10 



[The prepared statement of John H. Dunnigan may be found at 

 end of hearing.] 



Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much, Mr. Dunnigan. Dr. Gilford. 

 Dr. Gilford is also with the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management 

 Council. Go ahead, sir. 



STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES H. GILFORD, CHAIRMAN, MID- 

 ATLANTIC FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL 



Mr. Gilford. Congressman Saxton, Congressman Pallone and 

 your associates up there that we affectionately refer to as staff, 

 thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today. I am 

 James Gilford, chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management 

 Council and I very much appreciate the opportunity to present tes- 

 timony here today on the Federal role on the management of blue- 

 fish. 



The Mid-Atlantic Council members have received copies of my 

 testimony and at their next meeting which begins tomorrow they 

 will take a formal position with respect to the proposal to withdraw 

 the existing Bluefish Management Plan. 



For that reason my comments today represent my views and not 

 necessarily those of the Council. With your permission I will sub- 

 mit to the Subcommittee the Council's position immediately follow- 

 ing our upcoming meeting. 



I will direct my testimony to the three items of concern as stated 

 in the letter of invitation to participate in today's hearings; namely, 

 the decline in bluefish stocks, the possible effects on bluefish man- 

 agement of withdrawing the existing Bluefish Management Plan 

 and appropriate measures which could be used to manage bluefish 

 under amendment one of the existing management plan. 



To avoid repeating things that Jack Dunnigan has already said, 

 I certainly agree with his comments with respect to the cooperation 

 between the Council and the ASMFC and I think it has been an 

 extremely positive and encouraging relationship. 



I would like to make it very clear that in my view there is no 

 turf issue involved here with this concept of withdrawing the blue- 

 fish plan. This is strictly a question of what is a proper and effec- 

 tive and efficient way of managing a fishery stock. 



First, there does appear to be a decline in bluefish stocks. Based 

 on a 1994 stock assessment by the Northeast Fisheries Science 

 Center Stock Assessment Workshop which is the best scientific in- 

 formation available to us right now, bluefish currently are consid- 

 ered to be overfished. 



The spawning stock biomass has declined by 74 percent between 

 1982 and 1993. Recruitment has been poor and the 1993 year class 

 is the smallest of any in the past decade. Since fishing mortality 

 rates have only recently exceeded the biological reference point, 

 thus indicating overfishing has occurred. It is possible that the con- 

 sistent decline in recruitment observed in recent years is respon- 

 sible for decline in stock biomass. 



Even so, the results of the most recent stock assessment suggests 

 that fishing mortality should be reduced to stabilize bluefish stocks 

 and prevent further declines and there are a number of mecha- 

 nisms that can be used to reduce that mortality without necessarily 



