Benson Chiles, director of the coastal ocean coalition, said that the coalition has again demonstration its willingness to stretch credulity far beyond normal bounds. Chiles attack the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council saying that the council’s support to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission horseshoe crab management plan allowing a severely restricted commercial harvest.
According to him overfished New Jersey fisheries, including monkfish, lobster, summer flounder, scup, and tautog, as further justification for removing or revamping the Council. He told that the Council is not involved in managing either and neither the monkfish nor the lobster fishery is considered overfished.
It is found that New Jersey was out of compliance with the Commission (not the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council, as Mr. Chiles called it) in tautog management. This does not mean that the Council determined that effective management measures weren’t necessary, only that the measures proposed by New Jersey weren’t acceptable to the Commission.
The Commission pays no heed to the status of species but has taken several measures to protect it, which include the Commission’s recommendation for a limited male horseshoe crab harvest for New Jersey and Delaware. It is this decision of the Commission that caused the commercial fishing members of the Council to vote against the moratorium not a disregard for the red knot.
