Governor Cuomo Calls For Fair and Gradual Changes to Summer Flounder Fishery

Fluke Summer FlounderGovernor Cuomo called on the Mid Atlantic Fishery Management Council to reevaluate a potential 43 percent fluke harvest reduction for New York in 2016. The potential reduction would negatively affect both commercial and recreational fisheries in New York State. The potential reductions are based on several consecutive years of lower than average reproductive success and not as a result of overharvest in New York or elsewhere on the coast. Read the rest here 10:09

3 Responses to Governor Cuomo Calls For Fair and Gradual Changes to Summer Flounder Fishery

  1. Borehead says:

    Lonewolf Forever. Your comment was flagged by another user. Clean it up, and repost if you like. Or don’t.

  2. Ec Newell Man says:

    It’s frustration Bore Head.

    Just got back in from tile fishing and had a good discussion about this regulatory blindside by NMFS.

    There are all too many recreational fishermen who “shoot from the lip”, but when you see a 43% reduction being posted for any fishery, it is going to bring out the anger.

    First off, if this is some merit to this proposal, it will be devastating to both the commercial, for-hire and recreational sectors.

    Second point is the more troubling with the American taxpayer funding the Service (NMFS) that continually drops the ball in managing fisheries…with the most apparent part being that they cannot count fish even at the dock, and worse they have micro-manage fisheries to the point where not only they create a disproportionate impact to fishing businesses, but impact the rebuilding of many species due to the scourge of the incredible biomass of spiny dogfish.

    Too bad congress cannot start making reductions to the budget of NOAA and NMFS…like 43% reductions to their budget, and see how upset those getting a paycheck from
    these government agencies would feel.

    Getting back to talking to someone in the industry on this, and he sits on some advisory councils, both of us call BS to this….and we do not want to play the horsetrading games where 43% eventually becomes a 20% or so reduction.

    Fishermen are so wary of people in federal and state fishery agencies who think severe cuts in allocations are the way to manage our fisheries.

  3. Ec Newell Man says:

    A little more on this to fill in some blanks on where this 43% came from and what it means…..

    ” For summer flounder, the 2015 Stock Assessment Update indicates overfishing was occurring in 2014 relative to the biological reference points (BRPs), fishing mortality (F) estimates are higher in recently years than previous projected, and poor recruitment persisted from 2010 to 2013.

    These factors, from the assessment update, have contributed to lower estimates of spawning stock biomass (SBB) for the years of 2014-2016 than previously projected from the 2013 Benchmark Stock Assessment.

    Taking these lower projections into consideration, if the SSC applies the Council risk policy in the same manner as they did previously, using a CV of 60%, the resulting 2016 acceptable biological catch (ABC) is 12.60 million lbs, with a:

    Commercial quota of 6.30 million lbs and

    Recreational harvest limit (RHL) of 4.20 million lbs.

    Relative to 2015 levels, this constitutes an approximate 43% reduction in both the commercial quota and RHL.

    Projections for 2017 and 2018 are also included in the assessment update. Under the same methodology, the:

    Commercial quota and RHL for 2017 and 2018 constitute an approximate 31% and 17% reduction from 2015 levels, respectively.

    The SSC may take a different approach, in which case the resulting numbers would differ.”

    I would highlight here, this one line:

    “if the SSC applies the Council risk policy in the same manner as they did previously,”……………….

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