[flatts1]

Patrick,

I realize that you are the National Shore Access rep for the RFA, but there is another side to the whole Fluke debacle that, for some reason, has been ignored by much of the popular fish-press.

And frankly, the RFA and many other fishing orgs headquartered in or near New Jersey have really dropped the ball on this one. The long story short is that if you like what the commercial fishermen have done with rebuilding cod in New England (delay, delay, delay...), then you will like what the RFA is trying to do with MSA.

On the other hand, CCA has been doing a really good job at helping the recreational community make sense of all the nonsense. Kudos to them!! (no, I'm not a member)

Anyway, some food for thought...

New Bedford Standard Times

Fishery rebuilding goals should be revised, not endlessly delayed

By MICHAEL S. FLAHERTY
Mr. Flaherty, a recreational fisherman, lives in Wareham.
January 01, 2008

In the Dec. 1 issue of The Standard-Times, Congressman Barney Frank explained his position on why he is co-sponsoring the "Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act" (HR 4087), which was introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Walter Jones, R-N.C.

Congressman Frank defended the fact that the Jones bill would add yet another four more exceptions to current law in order to extend the timetables needed to rebuild weakened fish stocks. On the other hand, he insisted that he is not in favor of "open-ended" time frames for fishery rebuilding plans.

With all due respect to Congressman Frank, the wording of HR 4087 is so ambiguous that it would be nearly impossible to implement finite time frames for any fishery rebuilding schedule if it passed.

Consider the example of Georges Bank Cod. Due to the biology of that stock, under current law the rebuilding plan was legally allowed to be extended twice beyond the standard 10-year limit to 20 years. Clearly, this demonstrates that the exceptions currently written into the law already allow a great deal of flexibility when the science, not politics, indicates it is needed.

Under the Jones bill, however, care to guess what would be the new maximum time legally allowed for cod to rebuild? It is a good question. Unfortunately, nobody is able to answer it, including Congressman Frank's own office when I asked them.

Surprisingly, Congressman Frank isn't the only proponent of the Jones bill who hasn't done the math. I also asked the Garden State Seafood Association. They are a major supporter of the Jones bill, but they too could not answer this fundamentally important question.

Finally, I checked with the National Marine Fisheries Service. NMFS is the federal agency ultimately tasked with implementing fishery management plans. They took a look at the bill and concluded that they, too, could not estimate what the Jones bill would do to rebuilding schedules because it is, in their words, "rather broad."

Congressman Frank also pondered, "If the same rebuilding targets can be met in, say, 13 years instead of 10, without compromising the ultimate rebuilding goal, who is hurt?" Interestingly, this is precisely what was done with summer flounder with a special exception written into the law for that species last year. Only one year later and all but two states have overfished their quota for summer flounder yet again. Predictably, industry groups are now complaining that the special extension still did not provide enough time. Now they are demanding for the passage of the Jones bill to allow the rebuilding period to be extended further still, with literally no end in sight.

Many fishermen have called the rebuilding target itself for summer flounder "unrealistic." The Recreational Fishing Alliance, another major organization lobbying for the passage of the Jones bill, has gone so far as to claim that the target for summer flounder is actually "unattainable." Think about that for a moment. If the RFA is right, then how on Earth can the bill that they and Congressman Frank are supporting not lead to "open-ended" rebuilding schedules if the rebuilding goal can never be achieved anyway?

Like many issues where politics interferes with science, it makes no sense.

Honestly, the rebuilding target for summer flounder may indeed be unrealistic. That claim does have some merit, which is why I, as a recreational fisherman, cannot support HR 4087. The bill simply does not address that potential flaw in the system at all.

If folks are truly concerned that the rebuilding targets are somehow outdated, obsolete, and impossible to achieve, then a much more responsible and prudent position would be to insist on having fishery managers actually revisit the science originally used to determine the rebuilding targets themselves. In other words, due to impacts from modern society on our marine resources, it may indeed be the case that summer flounder, and other rebuilding species, are already rebuilt to new, lower baselines than were previously acceptable. Accordingly, the targets could be revised to reflect these contemporary realities, presuming that is the case. Naturally, though, fishing capacity would also need to be reduced appropriately to accommodate the lower baselines.

If, however, the current rebuilding targets are validated by a review using the best available science, then fishery managers must finally address the same problems that they have been putting off for years. For example, the dead discard rate of summer flounder in other non-directed commercial fisheries still remains a tremendous waste. In addition, the commercial size limit for summer flounder is a puny 14 inches, at least in Massachusetts. That is barely a fish that is mature enough to spawn once. Managers should consider increasing the minimum size to be more in line with the recreational standard, which is a much more conservative 17.5 inches coupled with a reasonably limited season. This has proven effective in keeping Massachusetts anglers from going over our quota.

During the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act last year, many loopholes were removed that were often used by industry groups to delay the steps necessary to rebuild overfished stocks. I urge Congressman Frank and the industry supporters of HR 4087 to reconsider introducing a whole slew of new ones.

Source:
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/...62/1015/TOWN14