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Experts call on government to protect herring
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More than 100 fishing, conservation, science and faith-based organizations signed a letter sent Tuesday to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce calling for emergency action to protect river herring caught offshore.
"River herring play an important role in the ecosystem as prey for predator fish, marine mammals and seabirds," Brooks Mountcastle, mid-Atlantic representative for the Marine Fish Conservation Network, said in a statement. "Failing to act would mean more than the loss of a species, but a loss of profound cultural and historical significance for many coastal communities."
The letter follows a May meeting by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council, the governing body that monitors and regulates fisheries in 15 eastern states including New Jersey, in which members agreed to close all in-river herring fisheries by 2012 unless they are proven sustainable.
The ASMFC also called on the secretary to increase regulations on commercial fishing vessels that often accidentally catch river herring while trolling for other kinds of fish. This bycatch is substantial, the ASMFC and other groups contend, and does not allow the fish to return to the rivers where they spawn.
According to the letter sent to the secretary this week, bycatch in federally regulated ocean fisheries exceeds the in-river fishing of river herring on the entire East Coast.
It also cites a study that estimates that in 2007 there were 1.7 million pounds of river herring bycatch in the Atlantic sea herring fishery, but admits accurate numbers are hard to obtain because observers are not often on the commercial fishing vessels in question.
The letter recommends restricting certain gear in areas known for large quantities of bycatch, imposing mandatory bycatch reporting, increasing coverage by federal observers on boats and at docks and prohibiting dumping bycatch at sea. "We recognize and appreciate the limited resources that are available to the federal government under our current difficult economic circumstances," read the letter. "However, it is our belief that time is not on the side of river herring."
Among the groups with members who signed the letter are The National Coalition for Marine Conservation, New Jersey Trout Unlimited, Environment New Jersey, New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club, Great Egg Harbor Watershed Association and Recreational Fishing alliance.
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Posted in Ocean on Thursday, June 25, 2009 3:10 am
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