Capt. Bill Hammarstrom
Capt. Will Hammarstrom
Gina Lawrenson

To: asmrumph@njleg.org, senconnors@njleg.org, senciesla@njleg.org, asmwolfe@njleg.org, lautenberg@senate.gov, menendez@senate.gov, teri.frady@noaa.gov

Subj: Closure of Recreational Fishery for Black Sea Bass

As a scientist, fisherman and voting activist, I would like to call to your attention a news release from NOAA, dated September 30, 2009. It calls for the immediate (October 5) closing of the recreational fishery for black sea bass for 180 days due to overharvest. First of all, in order to substantiate the overharvest claim they must know two things:

The current population of the fishery and its historical context.

The biomass of landings in 2009.

I submit that they are guessing on both counts. Any diver I know will attest that underwater structure is blanketed with sea bass during the spring-summer-fall seasons. Wreck fishermen can catch 10-50 fish per trip, with only a minute fraction being over the legally-mandated minimum length to keep. Over the nine-month span of these observations, these, of course, are not the same fish. The fish population is constantly being replenished.

NOAA has imposed a 1.14 million pound harvest limit for recreational fishermen during the 2009 calendar year. They state that if the fishery is not closed immediately, the harvest may be exceeded by 84%-225%. No, this is not a typographical error. This is how blunt their measuring instrument is. In no scientific discipline is a projected estimate ever given with such wide parameters. What they are is an indication of error of measurement. The range is 141% of the parameter they are trying to estimate. This in no way rises to the level of science. Some of my colleagues, with appropriate derision, would call it a SWAG (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess).

Well, you might say, NOAA means well, and they are doing the best they can with the methodology they have available. Try telling this to the boat captains, the marine tackle operators, the shore restaurants and motel/hotel operators as well as the myriad other establishments at the shore whose "offseason" is financially lean enough without this death knell. We are talking about a total shut down without an alternative. There are no other fish species to target at this time. These are people with mouths to feed, kids to clothe, medical bills and mortgages to pay. To say to them, "Tough luck," is unacceptable based upon a totally unscientific, yet totally whimsical, decision by a small group of people whose only justification for their act is that they have the power to do so.

If you read the Patrick O'Brien novels you know there is not a moment to be lost. You and your colleagues have the power to reverse this injustice, and a stay in the implementation of this regulation needs to be obtained immediately. Thank you for your efforts in this matter.

S. M. Zdep, Ph.D.

From: Michael.Ruccio@noaa.gov

Subj: Response to black sea bass e-mail

Dr. Zdep,

The range presented by NOAA in projecting the black sea bass overharvest is an artifact of using a range of prior year harvest activity to inform the potential 2009 harvest in the months of July-December. Actual landings data were available through June 2009 and showed that over 80 percent of the 2009 recreational harvest limit had been taken though that month. While the projected overage range is large, it is informative in demonstrating that even in using multiple projection scenarios wherein previous years landings patterns were used for July-December, that a significant overage of the 2009 recreational harvest limit had occurred. NOAA Fisheries Service has a statutory obligation under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to constrain annual harvest to the established annual limits, in this case, the 1.14 million lb recreational harvest limit.

Feel free to call me to discuss further. My contact information is listed below your original e-mail text.

Mike Ruccio
Fishery Policy Analyst
NOAA Fisheries Service
Sustainable Fisheries Division
55 Great Republic Drive
Gloucester, MA 01930
(978) 281-9104
FAX (978)281-9135


To: Michael.Ruccio@noaa.gov
Subj: Re: Response to black sea bass e-mail

Mike,

Thank you for your response. Using 2008 data to estimate the July-December harvest is a reasonable procedure. When coupled with actual harvest through June, 2009, it should give you a reasonable estimate of overall 2009 harvest. HOWEVER, the closure action you have taken assumes 1) that the 1.14 million pound limit was necessary to maintain (achieve) a sustainable biomass, and 2) that your survey harvest data were valid. As someone once said, "Governments gather numbers which they add, subtract, multiply and divide. They are used to regulate everyone's lives, and yet these numbers originally come from the town timekeeper who puts down what he damn well pleases."

First of all, I believe that the 1.14 million pound limit was totally arbitrary, and unrelated to maintaining the biomass. Rather, a more effective method to promote conservation might have been to initiate a ten fish limit. This preserves the resource, does not antagonize anglers, does not have dire economic consequences and gets you away from landings quotas for which substantiating data are simply not available.

While I am not up-to-date on your current sampling methodology, the overall task of projecting results to the population are fraught with problems. Not only do you have to deal with representation, but the respondent reporting error must be huge. I know of no weighting scheme to deal with unsystematic reporting error.

As an alternative, you might develop a proxy to track harvest. This proxy would make no attempt to estimate population data. Rather, it would simply let you know if harvest were increasing to an extent that a reasonable person would determine was unsustainable. First of all you need to develop a panel comprised of federally-licensed boats that carry paying fares. Next, using state boating licensing data, draw a stratified sample of private boat owners (who also fish) to participate in a fishing harvest panel. Invite private boater participation in the panel by offering to pay their state boat registration fee if they submit every required report during the fishing months. Where you get non-response, and after suitable reminder, randomly substitute the returned report of an angler from a shadow sample that will exist for that purpose. Use existing data to stratify the overall panel in terms of head boats/private anglers. You would also need an independent annual estimate of the total number of anglers in the population.

Each year you can track the panel harvest in actual pounds. If, in a given year, the harvest exceeds some empirically determined amount, the next year can have the season shortened, the size limits of fish increased, or the daily limit adjusted.

Using this system, you have no need to know biomass or fish harvest population data, which I maintain are unknowable. What you will develop is a valid pattern of whether the harvest is stable, increasing or decreasing. Here, continued decreasing harvest data might indicate a decrease in fish stock and require curtailment, as would a pattern of continued larger and larger harvests.

Trend data are obviously more valid than isolated data points. And, absolute numbers are unnecessary.

I would think that the objective should be incremental management so that the draconian approach of season closure would never again need to be entertained. It would also result in reasonable anglers being on board instead of going to war with you, as is the current case.