Fisheries Commission

The National Marine Fisheries Service has proposed banning fishing for horseshoe crabs in federal waters off the mouth of Delaware Bay in an attempt to protect the valuable species. The ban is part of a plan to manage fishing for the helmet-shaped creatures, which was adopted in April by the multistate agency that regulates East Coast commercial fishing. Fisheries officials said it is not a response to Delaware Gov. Thomas R. Carper's written request last week for an immediate moratorium on harvesting horseshoe crabs within 30 miles of the mouth of Delaware Bay. "We've been working with the Atlantic State's Marine Fisheries Commission and we're looking for public input," said Gordon Helm, a fisheries service spokesman.

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler says he's considering going to court if the interstate panel that regulates Atlantic coast fishing for menhaden doesn't cut back enough the catch of a Virginia-based fleet that takes the lion's share of the forage fish. Speaking at a Chesapeake Bay scientific symposium in Baltimore on Monday, Gansler said he was "working with" the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission as it ponders tightening harvest limits on menhaden. Called by some "the most important fish in the sea," menhaden are a food source for many other fish and wildlife, including ospreys and striped bass, Maryland's state fish.

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler says he's considering going to court if the interstate panel that regulates Atlantic coast fishing for menhaden doesn't cut back enough the catch of a Virginia-based fleet that takes the lion's share of the forage fish. Speaking at a Chesapeake Bay scientific symposium in Baltimore on Monday, Gansler said he was "working with" the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission as it ponders tightening harvest limits on menhaden. Called by some "the most important fish in the sea," menhaden are a food source for many other fish and wildlife, including ospreys and striped bass, Maryland's state fish.

— A proposal that could have slashed Maryland's annual striped bass catch by more than 50 percent in 2012 was shelved Tuesday morning by the commission that oversees East Coast fisheries. The 9-6 vote by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's striped bass board will most likely postpone any further discussion of a harvest reduction until 2013, when a new population assessment is due. "I think it was appropriate," said Ed O'Brien, an official with the Maryland Charter Boat Association and the National Association of Charterboat Operators.

The annual industrial menhaden harvest isn't the only fishy thing happening in Virginia. Lawmakers, including Gov. Tim Kaine, let a deadline slip by this month for adopting a five-year cap on industrial menhaden harvesting in the Chesapeake Bay. The lack of action is a slap at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, a 15-state panel that overwhelmingly set the ceiling late last summer. Worse, it's an undeserved affront to Maryland, whose efforts to restore the health of the Chesapeake often run into barriers thrown up by our commonwealth neighbor and co-custodian of the bay. The tiny menhaden - also known as bunker, alewife and pogy - is a boney, oily fish that serves as an important food source for bigger bay fish and other natural predators.

CONSERVATION may not be hard science but it is certainly common sense. If a resource is obviously threatened, conservation is prudent. That is the thrust of the deliberate decision to cut back on catches of Atlantic horseshoe crabs, those dark olive, helmet-like creatures often seen along our ocean beaches and bays. Informal surveys have found their numbers declining; one count traced a drop of 50 percent over the past decade. Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey imposed commercial harvest limits in recent years to reduce pressure on the crab, used primarily as bait to catch conch and eel. Recognizing the danger, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission ordered all Eastern states to reduce their take of horseshoe crabs by 25 percent as of May 1. Virginia is the lone holdout, claiming a lack of scientific basis for the quotas.

A multistate agency that regulates East Coast commercial fishing has found Virginia is out of compliance with an order to cut its state's harvest of horseshoe crabs, a ruling that could lead to federal orders to shut down Virginia's horseshoe crab industry. Virginia's fisheries managers have defied a 25 percent cut ordered by a management board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. The state's refusal to lower its catch could wipe out conservation efforts in Maryland, New Jersey and other coastal states that have agreed to reduce their harvests, fisheries officials said yesterday.

The governor of Delaware called on the National Marine Fisheries Service yesterday to place an immediate moratorium on the harvesting of horseshoe crabs within 30 miles of the mouth of the Delaware Bay. The request by Gov. Thomas R. Carper is the latest move in an East Coast battle over the strange and valuable creatures, which existed 100 million years before the dinosaurs and provide food for migrating shorebirds, bait for the growing conch and eel...

One weekday last September, off the mouth of the Choptank River, the flounder fishing was only a little short of incredible. In fact, had Keith Walters and I wanted to fish out the balance of the rising tide, we could have caught keepers until we ran out of minnows.Instead, we kept perhaps a dozen flounder from 15 to 23 inches and headed in.This year, the Department of Natural Resources is proposing to change the regulations for the recreational summer flounder fishery to ensure that quality fishing continues.

GOOD news for fishermen, according to this May 10 editorial that appeared on the Eastern Shore in the Easton Star Democrat:"Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved an extension of the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act. Some might ask, since the rockfish has come back to the point where Maryland's moratorium has been lifted, why the rockfish still needs this special protection. . ."There was much moaning and groaning when the moratorium was imposed. But the moratorium was necessary if the rockfish was not to disappear entirely from Chesapeake Bay and other Atlantic waters.

Va. resists banning menhaden fishing A top Virginia regulator said yesterday that there's no need for a ban on industrial menhaden fishing in his state's waters and that the oily baitfish that is a prime source of food for striped bass is not being depleted in the Chesapeake Bay. "There's no evidence to suggest that it needs to be banned. In fact, there's no evidence at this point that localized depletion is even occurring," said Jack Travelstead, deputy commissioner of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.

The days of the fall striped bass slaughter on the southern Chesapeake Bay are over. It's pay the piper time. After six years of catching more striped bass than allowed and fearing possible regulatory repercussions, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission cinched up its belt and toughened its fall catch limits. Federal regulators set a summer and fall quota for the entire bay and Maryland, Virginia and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission divide it up. Virginia's share last year was 3.1 million pounds, split equally between its recreational anglers/charter boat fleet and commercial fishermen.

Maryland's striped bass fishermen had too much of a good thing this spring on the Chesapeake Bay. Now the bill comes due. Recreational anglers vastly exceeded their early-season quota for the second year in a row, despite efforts by state fisheries managers to curb their enthusiasm through tougher regulations. Over the four-week season that began April 15, anglers caught 67,000 striped bass, 25,000 more than the allotment set by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), or 60 percent above their quota for the second straight year.

The annual industrial menhaden harvest isn't the only fishy thing happening in Virginia. Lawmakers, including Gov. Tim Kaine, let a deadline slip by this month for adopting a five-year cap on industrial menhaden harvesting in the Chesapeake Bay. The lack of action is a slap at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, a 15-state panel that overwhelmingly set the ceiling late last summer. Worse, it's an undeserved affront to Maryland, whose efforts to restore the health of the Chesapeake often run into barriers thrown up by our commonwealth neighbor and co-custodian of the bay. The tiny menhaden - also known as bunker, alewife and pogy - is a boney, oily fish that serves as an important food source for bigger bay fish and other natural predators.

Government regulators took the first step yesterday toward imposing a limit on the commercial harvesting of menhaden, a tiny fish that is regarded as critical to the health of the Chesapeake Bay. Meeting in Virginia, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted to limit to current levels the number of menhaden taken from the bay. The limit is aimed at Omega Protein, a company based in Reedville, Va., that uses airplanes and huge nets to find...

Maryland environmentalists and recreational anglers are urging fisheries regulators to rein in a Virginia processing plant that is scooping millions of menhaden from the Chesapeake Bay. The Marylanders say Omega Protein is taking so many of the oily little filter-feeders out of the bay for its products that rockfish, which usually feed on menhaden, are starving to death. They are hoping that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which meets tomorrow in New Hampshire to take up the matter, will place catch limits on the company.

Inspired by the comeback of rockfish, Congress has ordered the same help for shad, bluefish and other Atlantic Coast migratory fish that have dwindled in the Chesapeake Bay.Just before adjournment for the holidays, the Senate unanimously approved a bill late Monday night giving the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission authority to restrict the catch of declining fish species from Maine to Florida."

To paraphrase a state official who spoke at a fisheries advisory commission meeting in Annapolis last night, if Maryland's 1993 fall rockfish season could be built solely on mathematics and biology, determining its parameters would be easy.However, where rockfish are concerned it seems that nothing comes easily, and Maryland, which earlier this year had hopes of a 45-day fall season for recreational and charter boat fishermen, may be limited to a season similar to last year."At the moment, the season could be October and three days in November," William P. Jensen, head of the Department of Natural Resources' Tidewater Fisheries Division, said last night at a joint meeting of the Tidal Fish Advisory and the Sport Fishing Advisory commissions.

The Chesapeake Bay's blue crab population has apparently stabilized but at such a historically low number that Maryland and Virginia must keep up efforts to limit the annual harvest, according to a study scheduled to be delivered today. The report, from some of the bay's leading crab scientists, warns that "our work to restore the blue crab is far from over" and that pressures to harvest more crabs "risk driving the stock down further, to dangerously low levels." "There is still ongoing reason to be concerned," said Thomas J. Miller, a fisheries ecologist at the University of Maryland's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and member of the study group "We've got to maintain what I think have been some prudent measures."

The multistate agency that regulates East Coast commercial fishing moved yesterday to shut down Virginia's lucrative horseshoe crab fishery because state officials refuse to comply with a plan to cut the harvest of the creatures by 25 percent. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, made up of states from Maine to Florida, found Virginia to be out of compliance with the plan and recommended that William B. Daley, U.S. secretary of commerce, suspend operations in the fishery. Daley could act within 30 days.