Councilor Sima Freierman, Chairperson of this subcommittee, stated that there are two issues involving fluke management that will affect New York commercial fishermen.  The first is Addendum 15 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Summer Flounder of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC).  Amendment 15 recognizes that states with low fluke quota allocations are increasingly encountering fluke by-catch and discard problems as the stock of fluke has increased.  The Amendment provides that those states with high quota allocations give a certain allowance to the low quota states, i.e., increase the quota allocation to the low quota states.  The second issue is the development of Amendment 14 to the Fishery Management Plan for Fluke, Scup and Black Seabass of the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council in conjunction with ASMFC.

Ms. Freierman described the current state-by-state commercial quota allocation system fluke.  She noted that an ad hoc group of commercial fishermen is trying to gather better data on commercial catches of fluke in New York during the period of years on which the state quota allocations are based.  It is widely believed that the official catch data for this era underestimate the actual catch by New York fishermen.  The group faces a difficult task because of generally poor record keeping in the commercial fishing industry in those days.  Ms. Freierman gave a brief recounting of the history of her subcommittee, which was created three years ago and was originally comprised of herself and Councilors Tom Jordan and Joe McBride.  As reconstituted at the most recent Council meeting, the Subcommittee includes all the commercial fishery members of the Council, along with Councilor McBride.  She read out the subcommittee’s charge, as developed by Mr. Wise and Mr. Colvin.  She stated that the group would begin its work with a scoping meeting to get input from commercial fishermen on the issues it is addressing.  One of these is the current number of extant state special fluke commercial harvest permits; some people feel that there are too many of these out there.  The subcommittee will discuss whether or not the number of these permits issued should be changed.  One means to reduce the number of these permits, if so desired, is to require permit-holders to periodically requalify for them.  Should there be a requalification process and how would permits be issued to new entrants into the commercial fluke fisheries?  Ms. Freierman noted that whether the State’s annual commercial fluke harvest quota should be explicitly divided among the different commercial gears used to harvest fluke would be examined.

The Subcommittee will hold its industry issue-scoping meeting, tentatively, on 19 May 2005 at a location to be determined.   All current holders of the State food fish license holders will be notified of the meeting 3 to 4 weeks beforehand.  Ms. Freierman invited any Councilor or interested person who wished to contribute thoughts to the Subcommittee’s work to contact either herself directly or Ms. Kim Knoll in Chairman Wise’s office, who will forward the input to Ms. Freierman (see addresses below).  The Subcommittee will present its findings and recommendations to the full Council at either the July or September 2005 Council meeting.

Sima Freierman Montauk Inlet Seafood, Inc. 540 East Lake Drive Montauk, NY 11954 inletfish@aol.com

Kim Knoll Marine Sciences Research Center Stony Brook University 155 Discovery Hall Stony Brook, NY  11794-5000 kknoll@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

 

Page last modified Friday, April 15, 2005 by George E. Carroll