CCA NY's position on Amendment 1, presented by Brian O'Keefe, on the need for conservative management of the flounder resource to rebuild populations

July 13, 2004

Fishery Management Plan Coordinator
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
1444 Eye Street NW, 6th Floor
Washington, DC 20005

Dear Ms Munger:

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the draft Amendment 1 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Winter Flounder (“Amendment 1”).

The recovery of New York’s collapsed winter flounder population is arguably the most urgent fishery management action facing the state. What had once been an abundant resource, available to both shore-based anglers and those who fished from private and for-hire vessels throughout the year, has declined to the point where a meaningful fishery only exists during the peak of the spring season. Therefore, Coastal Conservation Association New York (“CCA NY”) welcomes this opportunity to comment on Amendment 1, and urges the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to place the recovery of the winter flounder population high on its list of management priorities.

CCA NY will provide specific comments to each issue raised in the Public Information Document From amendment 1 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Winter Flounder (the “PID”). However, it should be noted that all of those comments are calculated to attain a single goal, which Amendment 1 lists as Objective 6:

Restore the winter flounder fishery so that inshore recreational and commercial fishermen can acce3ss it throughout its historical range and at the historic age structure.

CCA NY supports whatever management measures are necessary to achieve that goal.

Define management units for inshore winter flounder populationsCCA NY reluctantly supports Option 1, the retention of three management units.

CCA NY’s position is based solely on the fact that fishery scientists lack the information necessary to manage winter flounder on the basis of smaller management units. CCA NY believes that such smaller management units would better reflect the structure of the winter flounder population, which features discrete “stocklets” of locally spawning fish that travel relatively short distances over the course of their lives, and could more effectively address the varying management requirements of such local populations. Thus, while CCA NY currently supports the status quo, it urges ASMFC to revisit this issue should sufficient data to manage on the basis of smaller management units become available.

In addition, CCA NY asks ASMFC to note that management on the basis of three large management units will mask declines and perhaps even the extirpations of local spawning populations. Therefore, it is incumbent upon ASMFC to adopt an extremely conservative management regimen, which will be sufficient not only to conserve and rebuild the “typical” population, as reflected in the three-unit model, but also to provide adequate protection for badly depleted local populations within the larger units.

Definition of Overfished and Overfishing

Issue 1: Choosing a fishing mortality rate target and threshold

CCA NY supports adoption of Option 2, the criteria adopted by SARC 36, for both the Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic and Gulf of Maine management units, based on both its compatibility with the mortality rate established for federal waters and because, when used in conjunction with the biomass target and threshold discussed under Issue 2, it comprises a control rule that better gauges the health of the winter flounder population than the single mortality target currently used.

Issue 2: Choosing a spawning stock biomass target and threshold level

CCA NY again supports adoption of Option 2, the criteria adopted by SARC 36, for the reasons set forth above.

Stock Rebuilding Targets

CCA NY strongly supports Option 1, rebuilding the biomass to the target level within the timeframe established in Section 2.6.2 of Amendment 1.

The American public is entitled to healthy, fully recovered fisheries. Only Option 1, which would rebuild the winter flounder biomass to the target level within 10 years, has the potential to create such healthy fisheries. Option 2 certainly does not, since it would result in a fishery that totters on the brink of being overfished. Option 3, while somewhat better than Option 2, still strives for mediocrity, and a fishery far below its potential, rather than the fully-recovered fishery promised by Option 1.

Undoubtedly, some will protest that Option 1 causes too much short-term economic cost. However, those who take such a position ignore the costs of scarcity. In New York, a once-vibrant party boat, livery boat and private boat fishery has been reduced to an unsatisfactory fishery that grudgingly gives up a few flounder to the persevering angler for a few weeks during the spring. As a result, participation in what was once the most popular marine recreational fishery in the state has declined, and the economic costs of that decline have been severe. The economic benefits of a recovered winter flounder fishery will so exceed the temporary costs of upsetting the status quo that such costs should be considered de minimis and discounted altogether.

There will also undoubtedly be some protest that Option 1 sets too high a target, as Bmsy is mischaracterized by unknowing (or, perhaps, disingenuous) commentators as “the most fish there can be” or words to that effect. However, as fishery managers well know, Bmsy is a relatively modest standard. Far from representing a high point in the winter flounder population, it is actually the lowest population level that the biomass may attain, and still produce maximum yield. Thus, it is a very reasonably standard for a rebuilding target, and the public is entitled to nothing less.Stock Rebuilding Schedules

In this matter, CCA NY again strongly endorses Option 1, the control rule for Amendment 13 to the Northeast Multi-species Groundfish plan. Such schedule has the inherent advantage of conforming to the federal management plan. In addition, it mandates a firm 10-year rebuilding period, which should frustrate the efforts of those persons willing to short-circuit the recovery process at an intermediate level of success, when biomass is above threshold and fishing mortality is below threshold, but targets have not yet been met (the current debate over recreational summer flounder regulations, in which proponents of relaxed regulations argue, in essence, that the not-yet-recovered fishery is “good enough”, is an example of what CCA NY wishes to avoid). Option 1 will not only prevent stock collapse, but is the option most likely to result in the winter flounder population being rebuilt to optimum levels.Recreational Management Measures

CCA NY believes that ASMFC should adopt Option 4, the implementation of regional management measures. As was the case when discussing the definition of the management units, CCA NY’s decision to support Option 4 was reluctant, because it doesn’t address the issue of depleted local stocks, but also necessary in view of the limited data that is available to managers. It also reflects the management scheme in federal waters, where local populations of winter flounder mix and must be managed as a single entity. As was stated earlier, CCA NY believes that any management measures adopted be conservative, in order to allow for the recovery, or at least to halt the continued deterioration, of the most depleted local populations. Measures, and most particularly fishing mortality rates, based on the overall stock will have a lopsided effect, benefiting those populations that are already healthier than average, while further harming the weakest local populations by exposing them to fishing mortality levels that are inappropriately high for that depleted local population, even though appropriate for the stock as a whole. In order to meet the goal of recovering the inshore winter flounder fishery, such conservative management is absolutely essential.

CCA NY specifically opposes Option 3. Hard quotas, requiring near real-time reporting of harvests, as well as firm, rather than estimated, harvest figures in order to be effective, are inappropriate for managing recreational fisheries. Commercial Management Measures

For the reasons stated in the discussion of recreational management measures, CCA NY also supports Option 4, regional management measures, with regard to commercial management measures. The need for conservative management is even more important when regulating the commercial harvest, which in New York has caught up with and now significantly exceeds the once-dominant recreational harvest. However, in the case of commercial fisheries, including a hard quota as one of a suite of management measures would be appropriate.

Thank you for considering our views on this matter.

Yours truly,
Brian O’Keefe
Vice Chairman, Fisheries Committee