Weakfish meeting

The years between 2001 and 2005 were some of the best years we ever had, not only tide runners but great fall runs of small and medium sized fish.

The following is a news release from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Weakfish Biomass at All-Time Low

ASMFC Weakfish Board Initiates Addendum to Address Stock Decline

In its report to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Weakfish Management Board, an independent panel of scientists endorsed the 2009 weakfish stock assessment for management use. The Review Panel confirmed that stocks are at an all time low and current fishery removals are unsustainable under existing stock conditions. It agreed with the stock assessment's conclusions that weakfish abundance has declined markedly, total mortality is high, non-fishing mortality has recently increased, and the stock is currently in a depleted state. Given these findings, the Board initiated the development of Draft Addendum IV which will propose a range of options to reduce fishing mortality, including complete harvest moratoria and limited bycatch only fisheries.

"While the Board has been aware of the decline in weakfish landings over the past ten years, conflicting signals in the stock assessment models employed in the past confounded decision making. This peer review panel found the methodology acceptable and agreed that the stock is in dire condition," stated Board Chair Roy Miller. "Given the condition of the stock, the Board has decided to accelerate its management process and prepare a draft addendum for public comment in early fall. Upon considering public comment and final action on the addendum, the Board will have the option to implement the addendum's measures through emergency action this November."

The weakfish stock is depleted at an all-time low of 2.9 million pounds (1,333 metric tons), far below the proposed biomass threshold of 22.4 million pounds (10,179 metric tons). At this stock size, recent fishery removals (landings and dead discards combined), estimated at 1.9 and 1.8 million pounds in 2007 and 2008, respectively, represent a significant proportion of the remaining biomass. While the decline in the stock primarily results from a change in the natural mortality of weakfish in recent years, it is further exacerbated by continued removals by the commercial and recreational fisheries.

Natural mortality has risen substantially since 1995, with factors such as predation, competition, and changes in the environment having a stronger influence on recent weakfish stock dynamics than fishing mortality. Given current high natural mortality levels, stock projections indicate that the stock is unlikely to recover rapidly, even under a harvest moratorium. In order to rebuild the stock, total mortality will need to be reduced, although this is unlikely to occur until natural mortality decreases to

previous levels. On a positive note, juvenile abundance surveys indicate that young-of-the-year weakfish continued to be present in numbers similar to previous years, suggesting that recruitment at this point has not been severely limited in spite of low stock size.

The Board has placed the Draft Addendum on a faster timeline than standard addenda. Staff and the Plan Development Team will prepare a draft for Board review and consideration in mid-September. If approved, the draft will then be made available for public review and comment. It is anticipated that the majority of states will be conducting public hearings of Draft Addendum IV in October; a press release will be issued on those hearings once the information is available. The Board will meet again in November to consider public comment and take final action on the Draft

Addendum. Under Commission procedures, the Board may opt to implement the Addendum under emergency action, with approved measures taking effect immediately upon Board action.

For more information, please contact Nichola Meserve, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at (202)289-6400 or <nmeserve@asmfc.org>.

*************************

Tina Berger

Public Affairs Specialist

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission

1444 I Street. NW, Sixth Floor

Washington, DC 20005

Phone: (202)289-6400

FAX: (202)289-6051

Email: tberger@asmfc.org

www.asmfc.org

ASMFC Vision: Healthy, self-sustaining populations for all Atlantic coast fish species or successful restoration well in progress by the year 2015.

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In other words, they don't have a clue. These are the same people that are managing fluke, dog fish, etc. Maybe their mis-management has caused the high predation. I've seen the ebb and flow of bass, fluke, weakfish and bluefish for many decades, even before they started managing them. If half of what they say was true there wouldn't be anything left to manage. Sorry about the tirade, but it's the same old nonsense, lets manage the recreational fishermen.

Same old BS or not, at least they are doing something now... It would have been nice if somebody would have had some forethought years ago, instead of just continuing along the downhill slope til a moratorium is necessary like it is now. Yes it may be a few years too late, but I have to say I am happy they are at least doing something. Sounds like the steps are laid out for new management legislation come November.

My worry with all of this, is the increased "natural predation" that they cite as the cause for the stock downfall... We all know that stripers do eat baby weakfish, and there will no doubt be at least partial blame placed on the striped bass... Should be interesting to see how this turns out.

"It would have been nice if somebody would have had some forethought years ago, instead of just continuing along the downhill slope til a moratorium is necessary like it is now."

Artie believes the weakfish is just in a natural down cycle and the stocks will just recover on their own. Nothing wrong with having an opinion on this. I disagree about the current state of the weakfish. Besides predation I personally think the cooling towers of the power plants all along the backbays and rivers are why the weakfish can't escape it's current down ward trend. Add in fishing pressure both rec and comm and I really dobt the weakfish is coming back on their own.

Without stopping millions of baby weakies from getting sucked up cooling towers EVERY YEAR it really is pointless......

That is definitely a good point Spaniard... I've often heard that power plants like the one in Indian River Bay kill HUGE numbers of baby fish. Not sure if ASMFC can do anything about regulating power plants though.

I guess the way I look at it is that if there was a moratorium, at least we recs and the commercials wouldn't be doing any more harm to the fishery, slow recovery or not. Honestly, I don't know why a rec fisherman would not support a moratorium. It's 2009 for crying out loud, and most of us have been catch and release fishing for most of our lives. I mean, I agree that sea trout do taste good, but wouldn't we get just as much enjoyment out of catching them and putting them back for a while--it would be for a good cause.

That is definitely a good point Spaniard... I've often heard that power plants like the one in Indian River Bay kill HUGE numbers of baby fish. Not sure if ASMFC can do anything about regulating power plants though.

"The Salem Nuclear Generating Station on the

Delaware River, for example, uses up to 3

billion gallons of water daily and annually

kills 3 billion fish, including 59 million

blueback herring, 77 million weakfish, 134

million Atlantic croaker, 412 million white

perch, 448 million striped bass, and 2 billion

Bay anchovy. Artificially high temperatures

from water returned to the river may kill more aquatic animals."

Kind of puts things in perspective... Thanks Tom.

""The Salem Nuclear Generating Station on the

Delaware River, for example, uses up to 3

billion gallons of water daily and annually

kills 3 billion fish, including 59 million

blueback herring, 77 million weakfish, 134

million Atlantic croaker, 412 million white

perch, 448 million striped bass, and 2 billion

Bay anchovy. Artificially high temperatures

from water returned to the river may kill more aquatic animals.""

This is honestly where I think many of our fish are going....... Notice a trend about all those fish listed? If plants like Salem were forced to use a closed loop system(expensive to build) I would bet my last dollar that in 5 years our bays would be more alive than they have been in a long time...... I'm not sure BUT damnit with the amount of stimulus money handed out we should have changed every powerplant to closed loop. It would have been a drop in the bucket out of the bill......

John

Sadly, they have been on MY moratorium list for a couple of years. I dont need a council to tell me how bad it is. And if Cooling Towers are the problem, you are doomed. Too much $ to fight.

We need to take a page from the tree huggers and find a loophole to close them, even if it has nothing to do with the fishery. But fishermen just dont work together. Every body is just waiting to smash someone else, instead of recognizing we are all in this together and we are a very small minority.

No, we would rather flame someone on the internets that mentions a town name. Much more funner and less work.

The enviros could not have picked a more fragmented, demented group of people to divide and conquer.

The enviros could not have picked a more fragmented, demented group of people to divide and conquer.

There's a helluva lot of truth in this. Coms and Recs are so busy bashing each other and so suspicious of each other's motives that we are incabable of working together against the antis. Heck, we can't even get the C&R and the meat fishermen on the same page. The antis know this and will use it against us. If we don't somehow learn to see past our differences and work together we will wake up one day to find the entire coast is one large MPA

Divide and conquer, and in this case 50% of the heavy lifting has already been seen to by us.

Foot, meet bullet from own gun.

The enviros could not have picked a more fragmented, demented group of people to divide and conquer.

So you think the enviros are secretly fighting the much more environmentally responsible cooling towers on nuclear plants? Strange...I never woulda suspected them

How is your blaming the enviros for fishery managements continued failure to take any action even in the face of incredible evidence that action needs to be taken going to help? They have nothing to do with this - if they had their way, all nuclear plants would have cooling towers and weakfish would have been protected long before they were reduced to 1/10th of what the present weakfish management plan uses for a target.

The real problem here is: what kind of management board lets a stock get harvested and fished to the desperate point of it's biomass being just 10% of the target that management board has been entrusted with maintaining? And what kind of management system would allow a management board to be so irresponsible with a public resource they were trusted to protect? Those are the real questions, not wagging a finger at the 'enviros' who had nothing to do with this

TimS

If there are any current engineers, or any students/aspiring ones, is it possible to design a fish larvae exclusion device for a power plant intake that is safe for both fish and power plant operation AND is much less expensive than switching to a closed loop system? Lets say such a system reduced mortality of fish larvae by 40%. We would still, in all likeliness, be increasing the small number of fish that grow to adulthood.

Given that a total ban on the landing of weakfish is unlikely (which is what I support) perhaps it is time to look into such measures.

The funny thing I see by reading this thread is the morphing of opinions by certain implications that are brought up.

The fact that the claims are stating that weakfish are in a sorry state because of natural predatation, and then comments about the power plants being the blame, and then comments such as "just look at those other species being hurt by power plants too". If the other species are being hurt by the power plants, then why would there be so much predatation that the weakfish can't come back? Also take note, the year of young are not hurt. See quote

On a positive note, juvenile abundance surveys indicate that young-of-the-year weakfish continued to be present in numbers similar to previous years, suggesting that recruitment at this point has not been severely limited in spite of low stock size.

What I do find alarming is this

The weakfish stock is depleted at an all-time low of 2.9 million pounds

At this stock size, recent fishery removals (landings and dead discards combined), estimated at 1.9 and 1.8 million pounds in 2007 and 2008, respectively, represent a significant proportion of the remaining biomass.

Fishery removals by comm and rec account for 2/3 of the total population, but that isn't causing issues? If those 1.9 million pounds of weakfish were not harvested last year, there would sure be a lot more weakfish around today, and a lot more young weakfish to grow for next year. I think with all the bunker we have these days, that weakfish are not a main target for the predators, yea they eat them, but there's so much forage around these days that I can't imagine anything strictly going for weakies. And power plants have been around for more than just a few years, hopefully I'm right by thinking\\hoping that the power plants are not a concern, and that the fish make a quick rebound with a mortorium, just like the striped bass did.