New CA Striper limits to be raised?

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Public voices 100 percent opposition to striped bass reduction plan
by Dan Bacher

It is rare that a group of anglers find consensus on any issue. It can be said that if you have 10 anglers in a room, you will find 20 opinions. However, over 350 anglers and members of the public who showed up at the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) "public workshop) in Rio Vista on the night of Tuesday, November 8 made it very clear - they unanimously oppose the new regulations to dramatically increase size and bag limits for striped bass in California.
The proposal would raise the daily bag limit for striped bass from two to six fish, raise the possession limit from two to 12 fish, lower the minimum size from 18 to 12 inches and establish a striper "hot spot" in the South Delta where anglers can possess up to 40 fish.
The proposal is the result of a court settlement of a lawsuit between the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, an agribusiness "Astroturf" group representing San Joaquin Valley corporate growers. This group is housed in Stewart Resnick's headquarters for Paramount Farms in Kern County. Resnick is the politically connected Beverly Hills billionaire and largest tree fruit grower in the world who has made tens of millions of dollars annually from buying and reselling water back to the state for a big profit.
Stafford Lehr, chief of the DFG Fisheries Branch, and Marty Gingras, supervising fisheries biologist, gave a power point presentation explaining the proposed regulations, their rationale and the time table for their proposed adoption, including a series of public meetings. "This is part of a settlement that mandates us to create a proposal for striped bass regulations," said Lehr.
He said that the Fish And Game Commission in 1996 adopted a policy goal of increasing the striper population in the Bay-Delta estuary to 3 million adults. As a result of ESA concerns and the settlement, the agency has to now balance striped bass management with the need to preserve listed species. "The data indicates that the existing striped bass population won't collapse with these regulations," he noted.
While the charts displayed in the presentation showed what striped bass ate back in 1967, the DFG disclosed no new data documenting alleged striped bass "predation" of Delta smelt and ESA listed salmon.
"The reason why we don't find Delta smelt in the guts of the striped bass that we examine is because the smelt are so rare now," said Gingras. "There are an estimated 600,000 striped bass in the system and miniscule numbers of smelt. Plus the striped bass digest their food fast."

Anglers urge DFG to focus on curbing water exports

After the biologists made their presentation, Bob Boucke, owner of Johnson's Bait and Tackle in Yuba City, was the first one to speak in opposition to the proposal. He urged the DFG, rather than trying to eradicate stripers, to instead focus on the real problem - stopping the massive carnage of Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and striped bass themselves that takes place in the Delta export pumping facilities.
“The stripers have been here 130 years and they have gotten along with the Delta smelt and the salmon all of that time until they started pumping all this water down there," said Boucke. "That’s when the whole problem started. And yet Fish and Game doesn’t want to do anything about the water problem, but they want to ruin our striper fishing. There is nothing wrong with the stripers the way they are." "If you do this, you will run every bait and tackle store out of business from Chico to san Francisco," explained Boucke.
One speaker after another echoed Boucke's message that the state and federal pumps that have exported record amounts of Delta water to corporate agribusiness and southern California are the key factor behind the declines of salmon, smelt and other fish - not striped bass "predation.
I asked Lehr and Gingras for their reaction to the statement by renowned fishery scientists Dr. Peter B. Moyle and Dr. William A. Bennett, Center for Watershed Sciences, that decreasing the population of striped bass could possibly have a negative impact upon salmon and smelt by changing "basic ecosystem processes."
According to a letter by Moyle and Bennett to the Fish and Game Commission on August 26, 2010, "Reducing the striped bass population may or may not have a desirable effect (http://calsport.org/news/wp-content/...C-20100826.pdf). In our opinion, it is most likely to have a negative effect. While the ultimate cause of death of most fish may be predation, the contribution of striped bass to fish declines is not certain. By messing with a dominant predator(if indeed it is), the agencies are inadvertently playing roulette with basic ecosystem processes that can change in unexpected ways in response to reducing striped bass numbers."
Lehr responded to me, "That's a good question." He admitted that the impact of reducing striped bass's impact was uncertain - and that basic ecosystem principles dictate that something will fill the niche of a fish like the striped bass in the food chain as their numbers decline.

No evidence for stripers causing salmon and Delta smelt decline

Jay Sorensen, founder of the California Striped Bass Association, exposed the absurdity of blaming stripers for salmon and smelt declines when the massive Delta pumps, not striped bass predation, are the key reason for the collapse of listed fish species.
"In 67 years of fishing, I've caught and released thousands of stripers and I've also kept many stripers to eat," said Sorensen. "However, I've only found one salmon in the stomach cavity of a striper among all of the fish that I've cleaned."
"I hope that we will see the stripers around for future generations so that young people will enjoy what I have experienced on the Delta," he concluded.
Roger Mammon, Restore the Delta Board Member, said, "If you're so concerned about the Delta smelt and salmon, why doesn't the state quit exporting so much water out of the Delta?" Lehr responded, "There is no way I can answer that question here, but I will bring it to the attention of Charles Bonhan, DFG Director, tomorrow."

It's time to take our government back from the water contractors

Dawn Gulick, owner of Eddo's Harbor, echoing the theme of the Occupy Wall Street protests taking place throughout the country, said Stewart Resnick and the big water contractors were waging "class war" against the people of the Delta.
"This is a class war and they're winning," she stated, followed by a person next to her shouting, "Occupy the Delta!" Others joined in shouting, "Occupy the Delta."
"It's our Delta. Big Money has big influence over our government and it's time to take our government back!" she continued as people in the crowd applauded.
The proposal was released at a time when the Obama and Brown administrations, in spite of massive opposition, are fast-tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build a peripheral canal or tunnel to export more Delta water to corporate agribusiness and southern California. The peripheral canal, a controversial plan to divert water from the Sacramento River in the North Delta rather from the existing pumps in the South Delta, came up during the workshop when Gingras responded to a question why state-of-the art fish screens hadn't been installed at the Delta pumps, as mandated under the CalFed Record of Decision.
Neither Gingras or Lehr were able to answer this question. However, Gingras, appearing to endorse the concept of the peripheral canal, claimed, "If we take water out of the Sacramento River, we won't have to continue the trap and truck system of salvaging fish and we won't have the same problems with the fish screens we have now."
"I don't want to deal with the peripheral canal at this workshop," Lehr noted.

Delta pumps create 'dining halls'

Bill Jennings, executive director/chairman of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), explained how CSPA, the Northern California Council Federation of Fly Fishers (NCCFFF) and the California Striped Bass Association (CSBA), as well as Delta water agencies, intervened in the lawsuit in support of DFG, but DFG caved and cut a deal. CSPA, NCCFFF, CSBA and the Delta agencies opposed and refused to sign the settlement agreement
"CSPA was looking forward to trial because the evidence in the record did not support the conclusion that striped bass predation caused population level effects on salmon and smelt," said Jennings. "We felt that the predation that does occur would be pinned on the state and federal project facilities on the Delta."
"These pumps create dining halls that invite the fish in," said Jennings. "Now the state wants to execute the fish for entering the dining halls they created!"
Jennings emphasized that if the Fish and Game Commission refuses to adopt the striped bass proposal, the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta must drop the lawsuit.
Sep Hendrickson, host of the California Sportsman Radio Show, urged everybody in the room to deluge the Fish and Game Commission with letters opposing the striped bass proposal. "If you don't all stand up now against this proposal, the water contractors will roll over us!"
Cal Kellogg, Fish Sniffer Magazine Editor, shot this video covering the DFG meeting. Please watch this video and join the two organizations, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (http://www.calsport.org) and California Striped Bass Asssociation (http://www.striper-csba.com), listed at the end!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcwfU...ww.youtube.com

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Urgent Action Alert!

Send letters opposing the DFG's striped bass proposal to:
California Fish and Game Commission
P.O. Box 944209
Sacramento, CA 94244-2090

Phone: (916) 653-4899
Fax Number: (916) 653-5040

E-Mail to Submit Comments on Proposed Regulations: fgc@fgc.ca.gov.

For more information about upcoming Fish and Game Commission meetings, go to:

http://www.fgc.ca.gov.

[Mrs.Finsallaround]

Mike McKenzie (Striper Mike) of CSPA is getting some verbiage together that we can all use to send these letters... I spoke with him at the DFG workshop last Tuesday...

Hopefully he'll post something soon!

[STEELIES/26c3]

ACTUALLY IT WAS MORE LIKE 99.7% cuz one guy at the meeting merely wanted to make sure spearfishers were figured in to the new regulations...

It was heartwarming to see so many impassioned anglers at the meeting.

I was impressed by many of the presenters on the pro-angler/pro-striper side of the fence.

Marty impressed me as a typical, bureaucratic state worker... never really answering the tough questions but instead dancing around and deferring...

Write those letters folks!

ML

[Mike McKenzie]

Mike McKenzie (Striper Mike) and Dave Sellers are getting some verbiage together that we can all use to send these letters... I spoke with him at the DFG workshop last Tuesday...

Hopefully he'll post something soon!

Here It is (also posted as a response to Barts post "Striper letter to the Commission"
More is always better...Anyway this is the preferred letter for use
Mike

Mr. Jim Kellogg, President
California Fish and Game Commission
1416 Ninth Street
P.O. Box 944209
Sacramento, California 94244-2090

RE: My opposition to DFG’s proposed striped bass regulation changes.

Dear President Kellogg and Commission members:

I am a California angler and I am writing to express my absolute opposition to proposed striped bass regulation changes. Following my review of DFG’s proposed Regulation changes, I have become aware of these additional facts:

• The Department of Fish & Game (DFG) and other defendant interveners in the litigation that brought about the Settlement Agreement leading to the striped bass regulation change proposal prevailed in the summary judgments rendered by the federal court. The court found no merit in the legal arguments the plaintiffs (Coalition For a Sustainable Delta) regarding alleged population level impacts caused by striped bass to E.S.A listed fish species in the Bay-Delta estuary. The court ruled decisively in support of the position of the DFG and defendant interveners that the decline of estuary’s listed fisheries was not attributable to predation by striped bass. Specifically, Judge Wanger agreed that the best science available has not shown any population level effect on listed species and one of DFG’s own Biologists, Marty Gingras, has stated that there is no science that shows any population level effect on listed species due to striped bass predation. There are also numerous peer reviewed predation studies done in the estuary and its tributaries that have come to the same conclusion.

• This settlement agreement does not supersede the provisions of the federal Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) and it's legal mandate to double the population of all anadromous fish species of the estuary, including striped bass, from their mid-nineteen nineties population levels. In short, the proposed regulations work at cross purposes to the CVPIA federal mandate, thus conflicting with the intent of the federal law and setting up the potential for another round of litigation regarding the striped bass fishery. The Commission could find itself in the untenable position of passing regulations that could result in violating federal law and having to defend itself in federal court.

• The proposed regulation change with the attendant increased bag and possession limits would encourage over-consumption of striped bass far beyond the limits recommended by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. In short, it is my view the possession limit in this proposal encourages consumption more than health warnings discourage the consumption of striped bass. The Commission should take into full consideration the well documented science on the health risks associated with anything beyond modest consumption of striped bass. Women and children, in particular, are most vulnerable to these health risks and should not eat any striped bass at all. It would not be good public policy for the Commission to abdicate their duties by promoting regulations that would not safeguard the public from the health hazards associated with the consumption of striped bass.

• Sec. 1700 of the Fish and Game Code requires, among many important conservation provisions, the management, on a basis of adequate scientific information promptly promulgated for public scrutiny, of the fisheries under the state's jurisdiction with the objective of maximizing the sustained harvest. This and other relevant code sections require the public’s fishery resources to be managed in the long term, on a sustainable basis. The regulations that the department proposed would not comply with this legal mandate.

• The proposal does not exempt San Luis Reservoir and the O’neil Forebay, one of our Nation’s premiere trophy striped bass fisheries. These two bodies of water are not connected to the Delta biologically and are not home to any listed species. This adds to my perception that, beyond my other concerns, I feel that the thoughts guiding development of this proposal were lacking in a comprehensive understanding of our state’s striped bass fisheries and the sensitivities of California striped bass anglers.

• While the Endangered Species Act encourages that all effort is brought to bear in assisting the recovery of listed species, it also discourages any action that is of dubious benefit and, indeed may do harm to the recovery efforts of listed species. Our State’s preeminent inland fisheries experts, Dr. Peter Moyle and Dr. William Bennett (Letter to Commission of Aug. 26th 2010) have reviewed the studies conducted in the estuary and concluded there is no peer reviewed science that shows ANY evidence of population level effects. Further, they point out that the removal of striped bass may have unintended consequences due to other predators that would normally be kept in check by their presence as a top predator. Their scientific opinion is backed up by respected fisheries biologist Dr. David Ostrach (Letter to the Commission July 19th 2010).

The last point is perhaps the most important as it demonstrates that this proposal offers little more than questionable benefit and even suggests potential harm to listed species. This, in addition to the other risks associated with the poor planning and policy behind this effort, leads me to strongly urge an outright rejection of this striped bass regulation proposal.

Sincerely,
(Your name and Address)