Tab H, No. 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 GULF OF MEXICO FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL SPINY LOBSTER/STONE CRAB MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE The Radisson Hotel St. Petersburg, Florida January 29, 2008 VOTING MEMBERS Bob Shipp.................................................Alabama Bill Daughdrill...........................................Florida William Perret (designee for William Walker)..........Mississippi Larry Simpson...............................................GSMFC William Teehan (designee for Ken Haddad)..................Florida NON-VOTING MEMBERS Roy Crabtree..................NMFS, SERO, St. Petersburg, Florida Karen Foote (designee for John Roussel).................Louisiana Robert Gill...............................................Florida Joe Hendrix.................................................Texas Tom McIlwain..........................................Mississippi Vernon Minton.............................................Alabama Julie Morris..............................................Florida Harlon Pearce...........................................Louisiana Michael Ray.................................................Texas Robin Riechers (designee for Larry McKinney)................Texas Susan Villere...........................................Louisiana Bobbi Walker..............................................Alabama Kay Williams..........................................Mississippi STAFF Steven Atran..................................Fisheries Biologist Janet Bernard...........................................Secretary Assane Diagne...........................................Economist Shepherd Grimes..............................NOAA General Counsel Trish Kennedy............................Administrative Assistant Stu Kennedy...................................Fisheries Biologist Rick Leard..............................Deputy Executive Director Michael McLemore.............................NOAA General Counsel Charlene Ponce.........................Public Information Officer Wayne Swingle..................................Executive Director Amanda Thomas......................................Court Reporter OTHER PARTICIPANTS Juan Agar....................................................NMFS Mike Bailey..............................NMFS, St. Petersburg, FL Lt. Cliff Beard......... 8th Coast Guard District, New Orleans, LA Steve Branstetter............................................NMFS 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Glen Brooks...............................................GFA, FL David Carter.................................................NMFS Anik Clemens.................................................NMFS John Cole.....................................................LGL Marianne Cufone....................................GRN, Tampa, FL Jerry Cummings..........................................Tampa, FL David Dale...................................................NOAA Dale Diaz.........................................Mississippi DNR Chris Dorsett...................................Ocean Conservancy Libby Fetherston............Ocean Conservancy, St. Petersburg, FL Martin Fisher..................................................FL Ted Forsgren.........................CCA Florida, Tallahassee, FL George Geiger...............................................SAFMC Rick Hart.....................................NMFS, Galveston, TX Dennis Heinemann................................Ocean Conservancy Peter Hood...............................NMFS, St. Petersburg, FL Kristina Jackson.....................Sierra Club, Gainesville, FL Tom Jamir..............................................NOAA SEFSC Mike Jepson............Gulf and South Atlantic Fishery Foundation Vishwanie Maharaj...............Environmental Defense, Austin, TX Jim Nance....................................................NMFS Julie Neer..................................................SAFMC Russell Nelson............................................CCA, FL Bart Niquet.......................................Panama City, FL Brett Norton......................................Tallahassee, FL Mike Nugent....Port Aransas Boatmen Association, Aransas Pass, TX Dennis O’Hern.............................FRA, St. Petersburg, FL Clay Porch.............................................NMFS SEFSC Daryl Purchase.................................St. Petersburg, FL Karen Raine..................................................NOAA Sam Rauch....................................................NOAA Darden Rice....................................St. Petersburg, FL Scott Robson...........................................Destin, FL Bob Spaeth..............Southern Offshore Fishing Association, FL Lt. Brian Sullivan...............................U.S. Coast Guard Phil Steele........................................NOAA Fisheries Andy Strelcheck..............................................NMFS Richard Taylor.................................St. Petersburg, FL Bill Tucker...........................................Dunedin, FL Sal Versaggi............................................Tampa, FL Donald Waters.......................................Pensacola, FL Tom Wheatley.............................Conserve Fish, Tampa, FL Bob Zales, II, .....Panama City Boatmen’s Assoc., Panama City, FL Scott Zimmerman...Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen’s Association - - The Spiny Lobster/Stone Crab Management Committee of the Gulf of 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Mexico Fishery Management Council convened in the Milan Ballroom of the Radisson Hotel, St. Petersburg, Florida, Tuesday afternoon, January 29, 2008, and was called to order at 4:30 o’clock p.m. by Chairman Bob Shipp. ADOPTION OF AGENDA AND APPROVAL OF MINUTES CHAIRMAN BOB SHIPP: This is the Spiny Lobster/Stone Crab Management Committee, Tab H, and the first item is the Adoption of the Agenda. Do I hear a motion to adopt the agenda? Second? Objections? With no objections, the agenda is adopted. Approval of Minutes, Tab H, Number 2, is there a motion to approve? Second? Any objections? Okay, the minutes are approved and now I’m going to turn it over to Wayne for the Generic Scoping Document for International Minimum Size Limits and that’s Tab H, Number 3. GENERIC SCOPING DOCUMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL MINIMUM SIZE LIMIT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR WAYNE SWINGLE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start by familiarizing you with one section of the scoping document, which is Tab H, Number 3. On page 5 of that document are the two proposed approaches that were considered by the councils. This included the Caribbean Council as well. The one approach would be to have separate size limits for the continental U.S. fishery and different ones for the Puerto Rican and Caribbean fishery. They do currently use a smaller carapace length, which theirs is 3.5 instead of 3.0. They use a larger claw length or tail length and that’s 6.2 instead of 5.5. Then neither area uses a weight measure, but because so much of the international trade of lobsters is in the international arena, they wanted to use ounce measurements as the standard that could be used in the international arena. With that, I’ll point out on Tab H, Number 4 that is a summary of the scoping hearing and we had Karl Lessard, who is our chairman of our Spiny Lobster AP, to attend that and we put comments as far as their recommendations in there, which he did -- Basically, the AP’s recommendation was to use the first approach that includes different standards for the Caribbean area and the U.S. area. The rest of the Tab H, Number 4 just has individual comments by people that were in attendance there. The second page of that document indicates the approach that they adopted at that 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 hearing and made comments on. With that, I’ll go to the AP recommendations, which is Tab H, Number 5. They raised the issue that on the use of the different weights for the two different areas that what should you do if there’s a differential between those, whereas in the one area the size limits are five inches, the tail length is five inches, and carapace length is three inches and then you come up with a measured tail that doesn’t make that level. What they suggested was when there was a dispute about the governing size that the length, rather than the weight, should be used in resolving those types of disputes, which I presume the people in NMFS that’s writing up the regulations for this process will incorporate that. Again, on page 2 of the AP summary is what they recommended at the public hearings. Mr. Chairman, that is all. Basically, I just wanted to point out the timeline for this thing runs -- Completion of it runs clear into June and it will be to develop the final document by the Caribbean Council and then come back to this council for additional comments and additional hearings, if you choose to have them, since this was just a scoping document. I guess we won’t see any work product to review until probably the June time period. CHAIRMAN SHIPP: My understanding, from what Wayne says, is we really don’t need to take any action at this time and is that right, Wayne? EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: CHAIRMAN SHIPP: I don’t think we do. Any committee members? MR. CORKY PERRET: Wayne, I’ve got a question. At our last meeting -- I bring up the problem about weights and I don’t like weights and so on and so forth and Hal Robbins responded, and I quote: We can’t just go to length. Now, fortunately our AP met and everybody on the AP doesn’t like weights and then I read where one of the law enforcement guys doesn’t like weights and so I assume when we hear from advisory panel members that we never listen to them that we are listening to them anyway on this one. It just, in my experience, is a lot easier to measure rather than to weigh. The proposal, when we get to it, will be a length proposal and the weights seem to be gone? 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: I think this will apply really to only the lobster in commerce that didn’t originate here, because the part of the reason that they did that is because in order to ship the product without having to pay for the weight of the shell, they basically were shipping the tails without any shell on them and that has to be specified in ounces rather than length, I think. At least that’s the way the market is handled. They list them and classify them all by ounce weights and then you buy a box of -MR. PERRET: Okay, but this is going to do nothing with weights for our normal law enforcement guys in the lobster fishery of the Gulf, of our area of the Gulf? EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: That would be true and particularly if they put in the provision that in a dispute where the size is illegal under the weight criteria that the length criteria should be the primary method for determining whether a product was legal or not. MR. BILL TEEHAN: Just to clarify that, my understanding, and someone from NOAA Fisheries can jump in, but the concern with the weight -- I share Corky’s concerns about weights. I don’t think Florida’s law enforcement does anything but measure tails. Their concern though was the volume of product that’s coming in frozen in boxes and having to open each one of those and thaw them out and measure tails. It’s time consuming and it holds up product and causes spoilage and so forth. I believe that was the main concern for why weight is included in here and am I right? DR. ROY CRABTREE: This is something that law enforcement has wanted and the weights only apply to imported lobster and not to domestic, but apparently when it comes in, it’s graded by weight and that’s the way it comes in. They want to be able to use that also to document the paper trail on it, but we wouldn’t be applying a weight limit to EEZ lobster. CHAIRMAN SHIPP: Anything else? Any other committee recommendations? By the way, I failed, for the record, to name the committee members. They are myself, Daughdrill, Fruge is not here, Teehan, Corky, and Larry. Those are the members of this reconstituted committee. Hearing no other recommendations, we will be adjourned. (Whereupon, the meeting adjourned at 4:40 o’clock p.m., January 5 1 2 3 29, 2008.) - - - 6