Mr. Colvin noted that the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC)/ASMFC Joint Monitoring Committee for Fluke, Scup and Sea Bass is also meeting today.  Pre-meeting materials received yesterday by DEC suggest that the initial catch limits being proposed for these species in 2007 will be very conservative and the outlook for 2007 is quite bleak. 

At a joint meeting of the MAFMC/ASMFC Fluke, Scup and Sea Bass Board scheduled for the first week in August, the Board will take action on 2007 quotas for these species.  The sea bass quota is derived from a 3-year running average of the abundance of this species in the National Marine Fisheries Service's (NMFS) annual spring trawl survey.  Mr. Colvin stated that this index dipped a bit in 2006.  Additionally, the new stock assessment for sea bass presented at the most recent meeting of NMFS's Stock Assessment Review Committee (SARC), which would have potentially substituted a different assessment-based approach to quota setting for this species, was rejected based on peer review.  As a consequence, the 2007 commercial harvest quota for black sea bass is likely to be well below that for 2006.   

The picture for scup (porgy) in 2007 is more complicated.  In addition to the need to set the commercial quota for next year, the MAFMC also needs to address a requirement under the federal Sustainable Fisheries Act to adopt a stock-rebuilding plan for this species.  This stock-rebuilding plan has not been completed and Mr. Colvin stated that, as a result, it is unclear what measures, policies, and reference points will drive the quota decision for scup in 2007.  MAFMC staff suggest that the stock rebuilding plan obligation may require that DEC look to a rebuilding target and schedule that might cause the scup quota to go down in 2007. 

Mr. Colvin described the news for fluke in 2007 as, "bad."   Each year, the NMFS stock assessment team generates updated fishing mortality and biomass estimates for fluke which are then used in quota calculations for the upcoming year.  A fishing mortality rate-based target drives an annual calculation on what amount of biomass can be safely removed from the population.  Further, the fishery management plan for fluke dictates that the stock be rebuilt to its biomass target by 2010.  Until recently, the fluke resource has shown a steady increase in overall biomass and spawning stock biomass.  The only issue has been rate of increase; is it rapid enough to hit the target by 2010?  Unfortunately, Mr. Colvin reported, the most recent data indicate that the fishing mortality rate for fluke has increased abruptly.  That alone would drive the commercial quota projection down.  Moreover, the estimated stock biomass for this species is no longer increasing; it has flattened.  Every fishery-independent index related to the estimated abundance of fluke has declined or gone flat.  On top of this, fluke recruitment for the past 4 consecutive years has been below average and 2005 was the worst of the four. 

Given the above negative indicators regarding the condition of the fluke resource, NMFS has indicated that it will be nearly impossible to reach the fluke population biomass target by 2010. Mr. Colvin offered that this situation might result in much reduced quotas on fluke for the next several years.

Mr. John Mihale asked if a commercial closure for fluke was being considered?  Mr. Colvin responded that the recommendation from NMFS is to set a quota that is consistent with essentially a by-catch or non-directed fishery for fluke.  He clarified that this applied to the commercial fluke fishery, only.  It remains to be seen what the above scenario means for recreational fluke fishery limits in 2007 and future years.

Mr. Colvin also commented that current estimates of growth rates for fluke have also declined significantly and abruptly over the past year, which is a cause for serious concern.  It is not clear why fluke recruitment is below normal for the past several years, despite the fact that the species' spawning stock biomass is the highest on record.  These indicators may suggest that some inherently finite "carrying capacity" of the nearshore ecosystem along the East Coast, or some other limit on fluke production, may have been reached, but this is speculation. 

 

Page last modified Sunday, September 24, 2006 by George E. Carroll