Posted by FYI Link: APP - Lawsuit filed to challenge emergency shutdown of black sea bass
on 11/7/2009, 6:08 am
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November 6, 2009
Lawsuit filed to challenge emergency shutdown of black sea bass fishery
By KIRK MOORE - TOMS RIVER BUREAU
Recreational fishing advocates have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court to challenge the National Marine Fisheries Service's six-month emergency shutdown of the recreational black sea bass fishery, a move the critics say used questionable survey data to close down an industry sector - even as biologists reported the bass are not overfished.
The shutdown ordered through March 2010 is based on "a fatally flawed angler survey which NMFS itself has acknowledged is not to be used for this type of decision,'' lawyers Raymond D. Bogan and Herbert P. Moore Jr. wrote in their complaint, filed on behalf of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, United Boatmen and several fishing businesses.
One plaintiff, captain Jim Cicchitti who operates the Starlight party and charter boats out of Wildwood Crest, depends on black sea bass for virtually all of his fall and winter business. The three-boat company stands to lose 40 percent of its gross revenue and jobs for 10 to 12 people due to the closure, according to the court papers.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NMFS' parent agency, announced the black sea bass closure in early October, after regulators from coastal states refused to act on data from a federal anglers survey that indicated sport fishermen might overrun their share of the 2009 quota by more than 200 percent.
Numbers from the Marine Recreational Fishing Statistical Survey - originally designed to measure the overall level of sport fishing activity - are widely considered unreliable. But NMFS officials say they have no other indicator to forewarn of potential quota overruns.
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