Time to take some action. You should contact the Gulf Council via email by Wednesday afternoon. After their vote on Thursday, you may be urged to contact your Governor.
The Council is taking public input at their full meeting in Mobile, AL this week. Since it is a long drive and many of you feel ignored by most of the council, you can simply put your comments in an email. The email addresses are all grouped together below for your convenience.
Read the following comments over, then feel free to generate your own comments. Or you could just copy and paste these. MAKE SURE TO SIGN THE COMMENT WITH YOU FULL NAME AND MAILING ADDRESS. If you would like to reference all of the documents for the public hearing and the hundreds of pages of documents that make up this amendment, you can find them on the Gulf Council website or by following these links.
Here are the email addresses you should use (just copy and past them all at once):
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Gulf Council Amendment 35 - greater amberjack
We are concerned with an arbitrary 18% reduction in allowable catch for greater amberjack. This reduction is being applied in the name of “uncertainty”, implying that no uncertainty was built-in to the stock assessment that generated the current catch numbers. In fact, a great deal of uncertainty has been built-in at each level of the stock assessment and management process. Uncertainty times uncertainty equals unnecessary job loss and unnecessary loss of fishing opportunity. Set Allowable Biological Catch equal to the Annual Catch Target. You are not required by law to set it any lower.
On action 2.1 - Modify the recreational minimum size limit, Alternative three is the most acceptable. Modify the minimum size limit for greater amberjack to 34 inches fork length.
50% of female greater amberjack are reproductively mature at approximately 35 inches fork length. Increasing the minimum size limit for greater amberjack is beneficial to increasing the spawning potential of the stock, according to the Council’s scoping document.
Raising the minimum recreational size limit increases angler opportunity, achieves a reduction in harvest and increases the spawning potential of the stock. This should be the preferred option. Positive economic impact, positive biological impact, and achievement of a landings reduction are ALL available with this decision. It is beyond a reasonable person’s understanding why this management option is not preferred.
Furthermore, table 2.2.2 is confusing and certainly raises grave concerns over the discard mortality rates used to generate such high total removal numbers at 34 and 36 inch fork length minimums.
The recreational fishing community would like to see an alternative which allows for a concurrent recreational and commercial closure, if in fact that closure is to provide protection to spawning aggregations. Given that a three-month closure would be applied with a 34 inch fork length, we would like to see what a two fish angler bag limit alternative would produce in terms of landings.
Commercial management measures
Simply put, commercial amberjack should be limited to 1000 pounds per trip.
This will reduce over capitalization and provide a more consistent market for the fishermen and a consistently fresh supply for the consumer. It will also have a positive biological impact on the fishery.
To recap:
Set ABC = ACT. No 18% reduction.
Opportunity to fish `creates jobs and maintains communities.
Recreational 34” fork length -
increases spawning potential of the stock
reduces recreational landings
creates fishing opportunity and JOBS
Why is this not the preferred alternative?
A March through May recreational closure combined with a 34 inch minimum length could even allow for a two amberjack per angler daily limit. This would further increase the opportunity to fish thereby increasing economic activity and creating jobs.
Commercial trip limits should be set at 1000 pounds.
On another note: What part of NO SECTOR SEPARATION and NO CATCH SHARES did you not hear?
END OF COMMENTS
INCLUDE YOUR FULL NAME AND ADDRESS
_______________________________________________________
ALSO
More stuff to think about-
Since it seems like the Council does not want to listen to reason and is driven by NMFS and not the best interests of the stakeholders and fisheries, we will be notifying the Governor of each state with regards to the failure of that state’s Council representatives to act in the best interest of the state’s stakeholders and the fisheries in general.
Other interesting information:
How does a Council member get appointed, you ask?
They get nominated by a state’s Governor. The exception is that each state has a representative from its fisheries or wildlife department, who works for their Governor. The process used to give strongest consideration to the Governor’s first choice on a list of three candidates. Now, we understand that the regional director of NMFS gets to blackball any undesirable names. THEN, the Secretary of Commerce ‘makes his choice’. What a stacked deck.
South Atlantic Council suggested comments to follow later this week.
Coming up next- Will Florida’s FWC stand up to the Feds? Or will they once again GAG and the SWALLOW the fed’s BS hook, line and sinker?
It’s an election year. Time to make the voice of the 15 million saltwater anglers heard.
Also coming up is another fishing rally planned for Washington DC. March 21. We’ll keep you updated.
The FRA website will have a new members-only area set up shortly. It is important because many times, the FRA’s plans are public knowledge and get passed on to the anti-fishing crowd immediately. We want to keep our activities a little more ‘private’ for our members. A comprehensive plan for data collection will be unveiled in this private area.
A comprehensive plan for the fisheries will be unveiled inside the member area of the website. Stay tuned.
Thanks for all of your support!
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