Tab H, No. 2
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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
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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29, 2008.)
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