April 17, 2003
In a surprise move, the NMFS biologist that had last year authored a stock assessment on Bocaccio that put the population at ‘4 %’ of the unfished level, is now estimating that the population is much healthier than earlier estimated, and could in fact be above the percentage of the unfished level (25 %) that triggers a federal listing of the species as officially “Overfished”. The listing of bocaccio as overfished three years ago is the action that launched the series of increasingly restrictive regulations that has caused so much economic pain and anger from the members of the sportfishing industry. From the beginning of this process SAC boat owners and skippers have challenged the bocaccio abundance data as being at direct odds with their on-the-water observations. One would only hope that this new information would encourage the fishery managers and biologists to give more credence to the observations of the fishermen, who after all are the ones who are most familiar with the health of these stocks as they are on the water with them weekly.
“How can the bocaccio numbers be that low when we are seeing more salmon grouper (bocaccio) now than we have seen in twenty years?” This quote came from Owner/operator Joe Villareal of the MIRAGE, an overnight Sportfisher out of Pt. Hueneme Sportfishing, last year. The reality is that it now appears that the bocaccio population never was in that much trouble, according to this new stock assessment information. If the stock assessment survives a peer review process scheduled next week in Santa Cruz, it will become the “best available science”, and will be available to the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) for their meeting in June (June 17-20) in Foster City, CA. While there are no guarantees, it is likely that the Council will ease the restrictions that are currently in place for the July-December, 2003 time frame, and it will also assist in getting more fishing opportunity for the 2004 calendar year.
Once it becomes “the best science”, I will update this web page and also provide more info as it becomes available on the actions of the PFMC, so stay tuned!
Bob
©2003 Sportfishing Association of California