HARRY HUGHES, Governor

4075

This General Assembly, perhaps more than any other in recent
memory, is fully cognizant of the complexities of developing and
implementing management strategies to protect and improve the
Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Last Session's Chesapeake
Bay initiatives addressed many different, yet interrelated,
problems associated with the continued health of that important
estuary.

At the same time, concern over the dwindling stocks of the
striped bass, Maryland's State fish, has increased the awareness
of many elected officials and the general public to the fact that
certain restrictions on fishing gear and other requirements are
necessary to have a significant effect on improving the
reproductive success of striped bass. Clearly, regulation of
fishing gear can be an effective management tool to protect our
natural resources.

House Bill 998 provides that when the Department of Natural
Resources adopts a non-emergency rule or regulation that is "more
restrictive and varies any equipment that a commercial waterman
is required to use" then the rule or regulation may not take
legal effect until 12 months after notice of final adoption is
published in the Maryland Register. The bill broadly applies to
certain laws applicable to all species of finfish, oysters, clams
and crabs.

Aside from the interpretive questions as to what constitutes
a "more restrictive" regulation and what, if any, equipment
commercial watermen are "required to use", my primary objection
to this bill is that the arbitrary 12 month delay undermines the
effectiveness of related management strategies. The concern over
economic impact to commercial watermen is one that I share but I
believe that those factors should be assessed during the rule
making process in conjunction with consideration of the problems
of the fishery resource that the Department is mandated by law to
protect. Indeed a review of the Department's efforts in the area
of striped bass protection, demonstrates the lack of need for and
the undesirability of this bill.

Last fall, in response to the decline of striped bass stocks
coastwide, the Department of Natural Resources initiated a State
strategy to implement the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries
Commission recommendations. Regulations (COMAR 08.02.05.02) were
proposed in early November 1983 containing a number of
interrelated conservation measures for Chesapeake Bay striped
bass such as creel limits, certain pound net releases, spawning
and area closures, and a prohibition on the use of certain types
of nets in specified areas. Many of these regulations were
discussed publicly as early as 1979, as future measures that
might be needed to protect the striped bass. Provision was made
in the new regulation that the change in net size be delayed
until November 1, 1984 to allow watermen ample time to implement
the change.