Last weeks South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC) meeting offered some welcome relief for fish, fishermen, and consumers while some attacks on our individual liberty, God-given freedom, and Constitutional Rights continued. I listened to parts of the meetings live webinar and stayed in contact with the council members representing North Carolina. Here is a brief summary of the highlights and low points.
The council increased our Vermilion Snapper (VS) quota by over 200,000 pounds based on an updated stock assessment that shows the stock is not overfished or undergoing overfishing. That increase in quota allowed the five month recreational VS closure to be removed. The assessments down side is that it looks like this is the maximum quota the council will ever allow and they even plan to reduce it by about 100,000 pounds over the next few years for some unexplained reason.
Public comments helped convince council members to begin the process of properly managing commercial quotas for VS, Black Sea Bass, and Gag Grouper with appropriate possession limits that will help avoid prolonged closures and reduce Regulatory Discards. The council is also looking at aligning opening dates for multiple species so almost everything is legal to keep at the same time to reduce Regulatory Discards. These two common sense solutions will help fishermen feed many more people as we are no longer forced to discard tons of seafood during multiple extended closures.
Public comments played a key role in convincing the council to allow for-hire crews on charter boats to keep their bag limit of snapper/grouper species for personal consumption. The council is listening to us on some issues while appearing to close their eyes, ears, hearts, and minds to comments on other issues they seem hell-bent on advancing. There is a level of support for or opposition to ANY issue that can convince our public servants to do what we ask of them. Some issues just require more concerned citizens to get involved than others.
The counc