The Fish Geeks are increasingly thinking their data is off and that there are less out there than they originally thought, err computed.
Those fish are being netted in large numbers in waters just near shore at times when the river herring schools are intermingled. Seven or eight years ago I was at a meeting on river herring with RI DEM when the discussion was what to do on crashing numbers of river herring. I was talking to the lead fish geek, Mark Gibson, he was explaining that their data showed a 90% mortality rate between 4 year old fish ~ considered mature enough to spawn ~ and 5 year old fish returning for there second spawn (yes, some may spawn at 3 years). 90 out of a 100 would die. Granted, those are guess numbers based on loosely consistent data but surprise, surprise, they were fairly prescient of the crash just a few years away. Mark Gibson was stating back then that they don't know what is doing it but it was offshore.
First CT fell, followed by Mass and RI with full closures of river herring to recreational anglers. We are still there with no return in sight.
And time and time again, the recreational anglers have to burden the quota cuts in a fish population for political expediency (enter Fluke, Seabass, Scup, etc here).
I'm not anti-commercial fishing but the way I look at it we can loose some jobs now and save the fish or we can loose all jobs and the fish in the not too distant future. Its not rocket science. Its politics.
It is also now the law with Magnuson-Stevens requiring management based on BEST SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION AVAILABLE.
I'm done rambling here - need to go back to work - otherwise I could go on for an hour...
