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Shad fishermen left hanging by commission's plan


Sunday, August 03, 2008 BY FRED J. AUN
For the Star-Ledger

Given that John Punola goes by the nickname "Shad Man," it's easy to understand why he'd be upset if the powers-that-be banned Delaware River shad fishing.
In fact, he gets worked up just at the thought of it.

Punola was one of a dozen people who showed up earlier this month for a public hearing about shad conducted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC). The hearing took place at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday at a site near Atlantic City, not exactly in the backyards of most Delaware River shad fishing die-hards.

The commission has been conducting these hearings up and down the Atlantic Coast as part of its plan to do a "major overhaul" of its current shad management program, said ASMFC public affairs specialist Tina Berger. She said the commission last year completed an assessment of Atlantic Coast shad populations and wasn't pleased with the result.

"The findings are not terribly surprising," said Berger. "We found that American shad stocks are currently at all-time lows almost throughout the range. Some river systems have seen increases, but overall the stock is depressed coastwide."

Berger said a prior assessment, conducted a decade ago, found a number of rivers along the East Coast had "serious depletion problems." She noted that ocean "intercept" fishing for shad was banned in January 2005.

Shad "tend to be pretty river specific," explained Berger, meaning they usually return to the river where they were born when they reach reproductive age. That makes it relatively easy to manage the fish on a river-by-river basis, but those efforts are undermined if shad are caught at sea when they are all intermingled.

Punola said he is worried the ASMFC will call for a moratorium on shad fishing, even in the rivers, in order to get a better understanding of the situation.

"When they do a 5-year study, they normally close fishing, the premise being they don't want their study interrupted by commercial or regular fishing," he said. "This does not affect next year, but I strongly suspect they are going to put a moratorium on the fishery for awhile."

Berger said there are no plans to do that and such a moratorium is not mentioned in the ASMFC's public information document describing its current actions.

In the document, the commission said the goal of the public hearings was to find out if people thought the shad mortality rates and restoration goals it is proposing are appropriate for rebuilding the American shad population. It also wanted to hear ideas about "what means could be implemented to prevent the expansion of American shad fisheries and whether anglers should be allowed to harvest from stocks that have been restored."

Additionally, the ASMFC asked whether fisheries should be restricted when they are operating on stocks of shad suffering from "increasing total mortality rates and decreasing relative abundance" and, if so, "to what extent should they be restricted."
Unfortunately, for those who have opinions about these issues but didn't make a meeting or send a letter, the deadline for comments came and went July 25.

"Nobody seems to know about this," Punola said. Although the ASMFC lists the status of shad in the Delaware River as being stable, Punola said he remains worried the commission will lump the river in with others that are faring worse.

Should some drastic action, such as a moratorium on shad, take place, the Shad Man will be joined in his sadness by many others who view shad fishing on the "Big D" to be a holy rite of spring right up there with trout season and the return of baseball.