Chairman Wise observed that, as the abundance of fluke and striped bass rebound, questions are being raised as to when DEC should liberalize eligibility criteria for the special commercial harvest permits associated with fluke and striped bass fisheries. Presently, there is a moratorium on the issuance of new special harvesting permits. The Council has not favored allowing additional permits to be issued because the annual commercial quotas have not been going up at the same pace as the stock abundance estimates. Mr. Colvin distributed statistics on numbers of special permits issued for each species in the period 1993-2000. He noted that the commercial fluke permit had been segregated into fixed gear only and all gear categories through 1999 and an additional hook and line-only category had been created in 2000. Mr. Byron Young of DEC said that there were 600-700 persons who had a state commercial foodfish license and wanted to secure a striped bass special harvesting permit; many more people did not have either a foodfish license or a striped bass permit and wanted both. Mr. Wise stated that the Council should discuss ground rules for an eventual liberalization of these special harvest permits at a future meeting.