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Mike,
yes there have been some mistakes made, but IMHO the big mistake was in settingg the biomass target to start with. At best it is nothing but a guesstimate as to what the biomass was sometime in the 1930s. Now we have a stock that is well on its way to being rebuilt, but is about to be shut down because of that guestimate. I do think that, at the time, the ten year rebuilding timetable seemed like a good idea, and I agreed that it was was. But this episode demonstrates that we need to have some kind of discretion when it comes to these long leadtime rebuilding plans, so if a mistake is made it can be corrected before it does some serious damage.
I also agree that the NEFMC would be the prime candidate for abusing any discretion that was given to the councils, and that there should be some strict guidelines on who has this discretion and when it should be used. But the fluke mess will become the poster child for how bad long term fixed timetable rebuilding plans can be. If this situation is not adressed in time for the 2007 season, it will be used by some vested interests, as a lever against all rebuilding plans.
It is true that many of those leading the fight have a vested financial interest in the fishery. But that doesn't mean that they don't represent the "man in the street" of recreational fishing. Again, it's not like the codfish, in the sense that here we have a fish that is at its historical highs in terms of biomass, as reported by the NMFS. Yet they want to close the fishery, that is still recovering to meet some pie-in-the-sky biomass numbers in an artifically set timeframe, and do lots of harm to people who rely on the fishery for a substantial part of their income, not to mention the thousands of anglers who enjoy fishing for and eating these fish.
I guess it really comes down to a question of where do we draw the line when it comes to uncertain science vs people's lives and enjoyment. If we were talking about a situation similar to the nadir of the striped bass popluations, I would have a very different view of things.
That letter is tremendously misleading because it totally misstates the facts when it comes to the rebuilding of the fluke stock and overfishing. The stock is far from " a perpertually languishing stock." In fact it as the highest level since the NMFS started tracking it, and overfishing is not occurringl. However, if the author has said that there is no overfishing and that the stock is at the highest ever seen by the fishery managers, the entore letter would not have the same effect, now would it?
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