Nils Stolpe, director of communications for the Garden State Seafood Association, works for commercial striped bass fishermen. Therefore, one might expect his opinions on the open areas in which recreational and commercial fishermen are allowed to fish for this species, might be tainted in favor of the commercial sector. However, his arguments concern comparative figures for striped bass mortality from two different causes, and after assessing them, one has to agree that there is something wrong with the fishery management rules in this case.

Stolpe argues for opening the EEZ to commercial striped bass fishing, and for recreational anglers to have the right to keep any such fish that they take in the EEZ, also. His reasons are the following: At this time, recreational striped bass fishers who catch the species in the EEZ, must release them. The mortality from this catch and release practice is inordinately high, compared to the mortality from the striped bass by-catch that goes on in the same area in the commercial fishery. However, Stolpe argues that the fish are wasted, nevertheless, and that both the multi-species fishery and the recreational fishers should be allowed to keep certain quotas of bass caught between 3 and 200 miles off the New Jersey shore.

Within 3 miles from shore, it is legal for either recreational or commercial fishers to take striped bass, and to keep them. From 3 miles out to the 200-mile limit of the US EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone), all striped bass taken must be discarded, whether they are caught intentionally by recreational fishermen, or as by-catch by commercial fishers.

The House Resources Committee has a subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans. A hearing was recently held in order to gather explicit information on striped bass management factors, problems, and statistics. The commercial fishermen requested that the EEZ be opened to striped bass take, in order to cut down on waste of the resource, but the New Jersey Congressmen present apparently ignored the mortality statistics and demanded that the EEZ remain closed to a quota. Stolpe has stated that it appears the New Jersey politicians are more influenced by the recreational fishermen in their districts and by the "misinformation" given by the Pew Oceana people, than they are by the NMFS stats on the striped bass fishery, including mortality figures coming out of both segments of the fishery.

This is a disheartening picture, because IWMC and many of our colleagues firmly believe that management decisions should always be made on the basis of the best scientific information available, and with the needs of all users of the resource in mind. It is obvious that the striped bass resource could be more efficiently managed and that if the EEZ were open to both commercial and recreational bass fishers, wasteful mortality including the by-catch figures, would be reduced. We wish the two segments of the fishery could get together on this for the sake of conservation of the striped bass resource in the waters off New Jersey.