New Jersey has shut down its river herring fishery partly because it does not have the personnel or the funding to collect the data it needs.
That means fishermen who net the herring, mostly for the bait business, can no longer do so. Recreational anglers, including fly fishermen, no longer may target them. If an angler catches a river herring by accident, it now must be thrown back.
Commercial fishermen who work offshore and land river herring as an accidental by-catch of squid, mackerel and Atlantic herring operations, also cannot sell them in New Jersey.
State Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin closed the fishery in state waters Thursday, said Brandon Muffley, head of the state Bureau of Marine Fisheries.
The state had been under a deadline from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to prove the fishery was sustainable. It may be sustainable, Muffley said, but they do not have the staff to prove it.
"That's a big part of it. We don't have the data. We don't know what river herring's abundance is or what our fisheries are taking. We haven't had the resources to do the work," Muffley said.
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That means fishermen who net the herring, mostly for the bait business, can no longer do so. Recreational anglers, including fly fishermen, no longer may target them. If an angler catches a river herring by accident, it now must be thrown back.
Commercial fishermen who work offshore and land river herring as an accidental by-catch of squid, mackerel and Atlantic herring operations, also cannot sell them in New Jersey.
State Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin closed the fishery in state waters Thursday, said Brandon Muffley, head of the state Bureau of Marine Fisheries.
The state had been under a deadline from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to prove the fishery was sustainable. It may be sustainable, Muffley said, but they do not have the staff to prove it.
"That's a big part of it. We don't have the data. We don't know what river herring's abundance is or what our fisheries are taking. We haven't had the resources to do the work," Muffley said.
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/...11e1-a43d-001871e3ce6c.html#user-comment-area