LEGISLATION that could help save the summer flounder sea son along the Atlantic Coast has been introduced in Congress.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) introduced legislation this past week that will amend the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2007 (MSA) and include limited flexibility in rebuilding healthy fisheries.
HR 5425 has gained bipartisan support from 11 coastal legislators along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, illustrating that many believe limited flexibility is needed in the management of rebuilding fish stocks.
The MSA contains arbitrary and rigid rebuilding requirements, which have unnecessarily restricted recreational anglers and have not been adaptive to the marine environment. Top fisheries scientists and the Recreational Fishing Alliance made this point during testimony at a congressional hearing last December. Pallone’s language would give the Secretary of Commerce the discretion to adjust rebuilding timeframes only if specific criteria are present to ensure that the conservation of such stocks continues to advance. Limited flexibility would allow fishermen to retain access to important fisheries such as summer flounder, red snapper, gag grouper, vermillion snapper, yellow-eye rockfish and canary rockfish, while continuing to achieve management goals.
This legislation needs to be passed and will be passed with the support of the entire recreational fishing community. It is critical that all recreational anglers and marine businesses get behind this bill, reach out to their legislators and ask them to support HR 5425.
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During the last election New Jersey sportsmen voted out lawmakers who proposed legislation that would have changed the way the state manages wildlife.
Sportsmen again face an attack on their hunting traditions through Assembly Bill 1202, sponsored by Assemblyman Anthony Chiappone (D- Bayonne), that drastically would change the makeup of the Fish and Game Council and place it within the Department of Environmental Protection, rather than specifically within the Division of Fish and Wildlife.
The bill also calls for the director of the Division of Fish and Wildlife to be appointed by the commissioner of the DEP. Appointees are to be recommended by anti-hunting organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States and the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance.
Worse yet, the bill gives the DEP commissioner the sole authority to cancel hunting seasons without public hearing.
New Jersey sportsmen should insist their Assemblymen oppose AB 1202. Call (609) 292-4840 or go to http://www.ussportsmen.org, to let them know the bill will lead to the collapse of hunting and wildlife conservation in the state.
