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PO Box
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Tautog Management Plan
Gordon Colvin Dear Gordon: Coastal Conservation Association New York (“CCA NY”), in anticipation of the current discussion, has been examining New York’s approach to tautog management for the past year. CCA NY’s Board of Directors has debated a number of tautog-related issues over that time, and has agreed on the following points, which are hereby provided to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (“DEC”) as CCA NY’s formal recommendations. I CCA NY has long been concerned with the current, depressed state of the local blackfish population, and urges the DEC to take all necessary steps to timely restore the species to historical levels of abundance. CCA NY notes that, as a species that relates closely to easily identifiable bottom structure during most of the year, and aggregates in shallow coastal waters to spawn in the spring, tautog have a life history that makes it particularly susceptible to overexploitation. Furthermore, because the population concentrates in known areas throughout the year, tautog can be caught in large numbers by focusing fishing effort on such concentrations, even when overall tautog numbers are low, resulting in a catch per unit effort that is higher than might otherwise be expected. Given that circumstance, tautog regulations must necessarily be more conservative than might be the case with other species that disperse over wider and less predictable areas. Also, CCA asks that DEC pay particular attention to the traditional nature of the tautog fishery, which was overwhelmingly recreational, occurred primarily in Long Island Sound and off the North Fork of Long Island and was generally prosecuted as a directed fishery in spring and fall and as part of a mixed-bag bottom fishery during the summer months. CCA NY is concerned that relatively recent developments, arising out of a number of factors including both the current regulatory environment and the decline in abundance of not only tautog, but also traditional winter angling targets such as cod, silver hake (“whiting”) and red hake (“ling”) have all but destroyed the traditional tautog fishery and replaced it with a fishery that largely takes place at different times, in different places and is prosecuted by a far smaller number of anglers than was previously the case. The historical participants in the recreational fishery are now for the most part deprived of meaningful access to the tautog resource. CCA NY’s comments are made with the above points mind. II A The traditional recreational tautog fishery was prosecuted primarily in Waves 3 and 5, with the majority of the harvest taking place at those times. From 1981 to 1990, those waves’ aggregate landings accounted for between 65% and 91% of the entire recreational harvest in New York (the only exception was 1988, when only 45% was taken). After 1990, the percentage of the fishery taken in Waves 3 and 5 quickly declined as harvest shifted to Wave 6, a shift that began in the mid-1980s. Although the decline in Wave 3 and 5 harvest was not smooth, and individual years’ harvests shot upward, sometime dramatically, the trend is clear, with the combined waves’ landings dropping to just 15% of the harvest in 2002, 16% in 2004 and 18% in 2006 (combined harvest shares in 2003 and 2005 were 38% and 63%; high PSEs in all recent years make it reasonable to conclude that both high and low numbers could be overstated, but the trend remains a downward trajectory). In 1988, for the first time, Wave 6 harvest exceeded the combined harvest in Waves 3 and 5. Beginning in 1993, Wave 6 became the dominant harvest period, with landings accounting for from 49 to 85% of the total tautog harvest (during that period, 1996, 2000 and 2005 were exceptions, with harvests of 5%, 38% and 36%, respectively). Such change represented a new emphasis on targeting tautog during the winter, particularly but not exclusively by for-hire vessels sailing out of New York City and the western South Shore of Long Island, and to a lesser extent off Montauk. Traditionally, most such vessels targeted cod, whiting and ling, but with the steep declines in those species, switched over to tautog in order to allow their fares to participate in a more viable fishery. The new fishery was, for the most part, a new source of tautog mortality.
Although there had always been some level of Wave 6 harvest, prior to
1987 such harvest remained near or below 20% of overall recreational
landings, and did not dominate recreational landings until the 1990s.
Thus it is reasonable to assume that the new fishery, which targeted
tautog when they were concentrated on deep-water structure during the
winter months, both contributed to the overfishing problem and significantly
reduced the number of mature tautog available to return to inshore spawning
areas the following spring, further contributing to the decline in biomass. Such regulations should be contrasted to those of neighboring Connecticut, with which New York shares most of its traditional tautog grounds. Rather than establish a large bag limit and concentrate its fishery in a relatively short period involving a relatively small number of anglers, Connecticut chose adopt a smaller bag limit and extend its season over a much longer period, making the tautog more available to the public while protecting spawning aggregations with a closed season. New York would do well to consider such an approach, both for policy reasons and to prevent the inevitable problems that occur when a vessel from one state crosses over to another during a closed season. 2 To first address the options presented in the Discussion Draft of March 13, 2007 (the “Discussion Draft”), CCA NY believes that the season should end in December, and begin as early in the fall as is consistent with conservation goals, in order to restore to the general public some of the access to the fishery that they have lost. CCA NY also supports a May closure, and would be willing to expand such closure, if deemed necessary, to protect tautog during that period when they have aggregated to spawn and are particularly vulnerable to harvest. The optimum season closure should extend from December through whatever fall opening is ultimately selected. Such a closure would eliminate the problem, not unique to tautog, presented by Wave 1, in which the season is left open because there is no recorded harvest, and thus no provable impact on fish populations. It would also prevent the confusion and compliance issues that seems to be inherent in any split season featuring a mid-season closure. Closing Wave 2 would seem to present few problems, as Wave 2 harvest for the last five years is less than one-half of one percent of the overall recreational harvest for that period, meaning that any closure would have a de minimis impact on the fishery while simplifying administration and enforcement. There would also be considerable benefit in working with the State of Connecticut to develop a uniform set of tautog regulations. As mentioned earlier, Connecticut and New York share the largest and most productive tautog grounds. Vessels from Westchester, New York City and the North Shore and North Fork of Long Island fish in Connecticut waters, and Connecticut boats cross Long Island Sound to fish on the New York side. Interstate collaboration would assure the tautog in Long Island and Fishers Island Sounds are governed by a uniform set of regulations, and that states are not acting at cross-purposes in their attempts to protect the tautog resource. In addition, consistent regulations would make intentional and unintentional violations of both states’ regulations less frequent, and prevent vessels from straying over state lines to fish in a neighboring state’s waters during the closed season. The risk of vessels making that mistake is significant, and recent history has demonstrated that even a professional captain operating a large for-hire vessels can find himself in violation of a neighboring state’s closed season. III A There is no data demonstrating that tautog historically supported a significant commercial fishery in the State of New York. Average reported annual commercial harvest for the years 1950-1984 was only about 46,300 pounds, and harvest just began to spike upward in the late 1980s. Thus, there is a strong historical argument for maintaining the commercial tautog fishery as a bycatch-only fishery. However, even as a so-called “bycatch fishery,” harvest caps are appropriate, and the maintenance of the commercial tautog fishery as a bycatch fishery is not incompatible with either establishing a TAL or reducing current harvest to achieve the 28.6% overall reduction in tautog fishing mortality recently mandated by ASMFC. Although the source of the overfishing that caused the tautog population’s decline cannot be identified with certainty, there is little doubt that the expanding commercial fishery contributed to the problem. That being the case, the commercial fishery should also contribute to remediating such problem. CCA NY notes that, given the means by which most commercially harvested tautog are taken (traps, hook and line), and the fact that tautog are a physically resilient species that can survive considerable handling, discard mortality is likely less of a problem in the tautog fishery than it is in many others, making harvest restrictions particularly effective. B Applying a 28.6% reduction to New York’s 2005 commercial tautog harvest (52,525 pounds ) would result in a TAL of approximately 37,500 pounds. It is virtually impossible to constrain harvest to such a low figure in an open-access fishery. It is thus essential that DEC require that all commercial harvesters to hold a commercial tautog permit, and to limit issuance of such permits to fishers who have reported landing tautog in at least one year during a defined period (CCA NY suggests that the period 2002-2006 would be appropriate, and that landings in years prior to 2002 are too temporally remote to be appropriate criteria). CCA NY is not prepared to make concrete suggestions on how the harvest should be allocated among permit holders, although it does support a tagging requirement, as further discussed in Section III C. Similarly, CCA NY does not make any recommendation with regard to commercial trip limits, other than to reiterate its position that the 25 fish limit (10 when more than 6 lobster are possessed) represents an upper bound; otherwise, any approach which can effectively constrain commercial harvest would be acceptable. C 1 Few individuals familiar with the tautog fishery doubt that the size of the licit commercial fishery is dwarfed by the size of the illicit fishery. There is a substantial demand for tautog, particularly in the urban live-fish market, and apparently also an unfortunately large number of unethical fishers willing to supply that demand. Enforcement of fisheries regulations is difficult, and made more difficult by the fact that, once an illegally-harvested fish has entered the stream of commerce, it is very difficult to distinguish from a legally-harvested tautog. The first priority must then be to devise a method of readily and reliably distinguishing legally-harvested tautog from those fish that are taken or marketed illegally. A tagging program, perhaps generally similar to that currently used with striped bass, is a necessary first step. The relatively small number of legally-harvested tautog would make such a program practical; however, the type of tags used for striped bass are probably not usable in tautog destined for the live fish market. CCA NY does not know whether another, adequately secure tag type is available for use in live fish. However, the DEC’s overriding concern must be the restoration of the tautog population, in part by the suppression of the illegal fishery. Thus, in the event that no tag suitable for use in the live fish fishery is available, elimination of the live fish fishery would be preferable to elimination of the tagging requirement. Having once marked the individual tautog as fish legally harvested
and entered into the stream of commerce, a methodology must be established
for tracing the movement of such fish until it reaches the end user.
The basis for such methodology would require, as suggested in the Discussion
Draft, registration of “all persons, conveyances and storage facilities
that handle live tautog…and [the reporting of] all tautog purchase
and sale transactions.” While such system would not be absolutely
foolproof, it would make it easier to determine that a tautog available
for sale in any retail venue at any time could, with a reasonable degree
of certainty, be traced back to the fisher whose tag it bears. 2 Even with the best designed regulations in place, the State of New York faces a difficult task in eliminating the illegal commercial fishery and rebuilding the tautog population. There is sufficient demand for illegally-harvested tautog, and sufficient difficulty in distinguishing legally-harvested fish from those taken illegally, to make elimination of a substantial portion of the illegal harvest a serious challenge to law enforcement. In the event that, even armed with additional regulations, law enforcement personnel are unable to stem the flow of illegally harvested tautog, or in the event that the DEC makes a good-faith assessment that the cost of establishing and maintaining a registration and reporting system for tautog fishers and marketers is disproportionate to the small value of the commercial fishery (New York commercial tautog landings were worth only $129,865 in 2005 ), the only alternative left to DEC will be a prohibition on commercial tautog fishing in the State of New York. The Discussion Draft raises the possibility of a prohibition on the possession, sale or trafficking in live tautog. That would certainly be a viable option. However, given the very low value of reported landings (over the ten year period 1996-2005, the annual value of New York’s commercial tautog landings ranged from a low of $81,160 in 1999 to a high of $195,629 in 2004, and averaged $128,656, making 2005’s figure representative of the fishery over all), CCA NY believes that the DEC would be well advised to prohibit the commercial harvest and sale of tautog in the State of New York. Such a prohibition would simplify law enforcement efforts and, by “reinvesting” tautog not commercially harvested back into the spawning stock biomass, would provide some additional assurance that rebuilding measures would be effective. A prohibition on commercial tautog harvest would have a minimal overall economic impact, and any economic impact that it did have, should be set off against the economic benefits attributed to costs saved in the administration and enforcement of commercial tautog regulations, any positive economic impact that the commercial ban has on the far larger recreational fishery and the future value to the tautog fishery created by allowing tautog that would otherwise be part of the commercial harvest to survive and expand the spawning stock biomass. IV Tautog, because of their tendency to congregate either on readily identifiable structure or in shallow-water spawning areas, are particularly vulnerable to overfishing, even when at low levels of abundance. As a result of such vulnerability and of regulations that were inadequate to constrain overexploitation, the population is badly overfished. In order to comply with an ASMFC mandate, the DEC must adopt regulations that will reduce tautog harvest by 28.6%. In addition, DEC must take action to end the pervasive illegal commercial tautog fishery that stands as a significant barrier to the species recovery.
Thank you for considering our views on this matter. Sincerely, Charles. A. Witek, III State Chair
1 - Information derived from data obtained in personal
communication from the National Marine Fisheries Service, Fisheries
Statistics Division. |
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