finchaser
05-12-2010, 08:42 AM
Stripers Forever members - as you may have heard, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has voted by a 9 to 6 margin to send to public hearings certain options to increase the commercial quota for striped bass. We think it is very likely that this ill conceived idea will be defeated, but, taking nothing for granted, Stripers Forever will provide you with the information that you will need to contact your ASMFC representatives and the legislators to whom they report in order to fight this attempted commercial increase.
Take heart! Thanks to our campaign last month, individual federal officials received over 300 e-mails asking for the National Marine Fishery Service representative to the ASMFC to vote against further commercialization of the striped bass fishery. The NMFS voted against the commercial increase. Your efforts were the reason.
In the ASMFC press release they state that the justification for the commercial increase is that since 2004 the recreational harvest has increased by 13.7%, while the commercial harvest has decreased 3.7%. Let us expose below just how these statistics have been twisted in an attempt to support more commercial killing of striped bass.
<LI style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">The commercial harvest has not decreased at all from 04 to 08. The quota has remained the same every year during this period. If a state exceeds its quota one year, it is reduced by the same amount the following year; in some years various states haven't reported catching their full quota, but the quota itself hasn't changed. Not catching your quota is certainly not justification for requesting an increase. In addition, an over harvest one year, requiring a reduced quota the following year doesn't mean that your harvest dropped. What's more, everyone at the ASMFC knows that these quotas are being exceeded each year due to large unreported, (read illegal) catches. This is no secret, just look in the news! There is no recognition or estimate of this illegal catch because many of the members of the ASMFC are commercial fishing ideologues who won't acknowledge this activity, even though they know very well that it goes on all the time. <LI style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; LIST-STYLE-TYPE: disc">The recreational catch harvest has not increased by 13.7%, rather it has fallen from 27.4 million pounds in 2004 to 25.7 million pounds (a decrease of 6%) in 2008, and it continued to shrink to 21.5 million pounds (a decrease of 21.5%) in 2009. The 2009 numbers are available, why weren't they used? We have asked the ASFMC to include these 2009 numbers. They acknowledge there will be some corrections in the final document.
Worst of all, we think is using pounds of harvest as the measure to justify a commercial quota increase. The actual number of striped bass caught - harvested and released - by the recreational community has dropped from 20 million fish to 9.8 million (a drop of 51%) from 2004 to 2009. This is the real story and the infallible indicator of the deterioration of this fishery. The much greater socio-economic value (10.3 times as much per pound) found in the recreational fishery is derived from money spent catching fish. Fewer fish mean less effort and less economic activity. While the ASMFC is splitting some hairs to get a few more stripers killed, the far more valuable sector of the fishery is being severely damaged because of the rapid degradation of the striper population caused, caused large part, by the commercial harvest.
To see the real changes in this fishery over the last few years, follow this LINK (http://www.stripersforever.org/Info/Stripers_BBoard/I013E2C30) to our website and see the charts and graphs detailing the total numbers of fish being killed by the recreational and commercial fisheries. If you have been barraged by the hogwash about how the recreational fishery is really the culprit, and how the commercial fishery's toll on the population is inconsequential, you'll get quite a surprise. We are now on the verge of having the striped bass fishery becoming more or less a split between a few thousand largely part-time commercial fishermen and over 3,000,000 members of the public (and the many times greater economic activity they support.)
Let's not get mad, though, let's get even. We need to change things, and together we can. Support the striped bass game fish movement and get everyone you know who fishes to join in. Ending the influences of commercial harvesting is the only way that we will ever return to the great striped bass fishing that we had just a few years ago. We'll contact you soon to start e-mailing the legislators and fishery managers who run the ASMFC and together we'll beat back this latest attempt to further rape the striped bass fishery.
Take heart! Thanks to our campaign last month, individual federal officials received over 300 e-mails asking for the National Marine Fishery Service representative to the ASMFC to vote against further commercialization of the striped bass fishery. The NMFS voted against the commercial increase. Your efforts were the reason.
In the ASMFC press release they state that the justification for the commercial increase is that since 2004 the recreational harvest has increased by 13.7%, while the commercial harvest has decreased 3.7%. Let us expose below just how these statistics have been twisted in an attempt to support more commercial killing of striped bass.
<LI style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">The commercial harvest has not decreased at all from 04 to 08. The quota has remained the same every year during this period. If a state exceeds its quota one year, it is reduced by the same amount the following year; in some years various states haven't reported catching their full quota, but the quota itself hasn't changed. Not catching your quota is certainly not justification for requesting an increase. In addition, an over harvest one year, requiring a reduced quota the following year doesn't mean that your harvest dropped. What's more, everyone at the ASMFC knows that these quotas are being exceeded each year due to large unreported, (read illegal) catches. This is no secret, just look in the news! There is no recognition or estimate of this illegal catch because many of the members of the ASMFC are commercial fishing ideologues who won't acknowledge this activity, even though they know very well that it goes on all the time. <LI style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; LIST-STYLE-TYPE: disc">The recreational catch harvest has not increased by 13.7%, rather it has fallen from 27.4 million pounds in 2004 to 25.7 million pounds (a decrease of 6%) in 2008, and it continued to shrink to 21.5 million pounds (a decrease of 21.5%) in 2009. The 2009 numbers are available, why weren't they used? We have asked the ASFMC to include these 2009 numbers. They acknowledge there will be some corrections in the final document.
Worst of all, we think is using pounds of harvest as the measure to justify a commercial quota increase. The actual number of striped bass caught - harvested and released - by the recreational community has dropped from 20 million fish to 9.8 million (a drop of 51%) from 2004 to 2009. This is the real story and the infallible indicator of the deterioration of this fishery. The much greater socio-economic value (10.3 times as much per pound) found in the recreational fishery is derived from money spent catching fish. Fewer fish mean less effort and less economic activity. While the ASMFC is splitting some hairs to get a few more stripers killed, the far more valuable sector of the fishery is being severely damaged because of the rapid degradation of the striper population caused, caused large part, by the commercial harvest.
To see the real changes in this fishery over the last few years, follow this LINK (http://www.stripersforever.org/Info/Stripers_BBoard/I013E2C30) to our website and see the charts and graphs detailing the total numbers of fish being killed by the recreational and commercial fisheries. If you have been barraged by the hogwash about how the recreational fishery is really the culprit, and how the commercial fishery's toll on the population is inconsequential, you'll get quite a surprise. We are now on the verge of having the striped bass fishery becoming more or less a split between a few thousand largely part-time commercial fishermen and over 3,000,000 members of the public (and the many times greater economic activity they support.)
Let's not get mad, though, let's get even. We need to change things, and together we can. Support the striped bass game fish movement and get everyone you know who fishes to join in. Ending the influences of commercial harvesting is the only way that we will ever return to the great striped bass fishing that we had just a few years ago. We'll contact you soon to start e-mailing the legislators and fishery managers who run the ASMFC and together we'll beat back this latest attempt to further rape the striped bass fishery.