 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
PO Box
1118 • West Babylon, NY 11704 |
||
CCA NY SUPPORTS PROPOSED SHAD CLOSURE Poughkeepsie, NY—On September 1, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (“DEC”) announced plans to close the commercial and recreational fisheries for American shad in the Hudson River, and to prohibit all commercial landings in the marine waters of the state. Coastal Conservation Association New York (“CCA NY”) supports the closure, believing that it represents the last, best chance of restoring the Hudson’s shad population. The American shad fishery has deep roots in the culture of the Hudson River Valley. Author John McPhee, who specializes in natural history issues, has gone so far as to call the shad America’s “Founding Fish,” citing the fishery’s importance to the early European settlers along the Atlantic coast, including those who planted roots along the Hudson. All available data suggests that overfishing is the primary cause of the shad’s collapse, making the proposed closure a particularly appropriate remedy. A report prepared by the DEC for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission states, in part, that “The excessive mortality of the last 20 years perpetuates almost a century of successive periods of overfishing on the Hudson River stock of American shad.” Still, CCA NY expects the river’s gillnetters to deny responsibility for the shad’s collapse. “We know that opponents of the closure—the people who want to keep netting shad until the last fish is gone—will try to put the blame somewhere else,” notes Brian O’Keefe, Chair of CCA NY’s Government Relations Committee. “They’ll probably point their fingers at striped bass, but have no facts to support that position.” One DEC study found that only 2 striped bass, out of more than 1,800 sampled, had adult shad in their stomachs, while another led to the conclusion that striped bass predation on juvenile shad “was a minor issue.” Studies from a number of east coast rivers found that “there was no relationship between striped bass abundance and shad abundance.” Commercial activities are responsible for virtually all of the fishing mortality experienced by Hudson River shad, with more than 4 million pounds being landed in a single year during the late 1800s. Today’s commercial landings of roughly 70,000 pounds stand as clear evidence of how far the stock has fallen, and of how badly strong recovery measures are needed. Recreational landings, which hover around 500 fish, are a much smaller part of the problem. “It is unfortunate that the recreational fishery will have to be closed down as well,” says Bill Raab, President of CCA NY. “But a dead fish is a dead fish, and at this point, keeping every possible fish alive to spawn, and to return to spawn again next year, is important. Some anglers may complain that the shad collapse wasn’t their fault, but fisheries management isn’t about blame for what happened in the past. It’s about getting things right in the future. And to make things right in the shad fishery, a closure is badly needed.”
|
|
|
|
||
September 2, 2009
