<DOC>
[105th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:41073.wais]
NWR MAINTENANCE BACKLOG AND FISH INTERRELATIONSHIP
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OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES CONSERVATION, WILDLIFE AND OCEANS
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
on
Maintenance Backlog at National Wildlife Refuges and the
Interrelationship of Bluefish, Striped Bass, and Forage Fish
__________
APRIL 21, 1997--MANAHAWKIN, NJ
__________
Serial No. 105-14
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
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COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana GEORGE MILLER, California
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
ELTON GALLEGLY, California BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland Samoa
KEN CALVERT, California NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
RICHARD W. POMBO, California SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
LINDA SMITH, Washington CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Rico
Carolina MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona SAM FARR, California
JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon ADAM SMITH, Washington
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
KEVIN BRADY, Texas CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin
RICK HILL, Montana Islands
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado RON KIND, Wisconsin
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho
Lloyd A. Jones, Chief of Staff
Elizabeth Megginson, Chief Counsel
Christine Kennedy, Chief Clerk/Administrator
John Lawrence, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans
Jim Saxton, New Jersey, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Carolina SAM FARR, California
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho
Harry Burroughs, Staff Director
John Rayfield, Legislative Staff
Christopher Stearns, Democratic Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held April 21, 1997...................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Saxton, Hon. Jim, a U.S. Representative from New Jersey; and
Chairman, Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife
and Oceans................................................. 2
Statement of Witnesses:
Able, Kenneth, Rutgers University Marine Field Station....... 34
Prepared statement....................................... 88
Atzert, Steve, Manager, Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.... 4
Bergmann, Charles, Lund's Fishery, Inc., Cape May, NJ........ 36
Prepared statement....................................... 110
Bittner, Frank C., President, New Jersey State Federation of
Sportsmen's Clubs (prepared statement)..................... 78
Cross, Jeffrey, Director, Sandy Hook Marine Research
Laboratory, National Marine Fisheries Service.............. 6
DeCamp, William, Jr., President, Save Barnegat Bay, Ocean
County Izaak Walton League................................. 26
Prepared statement....................................... 73
Donofrio, James A., Executive Director, Recreational Fishing
Alliance................................................... 40
Prepared statement....................................... 106
Dunnigan, John H., Director, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries
Commission................................................. 32
Prepared statement....................................... 79
Fote, Thomas P., Legislative Chairman, New Jersey Coast
Anglers' Association....................................... 37
Prepared statement....................................... 101
Koons, Joan, President, Board of Trustees, Alliance for A
Living Ocean............................................... 17
McCloy, Thomas W., Administrator, New Jersey Marine Fisheries
Administration............................................. 18
Rogers, John, Acting Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, Department of the Interior........................ 4
Prepared statement....................................... 52
Schaefer, Richard, Director, Office of Intergovernmental and
Recreational Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service,
Department of Commerce..................................... 6
Prepared statement....................................... 62
Shinn, Robert, Commissioner, New Jersey Department of
Environmental Protection................................... 18
Streeter, Robert, Assistant Director for Refuges and
Wildlife, USFWS............................................ 4
NWR MAINTENANCE BACKLOG AND FISH INTERRELATIONSHIP
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MONDAY, APRIL 21, 1997
U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on
Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans,
Committee on Resources,
Manahawkin, NJ.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. at
Mill Creek Community Center, 1199 Mill Creek Road, Manahawkin,
New Jersey, Hon. Jim Saxton (Chairman of the Subcommittee)
presiding.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you, everybody, for being here and thank
you, especially, for being here on time so that we can begin
this hearing on two subjects that are extremely important to
all of us. The refuge operations and maintenance backlog will
be part of this hearing, which obviously relates directly to
the Forsythe Refuge and many other wildlife refuges around the
country. We will also discuss the interrelationship among
bluefish, striped bass, and forage fish, which is an ongoing
topic of concern.
Before we begin to discuss the wildlife refuge issue and
the striped bass, bluefish, forage fish issue, we have with us
this morning a good friend of mine, Mr. John Rogers, who is the
acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and with
him is Will Goebel, G-O-E-B-E-L, who is a wildlife artist and
some of his art was chosen last year for the Federal wildlife
stamp.
And John, let me just turn this over to you for just a
moment, Mr. Director, and you have a presentation to make, I
believe.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As you
indicated, we do have a very important presentation to make
this morning.
The Fish and Wildlife Service for about six months has been
looking for an appropriate opportunity to present you with a
token of our appreciation for your ongoing interest in the Fish
and Wildlife Service and National Wildlife Refuge issues.
What we have is a copy of Will Goebel's winning duck stamp
art from last year as a token of our appreciation. It is, of
course, a wonderful piece of art, but it symbolizes both your
district as well as the National Wildlife Refuge system. So
it's a pair of surf scooters and the background is the historic
Barnegat Light. It is the only duck stamp depiction that has
contained any structures, certainly the only one to ever
contain a historic structure. It is very important because one
knows--everyone knows that hunters must have a duck stamp with
them when they're waterfowl hunting, and the proceeds from this
stamp go to purchase lands for the National Wildlife Refuge
Systems, so it very nicely ties together both art and the
wildlife world. And on behalf of the Fish and Wildlife Service
I would like to present this to you.
Will Goebel, the artist.
Mr. Saxton. Will, welcome back to New Jersey. This is quite
an honor for the people of the third congressional district,
which includes, of course, Barnegat Light and Barnegat Bay.
Those of you who have visited my office know that when you come
in the front door you see a number of wildlife prints,
particularly waterfowl prints, from a local organization, the
Barnegat Bay Museum folks from Tuckerton, and if you wander on
into my inner office you'll find another wall covered with
wildlife waterfowl prints, and so this will make a great
addition to the office of the third congressional district in
Washington, D.C.
So John, we thank you, and, Will, congratulations to you on
your art having been selected. This is a great picture of sea
ducks and Barnegat Lighthouse, and the print will be most
appreciated by those who visit the office, 339 Cannon Building,
incidentally, if anybody wishes to come and visit. So Will,
thank you very much for your participation.
All right, on a more official note, let me welcome all of
you here today. The Subcommittees on Fisheries Conservation,
Wildlife and Oceans will now officially come to order.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JIM SAXTON, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
NEW JERSEY; AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES
CONSERVATION, WILDLIFE AND OCEANS
Mr. Saxton. We are meeting today to discuss two issues of
great importance. The first issue is the operation and
maintenance backlog in the National Wildlife Refuge System, and
of course, we chose this area for a number of reasons, not the
least of which is that the wildlife refuge is located within
yards of here, and it, obviously, was named for my predecessor
in Congress.
The Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge was created
in 1984 by Public Law 98-293. The act consolidated the Barnegat
and Brigantine National Wildlife Refuges into a single refuge.
Barnegat was created in 1967 and Brigantine in 1939. The Cape
May National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1989.
In 1995 the Forsythe and Cape May Refuges were placed under
a unified management. These refuges are referred to
collectively as the Jersey Coast Refuges. They were established
to protect migratory birds, to protect and conserve wetlands,
and for the conservation and protection of wildlife resources.
This might be a good point for me to pause and to just say
that, obviously, we are protective in the strictest sense of
the word of the Wildlife Refuge System and continue to try to
find ways to enhance it, both by enlarging it, and by acquiring
uplands to protect the wetlands that are currently such an
important part of the refuge system here in New Jersey.
I have here a map, which I picked up a week ago today, when
I visited for half a day, I guess, the wildlife refuge here,
which is known as the Forsythe Refuge, and as John helps me
hold this up, you can see what I'm sure look like little spots
to you in the audience, but they are actually migratory birds,
and each of these mi-
gratory birds indicates the location of a wildlife refuge
someplace in our country.
We're way up here in the north, and as you can see, as we
move across the country, there are many refuges which the
Federal Government finances for two basic purposes. One, of
course, is for the benefit of wildlife. In case of the wildlife
refuge, there are many species which habitate the area, but
also, of equal importance, we also have a purpose of the
wildlife, although it is called a secondary purpose, and that
is for historic human use of the areas, and we believe, I
believe in particular, that that is extremely important,
because while it's important to have places for wildlife to
live and to do well, it is equally important for us to be able
to study that wildlife and to conduct historic uses of fishing
and crabbing and hunting and other uses that are related.
So we, generally, across the country, set aside 60 percent
of the refuges strictly for use by wildlife and 40 percent for
use by human beings as well as wildlife. And I think that's
very important to point out as we move forward.
The Forsythe Refuge currently contains 42,000 acres and has
an approved land acquisition boundary of 60,000. Cape May
contains 8,300 acres with an approved land acquisition boundary
of 17,000 acres. Slightly more than $50 million has been spent
to acquire property at the refuges. The administration's fiscal
year 1998 budget requests $2 million for Forsythe and $3
million for Cape May land acquisition from the Land and Water
Conservation Fund.
This is particularly important, and you'll hear me talk
about this very often. The 42,000 acres which we currently have
is extremely important. It includes some uplands, but a limited
amount. I think it is vitally important. I believe that unless
we acquire uplands which otherwise could be developed someday,
that the very existence, as we know it, of the Forsythe Refuge
and other refuges is at least in question and possibly
threatened.
Throughout the nation, and this is important, there is a
backlog of operations and maintenance for refuges that is, to
me, quite alarming. I am looking forward to hearing from our
witnesses about specific problems throughout the refuge system
and most particularly in the Forsythe Refuge. And incidentally,
this is the second in a series of five hearings which we are
holding in different parts of the country.
I am also pleased to note that the Resources Committee is
seeking an increase of nearly $9 million above the
administration's request for refuge operation and maintenance.
The second issue that we'll deal with, partly during the
first panel, but then more completely later in the hearing, is
the interrelationship among bluefish, striped bass, and forage
fish. Bluefish and striped bass are migratory species of fish
that are common along the U.S. east coast. Both are highly
prized by anglers and for their fighting abilities, and both
support commercial fisheries. Both species have also a long
history of major population swings. Bluefish and striped bass
require similar habitat and food supplies, and many of their
food sources, including menhaden and blue crabs, support
important commercial fisheries themselves. Many fishermen and
fisheries scientists believe that the interaction of all these
species is very important in their population trends and that
these interactions are not taken into account in the current
management policies.
The purpose of the hearing is to examine the
interrelationships between these important species, discuss the
effectiveness of present single-species management plans in
light of these interactions, and determine what further study
will be required to address these issues.
Let me just take care of one housekeeping chore. Over the
past twelve years that I've served in Congress, I have received
many requests by constituents of the Third District and other
districts in the southern part of the State to come in and talk
about wildlife-related issues. And without fail, I believe I
have tried to do so, both in my office and in public meetings
and hearings around the district.
Today is different. Today, while the public is invited to
be here, we have tried to assemble a series of witnesses who
deal with these issues in their professions on an ongoing
basis. The purpose of today's hearing, therefore, is to hear
from these witnesses, and while we would like to hear from
members of the public today, we are able to do so only in
writing, because of time constraints. If there are, at the same
time, members of the public who feel a burning desire to help
us with information, I will be more than happy to schedule
additional meetings in the very near future.
Also, let me just say that we are being broadcast live on
radio, so, witnesses, I just wanted to mention that, so that
you are all aware of it.
Let me move now to our first panel of witnesses, Mr. John
Rogers, the acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, which, of course, is housed within the Department of
Interior. John will discuss with us, in his opening statement,
the issues involving the Forsythe and other refuges around the
country and the maintenance backlog. And also on the first
panel, and this is the only panel that is divided between the
two issues, is Mr. Richard Schaefer, the Chief of the Office of
Intergovernmental and Recreational Fisheries, National Marine
Fisheries Service, which is located, not in the Department of
Interior, but the Department of Commerce.
I would also just like to mention that there is a little
light panel with a red, yellow and green light. We have put
that there for kind of a guideline only. If you run over into
the red light district please try to wrap your comments up when
the red light comes on. However, if you run over, that's all
well and good.
So John, thank you for being here. Why don't you begin at
this point with your discussion of your perspective on the
refuge issues that we are here to discuss this morning.
STATEMENTS OF JOHN ROGERS, ACTING DIRECTOR, U.S. FISH AND
WILDLIFE SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; ACCOMPANIED BY
ROBERT STREETER, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR REFUGES AND WILDLIFE,
AND STEVE ATZERT, MANAGER, FORSYTHE NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
inviting us to be here today to discuss the maintenance backlog
facing the Fish and Wildlife Service's National Wildlife Refuge
System.
I'm accompanied by Dr. Robert Streeter, Assistant Director
for Refuges and Wildlife, and Mr. Steve Atzert, manager of the
Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.
For nearly a century the National Wildlife Refuge System
has been one of America's greatest treasures. From a single
island off the coast of Florida set aside by Theodore Roosevelt
in 1903, the system has grown to 509 refuges, covering more
than 92 million acres. It is the world's largest system of land
set aside exclusively for wildlife conservation. The very
existence of the system and the 30 million people who visit it
each year is a reflection of the deep love and respect
Americans have for wild creatures and wild places.
Any system of lands, of course, though requires
maintenance, and the National Wildlife Refuge System is no
exception. If we want to maintain and enhance biological
resources, while at the same time accommodating the public's
growing appetite for wildlife-dependent recreation, we must be
willing to make an investment in these lands and the facilities
on them.
Unfortunately, over the years we have not committed the
necessary financial resources to properly maintain the refuge
system, and we are reaping the consequences of those actions
today. We have more than $4.5 billion in assets on national
wildlife refuges, including thousands of water management
facilities, 2,700 miles of dikes, 6,500 miles of roads, and
more than 1,000 buildings.
Many of these facilities are in poor condition because of a
long history of limited funding for maintenance, as the
Department of Interior's Inspector General pointed out in its
1992 audit. As a result, we currently have a maintenance
backlog of $505 million.
The Service's 2,200 refuge employees are as dedicated a
group of people as you will find in the Federal Government, but
sometimes their dedication needs an assist from a backhoe.
Several private industry studies indicate that annual
maintenance reinvestment rates, ranging from 1.5 to 4 percent
of the value of the capital assets, is necessary to maintain
those assets.
This would indicate a minimum amount of $67.5 million
should be applied annually to arrest the growth rate of
maintenance backlogs. The fiscal year 1998 funding request for
this routine maintenance is $31.7 million.
In addition to increases in its budgets for annual
operational maintenance, substantial increases are needed
disbursed over a reasonable period to address the backlog
itself. The fiscal year 1998 budget request for this is $33.8
million, $10 million above fiscal '97 as a start in addressing
these needs.
Deferring maintenance and allowing backlogs to accumulate
costs the taxpayer more in the long run. Facilities that are
not maintained properly deteriorate faster and generally use
more energy than properly maintained ones. They need to be
replaced long before they would have to be if they were
maintained properly. To use an analogy, it's like not changing
the oil in your car. Saves a little money in the short run, but
costs a great deal in the long run.
Likewise, as these facilities deteriorate the cost of
repairing and replacing them increases. More important,
delaying maintenance hinders our refuge manager's ability to
manage wildlife for the ben-
efit of all Americans, and it reduces our ability to open
refuges to wildlife-dependent recreation.
The 1992 departmental audit, I mentioned a minute ago,
found that because of budget shortfalls the service was not
maintaining refuges in a manner that would effectively enhance
and protect wildlife habitat or provide a safe and aesthetic
experience for visitors.
Americans spend tens of billions of dollars each year on
wildlife-dependent recreation supporting hundreds of thousands
of jobs. Many communities around wildlife refuges depend on
visitors' dollars to bolster their economies. The gradual
deterioration caused by poor maintenance of refuge facilities
ultimately will be felt by these communities.
We realize that this is an era of tight budgets, but we are
doing what we can to improve the way we use the funds we do
have. For example, we are developing comprehensive management
plans for our refuges. These plans define objectives, document
the status of resources, and provide a blueprint for refuge
management. The 1998 budget request includes an increase of
just under $2 million to allow the completion or initiation of
14 new plans, covering 29 refuges, including one for the
Forsythe Refuge that Mr. Atzert manages.
The ingenuity, energy, and enthusiasm of our employees have
carried us far, but the reality is that human capability must
be matched with material, with equipment, and with horsepower.
Our employees work hard to manage a natural national treasure
that is cherished by millions of Americans, and they need and
deserve the funds to do the job right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to appear this
morning. I'd be happy to answer any questions, and if I can't,
I know I've got plenty of able help.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rogers may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mr. Saxton. Thank you, John. I'm tempted to ask questions
at this point, but I think what we'll do is follow standard
procedure and move over to hear from Dick Schaefer. Dick, thank
you for being here this morning. You may proceed.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD SCHAEFER, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
INTERGOVERNMENTAL AND RECREATIONAL FISHERIES, NATIONAL MARINE
FISHERIES SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, ACCOMPANIED BY
JEFFREY CROSS, DIRECTOR, SANDY HOOK MARINE RESEARCH LABORATORY,
NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE
Mr. Schaefer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this
opportunity to appear before you and your committee this
morning to address the public interest in possible stock
interactions between bluefish and striped bass, and other
related concerns.
At this time, I would also like to introduce Dr. Jeffrey
Cross, who sits on my left, who is the Director of the Sandy
Hook Marine Research Laboratory of the National Marine
Fisheries Service. Dr. Cross is accompanying me because of his
scientific expertise in several of the areas intended to be
addressed by your hearing.
Because of limited time, I will keep my remarks very brief
and will simply summarize much of what is already contained in
my written testimony which you have in your possession. And, in
that regard, Mr. Chairman, I would request that you allow my
written testimony to be entered into the public record?
Mr. Saxton. Without objection.
Mr. Schaefer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Anecdotal assertions about alternating cycles of striped
bass and bluefish abundance can be found in the popular
literature well back into the last century. Interest in this
issue, then, is hardly anything new. However, there exists
little hard quantitative data to validate these assertions, and
even less scientific evidence that would suggest cause and
effect with respect to these anecdotal observations.
Therefore, the issue remains open to initiate scientific
inquiry that might shed some light on this matter. In that
regard, we are pleased that, through your efforts and that of
your Committee, Congress has seen fit to provide $785,000 to
the National Marine Fisheries Service in its fiscal '97 budget
to look further into the matter of striped bass/bluefish
interactions.
Further, it is my understanding that our Northeast
Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts is
currently in the process of transferring much of that
appropriation to Rutgers University under a cooperative
agreement to carry out a considerable portion of those initial
investigations.
I might add, Mr. Chairman, that I can't think of a more
outstanding academic institution to assist in carrying out such
studies. Of course, simply because I'm a native of New Jersey
and an alumnus of the University, I wouldn't want you to think
my view is biased in any particular way. But oh, if they could
only play football and basketball, too.
On the matter of striped bass and bluefish foraging, and
the abundance and availability of forage fishes, I also have
little to offer. Both species are primarily sight feeders and
feeders of opportunity. That is, they will eat just about
anything that is easily available to them when they are hungry.
Earlier in my career, when I was working as a fisheries
scientist, I conducted feeding habit studies on both whiting
off New Jersey, and on striped bass along the south shore of
Long Island, New York. I found that whiting fed primarily on
themselves; that is, they are cannibalistic. With respect to
striped bass, I found that they feed primarily on very small
crustaceans in the spring and on a wide variety of fin fishes
in the fall.
As far as bluefish are concerned, my own anecdotal
observations are that one should not dangle any valued body
parts in the water when that species is in a feeding frenzy. It
is documented, for example, that, on occasion, some people in
Florida have been bitten by bluefish while bathing in the
Atlantic surf.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I would conclude my opening
remarks and stand ready to answer any questions you might have
for me. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schaefer may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much. What I'd like to do is to
go back to subject one, if I may, and this will not be the
pattern of the hearing, incidentally. Once we finish with these
witnesses, we will move on to others who are expert, and we
will divide the subjects into two separate panels. But let me
ask John, the popular notion, at least in many public sectors,
when it comes to wildlife refuge management, is that there is
42,000 acres in terms of the Forsythe Refuge, and that it is
land, that it was acquired, and it's wetlands, and it's out
there, and somehow it takes care of itself.
Would you or one of the folks who are with you explain in
some detail the activities that the Fish and Wildlife Service
undertakes in order to keep a refuge in good operative
condition and how it involves the public at the same time?
Mr. Rogers. Yes, Mr. Chairman, we can, I'm sure, engage in
considerable discussion on this issue. A piece of land that
serves as habitat for wildlife, back in historic times, may
have been left alone because of the entire ecosystem of which
it was a part had natural--was naturally and normally
functioning. Today, unfortunately, national wildlife refuges
are islands, many times in a sea of agriculture, often in a sea
of urban environment. At any rate, they're parts of
fundamentally changed systems. Thus, the Fish and Wildlife
Service or any manager of wildlands, must continually and, at
their own hands, mimic or duplicate or otherwise encourage
natural processes.
Water regimes are one of the most important that comes to
mind. We have, as I mentioned earlier, thousands of water
control structures that attempt to create impoundments where
impoundments, natural lakes, have been destroyed that mimic
tidal flow in other areas so that the marine creatures,
estuarine creatures can have access to freshwater.
We do a lot of prescribed burns in areas where--that were
normally subject to natural fires, and with our country's
history of fire suppression, natural fire regimes have been
altered. One of the biggest and most--and least known impacts
on wild systems is the impact of exotics. Exotic plants gobble
up thousands of acres per year on our national wildlife refuge
system, and they must be sometimes individually controlled, and
in other areas we have to both create, develop, and utilize,
either biological controls or other controls of noxious
invasive plant species, as well as animal species in some
areas.
So then to make the areas accessible and safely accessible
to the public, we must maintain road and trail systems, visitor
centers, other use facilities which require an extensive
infrastructure to do what we think is a very important job, and
that is, make these areas available when and where compatible
with the wildlife mission to the American public.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you. One of the primary reasons that
we're here today is to use the Forsythe as an example so that
we can highlight for others who don't, perhaps, focus on these
issues as closely as we do, the importance of proper
management.
Now, as I understand it, and please feel free to answer
this in any way you choose, the Forsythe Refuge, many years
ago, was a natural estuarine system, and that many of the
activities that go on that benefit wildlife today are efforts
and the expenditure of funds that try to duplicate as much as
humanly possible an estuarine system similar to the one that
was there many years ago, so that particularly migratory birds
will have an atmosphere in which they can, not only survive,
but propagate and feel like they are truly at home in a system
like the one that used to be here.
Would you, or one of the people who are with you, explain
what it is that we do and how difficult it is?
Mr. Rogers. I'd be happy to do that, Mr. Chairman. It's
kind of like the TV lawyer shows have asked and answered. You
came very close to what is necessary, and my best answer is to
defer to the expertise of Mr. Atzert.
Mr. Saxton. We're going to hear from Steve Atzert, who is
the refuge manager at Forsythe.
Mr. Atzert. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Is this the appropriate--OK.
Good.
First, I'd like to talk a little bit about what's happened
to a lot of our coastal streams along the Jersey shore in the
last 50 years. We've had a lot of lagoon developments. Where
previously the streams would sort of meander through a tidal
marsh, allowing freshwater and brackish salt water to mix
together and create a very good environment with lots of
flushing to provide food coming in and then flushing materials
out for fish to use back that might be in the deeper waters,
over the years these lagoon impoundments have basically
destroyed a lot of these tidal exchange areas. They've created
many deep areas, deep and shallow areas, filled in other areas,
so that we do not have a lot of the brackish water exchange,
interchange areas that we used to have.
That's one of the reasons that we have the Brigantine
impoundments and why they're so important to maintain, is that
a lot of these shallow streams just don't exist anymore.
Mr. Saxton. Now, impoundments are areas that have been
walled off through the use of levies and dikes and----
Mr. Atzert. Right, it's a fancy name for an artificial
lake.
Mr. Saxton. For an artificial lake. Now, that's necessary
and--as I understand it, because it used to be, as you just
described, that there were--we'll disregard that for the
question and answer period. For those who can't see, we have
this red light system that goes on, and we've been talking
about this issue for five minutes, but we're going to go on
anyway.
Historically, salt water and freshwater merge in an
estuarine system. And when that happens the tide comes in, and
the salt water floods an area, and the tide goes out, and
freshwater returns, and as the water level goes up and down
there are certain effects that that causes twice a day.
Mr. Atzert. Correct.
Mr. Saxton. Can you describe that?
Mr. Atzert. All right, well, one of the most important
things about salt marshes, that they are about the most
productive ecosystem, ecocommunity in the world. They put your
Iowa corn fields to shame. There's a lot of primary production
going on there.
When the tide comes up, some of the materials will get
suspended and then get flushed out with outgoing tide, and it
could be little shrimps, could be, you know, little copepods.
The young bluefish out in the bays will be eating those things
up, the her-
rings. It's like having a slug of food coming out of the marsh
twice a day.
You need the spartina marshes to produce that. You know,
once you divide it up into a lagoon development you have lost
that. So that's one reason that the tidal marshes are so
important. They're very, very productive, and it's like a twice
daily slug of food going out to the back bays.
Mr. Saxton. Now, the Forsythe was established in 1939, and
we've been enlarging it off and on ever since. My understanding
is that that is primarily because the Forsythe has become a
kind of a haven which migratory waterfowl use as a place to
stop and eat on their way north, and then again on their way
south in the fall; is that correct?
Mr. Atzert. That's correct, and the impoundment at
Brigantine is one of the biggest attractors--attractions that
we have. We'll have 30,000 snow geese in there in the fall.
Very important for them. They'll stay usually untill about the
middle of December and then fly farther south. During that time
they are utilizing the spartina grasses that are outside of the
impoundment, but they do love to use the freshwater environment
or the brackish water environments in the east pool and the
west pool for loafing areas.
Mr. Saxton. So the area known to you as impoundments and to
those of us who are visitors of the area, we can call the
impoundments, too, but to where I go to see a lot of pretty
birds, those areas actually are not there just so people can
drive their cars out those dikes and those levies. They're
there so that wildlife, food source, and other habitat aspects
can be enhanced and protected.
Mr. Atzert. Absolutely. That was the original reason. It's
just that when you build a dike, and they have to be fairly
substantial out there, you have a place to put a road, not only
for maintenance use but for people to get out and actually see
what we are doing on their behalf.
Mr. Saxton. Now, Acting Director Rogers testified that our
national maintenance backlog is over a half a billion dollars,
$505 million to be precise. And I suspect that there are some
projects at the Forsythe which you would think could be
undertaken if you had more resources.
Mr. Atzert. You're correct on that, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Saxton. And some of those activities that you could
undertake would be fairly important to maintain the system that
we have just very carefully tried to describe.
Would you like to tell us about some of those projects?
Mr. Atzert. Certainly.
As you are aware, we are finishing off our rehabilitation
of the west impoundment and the east impoundment, hopefully
this year. And when that is completed we're going to go and--
well, I shouldn't say we're going to--our next highest priority
is to re-slope the north dike, which is an integral part of the
west impoundment area and also an integral part of our
automotive tour route that is used by almost, I think, about
170,000 people each year.
What has happened over the years is that the marshes to the
north of the impoundment have received substantial use by the
snow geese and have created mud flats which are excellent
habitat type for the shore birds when they come through in the
spring, but at the same time, it does create an area where
waves can be kicked up by the wind, and over the years the
water erosion has been gnawing away at the north dike.
We now have cut banks. The dikes are usually supposed to be
sloped at a three to one slope. We now have a little beach and
then a--maybe a two- or three-foot vertical drop in some areas.
Mr. Saxton. Now, in this case Mother Nature has given us an
abundance of snow geese, and the snow geese have come through
the area, and they have transformed what was previously, I
guess you could call it, a naturally vegetated breakwater and
have transformed it into a mud flat, which is fine, because
that's part of Mother Nature's process as well. But the north
dike of the impoundments has now become the breakwater and is
washing away.
Mr. Atzert. Correct. That's absolutely correct.
Mr. Saxton. And how much money is needed for this project?
Mr. Atzert. We estimate about $200,000.
Mr. Saxton. $200,000, and that would be used for fill known
as rip-rap?
Mr. Atzert. Well, we would probably use our own--try to get
one of our own excavators to re-slope the dike, pulling the
trail in from the former borrow pit or borrow ditch that was
along the north slope, and then come back and set some rip-rap,
which is stone, probably one- to two-foot size rip-rap down to
the base to soak up the wave action.
Mr. Saxton. And if this is not accomplished then someday,
maybe not too far into the future, the north dike could break
through.
Mr. Atzert. Correct, and then we have to, you know, fix the
break, which is first of all additional moneys. Second of all
we would use our ability to manage the water in the west
impoundment for the sake of, let's say, spring migratory shore
birds coming through and then in the fall for the ducks coming
through.
What we try to do is we'll be using one side of the west
impoundment as a reservoir and the other side as a moist soil
unit to stimulate marsh vegetation to grow, and as the summer
proceeds, this vegetation would grow higher and higher, and we
would flood it. Then in September, just before the ducks come
back, so that they could swim around and use the pantry; if the
area's not flooded the ducks can't use it.
Mr. Saxton. Now, getting away from the north dike for just
a moment, without being specific with everything you need to
do, in terms of these kinds of projects, is the backlog of work
that needs to be done on these kinds of projects which--and the
activities which you undertake to keep the refuge operable and
efficient, are there other projects? And if so, what are the
nature of them, and if you could just describe that briefly.
Mr. Atzert. One that would be high on our list would be to
rehabilitate the dike at Lilly Lake. That dike was built back
in the '20's. About five to seven years ago we purchased the
area. That's now our responsibility. It's the only freshwater
fishing opportunity on the refuge. And also that dike would
hold back water that we could use to manage the main
impoundments at Brigantine.
Another thing that we need to be dealing with is the office
facility that we have at the Barnegat unit. We're in a trailer.
Trailers are designed for temporary facilities. Hopefully, the
National Wildlife Refuge at the Barnegat Division is going to
be here in perpetuity. Trailers are only good for so long. They
start to fall apart. Very high maintenance on those.
We'd like to get around to building a modular-type office
for our office up here at the Barnegat Division. Cape May has
no storage facilities whatsoever right now, and if you're going
to start doing habitat management, you need equipment. To
further the life of the equipment it's good to have it under
cover. Also, it prevents people from borrowing things from
Uncle that they like. And that has happened on occasions.
The maintenance building down there, a storage facility
down there, we figure, would be over $200,000.
So these are the kinds of things we're talking about.
Mr. Saxton. Well, I look forward to working through these
issues with you, as you know, and we'll be talking about them
more. I just thought it was important to get some of those
things on the record, because the record that we take back to
Washington with us will be shared with other Members of
Congress.
John, Mr. Rogers, let me return to you to just explore one
other issue. As you may have heard me say in the past, I
believe that public support for the refuge system is essential.
That goes without saying.
So to the extent that we can involve members of the public
in activities on refuges like the Forsythe, public support will
be enhanced.
I understand that there are something in the neighborhood
of 98,000 birders who visit this refuge each year and
contribute over $4 million to the local economy. And I also
know--and incidentally, if it sounds like I know some of the
answers to these questions before I ask them, it's only because
I spent last Monday with Tracy Castleman down at the refuge
looking at these, looking at some of these issues.
I know that, with regard to this question, you are planning
to enhance nature trails, re-open some nature trails, and
perhaps there are a number of other things that you are doing
or planning to do, John, to enhance public participation at
this refuge and other refuges around the country.
The question is two-part. On a national level, what are we
doing with regard to this subject, and, specifically, at the
Forsythe, what are we doing?
Mr. Rogers. On a national level, you correctly state that
both public participation, public enjoyment, and public
involvement in the refuge are critical, both for the support of
the refuge and also for the education of the people who use the
refuges.
Public participation is a critical involvement component of
the comprehensive planning process, that is, where we
principally and officially derive the input of the public into
where we should be going with management and development of a
particular refuge.
Second, public use of the refuge system is paramount where
it is--while dependent on the wildlife resources existing on
that refuge and where it is compatible with the purposes for
which the refuge was established.
Too frequently our public use ability is impaired because
of the lack of funding for developing the kinds of facilities
you spoke briefly about, that is, trail systems, boardwalks,
road access--safe road access, and the like. So the public is a
critical component of the refuge system, first through the
comprehensive planning process and our ongoing interaction with
the public as neighbors, and second, because the refuges are
there. Once they are fulfilling their wildlife missions,
they're there for the public to use and enjoy where it is
dependent and compatible with the wildlife mission.
For the specifics on Forsythe, I defer, once again, to
Steve.
Mr. Atzert. Talking about public use. Let me talk about
public use first.
We are currently working on opening a trail at the Reedy
Creek unit of the Barnegat Division up in Brick Township. We'd
like to get that done. I'm looking at Tracy--June 10?
Mr. Castleman. June 7.
Mr. Atzert. We're looking to dedicate that trail on June
7th of this year. Something else we're working on right now is
a partnership with people around Barnegat. Allison Banks, our
Barnegat Division Manager, has been working with two citizens
in Barnegat as well as with the township. The township is
interested in putting in a fitness trail, and we will be
putting up a observation platform at the Barnegat impoundments
so that people can stop on their walk around the fitness trail
and observe nature up close.
We are currently working with a group in Cape May County
that's interested in putting in a trail through the Cedar Swamp
Division. The trail location is also a priority for the State
trail system.
They're trying to put together a trail from Cape May all
the way up to Manumuskin in Cumberland County. And this two-
mile stretch would be part of that. So we're working with
townships of Dennis, Borough of Woodbine and Middle Township on
that particular trail, and hopefully we'll be getting the
county involved as well.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you. Do you subscribe to the National
Guidelines of 60 percent of the refuge being used for wildlife
only and 40 percent being used for other historic human uses?
Mr. Atzert. Well, that's more than a guideline. That's one
of our--one of the laws, and I believe it requires that we not
open more than 40 percent of an area to migratory game bird
hunting unless the Secretary of the Interior determines that
opening up a greater area would be beneficial to the refuge and
to the species involved.
Mr. Saxton. And did you have a new hunting program last
year involving non-migratory Canada geese?
Mr. Atzert. Yes, we did. This past January and February,
during the States resident Canada goose season, we opened up
the impoundment at Brigantine for the first time ever to
controlled hunt, and we did that five Wednesday mornings, and
the idea was to give people an opportunity to get--to shoot
those geese.
We do have a problem in this State with resident geese. We
did not do it every day. The idea was to shoot them one day and
then let them sort of settle back in, and then come back the
following week. We also worked with some of the local golf
courses to sort of coordinate efforts to reduce the population
in the area.
Mr. Saxton. Well, thank you. I think that last question may
have been a difficult one for you to answer for a variety of
reasons, but Commissioner Shinn, who is also here, who will be
the lead witness on the next panel, and I know full well of the
impact of the non-migratory geese and the difficult issues that
they have brought to us over the last decade or so.
John, with your permission, let me address a question to
Bob Streeter, if I may.
As you know, the practice of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, relative to acquisition of refuge property, has
historically been to acquire additional property through
whatever funding mechanisms we have from time to time, and upon
acquisition those lands were immediately closed to all historic
human uses until a management plan was adopted.
I understand that there has recently been some change in
that policy. Can you explain what the new policy is?
Mr. Streeter. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I'd be happy to.
The past policy was, basically, any new lands added to the
refuge system would be closed until we could do a compatibility
determination process, and then they would be open by
regulation.
We are now looking at another way of going about it, which
we think is a lot more neighbor friendly. The policy that was
implemented, first of all, through an executive order that was
signed last year by the President basically says, as we move to
acquire new lands, before we acquire them, we will make a
determination of which of the existing uses can be continued
on, at least, an interim basis after we would acquire those
lands. So that the public involved, the public or the
neighbors, know what our plans are immediately after acquiring
that land, and then, as we move through the comprehensive
planning process that John talked about that we hope to have
completed if we get our '98 budget, we hope to have completed
over the next eight years, there will be full public
involvement then as we do the comprehensive planning in a
longer term framework.
But the bottom line is we want to let our neighbors know
what those lands will be used for, what they can be used for of
the existing uses right after we purchase them, rather than
immediately closing them. And we have some examples that have
already--we've been able to implement that plan or that policy
through this last year already.
Mr. Saxton. Well, I appreciate that very much. We have had
some cases here in New Jersey, particularly the most notable of
which was Bonnet Island, which was a very visible part of the
Forsythe Refuge, which the refuge system acquired some years
ago, and immediately closed it by erecting a gate with a sign
that said, ``Keep out.'' And it was not good public relations,
and I'm very pleased that we have now changed that policy.
Go ahead.
Mr. Streeter. May I make one other comment, Mr. Chairman?
It does cause some strains with our existing refuge
operations. Steve might be able to address that better, but in
general, we have a refuge budget, we acquire new land, and we
haven't gotten addi-
tional money to manage a particular use, but we are hoping
that, through partnerships and through making adjustments, we
can modify our operations to provide that use as compatible.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much.
I'm going to turn now to Dick Schaefer. Let me thank you
all very much for your participation.
Congressman Pallone has arrived, and we want to welcome the
gentleman from the north shore area of coastal New Jersey, and
so while he's getting settled, let me ask Dick Schaefer a
couple of questions.
Dick, historically--well, first, let me say what brought
this forage fish issue to my attention as it relates to
bluefish and striped bass, and I don't know that anybody has
the answers, and that's why we've sent Ken Able to find the
answers. But essentially, we seem to see different behavior
from different--different behavior exhibited. I'm not sure if
it's different, or what is apparently different behavior.
During the decade of the '70's and early '80's the striped
bass disappeared from our coastal areas, not completely but for
as far as--as far as fishermen were concerned, they had
disappeared. And then they came back, and we all know why, or
we all think we know why that was, because of some different
human behavior, which may have been environmental in nature, in
part, and which may have been regulatory, in part, based on a
partnership of the State and Federal Government formed on that
issue.
More recently bluefish seem to have moved offshore and come
back to visit us occasionally, but by and large the biomass
seems to be offshore. And at least, the third party of this, I
guess, third issue is that forage fish, including Barnegat Bay,
its blue crabs, seem to be in shorter supply than at any time
that I can remember. And the bunker--also known as menhaden and
other forage fish species--seem to be in shorter supply.
Is that an accurate description? And if so, can you
elaborate on anything that you may have, in terms of
information, that might be helpful to us?
Mr. Schaefer. Let me try, to the best of my knowledge, Mr.
Chairman. I will admit, I certainly don't have the market
cornered on the information on this subject.
As you correctly point out, striped bass stocks have
recovered over the last ten years to a level which is as high
as that stock has ever--we've ever witnessed in human history,
and we're pleased with that for the very reasons that you
mention.
Current status of scientific information on bluefish is
that they are in a period of current decline, as you also
observe. The stock, many believe, is being overfished, but that
is not the sole reason, probably, for the decline. It's
probably synergistic with environmental effects that are poorly
understood at this time.
As I indicated in my testimony, we don't have any evidence.
I'm unaware of any evidence that would suggest any causal
effects between striped bass abundance and the current dearth,
if you will, of bluefish.
Blue crabs have relatively short life cycles, and their
levels of abundance are influenced strongly by environmental
effects. For example, I happen to have a house on the
Chesapeake Bay, and last year blue crabs were in very short
supply, as you indicate, and the early indications this year
are that the blue crab population is probably pretty healthy.
So these annual fluctuations in blue crab abundance are not
particularly unusual, but the scientists in the Chesapeake, at
least, tell us that the stock is maintaining itself at an
historically average level.
As far as menhaden are concerned, I frankly don't know much
about the current status of that fishery. Perhaps Dr. Cross can
help me out, but that fishery has gone on for years. It's
pretty dependent upon recruitment of young fish in the southern
part of the range, and by that I mean the Chesapeake Bay, North
Carolina fisheries, and as the fish age, the fisheries to the
north, New Jersey and north, are more dependent upon older age
classes. It's an in-shore fishery, occurs largely within State
waters, always has, fisheries largely pursued with purse
seines. It's almost--it's a very clean fishery in terms of what
is caught.
I used to go on menhaden boats early in my career and the
percentage of other species taken as bycatch was one percent or
less, very, very minimal. But that doesn't answer your question
directly.
The interactions between all these species, you mentioned,
as I say, is poorly understood, and I think is going to take a
lot of scientific investigation to try to validate these
observations, if you would.
Mr. Saxton. With regard to menhaden, what is your tendency
to say, with regard to the fishery currently? Is it in bad
shape, is it kind of in a normal cycle, or----
Mr. Schaefer. I'm going to ask Dr. Cross to help me on that
one. I think he would probably have more information on the
current status of the stock than I do.
Dr. Cross. Actually, I'll probably defer to the
representatives from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries
Commission, since it is responsible for looking at that
fishery, but the landings have been fairly consistent for over
the last decade.
Mr. Saxton. Are there any other species of forage fish or
species that we would generally refer to as forage fish which
are in short supply?
Dr. Cross. Some of the species that run up the rivers, like
shad, river herring, we've seen declines in their populations
but, on the other hand, some of the off-shore species, like
mackerel, herring from farther north, are at very healthy
population levels. So I guess the evidence is mixed.
Mr. Saxton. What would you say to near-shore fishermen who
have noticed that there seem to be--this is, of course,
anecdotal reports--that seem to be of very short supply of
menhaden?
Dr. Cross. I'm afraid I don't have an answer for that
question.
Mr. Saxton. Unless Congressman Pallone has any questions
for this panel, I would like to just say, at this point, that
we've got two more panels to address these two issues
separately, and so I want to thank all of you for being here
with us today, particularly those of you who came from out of
town. We've appreciated your participation, and we'll look
forward to working with you on these and other issues as we
move forward.
OK, if I may call Panel II. We are going to proceed with
Panel II. Let me just introduce the members of this panel. Mr.
Robert Shinn, who is the Commissioner of the Department of
Environmental Protection, is with us, and if you folks would
come forward and take your places at the table. Mr. Frank
Bittner, President of the New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen's
Clubs; Ms. Joan Koons, President of the Board of Trustees of a
group that we know as ALO, or Alliance for a Living Ocean; Mr.
Willie DeCamp, who is President of the Save Barnegat Bay, Ocean
County, Izaak Walton League. And we welcome all of you here. I
might point out at this point that Commissioner Shinn is here.
He just handed me a note, however, that he has a telephone
conference call which he must make, and he will rejoin us in
something in the neighborhood of 15 or 20 minutes.
So while we are waiting for him to rejoin us, we will begin
with Joan Koons, and of course, we're now switching our subject
back to the Forsythe and issues that are related to it. We are
anxious to hear from all of the members of this panel. We'll
proceed with Ms. Koons and then Willie DeCamp, and, again, the
little lights indicate a time limit; however, don't worry if
you tend to be a little bit longer than the allocated five
minutes.
Joan, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF JOAN KOONS, PRESIDENT, BOARD OF TRUSTEES, ALLIANCE
FOR A LIVING OCEAN
Ms. Koons. I thank you, Congressman Saxton and Congressman
Pallone and the Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation,
Wildlife, and Oceans, for this chance to testify.
My testimony will spotlight one acquisition that our grass
roots group holds so dear. For the last few years the Alliance
for a Living Ocean, ALO, has had the honor of being a
facilitator for the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge,
Bonnet Island Unit. Various schools and organizations, such as
Ocean Nature and Stafford Township Intermediate School, have
used this refuge as an educational site. Our volunteer guide
points out indigenous flora, fauna, and birds which stop over
as they use the major flyway on the east coast. Water quality
and how people affect it by non-point source pollution is
stressed repeatedly.
As we look across the bay to the development on Long Beach
Island we feel the need to preserve areas such as the Bonnet
Island refuge. The importance of these protected areas cannot
be overstated. However, individuals should be able to visit the
refuge to further understand their importance.
ALO has made the Bonnet Island area its spring cleanup
target. Each April volunteers clean the grass area littered
with highway debris concentrating on the pond and bay beach
area. At this point in time it is almost impossible to access
its trails. Our volunteers have brought out thousands of pounds
of debris, including old cars. Now we are ready to use it to
teach the worth of non-point source pollution control and the
necessity of preserving wetlands.
In 1996 a mitigation project was begun on Bonnet Island in
accordance with a New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection ruling. The project included a pond and the planting
of various indigenous plants. The plantings were done under the
supervision of Dr. Eugene Vivian of ACES Environmental. He
instructed an ALO volunteer on how to monitor the health of the
project and ob-
serve the wildlife. The trails were not maintained in a manner
that the volunteer could access and observe this project.
Bonnet Island is a sheltering place for flocks of herons,
glossy ibis, black ducks, brants, tree sparrows, juncos, red-
winged blackbirds, harriers, sharp-shinned hawks, yellow-rumped
warblers, white egrets, et cetera. The pond area shows evidence
of raccoon, red fox, and deer footprints.
In August, 1997, ALO will be completing its tenth year. We
look forward to making the education of residents and visitors
alike to our barrier island area a priority. We hope to factor
in the use of Bonnet Island as an educational laboratory.
However, we are met with frustration when the land is there and
our facilitators cannot access it properly because the
designated pathways are not maintained. We want to be partners.
We want to help the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; however, we
do not have extensive funding that would make this possible. We
are asking the Federal Government to re-evaluate the
appropriation of adequate funds for proper maintenance of
refuge properties. We have the greatest respect for the
management staff in our area and desire to work fully with
them.
ALO is proud to be a facilitator of this property. We have
come to love and understand its value to the ecosystem. The
Alliance for a Living Ocean is committed to this important
partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Mr. Saxton. Joan, thank you very much. If I may just
postpone my questions for you for just a minute. Commissioner
Shinn is with us, and he's got an extremely busy schedule, and
he's been here for over an hour already, and I know that he has
got other things that he needs to do, so, Willie, with your
permission, if we may go to Commissioner Shinn at this point to
hear his testimony, and--what is your timeframe period this
morning?
Mr. Shinn. I'm fine for the next----
Mr. Saxton. OK. OK. Proceed. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT SHINN, COMMISSIONER, NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT
OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, ACCOMPANIED BY THOMAS W. McCLOY,
ADMINISTRATOR, NEW JERSEY MARINE FISHERIES ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Shinn. Great. And good morning, and thank you, and good
morning, Frank. It's good to see you with us. It's funny some
of the shore issues divide themselves, and we see a lot more
with Frank and the dredging issues that are focused to the
north.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning. Of
course, I'm Bob Shinn, Commissioner of the New Jersey
Department of Environmental Protection. I could probably
shorten my testimony a great deal by simply saying there's not
enough money and there's not enough fish, but as you know, the
bridge to solving that issue is a lot of public understanding
of the problem and a lot of work in the estuary to enhance the
habitat to create more fish to start with.
New Jersey is home to five national wildlife refuges
totaling more than 60,000 acres. These refuges combined with
New Jersey's own wildlife management areas, parks and forests,
create a key link in the long-term protection of New Jersey's
wildlife resources. I'm happy to say the high degree of
cooperation between the State and Federal wildlife management
personnel has further enhanced the value of this linkage.
Refuges provide important opportunities for hunting,
fishing, birding, and other wildlife associated forms of
recreation.
Our nation's wildlife system is a success story we can all
be proud of. The system holds much potential for improving fish
and wildlife habitat and for providing recreational
opportunities for people.
These important opportunities cannot be realized without
adequate operation and maintenance funding. I strongly support
an increase in the funding requested and appropriated for these
high priority activities.
Land acquisition for the purpose of habitat protection and
public use and enjoyment is a high priority. Funding for
operations and maintenance should not come at the expense of
land acquisition efforts. Separate funding mechanisms should be
available to support land acquisition and operation and
maintenance.
The department's biologists within the Division of Fish,
Game and Wildlife participate actively in the service's
ecosystem teams landscape management and the service is an
important component of our developing programs. Both of the
above approaches to wildlife conservations are designed to
establish partnerships to manage species across agency lines.
Without sufficient O & M funding, the service is hampered
in developing partnerships with other agencies, particularly in
regard to developing compatible GIS capabilities.
The service is also hindered in providing much needed
facilities for wildlife-associated recreation. Trails,
observation blinds, boat launch ramps, and other similar
facilities which are in great demand in New Jersey are rarely
developed, due to the shortfalls in operation and maintenance
funding.
General non-facility wildlife-associated uses, such as
hunting, fishing, and birding, are also restricted due to lack
of operation and maintenance funding. The excessive
administrative burdens placed upon the refuge managers make it
difficult, if not impossible, to open areas to traditional
compatible uses for many years, and sometimes decades.
Areas that have compatibly supported wildlife-associated
recreation for literally centuries are closed to these uses
once they become part of a national wildlife refuge. This is a
result of the manager's responsibility to re-write history time
and time again for every use proposed on a refuge.
There is general agreement among wildlife scientists that
most wildlife-associated recreation is compatible with refuge
purposes in most situations. Although I applaud the President's
efforts to encourage compatible wildlife-associated recreation,
the Federal legislation under which the refuges are
administered needs to be improved.
Now, let me take a couple of minutes to talk about other
subjects that you are addressing today.
Predator-prey relationships in marine species are generally
poorly understood.
Bluefish and striped bass are primarily fish eaters in
their adult stages. When they are in the same area, they are
probably competi-
tors for forage species. Bluefish and striped bass extensively
utilize estuaries as nursery areas. Striped bass appear to rely
more heavily on invertebrates, such as small shrimp and
amphipods in their early stages.
By the middle of the summer both species rely on small fish
for a substantial portion of their diet.
Both bluefish and striped bass are opportunistic feeders,
but if given the opportunity, striped bass prefer soft-rayed
species such as Atlantic menhaden, river herring, bay anchovies
and silversides.
Bluefish diets may be more diverse, including butterfish,
menhaden, round herring, sand lance, Atlantic mackerel, bay
anchovy, young weakfish, spot and Atlantic croaker.
Although some predation of small striped bass by large
bluefish and vice versa may occur, those species do not seem to
make up a significant portion of their diets. Several studies
indicated that predation of striped bass by other species did
not contribute to the decline of striped bass in the late '70's
and early '80's.
There have been periods of time such as the early to middle
'70's and possibly earlier when both striped bass and bluefish
were at relatively high levels of abundance.
Prey species, such as menhaden, bay anchovy, and
silversides are very abundant. With a wide variety and large
biomass of prey species available throughout the range of
striped bass and coastal bluefish, the likelihood of prey items
constituting a limited factor for bluefish or striped bass
population is not high.
Obviously, I don't have all the answers solving either the
money or the fish population issues; however, some very
positive things are happening throughout the area.
Number one, Barnegat Bay Estuary Plan, and you've been a
significant part of that, and together with the governor, I
think are the primary reason that that came to fruition. And
the interest in that program and the information and general
data that we already have recorded on our geographic
information system has really given us a jump start in that
estuary program.
Increase in pump-outs are already starting to lead to no
discharge areas, which is going to give us a major improvement
in our estuary.
New Jersey's new Draft Water Shed Plan, which I just
released last week, starts to look at our discharges in a
different vein and look at something we've talked about for 20
years, non-point pollution on a very regimented basis.
An aggressive Green Acres acquisition program. In the last
three years we've purchased individually and jointly with non-
profits, and certainly partnering with New Jersey Fish and
Wildlife, the State's acquired over 77,000 acres over three
years, and if you look back to 1961, our average acquisition
over three years was 30,000 acres. So we've significantly
enhanced our acquisition program.
A new plan for the coast to be launched on the 29th of this
month, the Coastal Master Plan is more of a consensus document
than a top down plan, but we've got all the issues, from sea
level rise to all the issues with barge unloading and litering
and all the issues that impact our coast and have in the recent
past.
Our GIS program, and that's something I mentioned in my
formal remarks, but we would like to see more Federal
involvement on our GIS program. It's geographic information
computerized mapping with overlay capabilities. But we're
getting all of our wildlife habitats, all of our wetlands
areas, all of our parks, facilities. Our new acquisition
program, I talked to you briefly about the other day, that maps
all the acquisition, Federal and State agencies, non-profit,
local, county mapping which really puts together, for the first
time in a single map, all the linkages that are created by
everybody that's interested in land acquisition and points up
some new priorities that, I think, we've got to address in, not
only shore protection, but in stream corridor protection and
headwaters protection, and it gives us a little bit of a new
vision in where we're headed with acquisition. And there's an
ideal opportunity for enhancing our partnership with the
Federal Government in this effort.
I think today's--I'd particularly like to commend the
Committee and yourself on today's hearing. I think the
information gap on what happens in preserve areas, and what
suffers when you don't have adequate funding to provide
operational maintenance, and one of the most effective areas
that I think we need to focus on going forward is the public
education and interpretation. If we don't do that, we're not
educating our young people on what this environmental balance
that we're just coming into understanding on in recent years,
what it means to our long-term survivability on the planet and
what it means to our economy.
The economics of environmental protection and the economy,
as you know, are closely linked in probably no stronger place
than they are right where we're sitting. But a strong
environment means a strong economy, certainly, on the coast
and, I think, throughout New Jersey.
So I thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and
wish you a lot of luck in your hearing efforts.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you. Commissioner, before you leave, and
with the permission of the other two witnesses on this panel,
I'd just like to ask you a couple of questions, if I may.
Before I do that, let me thank you for giving the governor
and I so much credit on the Barnegat Bay's inclusion in the
National Estuary Program. You're being much too kind.
Frank and I worked, and I think we can both agree with this
statement, Frank and I worked together for a decade trying to
get Barnegat Bay named as part of the estuary system, and it
wasn't until you became commissioner that we were able to get
that done, and I know how much you contributed to that, and so
thank you for the kudos, but you should look in a mirror when
you say those words, because you were primarily responsible for
getting it done, and Frank and I both appreciate it.
Mr. Shinn. Those partnerships work great.
Mr. Saxton. Yes, they do.
Let me ask you two questions. One about the striped bass
program, which has obviously, an extremely heavy involvement
with State and Federal partnership, with the State playing
today, in my opinion, the major role.
Is it working--while the results are obvious, as Dick
Schaefer pointed out, we've got more striped bass today than
anytime in recorded history. If you'd just like to comment on
it from a State per-
spective, and is there anything that we ought to know that we
could do differently? Obviously, New Jersey has some special
aspects that work pretty well with regard to the program.
Just in a general sense.
Mr. Shinn. When I was sitting in the audience listening to
the testimony I was thinking back to my high school days when I
spent most of that time in the summers mating on fishing boats
and it was really common to go out and pick up two or 250
snapper blues, and most of those would be a pound and a quarter
or less. And if you wanted to get a decent size bluefish, you
had to go to the Barnegat Ridge, north or south ridge, and you
might pick up a four or five-pound blue, but in recent years
we've been picking up larger fish, not only close to the coast,
right offshore, but in the inlets and in the bays, which would
be totally unheard of in the '50's.
The dynamics of the small fish versus the large fish, I
have to tell you, I totally don't understand. But the one thing
I think I've got a fairly clear picture of, that the quality of
the bay water and the quality of the estuary in general has a
very large dynamic on breeding characteristics of fish.
And I think we're at a fortunate time to bring focus on the
Barnegat Bay estuary. I think if we can improve the water
quality, and I think there are some significant management
activities we can undertake to improve the water quality, the
pump-outs, the handling of storm drainage.
We know a lot about the Barnegat Bay. We've got a lot of
data on our GIS system. An aggressive acquisition program, I
think, is part of that strategy, but certainly we need
maintenance money, too, to carry out these strategies once the
acquisition is done.
I think there are man-made things we can do to enhance fish
population, fish population enhancement, and I think we're on
our way to doing it, and there's probably some better science
that's on the horizon than I've talked about, but I think
enhanced environmental quality in the estuary is a key
ingredient to enhancing fish population.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you. Let me change the subject.
There is a species in New Jersey known as the glass eel.
I'm told that because they can bring as much as $300 a pound
today, there is--in Japan--I am told that today there is
tremendous pressure in this fishery. Is New Jersey making
certain that these eels will not be overfished, and is there
something that the Federal Government ought to know and do in
order to assist in your efforts?
Mr. Shinn. Let me get some able assistance on that subject.
My knowledge of that specific area is not that great so----
Mr. Saxton. Fair enough.
Mr. Shinn. I brought help with me.
Mr. Saxton. This is----
Mr. McCloy. Tom McCloy, with the New Jersey Marine
Fisheries Administration.
The glass eel fishery has existed for a number of years. In
the last few years it has taken on more importance as more
people realize the economic benefits to be made from that, and
as a consequence more people have gotten into it.
Last year we had a considerable number of problems which we
tried to resolve through regulatory actions, restricting the
gear, re-
stricting the season, etcetera. I'm not sure it helped a lot
considering what occurred this year. We had more people doing
it, theoretically at least, with less efficient gear. The
problems associated with the fishery were extremely
exasperated, even over last year. Trespass problems, buoying
problems on streams, even instances, I'm sure you read about in
the paper, of individuals carrying firearms, et cetera.
Because of this we're taking a very critical look at
regulations for next year. And incidentally, the season just
closed yesterday. So we're going to be taking a hard look at
that to see what steps we need to basically try and address
those problems that occurred this year. Maybe nothing less than
a total ban would be required in order to accomplish that.
You should be aware that the Atlantic States Marine
Fisheries Commission is also developing a plan for the American
eel, which--this is the younger life stage of the glass eel,
and although that plan is not coming on line probably for
another year or two, we're looking to them for some kind of
guidance, also.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much.
Mr. Shinn, let me just ask one last question, and then I'm
going to turn to Congressman Pallone for his questions.
You mentioned in your testimony the extensive holdings that
both the State of New Jersey and private organizations have, in
terms of environmentally sensitive land in the coastal areas.
Obviously, we're here to discuss, as well, or primarily, I
guess I should say, the Federal role in this regard. Is there
an opportunity for partnerships among private, State and
Federal landholders, and would you comment on that briefly?
Mr. Shinn. Absolutely.
I think we're fortunate that we have a great relationship
with the Federal agencies, but I think we can take that to the
next step. I think--I keep talking about GIS all the time, but
I think it's our information data base and the department.
We've got 18 or 21 counties up on the system. The Barnegat
Estuary Plan is going to be on the GIS system, and it's going
to be on the internet probably by the end of the summer. But we
have about 50 plus software packages out to non-profits, so
environmental groups are working on this computerized mapping
data base themselves.
We see it from a watershed perspective, GIS base, so that
all the data, as mapped on GIS, if you've got an unidentified
pipe or you've got a discharge in a certain area in a swamp
that's hard to identify, you can use global positioning to nail
that site down. So it's just an exceptional mapping base to
work with in a watershed context.
So we found, also, that working with non-profits, like
Trusts for Public Land, who have been very active in this
particular region, has given us an extra lever to work on land
acquisition, and we can actually buy more land per dollar by
using non-profits in the exercise.
So I think even enhancing a very good partnership that we
have now is on the horizon. And of course, it gets tough when
resources are short, because everybody's trying to put fires
out, and we've certainly been through that exercise, as well.
But I think really getting the state of the resource to the
optimum and creating part-
nerships to the optimum extent possible, and not only
governmental but also private involvement.
I heard several people were interested in putting trails in
different areas of the refuge, and I think that's great, and I
think those are the kind of things that are going to let us do
more from a public perspective in areas of tight budget times.
So I think working closer together, leveraging our
resources, both governmentally and privately, and trying to, I
guess, blend over those tough areas where you go from
governmental to private for the public benefit, some--there are
some difficult barriers there, but I think working through
them, and I think we can get there. And I think we need to.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much.
Before returning to Willie DeCamp and Joan Koons, Willie
for his testimony and then questions for both, Mr. Pallone,
would you like to address some questions to Mr. Shinn?
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just follow up on what Jim just said. With regard to
possible State, local cooperation with the Federal Government,
the one thing that cries out through all this with the National
Wildlife Refuge is the lack of funding. And it's very difficult
for us to make the case, not only for additional acquisition,
but even for operations and maintenance. We can make the case,
but the money isn't there, and we don't have the ability,
because of the atmosphere in Washington right now, to convince
a majority of our colleagues, to do a lot more.
I'm just wondering what you face and whether or not, in
terms of operations and maintenance, because I know that we've
already heard from Ms. Koons, and we're going to hear from
others, I'm sure, about the problem of keeping up.
Is there a source of funding or other ideas in terms of
volunteer groups? These volunteer groups are doing as much as
they can, but it's just so frustrating, because we know the
statistics are out there as to what should be done and how much
it's going to cost, and we don't appropriate the money to do
it.
I'm just wondering if you had some ideas, Mr. Commissioner.
Mr. Shinn. Well, there are some----
Mr. Pallone. I don't really have any, I'm not trying to put
you on the spot, because I know it's tough at every level,
but----
Mr. Shinn. Yeah. No, it's certainly--some good things have
happened over the last twelve months or so.
Number one, there was two questions on the ballot, one
was--gave the department four percent of the corporate business
tax, which is roughly $46 million plus a year that the
department has for specifically identified items.
And the other was the bond issue which, as you know, went
for dredging and other economic development projects. They
were, to me, aside from having the money, which is very, very
welcome, they were good indicators that there's strong public
support for environmental--the environment, open-space type
activities, plus getting our ports viable from a dredging
perspective.
In addition to that, we have a committee that's being
chaired by Assemblywoman Ogden, who you know very well----
Mr. Pallone. Sure.
Mr. Shinn. [continuing]--who is looking at the stable
source of funding for our parks and maintenance included, and
as a primary pre-requisite, because funding goes up and down
with budget cycles, and you've been through that drill before--
--
Mr. Pallone. Exactly.
Mr. Shinn. [continuing]--and know it well. So I guess we've
really moved our site remediation program--it's in transition
right now, but I think there were $70 million in that bond
issue for site remediation. That'll probably be our last site
remediation bond issue, and now we'll go to stable source of
funding under the corporate business tax. Fifty percent of
those dollars was dedicated to site remediation.
So we've gotten the department, in the last three years,
off of fees and fines, and on budget, and it was a difficult
time to do that transition, as you know, but I think the good
news is we can set environmental priorities and fund them and
not be a fee-driven agency. Plus we've got site remediation
moving to a stable source of funding. And my goal, ultimately,
is to have our park system on a stable source of funding, and I
think we'll be much more able to address the issues that we're
talking about today, because operation and maintenance and
adequately staffing parks--we're adding parks in New Jersey.
We've added a couple of parks over the last couple of years.
So it's really a challenge to keep up with the demand. The
public demand for our park system, while other States are sort
of waning, is increasing annually. So the more increase you
have, the more staff requirements that are--particularly
interpretation. I think we're missing the boat, by and large,
in an area that I'd like to spend more effort on, is
interpretation of our park system and bring more school
children through the system, because I think that's where our
future lies, and I think that's where we need to focus our
efforts.
Mr. Pallone. I appreciate that. I think that, particularly,
the stable source of funding is so crucial. I mean, because
that's what we face, you know, the, as you say, ups and downs
in terms of Federal funding levels in a given year. And I just
wish that we could address the problems in the same way.
Mr. Shinn. I think exactly what's going on here today is
part of the solution. All of us have been around this business
long enough to know what drives the system is the public, and
if you--I think we've seen strong indications of the public's
concern for environmental quality, and I think by having these
kinds of hearings, talking about the nitty-gritty problems of
managing a reserve that normally don't come on the public
screen.
I think we're getting a better understanding as well put
our environmental problems out there. And one thing the GIS
system has done for us, we've put out lists of--our known
contaminated site list in the State of New Jersey contains some
8,600 sites. For the first time, we've put out a package. The
GIS system puts all these sites out there, underground storage
tanks, superfund sites, spill fund sites, brownfields, the
whole litany of impacted sites. So you can go on a GIS system
or call an 800 number and say, ``Gee, my home is here. Is there
a site around my home, either one that I have or one that I'm
buying,'' and just find that information out in a snap.
So I think that kind of data and sharing of data is what's
going to get all of our problems out to the public and get a
better recognition of what we're trying to deal with as
governmental officials from a public perspective.
Mr. Pallone. OK, well, thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Saxton. OK, Willie and Joan, thank you for bearing with
us.
Bob, I don't know whether you have any more time to spend
with us. If you do, you're welcome to stay; if you're tight on
time----
Mr. Shinn. I'd love to stay, but this schedule that drives
me won't let me.
So thank you very much for----
Mr. Saxton. Thank you for being with us. We've----
Mr. Shinn.--thank you for letting me jump in and do this.
Mr. Saxton. We've enjoyed your participation and----
Mr. Shinn. OK, but I will leave a couple of experts on the
issue if you need any more information.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you. We appreciate it.
Willie, thank you for bearing with us, and you may proceed.
Mr. DeCamp. Thank you very much.
Mr. Saxton. This is Willie DeCamp from the Save Barnegat
Bay and the Izaak Walton League.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM DECAMP, JR., PRESIDENT, SAVE BARNEGAT BAY,
OCEAN COUNTY IZAAK WALTON LEAGUE
Mr. DeCamp. Which are the same thing. Save Barnegat Bay is
the Ocean County Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America,
and I thank you very much for inviting me to testify.
Congressman Saxton and Congressman Pallone, hello.
Mr. Pallone. Good to see you.
Mr. DeCamp. You've both been long-time vigorous supporters
of the Forsythe Refuge, and of one of the main projects of Save
Barnegat Bay, which has been to expand the Forsythe Refuge, and
it's great to be here and participate with your continuing
support.
Save Barnegat--if I may, I have submitted my written
testimony, and I would just like to summarize it verbally.
Mr. Saxton. Please.
Mr. DeCamp. Save Barnegat Bay is a not-for-profit
organization, and we're dedicated to land conservation in the
Barnegat Bay Watershed as well as promoting water quality, two
interrelated concepts, and we have worked hard to support the
Forsythe Refuge and to promote acquisition in Barnegat Bay.
One of the important things, I think, that the refuge does,
is it passes along natural habitat and all of our--the nature
values that we want to pass along to posterity in a more
reliable form, I think, than the other vehicle, which is land
use regulation, can do.
One of the concerns I have as I back off and look overall
at the big picture is that land use regulation gets whittled
away. The distinguished individual just speaking might not
agree with that or might feel a little bit differently than I,
but, you know, I see developments get approved that I thought
when a wetlands law passed or when Cafer II passed were not
going to be approved. And if this goes on over the course of
decades, then I begin to see that land acquisition from willing
sellers really is the most reliable method of guaranteeing to
future generations that the habitat will be conserved.
Joan and I, I guess, offer the local perspective. We're not
trying to advance our, you know, parochial interests, but we,
perhaps we can supply examples of local instances of the
problems in regard to management and maintenance of the
Forsythe Refuge or of the national system.
One of the concerns that I have, as I tried to prepare for
this hearing, is that I think that staffing is a big problem,
and that may not be the focus of this hearing. You're looking
at physical improvements and buildings and what not, which
are--definitely need remedial work and continued support. But a
lot of the problems, I think, that the managers have, and maybe
they're just being good sports and not saying it, is that they
are just plain understaffed.
The--you take the Forsythe and the Cape May refuges, as one
refuge, they stretch from Cape May all the way up to northern
Ocean County to Brick Township, and they have something like a
dozen employees or somewhere in that area. And they have only
one person to police the refuge, and I don't know that they
have a biologist on hand at the moment.
Mr. Saxton. They're getting one.
Mr. DeCamp. They're getting one.
Mr. Saxton. Yes.
Mr. DeCamp. Good. So just--my plea would be, through any
mechanism possible, to see that the refuge gets properly
staffed, gets more staffed, and I would concur that maintenance
is a problem also. You see it in little ways, like as the
refuge expands gates. We need gates to keep dumpers out;
hopefully gates that people could walk around, but just there
are many trails in the upland areas which do need to be
conserved. And trails themselves, at Reedy Creek, a trail is
appropriate and needed, and so, too, at Barnegat where they're
working on one, but this takes staff and money. And kiosks and
observation areas are also needed.
In the area of partnerships, just to take one area, you
really see the impact of funding, I think, because partnerships
do work, and they just have a way of creating momentum, but you
get to the point where the Fish and Wildlife Service can't
bring as much to the table as they should be able to, to make
partnerships viable. Eventually you just reach the point where
they're overstretched. If you have volunteers, like I think
they want to use Americor volunteers, they need oversight. If
we have a trash cleanup at Reedy Creek or if ALO has a trash
cleanup on Bonnet Island, someone's got to show up from the
Fish and Wildlife Service.
So just to make the whole thing work, even when you have
partnerships, you don't want to fall below a certain threshold,
or it just doesn't work well.
In terms of public involvement, the Fish and Wildlife
Service has been increasingly open, and they held, I think they
call them scoping meetings in many townships around Cape May
and Ocean County, also, to take public suggestions and to
involve the public. But you need to be careful there, too,
because if people come to a public hearing, and they raise some
legitimate problem, and, you know, it's a good one, and then
the Fish and Wildlife people are sort of stuck in the position,
``Well, we can't put a trail there, because we don't have the
staff, or we can't do this or that.'' Then it can promote
public cynicism.
And I--the point that I'll just conclude with is to really
echo your view, Congressman Saxton, that you expressed and that
Congressman Pallone, I know you agree also, that public support
is very important for the wildlife refuge and--because that's
the neighbor. And in order to have public support you can't
just have sort of an iron curtain around the refuge, and I know
we're moving--we never had that, but we're moving even farther
away from that, and I believe that what is really needed is
sort of a flexible boundary to the refuge. That's the
expression that I use, where there are some places where you
can just go and take a walk, and it doesn't even need to be an
educational trail. Not every trail needs to be educational.
Some places there are educational trails; other places you can
fish, you can hunt, and in other places, because they're
endangered species or maybe there's a habitat that could be
damaged by trampling, like beachhead or something, that you
just--people have to stay out because it's appropriate, either
seasonally or all the time to not be there.
But it is so very important to allow people to be on the
refuge, to see the refuge, so they can be reminded of the many
things that it's doing for them.
And I would--in summary, my views are a little more
extensive in writing, and I thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. deCamp may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much. I appreciate your both
bringing your perspectives to this.
On the subject of staffing, I know that you both agree on
this subject. I know Joan agrees, because she's been involved
with ALO in carrying out work which, perhaps, could be done by,
if there were sufficient personnel at Forsythe to do the work
and, Willie, I know that you agree with it, because you just
said so, and I know that some of the staff at Forsythe who are
here today agree, because some of them work 18 or 20 hours a
day in the daytime managing the refuge, and at nighttime
policing, and they don't have to do that. They do it because
they're good people, and they do it because of their
commitment, particularly in terms of the glass eel problem that
we talked about with Commissioner Shinn, most recently, in
going out--in the middle of the night in--at high tide, I
guess, or whenever it is that glass eels are vulnerable, and
trying to do what they can to enforce the law on the refuge.
So people are stretched a long way to try to accomplish
what needs to be done at the Forsythe. We have authorized,
incidentally, 34 positions for Forsythe, which are less than, I
guess, a third are currently filled. We do hope that we will
get an additional biologist, as I indicated to you during your
testimony, Willie, and I hope that we also get two additional
staffers next year. It looks like we may.
So staffing is certainly a problem, and Frank and I have
recognized this, as well.
Now, let me ask you--let me ask you both to respond to this
question, because it is central to carrying out the public part
of the program where we try to get as much public support for
the program as we can.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is preparing a comprehensive
management plan for Forsythe. And you both mentioned, I
believe, that there are opportunities for input. Are your
groups participating in this effort and what additional habitat
protection and visitor access projects do your groups intend to
propose and support for the new management plan?
Ms. Koons. Well, ALO's interest, primarily, is Bonnet
Island, because we do a great deal of school education, and we
do a lot of eco tours. Primarily we're a barrier island group,
but that causeway destination is just such a vital part of
this, and we would really love to have a very unspoiled nature
trail with a very simple platform.
I guess, the greatest thing we would ask for would maybe be
at least one good quality binocular system that you could look
over and see the developed lands on both sides of that causeway
and just leave it as natural as possible, so you can experience
the two worlds, the world that you're standing in, the natural
world, and then looking over to see the developed areas that
many of us live in.
And I really, the times that I have been in there since I
testified last, one day I was there with a school, and there
were 11 blue herons. I have never seen 11 blue herons on one
spot, and they were sitting right around the salt marsh area
near the new pond. And it was--you didn't have to say another
word to the whole 60 children, nothing. Nothing else was
necessary.
So that is what we would like to see in that particular
area. We cannot also say enough about the staff, the Forsythe
Refuge. The people are wonderful to work with, and our group
would like to continue and go into the future as a vital part
of this partnership.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you. Willie?
Mr. DeCamp. I'd like to echo what Joan said about the staff
of the refuge being great and friendly and hard-working under
difficult circumstances. I've been doing outreach for the
management plan of the refuge. We've been participating, and in
a way we're not really asking for very much, and in a way we
are.
The--what we want to see, and I think what's happening, is
public--the ability of people to take walks on the refuge, to
hunt, to fish where appropriate. Walking trails are important.
I think that when people have traditionally walked, you know,
taken a walk in the woods in their neighborhood, and then
suddenly it becomes part of the refuge, and if it's an area
where you don't have critical habitat, it's a--maybe a buffer
area, appropriate buffer area, then just the ability to have
the refuge boundary be permeable there, have someone take a
walk there, really makes a difference. It can make the
difference between the neighborhood really liking having the
refuge as a part of their neighborhood, or the people feeling
testy.
So that is something to be desired, and it interrelates
with staff and with maintenance, because the Fish and Wildlife
management, obviously, doesn't want the sense that the refuge
is just running out of control. They want to be able to keep
some kind of reason-
able oversight. But I don't think it's that big a deal if a few
people bring trash in, if more people than that are bringing
trash out.
You know, you have to sort of look at your garbage budget,
if you will. And so, there are a lot of places where I think
that you want the refuge to be pretty sort of open. Maybe not
with a marked trail, but marked trails are good, too, and we
favor observation decks. And the work on the impoundment is
necessary. We also think in the area of that western
impoundment is--are places where there could be trails, if
funds were available. And you know, one thing we are definitely
not trying to do is to turn the refuge concept into a park
concept. We appreciate that the resource is the important
thing, and that you have to say no in substantial areas to
public involvement, but you don't have to say no everywhere.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you.
Mr. Pallone, do you have questions at this time?
Mr. Pallone. I just wanted to ask--well, first, let me
commend the two of you, again. I worked with Willie for a long
time when I represented the area where Reedy Creek is, and he
was so much involved in organizing to add it to the refuge, and
I want to say to Joan, I think I've met you at the office there
in Beach Haven on occasion.
Ms. Koons. Even bought a shirt.
Mr. Pallone. Exactly, with my kids coming to story time. So
I know how much all of you are involved.
My only question is, and it may be not possible, because of
the nature of the organizations, but in terms of this
partnership, you basically adopted the Forsythe Refuge in
various ways. But in terms of actually enforcing, and making
sure people don't go and dump garbage, the trails are
maintained. Is it a regular program that you maintain? I mean,
do you have people that just volunteer on a regular basis to
work with the--with the Wildlife Service, or is it being
involved like having a beach cleanup or a cleanup once in
awhile?
In other words, do you already actually do enforcement or
cleanup in a systematized way with them, pursuant to a
schedule? Is that something that's possible?
Mr. DeCamp. Well, you know, I don't want to sort of pretend
to be, you know, more involved than I am, and our group has
more supporters farther north on the bay. So up at Reedy Creek
we've done more. And that's, you know, how it tends to work.
Wherever most of your supporters are, that's sort of the
neighborhood concept.
Mr. Pallone. Right. Right.
Mr. DeCamp. We have cleanups once or twice a year.
Mr. Pallone. Right.
Mr. DeCamp. And we get people together, and what I can say
mainly is we're bringing it out faster than it's coming in.
Mr. Pallone. But what I'm saying, Willie, is if there were
more people working, let's say as Congressman Saxton said, that
the staff was significantly increased. Would it be possible to
systematize the volunteer organizations with them, you know, in
terms of cleanup or enforcement, or we're just talking about
once a year or twice a year or something like that?
Mr. DeCamp. It's possible to systematize to a degree. I
mean, you can't squeeze too hard----
Mr. Pallone. Right.
Mr. DeCamp. [continuing]--any volunteer format. But one of
the things that'll happen is just people in the neighborhood
who care about the area will ring me or will ring Allison Banks
or whomever. So it works that way, just with people driving by
and seeing something.
Ms. Koons. People tell you, when people are out there
walking dogs, they tell you when somebody was selling balloons
that--which was a double header for my group at the gate one
time, and yes, I think the public will adopt it the same as we
have. And I don't think that that would be an impossibility in
the future. It's having the access to get in there without
coming out with hundreds of ticks on you each time that's so
vital.
And I don't want to take your time, but one thing I haven't
heard discussed at all today, and it's certainly a concern to
our group, and that's the liability problem, that in the
future, if there was more partnering, where does the liability
start and stop? At this point, I understand when we take
educational access, then we take on the liability. And if
you're going to have open house to the public, I think that's
something that should be very carefully examined.
Mr. Pallone. OK, well, thanks a lot. I appreciate it.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you. I have no other questions. I just
have one observation, and that relates to, you were just
discussing the volunteer effort that would be possible.
I would just say that volunteers are wonderful, and when I
was down at the refuge last Monday, the thought occurred to me
that I could put a little blurb, and I know Frank could, too,
in his newsletter, you know, ``Sign up to volunteer at the --''
however, volunteers have to be managed. And they have to be
able to, you know, know what to do and when to do it and where
to show up and where not to walk and all these kinds of things,
and so I don't know whether it's possible or not, but maybe we
can leverage a lot more labor out of the next one or two full-
time employees, in terms of some kind of volunteer management.
I don't know whether that makes sense or not, but it's
something that you and I, Frank, can discuss with Steve and
Tracy at some point in the future.
Thank you very much, both of you, for being with us this
morning and for your forbearance for Commissioner Shinn.
I would like to ask unanimous consent at this point that
the statement of Frank Bittner, the President of the New Jersey
Federation Sportsmen's Clubs, be included in the record.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bittner may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mr. Saxton. And at this point we will close this part of
the hearing and move on to our next panel of witnesses to
further discuss the bluefish, striped bass, forage fish issue.
With us for this panel are Mr. Jack Dunnigan, who is the
Director of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission;
Dr. Ken Able, Director of the Rutgers University Marine Field
Station; Mr. Charles Bergmann of Lund's Fishery, Inc. of Cape
May; Mr. Tom Fote, Legislative Chairman of the New Jersey Coast
Anglers Asso-
ciation; and Mr. Jim Donofrio, Executive Director of the
Recreational Fishing Alliance.
As you're all taking your seats, I'd like to welcome you
here. Obviously, we all have a great deal in common in wanting
to have adequate, healthy fisheries, and so our intent is to
try to move toward that goal.
Let me just open this panel by saying this. As Chairman of
the Subcommittee in the 104th Congress, which was two years
ago, our committee was known as the Fisheries, Wildlife, and
Ocean Subcommittee. This year we added a word to the title. It
is now called the Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Ocean
Subcommittee, and we did that because we want to have an
opportunity for fish to be plentiful, for commercial fishermen
to have access to them, and for recreational fishermen to have
access to them. And to the extent that people like Ken Able can
help us understand the science behind it, and the rest of you
can help us understand the desires and helpfulness of the user
groups, we will be able to move in that direction.
So let me ask Jack Dunnigan if he will begin. Jack is with
the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. Jack, the
floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF JOHN H. DUNNIGAN, DIRECTOR, ATLANTIC STATES MARINE
FISHERIES COMMISSION
Mr. Dunnigan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a
pleasure to be able to be here today, and once again, let me
thank the committee for the opportunity to spend a day outside
of Washington, D.C. and near the coast of one of the finest
coasts that we have along the Atlantic Ocean in New Jersey.
And at this time I think I would ask that my formal
testimony be included for the record, and I'll just make a few
comments that I think are pertinent.
Mr. Saxton. It will be, without objection.
Mr. Dunnigan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I recognize that this is the panel on forage fish, but I
can't let the moment escape without saying something about the
earlier discussion about refuges, because in reality these
issues really are related to each other.
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service provides
important support to the Atlantic Coastal States as they go
through their business of conserving and managing Atlantic
coastal fisheries. And a lot of the discussion so far this
morning has been about partnerships. And the service is a
terrific partner working with the States. It's often a
controversial agency, but frankly, the commission believes that
it's a great agency, and it's one that's worthy of support.
And it's also very important to note, and I've talked to
Director Rogers about this, about the--not just the support
they give us in our management planning, working on committees
and providing scientific advice, but also the fact that they
have these refuges, these are a tremendous part of the coastal
habitat all along the Atlantic coast that supports fisheries.
And the proper support and management of this habitat is
critical to the long-term productivity of all of these
resources. So whatever you folks can do to help support their
programs is going to be beneficial, not just for all of the
wonderful things that have been talked about by the earlier
panels, but also in helping to support the productivity and the
conservation and management of our valuable Atlantic coastal
fisheries.
Mr. Chairman, the hearing this morning on the
interrelationship of striped bass and bluefish and lots of
other species along the Atlantic coast follows up on a hearing
that you held in Toms River last year. And so, I'd like to
begin by highlighting a couple of things that have happened in
the period since then.
Mr. Saxton. That hearing, for the record, was based
essentially on bluefish, where they are habitating today, why
they're not as plentiful in shore areas.
Mr. Dunnigan. Right.
Mr. Saxton. Proceed.
Mr. Dunnigan. Thank you.
The striped bass population along the Atlantic coast, Mr.
Chairman, continues to grow, continues to show all of the signs
that we've been watching for the last couple of years of a
recovered species and continuing to grow and growing well into
the future. We're now in a position of having extremely strong
year classes in many years out of the last six, and as a
result, we can look forward to having productive and viable
striped bass fisheries well into the future, so long as we
maintain a cautious and prudent management program. And the
States that work through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries
Commission are convinced that that's what they have underway.
Bluefish continue to appear to be in trouble. There was a
new stock assessment that's been done since last year. It
generally tends to reaffirm all of the findings that we had had
before, that the resource continues to suffer from a lack of
availability, probably due, mainly, to a failure of recruitment
on an ongoing basis over a number of years, and that we need
to--the fishery is overfished. In a legal sense it's
overfished, because the fishing mortality rate is higher than
the rate contained in the Cooperative Fishery Management Plan
that the commission and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management
Council have. And so this is a species that we need to continue
to be concerned about and to devote attention to.
On the question of interactions among species, what we have
had since last year, really, is the beginnings of some good
work that needs to be done to look into this issue, and I think
that it's a direct result of the inquiries that the committee
made last year.
Some funding was provided in the fiscal 1997 budget, as Mr.
Schaefer testified earlier. That funding is making its way
through the system and getting out to people like Ken Able and
others, so that the important work can be done to continue to
follow up on the concerns that you have, and, frankly, they're
concerns that are reflected by all of the managers of these
fisheries along the Atlantic coast.
Mr. Chairman, I guess part of the sad news is that the
administration's proposed budget for fiscal 1998 didn't pick up
on the leadership that Congress exerted last year in putting
this funding into the budget for the National Marine Fishery
Service, that $785,000 is not included in the President's
request.
And we think that that's very important funding. The
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission supports that work,
believes that it needs to be continued if we're going to ever
get to the bottom of some of these very difficult and
controversial issues about the interrelationship of species,
and we would strongly encourage the Congress to continue its
leadership in this regard and do what you can to try to get
that funding back into the budget for fiscal 1998.
Mr. Chairman, with that, I think I'll let the time go to
the other members of the panel. Again, it's a pleasure to be
here, and thank you very much for inviting me.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dunnigan may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much, Jack. Our next witness,
Dr. Ken Able, is the Director of Rutgers University Marine
Field Station, and at the current time is using some of those
Federal moneys that Jack Dunnigan just talked about. We got the
$785,000, I believe, is the correct number this year, and Jack
is concerned about continuing that program next year, and Ken
Able is the guy who is carrying out that program. So Ken, we
are anxious to hear from you.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH ABLE, DIRECTOR, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY MARINE
FIELD STATION
Mr. Able. Thank you very much for inviting me to this
session this morning.
I'll make my comments very brief. Many more details are
provided on the written testimony.
One of the reasons we're here today is that fish life
histories are very complex. They go through many more stages
than mammals and birds and that kind of thing, and so they're
very difficult to--very difficult to understand. Larvae act
differently than the juveniles. The juveniles act differently
than the adults. And so understanding their life history is of
paramount importance, because they often act as different
species.
Thus, understanding interactions have to cover all these
life history stages. And that's why I've provided some
information on the first year in the life of these two species
in my written testimony.
I focused on the first year for this testimony, because,
and I think most fisheries, biologists around the world, would
probably agree that 99.99 percent of the mortality that occurs
in the life of a fish, or in the population of a fish, occurs
during that first year.
And that's probably a worldwide consensus on that kind of
issue. And so, much of the emphasis should be placed on that
first year. Unfortunately, we don't know much about that for
many species, even those of economic importance, and that
includes striped bass and bluefish, for example.
In addition, we have to realize that many of our
populations in the mid-Atlantic, by including these two
species, are highly migratory. So they're crossing State and
Federal boundaries all the time, and that makes management a
lot more of an issue.
But again, they have complex life histories. And that
simply is the reason why we don't understand everything that
should be going on today. If it were simple, we'd have all the
answers. We clearly do not. And the only way to arrive at those
answers is much more attention.
As an example, bluefish spawn in--south of Cape Hatteras
during the spring, and many of those larvae move up into
estuaries like Barnegat Bay into the spring. They find their
way up there through regular patterns, being carried up by the
Gulf Stream and so on. The adults also move up and spawn off
the Jersey coast, and those individuals come in. So we have two
groups of bluefish, young bluefish, coming in every year, in
the spring and the fall.
Some originate south of Hatteras off North Carolina, South
Carolina; some originate off New Jersey. Again, which of those
groups contributes most to recruitment? It varies from year to
year. But again, an example of a level of complexity that we
don't quite understand.
Striped bass migrate long distances to go up into
freshwaters to spawn. What controls their movements, the
migration of the adults and how those young survive is unknown.
It is not easy to say what these answers are. And then if you
talk about interactions between these two, it's very difficult.
If you talk about interactions between these two and their
prey species, the question becomes even more difficult.
Is it impossible to arrive at some answers? Probably not,
but it's going to require much more attention than we've given
them in the past.
As an example, if you just look at the life histories of
the two species, as I provided in the written testimony, they
seem to overlap, primarily in estuaries, during their first
year and primarily in large estuaries. So that maybe if we are
intent on looking at interactions, that's where the effort
should focus, in the Hudson River, in Delaware Bay, in
Chesapeake Bay.
Unfortunately, Chesapeake Bay, where we know most about
many species, is not represented at Barnegat Bay. They're very
different in their morphology, in the number of people that
live around them and the pollutant levels and so on. So
studying Chesapeake Bay intensively does not allow us to simply
extrapolate to other systems, such as Barnegat Bay.
So there's a spacial component as well. We need to study
many of these different estuaries. It's a daunting problem.
I think we could make some progress. There has been
significant progress, such that now we know something about
what controls striped bass survival, and we're doing a much
better job, and therefore, there are more striped bass around.
It would be nice if we could say we could do the same thing for
bluefish.
I'll simply end my comments by saying there are complex
life histories, there's much to be learned, we think we can
make significant end roads, and we're willing to do anything we
can to help in this goal.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Able may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mr. Saxton. Ken, thank you very much. I look forward to the
question period.
I'd like to, at this time, introduce Charles Bergmann, with
the Lund's Fisheries in Cape May. Obviously, a very important
aspect of New Jersey life is the commercial fishery, and we
welcome you here this morning, Mr. Bergmann.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES BERGMANN, LUND'S FISHERY, INC., CAPE MAY,
NEW JERSEY
Mr. Bergmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman
Pallone.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify before
you today. First of all, I need to make a disclaimer. I'm a
member of the New Jersey Marine Fishery Council and, as you
note on the card here, the Mid Atlantic Fishery Management
Council.
My testimony today may or may not be indicative of their
feelings, but it's my own testimony and not theirs.
Striped bass spawn in the estuary systems along the
Atlantic coast. As noted in the studies in the Chesapeake Bay,
Delaware Bay, Little Egg Harbor, and the Hudson River
estuaries, the diets vary within these systems but hold to the
same pattern.
The very young bass primarily feed on invertebrates, worms,
shrimp, small fish, at age one. Striped bass feed on
invertebrates during the first--first of the year and then
gradually switch to invertebrates in the latter part of year
one. The diet at this time varies according to which estuary is
studied. The most common sources of forage include bay
anchovies, Atlantic menhaden, weak fish, spot, herring, summer
flounder, naked goby and bluefish.
After year two, their diets consist almost entirely of fin
fish and sand eels.
Bluefish, on the other hand, spawn offshore, depend
entirely on winds and tides to move the larvae into the
estuaries. During this process the bluefish larvae must pass
through large schools of Atlantic mackerel which are hungry
predators of the young bluefish.
After surviving the feeding frenzy of the Atlantic
mackerel, they must now avoid the increasing presence of age
two striped bass. Like the striped bass, the bluefish diet
consists primarily of bay anchovies, Atlantic silversides to
year one. From year one through year two, the diet is mostly
Atlantic menhaden. Years two and older bluefish prey upon
spots, croakers and weak fish.
In a study done by the New Jersey Department of
Environmental Protection, Division of Fish, Game and
Shellfishes, it was pointed out since two-thirds of the
recreationally and commercially important fish species along
the Atlantic coast are estuary-dependent at some life stage,
the study of estuarine food webs has a number of management
implications.
Fluctuations in the abundance of estuarine forage organisms
may have profound effects on the year to year abundance of
harvestable fish. In spite of this, management and
environmental protection actions have generally been geared to
tolerance levels exhibited by target fish species, ignoring the
possibility of higher sensitivity to forage fish to pollution
and habitat loss.
This study was done in 1979, and with Mr. Saxton's clean
water bills and the new requirements of the Essential Fish
Habitat of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, this will surely help to
answer some of these concerns.
Many have taken a position that the harvest of menhaden has
increased to a point that there is not enough to hold striped
bass and bluefish for recreational anglers.
One could answer this with facts. The harvest of menhaden
in the Chesapeake Bay comprise 40 percent of the total coast
harvest. And the harvest of striped bass by anglers in the same
bay has risen from approximately 130,000 fish in 1990 to over
600,000 fish in 1996.
All this was done with 40 percent of the coastwide
production of menhaden. Earlier this year, one group used the
forage issues to stop an IWP in New Jersey. This group stated a
concern that Atlantic mackerel is a forage for bluefish, but
what has been pointed out, the reverse is true. Atlantic
mackerel prey upon bluefish.
There have been numerous papers done on the feeding habits
of both species, but little on what effect, if any, the
predator/prey relationship has on the recruitment of each
species.
One study has been approved, but as yet, funding has not
been appropriated. This research, as well as other projects
related to water quality, need to be done.
Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank you for your recent meeting
with Mr. Schmitten regarding the joint management of squids,
another very important forage fish. And another important
forage fish that needs to be addressed is the Atlantic herring.
I would invite you, Mr. Chairman, and Congressman Pallone, to
join Frank LoBiando in introducing or co-sponsoring a bill to
protect these species.
Mr. Chairman, I again wish to thank you and assure you the
Cape May Seafood Association is prepared to work with you and
your staff on the predatory/prey issues in the future, as well
as to participate in any discussion with other subjects of the
commercial and recreational fishing industries.
I'd be pleased to try to answer questions at this time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bergmann may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much, Mr. Bergmann.
Mr. Tom Fote of the Jersey Coast Anglers Association.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS P. FOTE, LEGISLATIVE CHAIRMAN, NEW JERSEY
COAST ANGLERS' ASSOCIATION
Mr. Fote. The Jersey Coast Anglers Association would like
to thank Congressman James Saxton for holding this field
hearing on this important subject in New Jersey and Congressman
Frank Pallone for attending the hearing.
JCAA is aware that both congressmen understand the
importance of ecosystem management to the citizens of New
Jersey.
This is a subject near and dear to my heart. The more I
learn about fisheries management, the more I realize that we
cannot manage interrelated species one at a time. Ecosystem
management is looking at the interrelationships of species and
managing these species by their interdependency on each other
and other environmental factors.
To me, this means that every time we take an action that
impacts one species, we need to consider the effect on all the
species. In the marine environment, every species is a support
for the entire ecosystem. We might be able to overfish one
species without causing a dramatic change in others; however,
once we begin to decimate the food stocks for the species, like
striped bass or bluefish, we cannot help having a serious
negative effect on the species' total population.
Some species are more adaptable and can find alternative
forage sources to augment their diet. Striped bass and
bluefish, as juveniles, feed on similar prey. Striped bass,
however, are opportunistic feeders. As adult they feed by
sight, sound, and smell. They will eat almost anything that
swims in the bays, oceans, and rivers.
When we impact their basic diet, we may not see a dramatic
decrease in striped bass population, because they adapt by
eating something else and have a more varied diet to choose
from.
Bluefish, however, have very different feeding habits as
adult fish. They are primarily sight feeders. They have--we
have seen a faster change in the bluefish population than with
striped bass due to the decline of menhaden, squid, sand eels,
herring and butterfish.
When forage species were particularly prevalent in the
1970's, both predator species were eating the same abundant
forage species, and both predator stocks were in abundance.
Even though striped bass appear more adaptable and able to
maintain their numbers over a short haul, if we continue to
destroy the forage base, we will eventually see the same result
as we've seen with bluefish. The striped bass, because of their
ability to adapt to a wider range of forage species, have a
broader support system. Still, we can only remove so many of
their supports before the fishery collapse.
The problem will not just be at the last action we take,
but all the actions we have taken, cumulative over the years.
The species that play important roles in the historical
diets of both striped bass and bluefish are menhaden, sand
eels, squid, mackerel, shad and river herring. My written
testimony contains the relevant statistical data.
The point is that a historical staple dietary sources of
striped bass and bluefish are under attack and will surely
damage those and other key species' viability.
In the ocean, the study of ecosystem management is complex.
When we overharvest menhaden, other species like squid, sand
eels, mackerel, which have historically made up the difference
in the diets of striped bass and bluefish, the stocks of these
species have now declined and have left few alternatives to
supplement the diet of striped bass and bluefish.
For the last 30 years NMFS has continued to declare some
species, especially forage fish, as underutilized. With the
collapse of historical fisheries, many commercial fishermen
have begun to harvest these underutilized species. There has
been a dramatic increase in the harvest of bunker, herring,
squid, ling and whiting.
NMFS is not the only fisheries management regime at fault.
For example, the menhaden board at the Atlantic States Marine
Fisheries Commission consists of five States with the greatest
vested interest in the commercial harvest and five members of
the commercial harvest industry.
Can I expect them to practice ecosystem management? All
boards need to include a balance of all user groups and members
who are primarily interested in ecosystem management.
We are totally destroying the delicate ecological balance
of nature by our unchecked overfishing, and this will result in
a dramatic shift in all predator/prey relationships in our
ocean.
In looking at the available data and the natural history of
bluefish and striped bass, clearly, there's a scarcity of data
after 1980. Since the 1980's, we have spent and continue to
spend millions of dollars on monitoring and modeling of striped
bass. In comparison, only a small percentage of the money has
been spent on collection of biological information.
After 1980, fisheries managements placed the emphasis on
population analysis, a simple form of bean counting. Now with
the reduction of available funds, scientists are directed
toward using statistical modeling procedures as a cost saving
method. They spend most of their time developing and
maintaining these unproven population estimating techniques.
Fisheries biologists today receive more training in
statistics than in biology. A growing number of economists,
statisticians, and specialists in population dynamics are
sitting on, technical, a committee. Frequently, the goal
appears to be the development of statistics that look good on
paper rather than reflecting what is occurring in the
ecosystem.
This hearing emphasizes forage species and their
interrelationships. However, when we look at ecosystem
management we must consider many areas. We must consider
habitat loss, chemical contamination, physical change, and
water quality. Without all the pieces to the puzzle we cannot
understand the problem and thus never solve the problem.
And when I'm looking at Barnegat Bay, and I sit on the
policy committee of the Barnegat Bay Estuarine Program, which
Congressman Saxton and Congressman Pallone helped get some
funds for and get us going, we're looking at those ecosystem
problems. We're looking at what's trying to happen there.
I was listening to Ken Able's discussion, and basically
looking at the young. We also need to look at the adults. In my
written testimony I compare them to the lemmings. When they
find their available food source is gone, they commit suicide,
they basically march into the ocean.
Well, when they do that, then the adults stop producing.
They stop producing young. They either abort their young, or
they, basically, just don't have any. And they die off. So it
also, when we impact the food source of the adult, we're going
to have impact on the other future generations, because,
basically, they'll cut back. They just won't reproduce.
And I see the red light is lit, so I'll--one parting
comment. If you want to learn more about the Barnegat Bay
Estuarine program, as Congressman Saxton knows and Congressman
Pallone, we're going to put on the Barnegat Bay Festival May
17th, and we've got like 24 different stations throughout the
whole estuarine program to cover all those points, to show you
what's going on.
And there's a lot of different things. You want to learn
how to fly fish or just want to learn the vegetation in the
pine barrens. So take a look at the list that's out there.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fote may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much. Thank you, Tom, for your
testimony, also.
Mr. Jim Donofrio is the executive director of the
Recreational Fishing Alliance.
STATEMENT OF JAMES A. DONOFRIO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
RECREATIONAL FISHING ALLIANCE
Mr. Donofrio. Good morning, Congressman Saxton, Congressman
Pallone.
I want to thank you for your leadership in renaming the
Subcommittee to conservation. Putting that word in there was--
it just shows that the tone that you're setting, which needs to
be set--the reason why I say that, because NMFS was once called
the Office of Conservation and Management, and I don't think--
we saw very little of either of those over the years, and now
we have the Office of Sustainable Fisheries. And as we all
know, anyone who's ever fished or any scientist will tell you,
in order to have sustainable fisheries, we need to have
sustainable forage.
So I want to thank you for holding these forage fish
hearings. I think this is a step in the right direction of
having sustainable fisheries and living up to the name on the
Magnuson-Stevens Act.
It is the opinion of the RFA and our membership, at our
board meeting we had in Miami, that there is a looming forage
fish crisis across the country. Right now, the east coast, we
have problems and also on the west coast with a huge squid
fishery that has developed inside of State waters in
California, a little bit outside. So it's a touchy problem with
no management. But we see this as a national problem, and I
think the 105th Congress can address this, and I believe with
your leadership and Mr. Pallone working in this spirit of
bipartisanship, we will achieve that.
Recreational fishermen and commercial fishermen all agree
that forage fish management is prerequisite for sustainable
fisheries. Big fish eat little fish. And NMFS has never managed
the fisheries of this nation with that consideration. It has
been single species management, and, with that, we can never
truly have sustainable fishery stocks.
The designation ``underutilized'' amounts to no more than a
death sentence for species. With that type of one-dimensional
thinking, as witnessed in the decline with the shark fishing.
The finning operations for a foreign market, these fish were
deemed underutilized, and now we have a stock decline that
might take over 30 years or longer for a recovery. And that
situation is not acceptable anymore.
The other comment I want to make here, and I'm just doing
an overview, Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind. Fish are not
manufactured goods, and they can't be viewed in the same
marketing perspective as manufactured trade. And I hear
commercial fishermen say to me, ``Well, Jim, you know, we trade
Toyotas, we do this back and forth.''
We can't do that. This perspective needs to be stopped,
and, in fact, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to refer to a
document here, which actually talks about that. It's a study,
and it's done by the Institute for Environmental Negotiation at
the University of Virginia, Richard Collins.
And I'd be glad to bring a copy to Sharon and send it down
to her when I'm down there tomorrow.
Mr. Saxton. Please do.
Mr. Donofrio. Yeah. Let me just read to you here about the
market in here.
It says fishery issues present a classic case of market
failure. As explained by resource economists and environmental
theorists, a market failure exists when the conditions
necessary for a free market to work effectively are absent. The
fishermen's problem is a significant example of market failure
toward commons problems. And we believe this is a tragedy of
the commons. It's not so much the fishery you're talking about,
it's the balance in the ecosystem. It's the balance that is the
tragedy of the commons, and this is what we have here when
we're addressing forage fish.
It also notes in here that fishing under this, what happens
is that in this type of a market you fish beyond maximum
sustainable yield.
Because these are not manufactured goods, they're not
planted, these are wild fish stocks. So this perspective has to
be changed, and I implore upon this Congress to do that.
Also, as far as NMFS goes, the United States National
Research Council has made this observation. Fishery scientists
and managers have given virtually no consideration to
consequences of removing target species on the structure,
dynamics, and productivity of the ecosystem, of which the
target species are a component.
Another fishery scientist observes that part of the problem
with fisheries management is the tendency to manage one species
at a time. Marine communities are diverse, and their food
chains are complex. In many instances, one fishery is targeted
a predator, while another is targeted prey. Yet there is no
management coordination between the two, and that backs up my
statement in my original testimony there.
On the same note it's been observed that sustainable fish
populations depend on biological integrity of the marine
ecosystem, which is undermined by overfishing.
Coordinated multi-species management based on recognition
of the interaction amongst fishers, sea birds, mammals, and
their habitats should be developed and implemented.
I'd like to ask the Congress, and with your leadership, Mr.
Saxton, to seek out the appropriations to fund the
universities, the scientists that would do the multi-species
management. I know it's a very expensive deal, it's very
complex, but we have to look at our fisheries more seriously,
and I don't think the Department of Commerce has done that. I
don't think they recognize the value, the true value of our
commercial and recreational fisheries sustainable for the long
time.
And let me tell you the feeling I get from addressing clubs
all over the country. I just got back from a trip in Florida.
Mike Donovan, our development director, got back from a trip in
Massachu-
setts, and the people on the street feel that the intent of the
Magnuson has never been lived up to. And this is that tragedy
of the commons. We felt that we got the foreigners out of here,
but NMFS has encouraged foreign markets, so what have we
accomplished?
And I think what we need to do is address this multi-
species management system, put America first, and if there are
extras, truly extras, in the ecosystem then fine, develop these
markets, but I think the markets were encouraged prior to
having any realistic science on these--on this multi-species
interaction. And I think that needs to be considered.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
Thank you, Mr. Pallone.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Donofrio may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much.
For any of you who are in the audience who think fisheries
management is simple or easy or clear-cut, you have just heard
testimony from five people who demonstrate that it is not.
Essentially, we're trying to arrive at Jack Dunnigan's
point of view as one of the partners in the regulatory process,
and Frank and I from being partners in the legislative process
that relate to this issue. We try to sort through all this and
come up with legislative and regulatory schemes that accomplish
everybody's final goal, which is more of all species.
This morning it seems to me that there have been two
notions that have been advanced, and I guess I would like to
ask some questions about those two notions.
One notion, which was originally introduced here this
morning by Ken Able, I think is fascinating. And that is that,
perhaps, of all the things that we ought to be looking at,
perhaps the most important is the first year of life for,
particularly I guess, the Atlantic bluefish species. And
perhaps that's something that we don't know a whole lot about.
The other notion also, certainly, has a basis in fact, and
that is that big fish have to have little fish to eat or
they're not going to do well or they're not going to stick
around the parts where the little fish don't live anymore.
So those are the two notions that I think I heard this
morning, and I guess the first is, Ken, let me just pose this
question to you, and then anybody else can jump in who wants
to.
While your contention is, and obviously, we appropriated a
significant amount of money for you to advance your notions,
because you're the expert, if the notion is that the primary
problem or one of the primary problems or a major problem
exists with regard to environmental factors that affect the
first year of life, then how do you put into perspective the
environmental, including the food issue, fish food issue, for
that period of life after the first year?
Mr. Able. Well, let me preface my comment by saying I feel
much more comfortable with my boots on and a net in my hand
than a microphone in front of me. So just bear with me a
minute.
I clearly believe that there needs to be a focus on the
first year in the life of fishes that--in order to understand
some of these fishes. That does not mean that adults are not
important. Clearly, they are. If they're not around there's no
reproduction, and there will be no little fish.
I think many of the issues of the predator/prey
interactions, some of the most important issues might actually
be happening during the first year, as well, though.
From some of our studies, it becomes clear that if an
animal grows slow during the summer, it may survive, but it'll
grow more slowly. When it enters the winter we see increasing
evidence of over-winter mortality, and these fish probably
become prey or simply die due to cold temperatures during
winter migrations, and they disappear. But we have no record of
that mortality. But that mortality may have been initiated
during the summer when they grew--when they grew at a slower
than normal rate.
So that the mortality may have occurred during the winter,
but the cause of that mortality was actually slow growth in a
given habitat during the summer. So that, again, commenting on
the complexity of these interactions, but the likelihood that
predator/prey interactions, i.e., big fish eat little fish,
that also can happen during the first year, as well.
To pretend that I know specifically how to answer that
question, I just won't do that.
Mr. Saxton. Mr. Fote.
Mr. Fote. If we look to the environment off of New Jersey
in the '80's and the '70's, we saw all kinds of sand eel
population. When those bluefish and striped bass migrated down
to the south, they would basically stay in this locale the
whole month of November and December, just gorging themselves
of the sand eels.
When they went down south they were fat fish. They had a
lot of body fat, so they were able to endure the harsh winter,
and they were able to winter over.
When the sand eel population started down--dying in '89,
you look to this huge crash and it started in the bluefish
population. If you look at statistics, we went for catches in
the early '80's to 175 million pounds, something like that,
recreationally, down to about 34, and it's even getting less
and less every year. Why?
Maybe, as we look at nature, we know that when an adult is
under stress, when it basically cannot store body fat, when it
cannot be in a healthy condition, it just does not produce
young the following year. I mean, basically it takes over.
Well, they--a lot more--a lot smarter about how to develop
their environment than we seem to be. When they're under stress
they don't reproduce, because they know their young will not
survive.
And I think that plays. And Ken's right, if we don't study
the ecosystem in the bays, and that's what we're doing in the
Barnegat Bay Estuarine program, trying to get that information,
we have no idea what the effect of power plants, the suction
that's going on, I mean, with Oyster Creek over the years, how
it affects the bay anchovies.
Same thing with Salem Nuclear Power Plant. We know we lose
thousands--hundreds of millions of bay anchovy every year,
like--something like 50 percent of the population. And
especially in the larvae stage, 'cause that's when they get
sucked in the power plant. So is that affecting the weak fish,
it's defeated in that early stage. And that's the whole kind of
interrelationship.
It's like a--Congressman Saxton knows I'm familiar with
bicycle wheels. You can break one or two spokes and ride on the
wheel, but as soon as you break a couple of more, that wheel
collapses, and that's what we're doing with the whole system.
Mr. Saxton. Any others?
All right. Let me turn, at this point, to Mr. Pallone for
whatever questions he may have.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate all
your testimony, but I have to say that, I guess, as Jim was
saying earlier, I get, in many ways, more confused listening to
the different views than even before you started. Let me just
point out why I'm confused, and you tell me if it's because you
disagree or it's because I'm just not understanding completely.
I notice that Mr. Dunnigan talked about--when he was
talking about interaction between bluefish and striped bass, he
said that--he mentioned that, in the testimony, that a large
portion of the bluefish diet consists of young striped bass,
and that one study suggested that predation by bluefish was the
greatest source of mortality for juvenile striped bass. And it
is possible that the proportion of striped bass in their diet
could increase the striped bass--in abundance increase.
So if I understand that comment it seems to suggest that as
the number of young striped bass increased, then the number of
bluefish would also, because there'd be more for them to feed
on.
But then I'm listening to what Jim Donofrio said, which
basically was that both species are feeding on forage fish, and
that if the forage fish are overharvested, the bluefish,
because they--I mean, the striped bass, because they seem to be
more dominant--well, I guess, get more and the bluefish
populations could decline, because there's not enough forage
fish left for them.
And then I'm listening to Tom, and you seem to think, Tom,
that, at least--unless, again, I'm just going by the testimony
here, you mention this study by Dr. Lionel Walford at NMFS at
Sandy Hook, who said, essentially, that his research didn't
find any correlation between the abundance of bluefish and
the--of one species and the decline of the other.
I guess, assuming we're talking about striped bass and
bluefish, as well as other species. So I'm totally confused,
unless--it seems that you all disagree on what's happening.
Mr. Fote. No, I think we all agree.
Mr. Pallone. OK, well, then tell me how, because I'm
confused.
Mr. Fote. What we're saying here, that we can't--the
studies basically don't show if the stocks of bluefish are up
high, will the stocks of striped bass be low? It doesn't show
that.
Mr. Pallone. OK.
Mr. Fote. OK, so there's no absolute data out there. What
we do see is when the stocks of forage fish are up and down,
then some species react to that, as far as the drop in forage
fish, faster, because they're less adaptable as adults.
If you look at bluefish and striped bass, they both feed
similarly when they're small and juveniles. They feed on
shrimp, grass shrimp, and everything else. As they get larger,
they have a different kind of feeding habits, and one relies
more--if you watch bluefish, it relies more on menhaden,
mackerel, fish that swim.
If you look at a striped bass, certain times of the year
it's eating nothing but crabs, certain times eating nothing but
sand fleas, and certain times eating worms. It's more
adaptable. So it has a greater food--I mean, a food base, like
the panda. If you look at--in the forest, when the bamboo all
dies, they all die.
Mr. Pallone. Right.
Mr. Fote. And other species will basically survive, because
they eat the panda that's dying, because they can mix their
diet up, and that's more, I think, what we're----
Mr. Pallone. Well, Tom, when I was reading through the
different testimony, to me, at least, it seemed that what you
were quoting made the most sense, in the sense that you were
suggesting that both feed on forage fish, and to the extent
that those disappear, there's not sufficient supply, you know.
It impacts both of them.
But what I still don't understand if there's a direct
relationship between the two species, or is it just that, you
know, as the forage fish disappear there's not enough for both,
and then we don't know who dominates or who ends up surviving?
Mr. Fote. It's not a simple answer, 'cause as Dr. Able
pointed out, striped bass form in bays and estuaries. It's a
lot easier to affect the adult population by nets, recreational
fishing and everything else. Bluefish run offshore, so they
basically are less susceptible to that spawning targeting. So
that can also affect as--Able, I think, can talk for himself,
but pointed out, it's a whole lot more complex than simple nuts
and bolts. I mean, if we, basically, could give you all the
answers of what the interrelationship is, I mean, I'd be worth
a million dollars instead of what I'm worth.
Mr. Pallone. Well, I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I
mean, I guess my conclusion of all this, and I'd still like to
hear from the others, Mr. Chairman, if that's possible, my
conclusion is that we clearly need a lot more studies, because
different people are coming to different conclusions, some of
which may overlap, but clearly, there's a lot more that needs
to be done.
Mr. Saxton. Let's hear from Mr. Bergmann.
Mr. Bergmann. Congressman Pallone, just for one issue on
bluefish, we could stop fishing on bluefish entirely,
recreationally and commercially, and just completely stop, and
not necessarily have an effect on their abundance in the
estuaries.
As has been noted, they spawn offshore, and they rely on
the tides winds to bring them in, into the estuaries. If they
don't make it into the estuary system, they die. And I think
there needs to be more studies done on the effects of water
temperature, salinity, and the clean water on these animals.
Mr. Saxton. Mr. Donofrio.
Mr. Donofrio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Pallone, thank you. I want to answer Congressman
Pallone's question regarding my testimony. As you know, I am
not a fishery scientist. In my testimony I make note of my many
thousands of days on the water. I still have my 100 ton
operator's license. And my primary fishery, in my charter boat
days, of course, during the summer months, was bluefishing. And
then that would interface into striped bass late in the fall.
And based on my on-water observations, as I started as a deck
hand in the '60's, when we had--I believe we had a really truly
recovered bass fishery, when we didn't have the truncation in
the sizes, and we had tremendous bluefish, and especially one
of our hot spots was the Shrewsbury rocks and the acid waters.
And there was tremendous amounts of schools of both. But at
the time, we didn't have a squid fishery offshore that was
developed for foreign markets. We didn't have a huge menhaden
business off our coast. The menhaden industry, reduction
industry, actually worked south and stayed in their own waters.
They didn't have to venture this far.
So we had a lot of bunker, a lot of menhaden, we had sand
eels, we had a multiple variety of bait and enormous amounts of
them. And bluefish and striped bass are highly competitive;
however, striped bass are such hogs that they will compete and
push the bluefish out of an area.
And I believe Michael Laptew from Laptew Productions sent
the Chairman a video for the committee to look at. These are
underwater shots he does with a snorkel as not to spook the
bass. It shows striped bass and bluefish feeding, and you can
clearly see here how the striped bass are the dominant feeder.
And you know, we knew that for years. You could see it on
your recorders and all, but here's documented photos of these
fish feeding.
Mr. Pallone. But the main point, Jim and Tom, that both of
you are making, the way I understand it is that it's the fact
that a lot of the forage fish have disappeared that creates
this competition and ultimately means that one or both stocks
decline.
Mr. Saxton. Let me--Frank, can I break in? Let me just
throw a little gas on the fire here.
Jack, I have a series of faxes here which have Atlantic
States Marine Fisheries Commission on them, and in this group
of papers there's what appears to be information that says that
the menhaden population is extremely well off today. This is a
chart, which you're familiar with, yes?
Mr. Dunnigan. Um-hum.
Mr. Saxton. OK, this says that the worst time for menhaden
looks--appears to have been in 1975, and then the stock
recovered, and then they got nearly in trouble again in 1985,
and that by 1995 the stock of menhaden is bigger than it has
been since anytime since 1965. Is that what this chart shows?
Mr. Dunnigan. I don't actually have it in front of me, but
I think that that's probably accurate. Certainly, if it
reflects through the assessments through last year that would--
that would be consistent.
Menhaden are a very short-lived species, very much
dependent on recruitment. They're fished as age zeros and age
one fish, so you'll see these sort of wilder fluctuations in
that kind of a fish than you would in something like striped
bass that lives a long time. And you can have more stability
because of a larger number of age classes.
Mr. Saxton. Is there some reason why nearshore fishermen
continually come up to me unprompted and say the menhaden are
gone?
Mr. Dunnigan. Well, I don't know. Your question, I think,
to somebody on the earlier panel was, what would you tell a
fisherman if that's what they said to you, and what I would
tell them, not being a scientist, is that's very interesting.
Let's go talk to the scientist and ask him what they're seeing.
The Commission's Atlantic Menhaden Advisory Committee met
in Richmond last week, and under the current menhaden
management plan, every year we look at six different triggers.
And they're either, you know, on or off, like a binary system,
and they determined that one of those was met this year, and
the fact that that trigger was met, and the one that was met
was recruitment to the age zero population. So it appears that
there was low recruitment last year in the coastal fishery. I
would assume then that the 1996 year class isn't going to be
all that strong. So we may see some of this coming down.
The other five triggers were not met, and so the management
board now will have to sit down and decide what to do about
that.
A similar thing happened a couple of years ago where that
one trigger was met, and it was followed the following year by
a very high recruitment.
So this is a species where they tend to go up and down,
there tends to be local instances of a lack of availability of
them, and I think it would just be incumbent on going to look
at the data.
Mr. Saxton. So you're saying that the spike on that chart
that I see may just be an aberration of a count at one
particular time in the history of the species, and that it may
not be----
Mr. Dunnigan. That's right, and it may have just been one
very strong year class. When you have a population that's made
up of only a very few year classes, and in this case we're
looking at two or three, you know, one very strong year class
will tend to have that kind of an effect, just as one very poor
year class will have a very strong effect moving the spawning
stock back down.
Mr. Saxton. OK, so that data may be suspect in terms of the
total biomass of----
Mr. Dunnigan. And it may not reflect where the resource is
today.
Mr. Saxton. OK. Frank, I'm sorry, I broke in on your----
Mr. Pallone. No, that's all right.
Mr. Fote. If you look at the old data on menhaden, you also
will see that there used to be a lot of six and seven and
eight-year-old class around. We don't manage that species for
longevity, not for the many year classes.
There are--they can grow to nine, ten years old. I mean,
that's when they get the bigger bunker. They are longer living.
What happens here, because we've been managing those species
for reduction and for bait industry, is, basically, now
truncated to small year classes, where it can be that function.
There's not a lot of year classes left.
I mean, if you look at some of the old data, which I looked
at, there's six, seven-year-olds and eight-year-olds that made
part of the market. After '65 you don't see that anymore,
because we basically----
The same way, if you look in the Potomac River back in the
1830's, they could haul, say, 450 sixty-pound striped bass.
Well, I don't think I've heard of 450 striped bass being on the
whole east coast, I mean, in the last couple years. Because
there was also 3 million--300 million shad being caught and 300
million river herring. So that was different circumstances, and
as we basically truncate the population, we truncate the size
that we harvest out of there. It's going to make that much of a
difference.
Mr. Saxton. Jack.
Mr. Dunnigan. Just, remember, Mr. Chairman, when you're
going back and looking at fish from the 1830's, you're
essentially looking at what today we would call a virgin
population, an unfished resource. And you don't ever anticipate
being able, over the long-term on a maximum sustainable yield
basis, as the Magnuson-Stevens Act says, to be able to maintain
that kind of a harvest.
In a relatively unfished population, you will get very high
returns when you first go into it and start fishing.
So you know, looking at historical data, it's very
interesting, and probably important for managers to consider,
but it doesn't necessarily tell the whole story over the long-
term.
Mr. Fote. If you look at the Potomac River information,
which was very historical, 'cause it basically kept, they kept
good records during that period of time. There was a huge
amount of--they were in the Potomac River every five minutes
with five-mile long nets. That's before we had--that by the
1980's they had a collapsed fishery where they needed 18
hatcheries going on. So they did impact, it wasn't a virgin
fishery, and there was a lot of pressure on those fisheries
during this period of time.
Mr. Saxton. OK, we're going to go to Mr. Donofrio and then
back to Mr. Pallone.
Mr. Donofrio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To answer Mr.
Pallone's question from before, I don't believe that the--this
is my opinion--that the bluefish stocks are in decline. What I
believe is that they're being displaced, and that's the point I
was trying to make with the forage fish problem.
In order to sustain two populations near the coast, you
need to have a big variety of bait and enormous amounts of it.
And what I think is happening, as witnessed in the Azures this
year, there was a lot of big bluefish in the Azures. So they're
going somewhere else. They're a highly migratory pelagic fish,
and they will go. And I believe the recovering striped bass
fishery, because of their ferocious appetite, they will take
over the area, and if there's not a variety of forage fish, and
as we all know, the bass were called squid hounds, and I don't
know the last time I saw squid along the beach. Years ago they
used to spin them up and we caught them, but it's just--there's
less and less forage fish, and I believe that's the problem
there between the two fisheries, not that there's a decline,
maybe, in the stock, but I think that the nature of the striped
bass is just pushing them out of the area.
Thank you.
Mr. Saxton. Mr. Pallone.
Mr. Pallone. I just wanted to ask Tom Fote--you've
mentioned this phenomena of using modeling, for example, and
the statistical methods, if you will, as a cost saving device,
as opposed to collection of biological information, and I know,
Tom, you talk about that, not only in the context of various
fisheries management plans, but also with dredging and
environmental issues at different stages.
And it concerns me. I'm not sure I fully understand. I just
wanted you to comment on it a little more. I mean, what I see
more and more with the EPA and with--and I guess also with
NMFS--is just a statistical computer modeling without reference
to actual data collection, fish samples, whatever.
Just comment on that a little more, I mean, how that's
affecting what we do and why you think it's not--or what do you
think we should do to change it?, because obviously if the
scientific data's not accurate, and the methods being used are
not accurate, then we're going nowhere.
Mr. Fote. When it was easy to do science and it was cheap
to do science, that's what we did, we did a lot of biology. We
took a--when Bruce Freeman and Ken Able and Tom McCloy went
to--they did a lot of stomach samples to see what was going on
with species.
Right now it becomes very expensive, and also, we're under
such pressure to produce so much stock for each individual
sector of the commercial and recreational fishery, that we've
got to prove our figures. So they've gone to this modeling
technique. And some of them are very good, but they should be
used as a tool, not as the last word. And the problem is, when
we look at statistical modeling, it's only as good--I mean, my
expertise is not fisheries management, as far as education. It
was marketing management. And I learned a long time ago, you
can do whatever you want with statistics when you put that--
with the information you put in there. And you get whatever
answer you want out of the statistics.
Modeling is a tool, but when it comes to the whereall, how
we manage a fishery, summer flounder's that way, 'cause the
model produces this way, we can allow the harvest, because the
model does that.
It's only as good as the information that's put in there.
Some of the information has not been peer reviewed. Some of the
information has not gone out to scientific journals so they can
be questioned by other scientists. I mean, when we basically
use--and we do pharmaceutical industry, you put it out in a
magazine or the medical industry, and basically you get ripped
apart by all your colleagues and made to feel inferior, because
you didn't do this, this and that.
We don't do that in fisheries management. We don't publish
a lot of what we use. So other scientists can come in and say,
``This is a problem here. You've missed a small piece.'' And
we've corrected models going back. Every time I'm looking, we
basically go back and say, ``Well, we left this out, now we've
got to readjust the figures.'' We did that with recreational
statistics. We had to go back 20 years and re-do everything.
And who knows if the latest round of changes, basically really
reflects the population.
We also don't spend enough money on these statistical
models. I mean, to get a confidence level very small, you've
got to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars.
We're not going to do that. We only spend a small amount to do
the whole marine rec-
reational survey along the east coast. And we don't have that
money available.
Mr. Saxton. Can I ask Ken Able to just comment on the
general notion of the accuracy of scientific data and peer
review?
Mr. Able. In the risk of threatening my own career, I could
tell you that it's very difficult.
Mr. Saxton. Frank and I do that every day, so----
Mr. Able. Thank you, I appreciate that.
It's very difficult to sample populations of fish. They're
very mobile, they move around tremendously, that's one of the
problems that the National Marine Fishery Service has, and any
agency that tries to sample them, academic scientists,
whatever. So that the degree of confidence you have in your
numbers is variable, and if the results are peer reviewed and
published in the literature, you often state that we expect the
numbers to be 100 pounds or whatever per given area, but plus
or minus 50 pounds, perhaps. That says that the answer may be
50 or it may be 150. Best estimate is 100.
That kind of variability is inherent in studying fish
populations. And that's one of the difficulties that we
encounter all the time.
Obviously, if we put it in fishermen's terms, if they knew
that they were going to go out and catch three trophy-size
striped bass every time, they would go out and do it. They
don't do that. Why? Because the fish are moving around, they're
not feeding, they're doing a variety of things.
So they have trouble in their own way of sampling fish
populations. Everyone else does the same thing, too.
So it's convenient to, you know, comment negatively on the
National Marine Fishery Service data values and other people's
values. It's just very hard to do. There's extreme variability
in these populations, and that's what makes it difficult.
If it was easy, we wouldn't be sitting here. We'd have all
the answers. It's not easy. It's just not easy.
Mr. Saxton. Let me ask you this, changing the subject
slightly. We held a hearing a year ago on bluefish, and one of
the notions was that bluefish have not diminished so much in
biomass, they've just changed the location where we find them,
and Mr. Donofrio just advanced that notion again, and that
seems, from my point of view, to be a possibility. Do bluefish
have an affinity for any particular geographic area of the
ocean, or from a scientific point of view, are they fairly
mobile?
Mr. Able. They're fairly mobile, but those occurring on the
east coast undergo more or less regular migrations up and down
the east coast. The likelihood that bluefish from the east
coast shore showing up in the Azures is not very likely in my
estimation.
They have regular migrations. The timing of those
migrations are very, very, variable. They're often temperature-
dependent, but there are other things going on that we don't
quite understand, so that I'd say on the east coast we know
with some reasonable confidence what the migrations of the
adults are like. We don't know what the migrations of the
larvae are like, and that's why I get back to the point that I
think that's the most unknown period in the--period that needs
the most attention, the first year.
Fishermen, both recreational and commercial, have a very
obvious reason for focusing on the adults. That's what they
want to catch, and that's where much of our fisheries
management has focused in the past. It, in my opinion, needs to
change, and we need to have increased focus on the early life
history stages in order to understand what's going on.
Will that solve all the problems? No, but I think it'll
help.
Mr. Saxton. Well, thank you very much.
I have a lot of questions. I don't know that I have any
questions further for this panel at this moment. I want to
thank you for coming.
Mr. Pallone, do you have any further questions?
Mr. Pallone. No, thank you very much, and thank all of them
and you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Saxton. I just want to express the Subcommittee's
appreciation for your being with us today, and I hope that we
didn't ask any questions that made any of you uncomfortable,
but if we did, that's normal in the fishery management
business.
So thank you for being here today, and I look forward to
working with you all as we move forward to try to answer some
of the questions that have been asked today and to fashion
legislation and regulatory policy that will be beneficial to
all concerned.
Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned;
and the following was submitted for the record:]
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