Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
Regulations Committee
May 31, 2000
Commission Hearing RoomTexas Parks & Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744
7 BE IT REMEMBERED that heretofore on the 31st
8 day of May 2000, there came on to be heard
9 matters under the regulatory authority of the
10 Parks and Wildlife Commission of Texas, in the
11 commission hearing room of the Texas Parks and
12 Wildlife Headquarters complex, Austin, Travis
13 County, Texas, beginning at 9:25 a.m. to wit:
14
15
APPEARANCES:
16 THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
REGULATIONS COMMITTEE:
17 Chair: Lee M. Bass
Carol E. Dinkins
18 Dick W. Heath (Absent)
Nolan Ryan
19 Ernest Angelo, Jr.
John Avila, Jr.
20 Alvin L. Henry
Katharine Armstrong Idsal
21 Mark E. Watson, Jr.
22 THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT:
Andrew H. Sansom, Executive Director, and other
23 personnel of the Parks and Wildlife Department.
24
25
.0002
1 MAY 31, 2000
2 *-*-*-*-*
3 REGULATIONS COMMITTEE MEETING
4 *-*-*-*-*
5 CHAIRMAN BASS: Good morning. We
6 have a rather full agenda today. And I apologize
7 for the delay in getting started, but we will go
8 ahead and start. The first committee to meet
9 today is the regulations committee. And in order
10 to open our committee meetings, Mr. Sansom, would
11 you please read our public statement?
12 MR. SANSOM: Mr. Chairman and
13 members, the public notice of this meeting
14 containing all items on the proposed agenda has
15 been filed in the Office of the Secretary of
16 State as required by Chapter 551 of the
17 Government Code. This is referred to as the Open
18 Meetings Law, and I would like for this action to
19 be noted in the official record of the meeting.
20 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you. The
21 first order of business would be the approval of
22 the committee minutes from our previous meeting.
23 Does anybody have any additions or deletions to
24 make?
25 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Move approval
.0003
1 as to submitted.
2 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Second.
3 CHAIRMAN BASS: We have a motion and
4 a second. All in favor. Any opposed? Hearing
5 none, motion passes.
6 (Motion passed unanimously.)
7 CHAIRMAN BASS: Mr. Sansom, would
8 you do our briefing on the Chairman's charges,
9 please.
10 AGENDA ITEM NO 1: BRIEFING - CHAIRMAN'S
11 CHARGES.
12 MR. SANSOM: Sure. Mr. Chairman,
13 there are a number of items on today's agenda
14 that relate directly to the charges. The first
15 charge, of course, for the regulations committee,
16 is to implement the authority and direction given
17 by the 76th Legislature and fully participated in
18 the Sunset review. I'm happy to report that the
19 Sunset Commission staff has finished its work and
20 we held our hearing last week in Austin and there
21 were a number of you there. And we want to
22 express to you our appreciation of that.
23 The final report of the Sunset
24 Committee will be issued in June, and we look
25 forward to that hearing as well.
.0004
1 Charge number three was to optimize
2 license management in marine commercial
3 fisheries. And there are two items on your
4 agenda today that relate to that, as specifically
5 the shrimp license buyback program.
6 You will have on your agenda today a
7 proposed $3 surcharge on the recreational
8 saltwater fishing stamp which has been published
9 in the Texas Register for comment. Funds from
10 this surcharge would be directly to enhance the
11 buyback fund.
12 There is also a fee increase in the
13 proposed regulations to be published in the Texas
14 Register this summer for commercial fishing.
15 Charge number four was to continue
16 regulatory reform and you will see it present
17 proposed amendments today to the exotic species
18 rules to minimize and streamline recording
19 requirements and to more easily permit valid uses
20 of exotic species.
21 You've directed us to seek
22 opportunities to expand landowner incentives
23 through the regulatory process and you'll hear a
24 wonderful report today from our Managed Lands
25 Deer permits TTT working group which will address
.0005
1 this issue directly.
2 Finally, the final charge to
3 regulations was to maximize outdoor recreation
4 opportunity, and it's not too early to remind
5 everyone to mark your calendar for this year's
6 Expo, which will be September 29 and
7 October 1st. Mr. Angelo is the chairman of this
8 year's event. Thank you.
9 AGENDA ITEM NO. 2: ACTION - 2000-2001
10 MIGRATORY GAME BIRD PROCLAMATION STAFF:
11 VERNON BEVILL.
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: Next we will do the
13 migratory game bird proclamation. Dr. Graham and
14 Vernon Bevill.
15 MR. BEVILL: Mr. Chairman, members
16 of the committee, my name is Vernon Bevill. I am
17 the program director for migratory wildlife and
18 ecology. Today we start the first of a two phase
19 implementation for the 2000-2001 migratory game
20 bird season. In April we brought to you our full
21 proclamation. Today we will be acting on the
22 early season species and the general regulations
23 for migratory bird hunting.
24 And we want to summarize the primary
25 changes that we are proposing for this year's
.0006
1 season that relate to the opening date of teal
2 season, proposed change in Zone C of the Sandhill
3 crane hunting areas, extending Sandhill crane
4 hunting areas toward the coast, and adjusting
5 other season dates to calendar shift.
6 For teal season we are in a little
7 bit of a perplexed situation this year, in that
8 we know from our migration chronology data and
9 from harvest data that the better teal seasons
10 come when the opening date is later in the month
11 of September rather than earlier. This year
12 the -- to get full weekends, we would have to
13 open the teal season on September the 9th, which
14 is about five or six days ahead of a more
15 opportune time for hunting opportunity.
16 So after consideration of this early
17 opener, we decided to propose and to register
18 opening teal season on September the 15th. We
19 anticipate a 16-day season. And to get a 16-day
20 season in, we would have to open it on Friday the
21 16th and close on Sunday the 30th this year.
22 Next year, the calendar will allow
23 us to open on the 15th and close on the 30th in
24 our regular weekend-type hunting. So that's a
25 primary change that we are proposing to maximize
.0007
1 hunting opportunity for teal.
2 CHAIRMAN BASS: Is the migratory
3 advisory committee in accord with that?
4 MR. BEVILL: Yes.
5 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: It's actually
6 opened on the 15th. Right?
7 MR. BEVILL: 15th would be the
8 opening date, Friday the 15th. Close on Saturday
9 the 30th.
10 For Sandhill cranes, we have worked
11 through the central fly away council to work
12 toward an expansion of the Zone C hunting area,
13 the hunting closer to the coast of Texas. And so
14 we are proposing some changes there. But first
15 of all, let me just mention that our Zone C is an
16 area that is significantly impacted when we go to
17 the light goose conservation regulations. We
18 have a 37-day season opportunity for Zone C. And
19 last year when we went to the conservation rules
20 the day after duck season ended, we effectively
21 took over half of the Zone C Sandhill crane
22 season away because of necessity to close other
23 migratory bird seasons.
24 So we've looked at this option and
25 are proposing instead of a -- what we opened in
.0008
1 the register at the April meeting of an opening
2 date of January the 6th and closing on February
3 the 11th, we're proposing to drop back one week
4 and open on December the 30th.
5 If we, again, go to conservation
6 rules, and Sandhill cranes are included in that
7 closure responsibility, at our -- as we'll learn
8 later this summer, then we would at least have an
9 extra week of hunting opportunity for Sandhill
10 cranes. So that's why we're proposing these
11 changes.
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: Vernon, is there
13 something that prevents us from moving that even
14 earlier so as to preserve more of the season?
15 MR. BEVILL: We work with the Fish
16 and Wildlife Service on a migration chronology of
17 whooping cranes. And so to go back earlier in
18 December might cause a little problem there. And
19 so we've talked with the Fish and Wildlife
20 Service and the whooping crane committee and felt
21 like that this was a reasonable alternative. And
22 we'll look at it this year and see how it works,
23 and it's possible we could maybe move it back one
24 more week but we want to get a little experience
25 in walking that season back and not jump too
.0009
1 far.
2 CHAIRMAN BASS: Is the Fish and
3 Wildlife Service supportive of this move?
4 MR. BEVILL: Yes.
5 CHAIRMAN BASS: So you don't see
6 this being a problem --
7 MR. BEVILL: We don't see this as a
8 problem.
9 CHAIRMAN BASS: -- in getting
10 through the fly away council and getting
11 approval.
12 MR. BEVILL: Correct.
13 And we have worked through the fly
14 away council to try to expand the hunting area
15 for Sandhill crane. And so our preferred
16 alternative for the expansion of Zone C or
17 coastal area would be to take the two areas
18 proposed there along the coast, on either side of
19 Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, and incorporate
20 them in Zone C, if the Fish and Wildlife Service
21 allows this, which is -- we won't know until
22 after the service regulation committee meets
23 later this month.
24 If they approve this proposal, it
25 could be approved in several formats that I'm
.0010
1 going to walk through with you briefly. But our
2 preferred alternative would be just to
3 incorporate this in Zone C, if they allow a
4 three-bird bag like we have in Zone C currently.
5 A second alternative would be to
6 make this a Zone D area because in the March
7 meetings with Fish and Wildlife Service and the
8 fly away council, there was concern about
9 allowing a three-bird bag in this new area. But
10 they would not reduce our three-bird bag in the
11 regular Zone C.
12 So if they give us this option, but
13 do not approve the full three-bird bag, we would
14 propose to create a Zone D and go with either the
15 two bird or one bird, depending on what the
16 service regulation committee allowed.
17 And then the other alternative is
18 that they don't offer us this option and so we
19 would be back where we are -- were last year,
20 with just the Zone C season with the earlier
21 opening date.
22 CHAIRMAN BASS: So, Vernon, whereas
23 you feel comfortable that they will approve
24 moving the Zone C earlier, it's unclear as to
25 whether they will approve the --
.0011
1 MR. BEVILL: The service regulations
2 group will meet later this month. Our fly away
3 representative at our March meeting said he was
4 not uncomfortable with supporting the expansion,
5 but he was uncomfortable with the three-bird
6 bag. And so that's got to be negotiated out.
7 One of our negotiation points is the
8 fact that we will -- to go to the conservation
9 rule for snow geese. We will probably be
10 required to close Sandhill crane season early
11 again. And so we don't see the bag issue as a
12 real issue. But it's an issue in the minds of
13 some.
14 So I've provided a summary slide
15 here for you to kind of work through the
16 options. And depending on the outcome of the
17 service regulations committee, it could
18 necessitate asking the executive director to
19 utilize his authority to amend this proposal
20 slightly, or any of our proposals that might be
21 changed after the service regulations committee
22 meets to conform to what the feds allow. So I
23 want you to be aware of that.
24 For dove season we are proposing
25 just a 15-bird bag/60-day season with the same
.0012
1 structure as last year but just amended to the
2 calendar shift.
3 We have had considerable public
4 comment on the teal season issue. And as you can
5 see from this slide, a strong support for our
6 September 15th opening date.
7 Mr. Chairman, staff would request
8 that you would approve this set of
9 recommendations and the motion that is offered
10 here to go to the full commission for action
11 tomorrow.
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: Are there any other
13 questions at this time? The Chair would
14 entertain a motion in line with staff proposal to
15 go forward to public hearing tomorrow.
16 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I so move.
17 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Second.
18 CHAIRMAN BASS: The motion and a
19 second. All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you
20 very much
21 (Motion passed unanimously.)
22 AGENDA ITEM NO. 3: ACTION - THREATENED AND
23 ENDANGERED SPECIES STAFF: JOHN HERRON.
24 CHAIRMAN BASS: Threatened and
25 endangered species, please. Thank you,
.0013
1 Mr. Bevill.
2 MR. HERRON: Good morning,
3 Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. My name is John
4 Herron, and I am the head of the Wildlife
5 Diversity Program. Today I'll be presenting you
6 some changes that we are proposing to our
7 threatened and endangered species regulations.
8 This is a briefing requesting permission to
9 publish for public comment.
10 Basically there's two changes,
11 series of changes we're proposing to our
12 threatened endangered species regs. First,
13 updating the threatened and endangered species
14 list themselves; secondly, updating our rules
15 concerning the possession of threatened and
16 endangered species.
17 We're proposing to delist three
18 species, removing them from our threatened
19 species list. The McKittrick pennyroyal is found
20 only in Texas and New Mexico. It was federally
21 delisted in 1993. We did not delist the species
22 at the time, due to continued concern about the
23 status in Texas. We now recommend delisting due
24 to newly discovered populations in the Guadalupe
25 Mountains and documented evidence showing an
.0014
1 increase in the known populations elsewhere in
2 the state.
3 Concho water snake was listed in
4 1986, and has -- was proposed for federal
5 delisting last year. Data collected since
6 listing indicates the population of the Concho
7 water snake are stable. And experts we have
8 consulted with agreed that the species should be
9 delisted.
10 The jaguar is currently listed as
11 endangered in Texas, but was never removed from
12 our threatened list. So this is largely a
13 housekeeping measure. Removing it from the
14 threatened list, but it will remain on our
15 endangered species list.
16 At the same time, we are proposing
17 to list three new species on our threatened
18 species list. The puzzle or Pecos sunflower.
19 It's not only in Texas, New Mexico. It's
20 federally listed in '99. Its decline is due to a
21 loss of wetland habitats associated with desert
22 springs.
23 The Arkansas river shiner is found
24 only in Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, and
25 Kansas, excuse me, and was federally listed as
.0015
1 threatened last November. This species has
2 declined due to a loose of habitat and
3 degradation of water quality. While the species
4 is more secure in Texas than in other states, its
5 range has been reduced in Texas as well, and
6 listing will keep State law consistent with
7 federal protection.
8 Finally, the Cagle's map turtle
9 which is found only in Texas in the Guadalupe
10 River drainage. This species is being considered
11 for federal listing, but there have been
12 documented cases of commercial collection that
13 could threaten remaining populations. We are
14 hoping that State listing, which will prohibit
15 commercial collection, will give the Fish and
16 Wildlife Service more time to consider whether
17 the species deserves federal listing rather than
18 forcing them to act too quickly, simply because
19 they're concerned about commercial take, so...
20 I do want to mention that these
21 species that we are proposing for listing, that
22 listing at the State level is very different than
23 listing at the federal level. Basically all we
24 are doing is protecting the individual animals
25 from take. There are no habitat protections, no
.0016
1 more broad ranging effects on landowners, which
2 would be the case on federal listing.
3 In addition, we are proposing some
4 changes to our endangered species list. The
5 endangered species list is handled differently
6 with changes made by executive order rather than
7 by regulation. But we did want to let the
8 Commission know that we are proposing these
9 changes as well.
10 We are proposing to delist the
11 Lloyd's hedgehog cactus. This species was
12 delisted by the Fish and Wildlife Service in '99
13 due to evidence from genetic studies that it was
14 not a true species but instead was a hybrid, a
15 cross.
16 We are proposing to list the Zapata
17 bladderwort. This species is only found in
18 Zapata and Star Counties and was federally listed
19 in '99. It's been listed due to its restricted
20 range and the threat of loss of habitat due to
21 agricultural, urban, and recreational
22 development.
23 Regarding these species that we do
24 by executive order, we are planning on holding a
25 public hearing prior to the next commission
.0017
1 meeting before proposing this species for
2 listing.
3 In addition, we are proposing
4 changes regarding the possession of threatened
5 and endangered species. We want to make sure
6 that our laws are consistent and fair to all
7 people who possess captive, bred listed species.
8 And currently we do have different rules
9 depending on how a species was obtained. I think
10 the best example we have concerns the black
11 bear. If a Texas resident currently possesses a
12 black bear, they have to renew a permit with us
13 every year. However, if an individual came from
14 out of state with a bear that was legally
15 acquired from out of state, they do not need a
16 permit at all. All they have to do is have
17 paperwork showing that they legally acquired this
18 animal from out of state.
19 So we have an inconsistency there
20 that we want to correct. Basically, we're
21 preparing to adopt these simpler requirements for
22 both the residents and nonresidents coming into
23 the state with endangered or threatened species.
24 We don't think that possession of
25 these species is common and so we think
.0018
1 liberalizing this will pose little threat to our
2 resident species.
3 Currently I think the most important
4 provision in our regulations is that no one can
5 take, possess, transport, export, sell, or ship a
6 threatened species unless they have legally
7 acquired it from out of state and can show proof
8 of legal acquisition through permit or voucher.
9 However, there are still some
10 problems in the regulation. There is no
11 definition in the regulation of what type of
12 permit or type of proof is required. There is no
13 provision in our regulation for someone who may
14 legally acquire a species from out of state where
15 a permit is not required by that state.
16 And finally, as I mentioned, the
17 import of threatened and endangered species is
18 less restrictive for someone moving to Texas than
19 for someone who is a Texas resident.
20 To address these, we're proposing
21 six types of changes to our current regulation.
22 We're proposing to make the requirements for
23 endangered species similar to those for
24 threatened species, making the regulations
25 simpler for people to understand. We're
.0019
1 proposing to eliminate the permit requirement, as
2 well as inspection reporting requirements for
3 legally acquired species. And instead, we are
4 proposing that people in possession of a listed
5 species simply have documentation that the
6 specimens were lawfully obtained. We think this
7 will be a more simple and more consistent
8 treatment.
9 I do want to point out that these
10 proposed changes should not have any effect on
11 wild species in the wild. We will continue to
12 prohibit the possession of individuals obtained
13 from the wild in Texas. We are only dealing here
14 with captive bred animals or basically animals
15 that are taken from out of state.
16 The three other changes: We are
17 also requiring that all captive specimens be
18 permanently marked. We are stipulating that
19 release of these specimens that are in captivity
20 is not allowed. And we are also amending the
21 regulation to reflect that the endangered species
22 list is now done by -- is done by executive
23 order. We have a redundancy where it shows up in
24 both executive order and regulation. And really
25 all we have to do is have it in executive order.
.0020
1 None of these changes will reduce
2 the protection of endangered species. It still
3 will be an offense to take an animal that's on
4 the endangered species list.
5 I do want to point out that we did
6 have some public comment on this. We discussed
7 these changes, similar changes with the
8 commission about a year and a half ago. At that
9 time, several members of the public requested
10 that we allow the propagation and sale of some
11 threatened species, particularly the alligator
12 snapping turtle. We have been visiting with our
13 constituents, those commentors, as well as some
14 of the conservation groups interested in this
15 during the past year.
16 And I just want to let y'all know
17 that at this point staff is recommending that we
18 continue the current prohibition against sale and
19 propagation in Texas. We have seen, really, very
20 little demand for this. We do have an endangered
21 species propagation permit on the books which no
22 one has taken advantage of in the past several
23 years. As I noted, we've had several individuals
24 express interest in this, but there does not seem
25 to be a large number of individuals interested.
.0021
1 And basically, since sale has never been allowed,
2 continuing this restriction should have little
3 direct impact on Texans.
4 We have had several conservation
5 groups recommending that we not allow sale.
6 Their feeling is that it would send a mixed
7 message to the public, that on the one hand,
8 we're telling landowners that these species are
9 protected on their property and that, therefore,
10 we should also be telling people interested in
11 commercial sale that this is not allowed in that
12 case as well.
13 So in closing, we respectfully
14 request the committee recommend that we publish
15 these proposed changes in the Texas Register for
16 public comment. And with that, I'd be happy to
17 entertain any questions.
18 CHAIRMAN BASS: Would you just
19 clarify for me, what's your department position
20 on the suggestion that we allow the sale of
21 that?
22 MR. HERRON: Currently, the sale is
23 prohibited, and we are recommending we maintain
24 that prohibition.
25 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: And
.0022
1 propagation is also prohibited?
2 MR. HERRON: Yes, ma'am, it is.
3 CHAIRMAN BASS: Why is propagation
4 prohibited?
5 MR. HERRON: Well, the way our
6 regulations read, propagation has always been
7 associated with propagation for sale. And we
8 have had instances come up where people have, for
9 example, Texas tortoises in captivity, and they
10 do what animals do. I think our concern has been
11 that by allowing, explicitly allowing
12 propagation, you're in essence creating a
13 potential market there. But I think our biggest
14 concern is with prohibiting sale. Incidental
15 propagation is really not a concern of ours, and
16 I think we have some flexibility there if the
17 Commission wishes.
18 Certainly we'll see what the public
19 comment would indicate on that as we publish
20 this.
21 CHAIRMAN BASS: Is there a
22 mechanism, for instance, if a legitimate desire
23 by an institution or an individual was for
24 propagation for, you know, a scientifically sound
25 reintroduction, et cetera, that that can be done
.0023
1 under the rules?
2 MR. HERRON: Yes, sir. We have
3 other permits that exist both for zoos, for
4 scientists, and also for educational purposes.
5 Both the zoological permit and the scientific
6 permit do allow propagation for reintroduction
7 purposes. What we're specifically working with
8 here is people who wish to propagate these simply
9 for sale, as pets, largely.
10 CHAIRMAN BASS: So we're just
11 dealing with a niche of it here, and there are
12 other avenues for those?
13 MR. HERRON: Yes, sir.
14 CHAIRMAN BASS: Any other
15 questions?
16 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Move approval
17 of the recommendation.
18 CHAIRMAN BASS: We have a motion for
19 approval to publish this in the Register for
20 public comment. Second?
21 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: Second.
22 CHAIRMAN BASS: The motion is
23 seconded. All in favor. All opposed? Thank you
24 very much.
25 (Motion passed unanimously.)
.0024
1 CHAIRMAN BASS: Good presentation.
2 Okay. Mr. Sansom.
3 AGENDA ITEM NO. 4: ACTION - MLD/TTT
4 WORKGROUP UPDATE STAFF: BOB COOK.
5 MR. SANSOM: Mr. Chairman, as you
6 know, at our last commission meeting we had
7 scheduled to discuss items related to regulations
8 of our Managed Lands Deer programs and TTT, trap,
9 transport. And we clearly understood at that
10 time that there was a substantial amount of
11 dissention among the affected community here
12 about how these regulations would affect them,
13 about their equity and their application across
14 the state.
15 We made the decision to pull those
16 regulations from your last agenda and appoint a
17 committee to study the issue in which several of
18 you participated. I'm happy to report that the
19 presentation that Mr. Cook is about to make to
20 you reflects the work of that committee. And I
21 would like to publicly thank all of the people
22 who served on that committee, because they came
23 here sometimes from quite a distance to meet
24 twice. And I would also like to pay particular
25 compliment to Mr. Cook, who did an excellent job
.0025
1 of facilitating this whole process. And I think
2 it is one that you will see in a few moments, we
3 can all be proud of.
4 MR. COOK: Mr. Chairman, committee
5 members, thank you. My name is Robert L. Cook.
6 I'm chief operating officer of Texas Parks and
7 Wildlife department. As Mr. Sansom pointed out,
8 we had some disagreements about the Managed Lands
9 Deer permit program and our TTT program, trap,
10 transport, and transplant.
11 And I guess I would say, just to
12 start this thing off, that we were very, very
13 fortunate to have a group of 20 people agree to
14 serve on this committee. And when they walked in
15 the door, from day one, when they walked in the
16 door, they were ready to go to work, ready to
17 find solutions. And I think that's why we got
18 where we are.
19 I believe that we do have a set of
20 good proposals that Doctor Cooke, Doctor Jerry
21 Cooke will lay out to you as the formal proposals
22 that we can adopt, or however you would like to
23 proceed tomorrow, with the MLD program, and some
24 proposals that we can discuss and put out for
25 Texas Register and finalize in August.
.0026
1 The committee -- first of all, let
2 me say again, we asked some of the members of
3 some of these representative groups, the Texas
4 Trophy Hunters Association, the Texas Deer
5 Association, Texas Wildlife Association, all were
6 very interested in this program. And we asked
7 those folks, who would you like to have on this
8 committee? And they made some very, very good
9 suggestions, most of which we adopted and
10 appointed those -- the chairman and Mr. Sansom
11 appointed those folks to this committee.
12 We had 20 members and we met here in
13 this room on May the 2nd and on May the 22nd.
14 Between those meetings, particularly between
15 those meetings and immediately following those
16 meetings, as Mr. Cooke can testify, we had a
17 serious exchange of faxes and e-mails and
18 telephone conversations because I thought it was
19 important and I think the members agreed that
20 communicating about this, talking about what did
21 we mean, where were we headed, what's the best
22 way to do this, was the best way to reach a
23 solution, and that's exactly what we did.
24 I think there were a couple of just
25 absolutely essential ingredients that were
.0027
1 identified early in the process. First, that
2 habitat and improving or conserving habitat for
3 all wildlife is the cornerstone of this program
4 and of our TPWD private lands program. That was
5 identified early in the process. Committee
6 members, 100 percent signed on, 100 percent
7 agreed with that. And once that step was taken,
8 it was very positive.
9 And secondly, the other, I believe,
10 essential ingredient that, again, everyone agreed
11 on was the property involved in these programs
12 must have a TPWD approved wildlife management
13 plan. For example, on TTT, the release site must
14 have an approved plan. To get into the MLD
15 program, there must be an approved wildlife
16 management plan that our people have reviewed,
17 that in some cases maybe the plan was prepared by
18 private biologists or by the landowner himself.
19 But that our folks have reviewed, have discussed
20 back and forth with the folks, and have signed
21 off on. So those are two absolutely, I believe,
22 essential ingredients in this process.
23 CHAIRMAN BASS: The -- in summary, the pathways that
24 this committee, that our committee is
25 recommending, and again, that Doctor Cooke will
.0028
1 line out for you as a proposal, involve three
2 primary areas. First, that the Managed Lands
3 Deer permit program, the MLDP program, that we
4 should evolve that program from a rewards program
5 to an incentive program, a program that we had
6 previously administered primarily as a reward,
7 people who had done a really, really, good job
8 for at least three years. And we've got some
9 people who have been in these programs 15, 20
10 years. They have done great jobs. Private
11 landowners have done wonderful work. And we were
12 using the Managed Lands Deer program as a reward
13 for that work done.
14 The committee and our consensus
15 agreement is to move that up to evolve that to an
16 incentive program, that not only rewards those
17 people who have been in the program, who have
18 done a good job, but also, just when that
19 landowner out there shows an interest, almost
20 irregardless of where he started from, and some
21 of them their habitat situation is not good.
22 Sometimes landowners, you know, make
23 the decision that I'm going to do better. I want
24 to do better. I want to do better things with
25 deer, with turkey, with quail, whatever the
.0029
1 situation might be, endangered species, whatever
2 it is. And will come forward to us, and their
3 habitat may be in pretty rough shape the first
4 time. And thereby -- by making this program an
5 incentive program, to give those folks as much
6 flexibility as we possibly can and seasonal
7 length and bag limit, those kinds of areas of the
8 regulations that we can open up to them, that
9 they can harvest their deer herd, they can manage
10 that population, that they can have a very
11 positive impact on that habitat right from the
12 start and participate in these programs.
13 So going from reward to incentive,
14 again, I think was a key initial step.
15 Secondly, the group agreed that we
16 should recommend that we provide a level 2 in
17 this Managed Lands Deer permit program.
18 Previously -- and Doctor Cooke will again explain
19 this to you in more detail. But we had a level
20 1, which was basically just a mechanism for folks
21 primarily over in the Post Oak and Oak Prairie
22 and East Texas who have a prerestricted bag
23 limit, primarily a way for them to harvest does
24 if they needed to and wanted to harvest does.
25 By providing a level 2, you provide
.0030
1 this step in there where people who not only need
2 to harvest does, but who need to be harvesting
3 some bucks, who need longer seasons, who need a
4 more flexible time frame. So the level 2 is a
5 proposal that you will hear from Doctor Cooke.
6 And our level 3 program would let
7 people start their season at the early part of
8 October, go through basically January, five deer
9 bag limit, coupled with our bonus tags that give
10 landowner maximum flexibility on bucks and does
11 throughout the season.
12 And finally, we agreed that we
13 should provide a simple and quick method for
14 landowners who want to trap, transport, and
15 transplant whitetail deer at what we ended up
16 calling an insignificant impact or a minimum
17 impact level. And where we ended up was -- what
18 I ended up recommending to you and what you'll
19 see here proposed today is, that's about a
20 deer -- we thought that that level would be about
21 a deer to 200 acres.
22 In other words, if a landowner has a
23 couple of thousand acres, that he could move --
24 and he has a wildlife management plan in place,
25 that he could move ten deer, something like that,
.0031
1 up to ten deer, onto his property just by
2 applying here, getting the permit back, and go to
3 work, not requiring an inspection, an on-site
4 inspection specifically for that TTT action.
5 If he wants a higher -- if he wants
6 to move a higher number of deer, then he would
7 just go through the inspection process as we have
8 done it. That seemed to really provide a
9 mechanism that a lot of people were interested in
10 and that, again, I think, will be very helpful.
11 In my initial proposal, I
12 suggested -- because actually the question came
13 up during the committee meeting and we didn't
14 really discuss it out. In my initial proposal to
15 you, I suggested that we allow that freebee only
16 one time. And I think that is a good
17 recommendation for us to consider and for us to
18 think about. And particularly as it applies to
19 this year, I think on one piece of property, one
20 stocking at that level is a reasonable approach.
21 However, for future years -- and
22 I'll talk a little bit more about this in a
23 minute. I suggest that we delay making a
24 decision, that we just set that for this year and
25 that we delay making a decision on that of how we
.0032
1 want to proceed in subsequent years until we see
2 how this year goes and what kind of results we
3 have and what kind of problems we run into.
4 Our next steps, as I mentioned
5 earlier, you'll be hearing from Doctor Cooke
6 about our proposals. We can adopt, you can adopt
7 the MLD proposals tomorrow. We're going to
8 request that we go to the Texas Register with our
9 TTT regulation proposals, hear them out in the
10 summer, talk them through with folks, and then
11 come back in August and finalize those.
12 In closing -- and, again, I cannot
13 say enough to thank this group of folks that
14 served on the committee. Good people. I knew
15 every one of them from the start. And I didn't
16 know whether that would be good or bad, but they
17 tolerated me well and facilitated this thing.
18 They expressed an interest in coming
19 back together. It was a good mix. They
20 expressed an interest in coming back together at
21 the end of this year, maybe at the end of this
22 hunting season/trapping season, possibly in April
23 or something like that. And as the Commission
24 wishes, I think that was a good suggestion. I
25 think that if we get that group back together and
.0033
1 talk about how it went, what kind of volume of
2 business we did in this program, what problems we
3 had, and, again, look for solutions to those
4 problems, I think, is worthy of consideration.
5 If you have any questions, I'll be
6 glad to answer them. Otherwise, Doctor Cooke can
7 give you the presentation of the proposals. Yes,
8 sir?
9 COMMISSIONER WATSON: Okay. The --
10 sort of the situation relative, though, to the
11 importation of deer and not requiring any
12 inspection of the release site, that still
13 exists?
14 DR. COOKE: That still the exists.
15 It would not be under either of these
16 proclamations. If we address that, it would have
17 to be under the scientific breeder proclamation.
18 MR. COOK: Mr. Watson brings up a
19 topic that did come up in our meeting that I
20 think is worthy of the Commission hearing about.
21 The question of importation, bringing deer into
22 Texas, was brought up and discussed at length at
23 both meetings, and a lot of people have a lot of
24 concern about it. But in our documents, in our
25 proposals, that section is not open for us to
.0034
1 deal with at this time. And the committee agreed
2 that if we're going to work on that, if we're
3 going to propose some changes there, that we
4 probably should involve some other folks, folks
5 who are directly involved in that program,
6 scientific breeders and such, that would have a
7 direct interest. There was a lot of discussion
8 about that and a lot of concern expressed.
9 DR. COOKE: Mr. Chairman and
10 members, my name is Jerry Cooke, program director
11 for upland wildlife ecology and I'll be bringing
12 to you the staff proposals that were based on the
13 MLD/TTT work group recommendations.
14 As Mr. Cook pointed out, one the
15 primary recommendations of the work group was
16 that both programs should be incentive driven and
17 habitat focused. And on this, we certainly
18 agree. As Mr. Cook pointed out, we're hoping to
19 meet with them again, late fall/early winter to
20 recap, reevaluate and see if any refinements of
21 the current proposals might be necessary.
22 Basically, we consider progress on a wildlife
23 management plan to be positive so long as the
24 habitats are stable or improving. And that's
25 going to be a cornerstone for all of our programs
.0035
1 related to deer.
2 Under the MLD program, option one,
3 as Mr. Cook pointed out, really has no proposed
4 changes. It's the current permit that we have
5 for antlerless only deer. Basically if a
6 landowner has a current survey and an approved
7 wildlife management plan, we'll issue antlerless
8 permits based on that management plan. It will
9 have the county seasons and bag limits, but
10 because these are MLD antlerless permits, bonus
11 tags would be available to that landowner or
12 hunter to utilize these permits.
13 The option 2 under the MLD program
14 would basically require a previous year -- the
15 previous year's survey along with current survey,
16 a previous year of harvest data, and two habitat
17 management practices, which would be -- not be
18 required until the permit was approved; in other
19 words, this is what the landowner is agreeing to
20 do under his management plan. We also would be
21 approving this permit basically for a three-year
22 renewable window, to allow the landowner the
23 understanding that he's got approval more than
24 just for the single year.
25 Under this option, the bag limit on
.0036
1 the property would be five deer, no more than
2 three bucks. The buck season would open with the
3 county season and would close the last Sunday in
4 January.
5 For antlerless only deer, on the
6 screen it says October 1. Actually, that would
7 be the Saturday nearest September 30th, through
8 the last Sunday in January, giving the maximum
9 amount of time for the harvest of antlerless
10 deer. And bonus tags would be available on that
11 property for all deer for which the permit was
12 available.
13 The option 3 would require two --
14 the two previous years of survey data, along with
15 the current survey, two years of harvest data,
16 and the agreement would be for four wildlife
17 management practices chosen by the landowner,
18 based on the goals of their property, which would
19 be, again, begun at the time that the permit was
20 approved on the property. And this also would
21 have an approved three-year window.
22 Some other recommendations that we
23 included in this proposal package from the
24 committee is a recognition that there will be
25 times when management practices simply cannot be
.0037
1 accomplished. If New Mexico taught us anything,
2 it's control burns don't happen during droughts.
3 And certainly we would not hold a landowner to
4 such a treatment when situations were adverse.
5 Similarly, there are years when
6 habitat conditions are so good that harvest
7 simply can't be accomplished. So this is an
8 acknowledgment and a recognition of that in the
9 renewal process.
10 Also there will be times when the
11 landowner simply doesn't wish to continue with
12 management practices. And under those
13 circumstances, certainly they could move to
14 another option within the program to alleviate
15 whatever concerns they might have about the level
16 of -- or intensity of their management on their
17 property.
18 And there also will simply be times
19 when there are flagrant violations of
20 regulation. For example, overharvest of deer,
21 taking more deer than they have permits for. The
22 committee recommended an extended period of time
23 in which those landowners should not be allowed
24 back into the program. And our proposal included
25 three years as a starting point or a stopping
.0038
1 point.
2 Under the TTT program, one of the
3 agreements that we made with the committee was
4 simply that if applications for TTT permit came
5 on or before November the 15th we could guarantee
6 them that we could review that application within
7 45 days, usually much shorter than that, but
8 certainly within 45 days. After November the
9 15th, our field personnel are pretty well tied up
10 with hunting season obligations and other things,
11 and we can't really guarantee it before that --
12 within that period of time after that, but we'll
13 certainly do the best that we can.
14 All release sites within the TTT
15 program must have an approved wildlife management
16 plan on the property. And also, as Mr. Cook
17 pointed out, we recommend that we include in this
18 proclamation the opportunity for what we call a
19 minimum impact release, releases of less than or
20 equal to a deer to 200 acres. The acreage
21 covered by the wildlife management plan that's
22 approved on the property which would simply not
23 require any field inspection at that time. We're
24 recommending that it be for one such release on
25 the property. However, that's really not going
.0039
1 to affect this year since they can get one this
2 year. We can certainly talk about this further
3 in the future.
4 The committee recommended and we
5 agreed and included in this proposal that all
6 bucks moved between October 1 and February 10th
7 of each year must have their antlers removed.
8 An exception recommended by the
9 committee was that if they were moved between
10 pastures or between properties owned by the same
11 individual, they need not be included in this
12 requirement. And so says the proposal.
13 Also we recommended that the changes
14 in notification be made, along with some other
15 aspects of reporting. For example, a person has
16 to report within 24 hours of trapping but there's
17 no outside on that. If he reports it within 24
18 hours, he's accommodated, even if it's only three
19 weeks later before he actually does any of the
20 business.
21 The committee's interest was in
22 having a warden available, if the opportunity
23 arose, to either inspect trappings or releasings
24 directly. So we proposed that the notification
25 be equal to or greater than 24 hours but less
.0040
1 than 48 hours, to allow that kind of schedule.
2 Also, recommendation in the
3 reporting. Currently, all activities on the
4 permit is only required to be reported at the end
5 of the year. Changes that we propose would
6 require that a daily log be kept that leads up to
7 that final report for a warden to inspect, if
8 required.
9 And also, as you recall, when we
10 discussed the marketing requirements for vehicles
11 and trailers under the scientific breeder
12 program, a similar recommendation would be made
13 for TTT movements of animals as well.
14 Also, in an oversight in Chapter 43,
15 all the permits related to Chapter 43 require
16 that animals inadvertently killed during an
17 operation must be kept in edible condition, also
18 must be donated in an appropriate sort of way and
19 receipts kept as documentation of the animals,
20 and we would propose to include that in this
21 proclamation as well.
22 Also, with the exception of
23 Mr. Sansom, I don't think any of the other
24 commissioners were here when we were seriously
25 Sunsetting our regulations. But when we did
.0041
1 that, we had just adopted the TTT proclamation
2 and so we did not include it in that Sunsetting
3 process.
4 So we are proposing to do the same
5 Sunset operations. We're moving everything from
6 regulations currently in statute, doing some
7 housekeeping changes to make it readable, and
8 that sort of thing. And that's included in this
9 proposal as well.
10 So we're asking for permission of
11 this committee to publish the TTT proclamation in
12 the Texas Register for public comment, and we're
13 also asking that the committee forward the
14 proposal for the MLD portion of the statewide
15 hunting and fishing proclamation to the full
16 commission tomorrow for consideration and
17 adoption. And if you have any questions, I will
18 be glad to try and answer those.
19 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I have a
20 question for Bob.
21 MR. COOK: Yes, sir.
22 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Was there any
23 substantial opposition from the committee to any
24 of the proposals that you're bringing before us?
25 MR. COOK: Commissioner Henry, I do
.0042
1 not believe there was. For instance, just to
2 give you an idea, we got into a discussion on the
3 insignificant release, the minimum impact
4 release. And the discussion varied from setting
5 that at a deer per 100 acres up to a deer to 300
6 and something acres. But that kind of
7 discussion.
8 The basic philosophy behind these
9 proposals was, it was very positive. And I did
10 not sense -- well, in fact, you know, and had I
11 sensed any clear -- you know, that any one of
12 these issues was creating a real problem for
13 anybody sitting around the room, I would have
14 specifically brought that out. And there was a
15 time or two where, just to make sure that we
16 understood and knew where everybody was coming
17 from, that I would specifically call on someone,
18 you know, to talk to us about how they felt about
19 that or, you know. But I do not believe there
20 was at all, no, sir.
21 CHAIRMAN BASS: I would echo that.
22 I think -- and I attended both the meetings. And
23 on the one hand, I don't think anybody got
24 everything they wanted in terms of if you had
25 asked them to write their wish list before they
.0043
1 attended the first meeting, none of them would
2 have written down exactly what Doctor Cooke just
3 walked us through.
4 On the other hand, I think that
5 everybody left feeling that it was -- that
6 basically they were happy and that they were
7 supportive of what we came out with. So it was a
8 very positive and constructive process. That's
9 not to say there may not be somebody that -- out
10 there -- there will undoubtedly be somebody out
11 there that's not happy, but they weren't at the
12 meeting.
13 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Are there any
14 significant potential problems with the idea of a
15 landowner being able to move a deer between
16 tracts that he owns without cutting off the
17 antlers, between the dates mentioned?
18 DR. COOKE: The examples that was
19 used by the committee in discussing that is,
20 there are properties that are high fenced in
21 Texas that has a road through the middle of them
22 where intensive management has been effected on
23 one side of the road and not necessarily on the
24 other side of the road. That would certainly be
25 a null move, as far as we're concerned.
.0044
1 MR. COOK: I don't anticipate any --
2 in fact, it was, again, one of those topics that
3 there was quite a bit of discussion back and
4 forth across the room. Initially, when the topic
5 first came up, I think it's worth noting that
6 the -- that I thought that the majority of the
7 committee was going to propose that we not move
8 bucks at all, not at all. And it kind of evolved
9 from there. And we got around to, okay, well,
10 let's take the horns off of everything during
11 this time frame. And then, you know, again, I
12 think showing the forethought of the group that
13 you've got a landowner and maybe he's got a piece
14 of property a mile down the road or it's
15 separated by the highway in some cases, or maybe
16 he wants to move just some deer from one side of
17 the ranch to other on a big outfit, that that was
18 probably an unnecessary burden. And we'll be
19 watching for problems.
20 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: I think that
21 would be one that we'll want to keep an eye on.
22 MR. COOKE: Yes, sir.
23 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: I don't have
24 any comments, but I -- well, I do have a comment,
25 how impressed I was with the hard work that
.0045
1 everybody did, all the groups and the staff. I
2 think if this is an example of a group -- groups
3 coming together and working in a very
4 constructive way to accomplish something, thank
5 everybody.
6 MR. COOK: Thank you.
7 DR. COOKE: Thank you.
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: Jerry, when you
9 walked us through the TTT, you mentioned the
10 application date of cutoff with assurance of a
11 turnaround within 45 days, not to say that an
12 applicant couldn't apply after that date, he just
13 would not be guaranteed that we would be able
14 to --
15 MR. COOK: Exactly.
16 CHAIRMAN BASS: -- respond that
17 trapping season. There was also some discussion
18 of a similar approach to the MLD permit and a
19 cutoff date with an assured turnaround, which I
20 don't believe you walked us through this
21 morning. Did that --
22 DR. COOKE: We did not include it as
23 a regulation, a proposal in the proclamation, I
24 don't believe.
25 CHAIRMAN BASS: But is the concept
.0046
1 still to --
2 DR. COOKE: The concept is still
3 there. In other words, if an individual waits
4 until -- well, just a second. I do recall some
5 of this.
6 MR. COOK: I believe the discussion
7 in the group was, shoot for something like an
8 August 15th initial deadline and --
9 DR. COOKE: We could make that
10 change between now and tomorrow, if the committee
11 so desires. And that was discussed, as Bob
12 pointed out; that if they wanted to be guaranteed
13 to have their permits in hand by October 1, then
14 they needed to apply before August 15th. And
15 that was in one of the preliminary proclamations
16 that we passed around.
17 But what we wanted to do for you as
18 commissioners is to provide you a regulations
19 package that governs the program without
20 including every single detail, including the
21 forms and those kinds of things.
22 CHAIRMAN BASS: Right.
23 DR. COOKE: Because of the
24 chairman's goal of keeping things nice and
25 simple. But that would not be unreasonable to
.0047
1 include in the regulations, I don't believe, and
2 it was certainly something the committee agreed
3 to in both of the meetings.
4 With, again, realizing that we're
5 not providing a deadline for application, but
6 just assuring them that if they want to have it
7 by such and such a time, the only way we can do
8 that is if they apply prior to this time.
9 CHAIRMAN BASS: If you apply after
10 this date, we may get to you but you're at some
11 risk.
12 DR. COOKE: You shall be at risk.
13 CHAIRMAN BASS: I think it would be
14 reasonable to put it in the regs, just to put
15 everybody on notice, so to speak, and put some
16 discipline in the process both from -- from both
17 ends.
18 MR. COOK: I agree.
19 CHAIRMAN BASS: So I think that
20 would be good. Any other comments? The Chair
21 would entertain a motion?
22 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I so move.
23 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: So moved.
24 CHAIR BASS: Motion -- oops, excuse
25 me.
.0048
1 DR. COOKE: We have two motions.
2 One on the MLD to forward tomorrow and one on the
3 TTT for Commission to publish.
4 CHAIRMAN BASS: So we have first
5 motion on the MLD to go forward tomorrow. Motion
6 on the second. All in favor? Opposed? And
7 commission to publish on the TTT? All in favor?
8 The second, all in favor?
9 (Motion passed unanimously.)
10 CHAIRMAN BASS: Good job,
11 gentlemen. I think we've made a lot of
12 constructive progress in this process, and I
13 appreciate it.
14 AGENDA ITEM NO. 5: ACTION - HARMFUL OR
15 POTENTIALLY HARMFUL EXOTIC FISH, SHELLFISH
16 AND AQUATIC PLANTS STAFF: JOEDY GRAY.
17 CHAIRMAN BASS: Harmful or
18 potentially harmful exotic fish, shellfish and
19 aquatic plants.
20 MR. GRAY: Morning, Mr. Chairman, my
21 name is Joedy Gray, and I'm staff support
22 specialist with the Inland Fisheries Division.
23 Staff is proposing amendments
24 concerning the harmful, potentially harmful
25 exotic fish, shellfish, and aquatic plant rules.
.0049
1 These amendments are intended to simplify the
2 permitting process.
3 The first proposed amendment will
4 provide permits for removal of prohibited plant
5 species from public waters. Currently operators
6 of mechanical harvesters have to obtained a
7 research permit in order to remove prohibited
8 species such as water hyacinth and hydrilla from
9 public waters. This amendment will allow them to
10 obtain a permit without having to write a
11 research proposal.
12 The second proposed amendment will
13 allow operators of wastewater treatment
14 facilities to possess permitted exotic fish
15 species provided they are used for water
16 treatment purposes only.
17 The third amendment will require
18 permittees that import, transport, transfer, or
19 sell triploid grass carp to submit annual reports
20 instead of quarterly reports.
21 And finally, the scientific name for
22 several penaeid shrimp species referred to
23 throughout the rules will be corrected to reflect
24 the change in nomenclature.
25 Proposed amendments were published
.0050
1 in the Texas Register, and no public comment has
2 been received to date.
3 Staff recommends that the
4 regulations committee of the Parks and Wildlife
5 Commission refer the proposed amendments
6 concerning harmful or potentially harmful fish,
7 shellfish, and aquatic plants as published in the
8 April 28th, 2000, edition of the Texas Register
9 to the full commission for adoption with
10 consideration for placement on the consent
11 agenda.
12 And I'll answer any questions.
13 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: This is
14 entirely to make things simpler and easier to
15 manage for both parties?
16 MR. GRAY: Right.
17 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: I'll move
18 approval of the recommendation as presented.
19 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: Second.
20 CHAIRMAN BASS: Do we have a motion
21 for second?
22 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: Second.
23 CHAIRMAN BASS: All in favor? Any
24 opposed? Thank you.
25 (Motion passed unanimously.)
.0051
1 CHAIRMAN BASS: Okay. Item 6,
2 proposed shrimp management proclamation. In
3 approaching this item, I would recommend and ask
4 permission of Commissioner Angelo, who is
5 chairing the finance committee today, that we
6 combine this topic with Item 6 from the finance
7 agenda, which is the proposed fee increase for
8 the recreational fishing stamp, to accelerate the
9 buyback plan. Because I think most of us feel
10 that this -- these issues are very related and
11 intertwined.
12 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: I think that
13 would be appropriate.
14 CHAIRMAN BASS: And so with his
15 concurrence, we'll have a combined presentation
16 and discussion at some length on these issues
17 because they're kind of two legs to the same
18 stool.
19 And also, as part of our structure
20 today, we have eight, I believe, speakers
21 representing various constituencies that have a
22 stake in this topic that are available for some
23 public input to the committee at this time.
24 I would stress that, you know, that
25 while there are eight names that are available
.0052
1 for public comment today, certainly public
2 comment and input is something that is -- this is
3 not the first nor will it be the last opportunity
4 for it in this process as we consider these
5 proposals.
6 I know Hal and staff has worked
7 through the Shrimp Advisory Committee and in many
8 cases directly with stakeholders heretofore and
9 getting us to where we are today. And, you know,
10 at the most, our actions today would be to go
11 forward with publishing, as the law requires, in
12 the Texas Register, some proposals which trigger
13 a further round of public comment and input for
14 the Commission to ultimately take into
15 consideration prior to considering any rules and
16 regulation changes to become finalized.
17 So this is -- but one small step on
18 a long journey. And public input is something
19 that will have many opportunities, both before
20 and after today, and of course which we're very
21 interested in in helping us understand all the
22 nuances of this issue.
23 So with that, I would turn the floor
24 over to these gentlemen and ask you to please
25 make your presentations, and we'll go from
.0053
1 there.
2 MR. OSBURN: Thank you, Mr.
3 Chairman, members. I'm Hal Osburn, Coastal
4 Fisheries Division director. As you recall, from
5 the April committee briefing under your guidance,
6 staff has recently completed a comprehensive
7 review of the shrimp fishery resources in Texas.
8 That review included an intensive outreach effort
9 over the last 18 months.
10 Staff conducted over 30 workshops
11 coastwide with hundreds of stakeholders
12 participating. We did hold six workshops
13 specially conducted by an Asian-American
14 facilitator to better overcome some of the
15 language barriers we identified. And as we enter
16 the culmination of this outreach and review
17 process, we recognize there would still be
18 opportunity for at least three more months of
19 public comments if you choose to go forward to
20 the Texas Register as you noted.
21 Shrimping does occur year round in
22 Texas and there really is no perfect time to
23 finalize rules. But we would note that the gulf
24 shrimping season is closed for the first half of
25 the summer and the bay shrimping is closed in the
.0054
1 middle of the summer.
2 At your direction, we will schedule
3 public hearings over a wide period of time in the
4 summer to accommodate both of those periods when
5 there's low shrimping activity.
6 The basic conclusion of our review
7 was that to protect the long-term sustainability
8 of this valuable resource, there was a need for a
9 more proactive conservation management strategy.
10 Limited entry in 1995 was an important point in
11 Texas shrimp management. But it was never
12 designed to be the only management tool needed.
13 In fact, the department's limited entry report to
14 the 76th Legislature in 1999, January,
15 specifically noted the need for a thorough review
16 of all shrimping regulations.
17 With minimal funds available,
18 limited entry buyback has not worked fast enough
19 to reverse problems in the fishery. But in
20 applying a proactive management strategy, staff
21 recognized a need to be sensitive to the social
22 and economic needs of a very diverse shrimp
23 fishing community.
24 Coastwide in Texas, there has
25 developed a large fleet of shrimping vessels,
.0055
1 along with processing facilities and other
2 shore-based infrastructure. These entities
3 provide a valuable service by bringing us fresh
4 shrimp and bait.
5 Protecting the historical
6 participants in this fishery must also be a part
7 of our strategy implementation. And, in fact,
8 that is the basic mandate given to us in the
9 Commission's 1989 Shrimp Fishery Management
10 Plan. By balancing biological, social, and
11 economic factors, we can achieve our goal of
12 optimum yield.
13 Staff recognized five basic
14 components of a management strategy to accomplish
15 this. First, accelerate the license buyback
16 program from willing sellers, thus reducing
17 overall competition in the fishery. Next,
18 increase fishery profits by deferring harvest of
19 shrimp until they have reached a larger, more
20 valuable size. More shrimp should also be
21 allowed to spawn to increase annual abundance and
22 ease the long-term threat of overfishing. And
23 optimum yield for other marine species can be
24 enhanced by reducing bycatch.
25 And, finally, where possible, our
.0056
1 management strategy should seek to increase
2 harvest opportunities and efficiency. With this
3 management strategy in mind and per the
4 Commission's direction, staff developed some
5 draft proposals for discussion with
6 stakeholders.
7 I need to tell you that your Shrimp
8 Advisory Committee did generally reject those
9 proposals, although there was distraction of
10 alleged data conflicts between the department and
11 the National Marine Fishery Service. Those
12 concerns were unfounded, and fortunately we were
13 able to quickly resolve that and then proceed
14 with a fuller discussion of the original
15 proposals.
16 I want to thank those folks in the
17 industry who were willing to work with us on some
18 tough issues on a short time period. That
19 constructive dialogue allowed us to improve the
20 proposal substantially. In fact, over half of
21 the original proposals have been liberalized.
22 I'm sure it's clear by now that the
23 shrimp fishery has always had, by far, one of the
24 most complex, complicated set of rules of any
25 harvested resource in the State of Texas. Every
.0057
1 rule change will have pros and cons. And a
2 change in one part will affect some other part of
3 the whole. The challenge, obviously, is to find
4 the best balance for all of our stakeholders, but
5 even those decisions can be controversial.
6 To achieve the goal the Commission
7 gave us, staff does have a set of proposals to
8 offer for further public discussion. Let me
9 start with some of rule liberalizations that we
10 would suggest. And I think you have a packet
11 which shows specific proclamation language if you
12 need to, to follow in that.
13 These rule liberalizations would
14 allow for greater shrimper efficiency and
15 profits. And we think that these would accrue
16 positively to the industry.
17 Greater profits is also the goal of
18 establishing 100 count as a minimum size limit
19 and redesignating some waters as nursery or bait
20 areas. These changes should better protect
21 shrimp when they are smaller than generally
22 targeted by the fleet.
23 The upper coast bait and nursery
24 areas, the crosshatched purple areas are current
25 nursery areas. Yellow is proposed new nurseries,
.0058
1 and light blue is proposed new bait bays.
2 Same legend on our lower coast. And
3 the green area near Corpus Christi is a special
4 nighttime shrimping area in the upper Laguna
5 Madre. No changes are proposed for that area.
6 CHAIRMAN BASS: Hal, tell me again
7 what the legend is of the colors.
8 MR. OSBURN: It is -- crosshatched
9 purple is current nursery area, yellow is
10 proposed new nurseries, and light blue is
11 proposed new bait bays.
12 COMMISSIONER WATSON: And what's the
13 green?
14 MR. OSBURN: Green is a special
15 nighttime shrimping area in the upper Laguna
16 Madre that is current law. No changes.
17 CHAIRMAN BASS: The new bait bay
18 would be -- what was it formerly or currently?
19 MR. OSBURN: It was a major bay.
20 CHAIRMAN BASS: So it would become
21 bait only?
22 MR. OSBURN: Right.
23 COMMISSIONER WATSON: So there's no
24 change in lower Laguna Madre?
25 MR. OSBURN: The lower Laguna Madre,
.0059
1 actually there is a liberalization to allow for
2 bait shrimping in the Brownsville ship channel
3 that -- currently it's not technically allowed in
4 there and we wanted to be sure that they could
5 bait shrimp in there.
6 All of the Laguna Madre, upper and
7 lower, is and has been a bait-only area. Nothing
8 changes there. It's always been a bait-only
9 area.
10 Let me move to the southern shrimp
11 zone. Staff does propose a closed area off of
12 Padre Island out to five nautical miles, where
13 smaller brown shrimp will be allowed to grow
14 before migrating to the deeper waters where the
15 gulf fleet is generally concentrated.
16 We do recommend a close monitoring
17 of this zone to see if our management strategies
18 are being successful there.
19 There are some moderate increases in
20 trawl mesh sizes which should also allow smaller
21 shrimp to escape for harvest later, and changes
22 to the trawl bay and gulf winter season should
23 increase survival of small white shrimp for
24 harvesting larger shrimp in the spring and
25 summer.
.0060
1 Let me remind you that the Texas
2 gulf waters, which extend out to nine nautical
3 miles, are not protected by limited entry
4 program, as our basis. That increases the need
5 for other methods of effort limitation, such as
6 these gear restrictions, especially to protect
7 spawning white shrimp targeted inside of five
8 nautical miles. So this would be a zone, the
9 northern zone where the amount of trawls would be
10 restricted.
11 I will tell you that this is similar
12 to current Louisiana law and is actually less
13 restrictive than Florida law, which allows no
14 shrimping inside of three miles on their beaches.
15 Once again, we would recommend a
16 close monitoring to measure the actual impact on
17 the shrimp fishery and other near shore species
18 of these gulf rules.
19 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Hal, what
20 were the limits on Florida?
21 MR. OSBURN: Florida has no
22 shrimping allowed inside of three miles -- from
23 their beach out to three nautical miles. And
24 inside their bays, they restrict all of their
25 shrimp trawls to 500 square feet, which is a very
.0061
1 small net.
2 COMMISSIONER WATSON: Okay. Now,
3 the equipment that's used in this five-mile area,
4 is that unique equipment to that area? I mean,
5 if it's displaced from there, can it be used
6 elsewhere?
7 MR. OSBURN: Yes, it can. The
8 trawl -- in fact, the vessels that are shrimping
9 there now with more than two trawls or more than
10 130 foot of webbing could remain in that area
11 just with those gear restrictions. They can also
12 take their current nets, which generally are four
13 nets, up to about a total of about 250 feet of
14 webbing, and they can shrimp outside the five
15 nautical miles, which there are substantial
16 populations of white shrimp and brown shrimp
17 outside of five nautical miles.
18 COMMISSIONER WATSON: What kind of
19 an imposition -- I mean, does it create the
20 difference of a quarter of an inch in the mesh
21 size for the fall bay season? You have to have
22 two different sets of nets?
23 MR. OSBURN: In the fall bay
24 season?
25 COMMISSIONER WATSON: Yeah.
.0062
1 MR. OSBURN: We're proposing that
2 you actually have just one net in the fall bay
3 season. Right now they do have two nets. They
4 have an inch and three quarter webbing that they
5 use from October -- August 15th up until November
6 1st, and they switch to a smaller mesh size. We
7 would like to see that net used in the first half
8 of the fall used in the last part of the fall
9 season to -- which would allow some of those
10 small white shrimp that are escaping to the gulf
11 to actually escape, grow up, and be big white
12 shrimp that will be available on the beach for
13 the fleet when they move out with their -- in
14 their two net 130-foot rule.
15 It opens it up to some historical
16 participants. We have had a change in the fleet
17 composition on the beach in this decade. And
18 this is an attempt to be a proactive strategy on
19 a stock of shrimp that's being targeted very
20 seriously right now.
21 COMMISSIONER WATSON: Okay. It's my
22 understanding that the type of equipment that can
23 get literally up on the beach is prohibited in
24 Louisiana and some other states.
25 MR. OSBURN: The amount of webbing
.0063
1 that we're proposing to be on our beach would be
2 identical to what is allowed on Louisiana's
3 beaches out to -- throughout their state waters,
4 which go to three nautical miles.
5 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: But prohibited
6 in Florida?
7 MR. OSBURN: Prohibited in Florida.
8 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: What about
9 the other Gulf States?
10 MR. OSBURN: Mississippi and Alabama
11 have a fairly short shoreline there. They do
12 have some restrictions that -- primarily they use
13 a count size in their gulf. We are not proposing
14 a count size in the gulf. Their proposed -- they
15 have a -- I believe it's a 68 count, which is a
16 very large -- well, very large shrimp relative to
17 the 100 count. It's larger than 100 count shrimp
18 that they restrict their fleet to targeting
19 there. So I can double-check on exactly their
20 webbing sizes required. But they -- all the
21 states kind of have a different combination of
22 these things, depending on what part of the
23 fishery they're trying to prioritize.
24 COMMISSIONER AVILA: These shrimpers
25 are not having to go invest in new equipment, is
.0064
1 what I hear you saying. They generally have both
2 these size nets?
3 MR. OSBURN: Yes. And we would
4 propose a long phase-in time period for getting
5 any new nets. And that's certainly something
6 that we would like to hear public comment during
7 the summer, to find out what is the actual
8 physical fiscal costs to replacing nets or
9 getting new ones. I think we can be -- I think
10 we should be sensitive to that kind of time
11 frame.
12 COMMISSIONER AVILA: Thank you.
13 COMMISSIONER WATSON: Well, it seems
14 like to me, you know, we have two different
15 challenges. I mean, the gulf and the bays are
16 entirely different. The TEDs that we're talking
17 about work in the gulf but they don't -- I mean,
18 there's no effective TED for the --
19 MR. OSBURN: I'm sorry, what --
20 COMMISSIONER WATSON: I mean,
21 there's no effective bycatch reduction device for
22 the bays.
23 MR. OSBURN: Well, let me give you
24 my last slide on the rule changes here, and see
25 if I can answer some of that. The -- we do see
.0065
1 the need to protect some of these other marine
2 species. Mandatory bycatch reduction devices and
3 turtle excluder devices are proposed. The gulf
4 fleet right now outside of State waters is
5 required to use a bycatch reduction device. All
6 shrimpers, with some exceptions, are required to
7 use turtle excluder devices. Our basic proposal
8 here is to add the bycatch reduction device into
9 the bay fleet.
10 So through our studies -- and many
11 shrimpers are using them now. We have not heard
12 a lot of opposition to bringing in a bycatch
13 reduction device. And we're going to be very
14 liberal in the definition of that bycatch
15 reduction device to allow for new ideas. And,
16 you know, let's find something that works.
17 Bycatch reduction devices are kind
18 of like limited entry. They're not the answer.
19 They're not the only thing you have to deal
20 with. Right now we're estimating we're only
21 excluding up to about 20 percent of the finfish
22 and invertebrates from our bycatch reduction
23 devices. That's not necessarily high enough to
24 achieve your management goals, but it is a
25 start.
.0066
1 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: How much do
2 those reduction devices affect the efficiency of
3 the shrimping?
4 MR. OSBURN: It depends on how the
5 shrimper uses them and the particular device. We
6 have tested one we call the Sea Eagle that has
7 had a zero loss of shrimp. And that's what our
8 data -- and we've tested it on board shrimp
9 vessels. There can be losses of shrimp. There's
10 no doubt about it.
11 There is also a very good loss --
12 relative to shrimp, a very good loss of finfish
13 and other invertebrates, which are also part of
14 that public resource we're trying to manage.
15 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Are there
16 places where both devices would be used?
17 MR. OSBURN: In the federal waters
18 right now, TEDs and BRDs are both required in the
19 gulf nets. They would be required in our State
20 waters as well, because we're basically matching
21 the federal TED rules with our rules, to enhance
22 our enforcement forcibility of that. We
23 currently do that through a memorandum of
24 understanding with the federal agencies and the
25 gulf fleet. So this would just basically make
.0067
1 the same law state law and wouldn't need that
2 understanding.
3 But, yes, some TEDs actually are
4 certified as bycatch reduction devices. Those
5 will be included in our list of approved BRDs.
6 So the industry continues to test them. There's
7 the Sea Grant folks, National Marine Fishery
8 Service spending a lot of time and money trying
9 to make an environmentally friendly device. You
10 will hear that the shrimp loss is substantial
11 from some folks because of that. And I would not
12 argue that that can happen.
13 Once again, you're trying to achieve
14 multiple purposes and the -- but using a single
15 device is possible to achieve both goals.
16 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Does it cut
17 down on the time or does it increase the
18 difficulty of shrimping, when you use the BRD or
19 use both the TED and the BRD?
20 MR. OSBURN: Well, they're
21 mechanical devices, particularly the TED, that
22 can have -- it's a large device in the net, in a
23 rolling sea. Certainly folks have complained
24 about it being dangerous, swinging around in the
25 net. We have no control over the TED laws at
.0068
1 this point. Those are federally mandated by
2 Endangered Species Act. So we're kind of going
3 along with that.
4 The BRD, though, is a much smaller
5 device, much safer, easier to handle, and not
6 subject to the same problems as a TED.
7 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Well, I had
8 asked Doctor McKinney about the BRD, and he had
9 someone bring me the model of it. And, you know,
10 I've asked them to describe how it works, which
11 they have done. But in terms of the model and
12 the actual device itself, how does this compare
13 with what would be in -- being used on board?
14 MR. OSBURN: Being used on board
15 where?
16 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: Being used in
17 the shrimping.
18 MR. OSBURN: Right now?
19 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: If we put these
20 rules into effect.
21 MR. OSBURN: The fish eye is a
22 common one that's used. That's called the fish
23 eye, and it is a common one that's used.
24 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: But how does it
25 relate size-wise with what would be used in
.0069
1 shrimping?
2 MR. OSBURN: What we would be
3 using? That would be an approved device.
4 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: This exact
5 model?
6 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: That size?
7 MR. OSBURN: Yes, yes. Or close to
8 it. Maybe slightly larger for the number of inch
9 openings for in the gulf. But it's basically
10 something you could hold in one hand. That is
11 the prototype that we hope to -- the Sea Eagle,
12 which I mentioned, is identical to that, slightly
13 larger but it has a flap over that large eye
14 part. When the water is pushing it through the
15 trawl, the organisms escape. When you slow down,
16 the flap closes so that you have less loss of
17 shrimp. And that's the one where we've seen the
18 least amount of shrimp loss.
19 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: Where does this
20 device go relative to the net?
21 MR. OSBURN: It goes on top, back
22 toward the bag, between the front of the net and
23 the very end of the net. I think there may be,
24 in your packet, some pictures in here.
25 CHAIRMAN BASS: Ms. Dinkins has an
.0070
1 illustration.
2 MR. OSBURN: There you go. Yeah.
3 It's in the briefing book section.
4 CHAIRMAN BASS: Would you explain
5 the rationale of the exception that -- for
6 turtles excluding devices?
7 MR. OSBURN: The exceptions?
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: Yeah. What is the
9 rationale? What is the genesis that --
10 MR. OSBURN: No mechanical retrieval
11 device?
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: Yeah.
13 MR. OSBURN: Basically that's
14 saying, if you're pulling in a net by hand, then
15 you're pulling a small net and not for a very
16 long time, and you will not have had a big enough
17 net in the water long enough to have captured a
18 turtle. Even if you captured a turtle, it wasn't
19 under long enough to have drowned and so you can
20 get it out. So one person pulling in a small net
21 generally can't be a very big --
22 CHAIRMAN BASS: Can't drown a
23 turtle? I take it that that's consistent with
24 the federal?
25 MR. OSBURN: Yes.
.0071
1 CHAIRMAN BASS: What percentage of
2 the gulf fleet would that effect?
3 MR. OSBURN: Almost zero. It's
4 really targeted toward the recreational user,
5 recreational net.
6 CHAIRMAN BASS: And our rules would
7 have -- would require a BRD in that instance?
8 MR. OSBURN: No. Our BRDs, if
9 you'll look up there under the exceptions for
10 BRDs, it will be the commercial bait trawl and
11 recreational -- in the recreational trawls,
12 because of the small size. And --
13 CHAIRMAN BASS: Right.
14 MR. OSBURN: And anything under --
15 CHAIRMAN BASS: Those exceptions in
16 the bay will exist for BRDs?
17 MR. OSBURN: Yes.
18 CHAIRMAN BASS: In the gulf, there
19 will be no exceptions?
20 MR. OSBURN: No. In the gulf you
21 will also have that exception for a commercial
22 bait license and the recreation.
23 CHAIRMAN BASS: If they're operating
24 a bait license in the gulf. But otherwise it
25 would be --
.0072
1 MR. OSBURN: That's correct.
2 COMMISSIONER HENRY: The comment
3 attributed to Doctor Zimmerman, concerning the
4 lack of conflict between National Marine
5 Fisheries and TPW, is that the official position
6 at this point, of National Marine Fisheries, as
7 far as we know?
8 MR. OSBURN: They have put that to
9 me on their letterhead in writing with references
10 to all of their bosses. And I have spoken to
11 Doctor Hogarth in Florida, who is Doctor
12 Zimmerman's boss, who is Doctor Jim Nance's
13 boss. And we had these conversations back at the
14 early part of this year.
15 And I need to take time to thank the
16 National Marine Fisheries Service. They have a
17 tremendous database. They have been collecting
18 in Texas, in anonymity in a lot of cases, that we
19 have been able to use in our review. And they
20 have supported us in our concerns on the
21 fishery --
22 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I mention that
23 because in some of the letters, information that
24 we received from various individuals, they take
25 issue with this particular --
.0073
1 MR. OSBURN: I understand.
2 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: And I wonder,
3 too, what was the basis for the conflict? I
4 mean, how did that get confused?
5 COMMISSIONER HENRY: That's what I'm
6 trying --
7 MR. OSBURN: My best answer is it's
8 because us scientists spend too much time talking
9 technobabble. And instead of coming out and
10 saying exactly what we're talking about, we use
11 different definitions like recruitment
12 overfishing versus growth overfishing.
13 Recruitment overfishing, which is the point at
14 which your collapse starts has not occurred. And
15 NMFS and Parks and Wildlife have agreed on that.
16 But you can take his statements out of context
17 and say, there is no overfishing when he's
18 talking about recruitment overfishing, then the
19 statement gains a new life that, well, he said
20 there is no overfishing. We both agree. But
21 that's not the point at which you want to start
22 managing at recruitment overfishing. You want to
23 start it much earlier.
24 There is a number of scientific
25 literature that NMFS has authored that has called
.0074
1 for reductions in the shrimping efforts in the
2 bays and the gulf, clearly for economic reasons,
3 for biological reasons. If -- we are confident
4 that we are not in conflict with them at all.
5 COMMISSIONER WATSON: This statement
6 came out after the shrimp advisory?
7 MR. OSBURN: Yes, sir.
8 COMMISSIONER WATSON: At which time
9 I think --
10 MR. OSBURN: I think they realized
11 at that point that they couldn't quite stay on
12 that fence anymore.
13 DR. McKINNEY: I think the issue is,
14 scientists always want to leave options open, but
15 when you manage a resource, you need to say one
16 way or the other. And realizing that this was a
17 point that we needed to get past so we could move
18 on to do something constructive. Hal and
19 National Marine Fishery sat down -- and believe
20 me, there are many times we don't necessarily
21 agree with National Marine Fishery. But this is
22 a time -- we need to clarify this one way or the
23 other so we can either address the issues and get
24 the signs straight or move on to how do we solve
25 the issues? And I think they did that. I wish
.0075
1 we had done it earlier, but that's when it
2 happened.
3 MR. OSBURN: The other part of the
4 strategy, as I mentioned earlier, we would
5 propose September of 2001 before you move mesh
6 size and BRD proposals to be sure we have time in
7 the fleet to adapt to those things. And I would
8 look forward to more discussion on that.
9 The strategy of the licensed buyback
10 acceleration, obviously you can enhance that with
11 the fee increases, and Doctor McKinney will be
12 briefing you after my presentation.
13 That does complete staff's list of
14 proposals. But I would like to speak briefly to
15 the future. Even as we debate these proposals,
16 we know that creating the perfect set of shrimp
17 rules is an ongoing process. We believe we can
18 build on this foundation. We know we need to do
19 a better job of communicating with all of our
20 stakeholders. We hope that the knowledge -- the
21 knowledge base of folks that are in the room
22 today, and others, can continue to be utilized to
23 help us refine conservation rules in the future.
24 Staff recommends close monitoring of
25 our goal status as we strive toward economic
.0076
1 benefits in harmony with ecological principles.
2 We think that we can measure ecological success
3 in this fishery with economic benefits. Catch
4 rates going up, sizes of shrimp going up, the
5 abundance of shrimp going up means greater
6 profits for our shrimpers. That's our goal.
7 And, finally, these rules assume
8 that poachers are not the only beneficiaries. We
9 would recommend enhancing law enforcement,
10 monitoring compliance and conviction rates. And
11 that will be essential to assure success.
12 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: How big a
13 problem is poaching right now?
14 MR. OSBURN: I would defer, I guess,
15 that to Jim Robertson. We have anecdotally heard
16 of a lot of problems from different parts of the
17 fishery. But the exact amount is something that
18 we think we need to do a better job of getting a
19 handle on. I don't know if Jim wants to speak to
20 that.
21 MR. ROBERTSON: Jim Robertson,
22 director of law enforcement. As far as the
23 shrimp rules as they're currently in place,
24 compliance is really relatively high. We do run
25 across early, late, out of season, large, small
.0077
1 trawls. What these rules do is adds more -- or
2 different trawl sizes, mesh sizes, different ways
3 to use those things. So it's a little bit more
4 complicated.
5 I do think that we can handle it to
6 protect the resource. But as far as compliance,
7 compliance is fairly high at the present time.
8 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: So you're
9 saying that poaching right now does not represent
10 a large percentage of the catch?
11 MR. ROBERTSON: I don't believe so,
12 under current rules.
13 MR. OSBURN: Mr. Chairman, that
14 concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to
15 answer any questions prior to making any --
16 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: One of the
17 complaints that we've gotten in communications is
18 that the Shrimp Advisory Committee was not
19 adequately used or communications weren't
20 adequate. Is that a valid complaint? Is that
21 what you were addressing when you said you were
22 going to try to do better on communications?
23 MR. OSBURN: I think we can always
24 do better on communication. I will tell you, our
25 strategy -- I mean, the Shrimp Advisory Committee
.0078
1 is a -- is dominated by industry members.
2 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Right.
3 MR. OSBURN: And we have had a lot
4 of communication with them. We chose to go out
5 to the wider group of stakeholders, including
6 those Shrimp Advisory Committee members, and did
7 hold meetings with them and did get their input
8 as a way of basically trying not to bias it, our
9 outreach to an industry focused group. Because
10 the Shrimp Advisory Committee was industry
11 focused.
12 And perhaps one of our flaws is that
13 we didn't sooner expand the scope of the Shrimp
14 Advisory Committee to be more comprehensive so
15 that we could have used them more as a working
16 group earlier on.
17 So, I mean, I acknowledge that
18 flaw. When we brought the Shrimp Advisory
19 Committee in, we had done our scoping, and I
20 don't think had left out any group, even those
21 represented by the advisory committee. It was a
22 comprehensive package that we gave to them and it
23 was fairly overwhelming. We acknowledge that.
24 And probably in a perfect world, I would have had
25 more time. But we did get good feedback from all
.0079
1 of the stakeholders. I guess the point is, not
2 agreeing with a particular stakeholder is
3 different than not taking input.
4 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Right. With
5 respect to what the action is proposed here
6 today, could you elaborate a little bit on what
7 the process will be if this goes forward and the
8 Commission tomorrow approves going -- publishing
9 these rules as presented? What opportunity does
10 the -- do the stakeholders, the industry,
11 whatever, have to affect the situation between
12 now and the time they're finally adopted?
13 MR. OSBURN: We would enter into our
14 normal department formal outreach methods. We
15 would propose some public hearings. Right now,
16 my staff has a suggestion of eight different
17 locations, four of which would be held -- four or
18 five on a coast-wide basis in late June, and
19 another three to four in late July, so that we
20 kind of break up the public hearing process and
21 provide folks two different chances in case
22 vacation or shrimping takes them away.
23 And we would continue to gather
24 written comment that we receive and then it --
25 depending on the department's wishes on other
.0080
1 mechanisms for reaching out and getting
2 stakeholder input. But we would have all summer
3 long to basically collate the different public
4 comment.
5 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: So the plan
6 would be to maximize opportunity for input?
7 MR. OSBURN: Absolutely.
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: The handout that we
9 have that notes the changes from the initial
10 proposals, these are changes that are after the
11 Shrimp Advisory Committee met?
12 MR. OSBURN: Yes, sir.
13 CHAIRMAN BASS: And at the time that
14 they disagreed with the proposals? So these are
15 changes subsequent to that meeting. Has the
16 Shrimp Advisory Committee had an opportunity to
17 comment on the changes or the package as you're
18 presenting it today, in a formal or informal --
19 MR. OSBURN: Yes, sir.
20 CHAIRMAN BASS: -- formal or
21 informal body?
22 MR. OSBURN: Well, what we've tried
23 to do is take a group of stakeholders, and
24 through the -- since the Shrimp Advisory
25 Committee met, as we've identified areas to make
.0081
1 changes in, we've been faxing those out to the
2 Shrimp Advisory Committee and other leaders and
3 asking them for direct input. So we have not got
4 them back together in a meeting process.
5 CHAIRMAN BASS: But there's been
6 informal, so to speak, input from those people?
7 MR. OSBURN: Yes. My staff has been
8 holding meetings. We've been having real
9 constructive dialogue on getting some very
10 intense feedback from the different leader
11 groups.
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: And obviously if we
13 were to go forward with publishing this for
14 further comment between now and August, there
15 would be opportunity for a formal meeting of that
16 body?
17 MR. OSBURN: Staff would be open to
18 any group that wants to have us meet with them.
19 And we would also look to you and Executive
20 Director on guidance for how to fulfill -- bring
21 other stakeholders into the process.
22 CHAIRMAN BASS: Okay. Go ahead.
23 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: I wanted to
24 ask you, Mr. Osburn, about the changes between
25 the original proposal and what you've now brought
.0082
1 before us. Because it looks to me like there are
2 some that are rather significant. Such as in one
3 version it had 50 heads per pound as the proposal
4 and another it's 100 heads per pound. And then
5 it looked like there was some noticeable changes
6 in the proposal on the mesh size limits. And I
7 just wondered if you could give us maybe four or
8 five of the major modifications that you made
9 between the original proposal and now that you
10 have handed out for review and comment, even
11 though not officially.
12 MR. OSBURN: Right. And you
13 recognize that a 50 count minimum size is a
14 larger shrimp than 100 count?
15 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Yes.
16 MR. OSBURN: So those represent
17 liberalizations. Kind of back to the, you know,
18 we're in this for the long-term and wanting to
19 find rules that had the most conservation benefit
20 with the least impact on the industry, is our
21 goal now. And so those -- basically we had
22 people convince us in the industry that this was
23 not that important at this time; that we would
24 still get a conservation benefit.
25 For example, if you have a mesh
.0083
1 size, when we retain the inch and three quarters
2 mesh size in November, that's going to exclude a
3 lot of those small shrimp. So forcing them down,
4 keeping the 50 count on there, would have been
5 perhaps somewhat duplicative of that, and the 100
6 count would have allowed for a reasonable harvest
7 with reasonable escapement.
8 So, you know, these are judgments
9 between a lot of competing interests. And we do
10 not have a magic formula. But we were instructed
11 by our executive director to be sensitive to
12 their needs and I think my staff did that.
13 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: Well, I saw
14 those two. But what are some others where you
15 liberalized the proposal from what you originally
16 had?
17 MR. OSBURN: Probably one of the
18 most significant was to offer the industry a
19 winter bay food season in February, March, and
20 April that they had not had before, on the upper
21 coast; primarily because we see, once again, as a
22 comprehensive package, some of the conservation
23 benefits on the white shrimp on the beach that we
24 will be protecting with the gear restrictions
25 allows for an additional harvest in the bays.
.0084
1 And that would -- that winter season on the upper
2 coast is going to allow additional harvest of
3 white shrimp. It would probably not be possible
4 unless you were getting some conservation on
5 those white shrimp when they're spawning on the
6 beach. So it gave us an opportunity to look at
7 an -- you know, the folks wanting to make --
8 wanting to make some money during that time
9 period. They have all the way until May 15th
10 before their food season opens. They have never
11 had that season. We do recommend monitoring it.
12 We only offered it as a half a night because of
13 the concerns about the number of shrimp that
14 could be taken during that time period. And that
15 is a liberalization.
16 The liberalization of not having a
17 count size on the bait shrimp -- or not having a
18 requirement to keep 50 percent of your bait alive
19 is also an efficiency liberalization, where folks
20 can bring in a better quality shrimp.
21 It does -- it does give some more
22 incentive to the abuse of that bait license. And
23 staff has been criticized for that con. But the
24 pro is certainly real in that it provides -- they
25 can catch them probably easier, faster, keep them
.0085
1 in a higher quality and make more money. And
2 that's part of our mandate, too.
3 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Could you
4 suggest one or two proposals that you've brought
5 us today that are the most difficult for the
6 industry people, which one or two might be the
7 ones they would be most concerned about?
8 MR. OSBURN: I know that on the
9 upper coast, the gear restriction takes some of
10 the boats that have been built recently. They're
11 very large, expensive boats that had spent a lot
12 of time on that beach. It will make them
13 reassess how much net they can use or where they
14 will use those big boats. And I'm sure that
15 that's going to be problematic to that
16 industry -- that portion of the industry.
17 I'm not convinced that they cannot
18 still be successful economically with those
19 vessels in waters outside of that five nautical
20 miles, as they do in other parts of the gulf.
21 I know that the -- that the gulf
22 closure in this -- off of Padre Island is going
23 to have some local displacement of some folks who
24 maybe slipped into that zone and took shrimp
25 that -- and they were going to be complaining
.0086
1 about those shrimp migrating down into Mexico.
2 Of course, our response has been, shrimp also
3 migrate up from Mexico. But the two beach areas
4 are new restrictions. I will tell you that this
5 department has never regulated the gulf shrimp
6 fishery outside of pretty much their general
7 desire on a particular rule. We've accommodated
8 that. And there's not been a lot of conservation
9 rules forced upon them in the gulf. This would
10 be that first set.
11 In the bays, I see -- I see folks
12 probably not wanting to go up to a larger mesh
13 size because of the loss of shrimp; that they're
14 not sure that they're actually going to catch
15 them when they escape and grow and are available
16 next week. They would prefer the -- you know,
17 the shrimp in hand. And that -- so the mesh size
18 there.
19 And I suspect some of the nursery
20 areas, folks are going to -- going to recall that
21 at some point during the year they did catch good
22 shrimp in that area and they would not want to
23 lose that opportunity. But that comes to mind.
24 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Thank you.
25 CHAIRMAN BASS: If I could, maybe we
.0087
1 could ask Doctor McKinney to walk us through the
2 issues concerning the recreational side of the
3 equation, and then maybe get some opportunity for
4 some comment from the representatives of the
5 public. And we can come back after that with
6 further discussion or questions on these areas.
7 DR. McKINNEY: Yes, sir, Mr.
8 Chairman, I'll be glad to do that. If we'll pull
9 up the next item on the buyback.
10 Mr. Chairman, for the record, I'm
11 Larry McKinney, Senior Director for aquatic
12 resources, Parks and Wildlife. This item, as the
13 chairman noted before, we pulled up out of the
14 finance committee for discussion in conjunction
15 with the shrimp rules, these statewide hunting
16 and fishing proclamation license buyback.
17 Just note, these rules have been put
18 out for public comment and your recommendations
19 today would move this forward to the Commission
20 on Thursday for implementation and action.
21 A summary of what the proposal is,
22 licensed buyback options. We had briefed the
23 Commission before. Our goal in the buyback
24 program is to retire up to 50 percent of the
25 shrimp licenses and as part of this proposal, we
.0088
1 did include the ability to include crab and
2 finfish licenses as well in the buyback. But
3 certainly our focus has been and would continue
4 to be a retirement of the shrimping licenses.
5 Basically what the proposal does, it
6 increases the saltwater stamp only. It does not
7 increase the fishing license, but for only those
8 folks that buy the saltwater fishing stamp
9 separately.
10 It is set for five years, it is in
11 place for five years. It sunsets after that with
12 our efforts to meet our 50 percent goal.
13 Generates some $7 million over that period. And,
14 again, we would have the ability to, as the
15 market dictates and situations go, to retire
16 other licenses as well. But the focus is on the
17 shrimp.
18 Some of the issues that you will
19 hear and probably have heard about, I'll quickly
20 cover those. One is a concern, and we've talked
21 about that from the beginning, the concern that,
22 well, if you put a surcharge in place, it will
23 just continue afterwards and they will always
24 find use for money. To address that issue, the
25 proclamation would sunset this proposal in 2005.
.0089
1 A desire for clear and measurable
2 goals to see if we're making progress toward what
3 we're trying to achieve. And as we stated
4 before, our goal is to retire 50 percent of those
5 licenses. We would certainly propose, and at the
6 pleasure of the Commission, more often, but
7 obviously annually report on where we are in
8 achieving that goal and moving forward.
9 Concerns about the fact of linking
10 conservation efforts and rules and regs to shrimp
11 management, a topic of which Hal has been talking
12 about. As Hal mentioned, it does need to be a
13 combination of these things. Our buyback program
14 has not moved as quickly as it should. This is
15 part of an effort to accelerate it. But during
16 that period, we certainly need to look at efforts
17 to not impact only shrimp but obviously what this
18 is aimed at. Some of it is the impact of
19 shrimping on other fisheries, recreational
20 fishing and others.
21 We will continue to look through
22 this process for other funds, sources of federal
23 funding that we can do to maximize -- to increase
24 our ability to buy those licenses back and reduce
25 the burden on the recreational fisheries. We
.0090
1 will continue to do that.
2 A summary of comments. Since the
3 proposal was published in the Texas Register,
4 we've had very little comment, 12, actually,
5 comments during that time. Seven for and five
6 against. As I reported to you in our briefing
7 before, we had had almost a thousand comments. I
8 think that was primarily due to our outdoor
9 media, writing stories about it and those types
10 of things. We had quite a few comments.
11 What I did was -- have done here is
12 extract some information from the ongoing
13 saltwater fishing survey. At our last briefing
14 we had about 400 responses. We now have all
15 those responses in, some 887 responses. So I
16 thought it would be instructive to take a look at
17 our recreational anglers' feelings in a more
18 structured context that has some significance to
19 it, a local significance to it.
20 And basically these were the
21 results. They were asked: Would you support a
22 $1 increase, 71 percent; a $2 increase, 62
23 percent; a $3 increase, 65 percent, with a margin
24 of error of five to six percent around that. So
25 basically the comments have held pretty much as I
.0091
1 reported to you at our earlier briefing, 60 to 70
2 percent in support of proceeding with the
3 program.
4 Plus our staff recommendation would
5 be that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
6 adopt the changes as noted here on the slide.
7 And I detailed it at the bottom there.
8 Certainly, Mr. Chairman and members, I'm open for
9 any questions or comments that you may have at
10 this time.
11 CHAIRMAN BASS: Yeah. I'd like to
12 ask about the 50 -- the goal of 50 percent. How
13 did we come to that, and what do we -- I mean,
14 obviously it's a nice, round number. But how do
15 we -- how do we come to that goal and what do we
16 see that achieving versus some other level?
17 DR. McKINNEY: I'll let Hal expand
18 on it. But basically we looked back at where our
19 fleet was at a certain point in time, and where
20 we thought that it would be sustainable. And
21 that's basically the number we picked. But if
22 you want to give any details on it.
23 MR. OSBURN: We have resisted trying
24 to put a number out there because we think so
25 many things, that the way the fleet operates,
.0092
1 efficiency changes can change where you really
2 want to be.
3 So the 50 percent does match up with
4 the reduction in catch rates of about 50 percent
5 since the '70s. And that reduction in catch
6 rates has gone along with the increase in
7 effort. So as you're reducing effort through
8 buy-backs, you are increasing -- you should be
9 increasing catch rates. And if you got back to
10 the catch rates in the '70s, whether that's going
11 to actually correspond with half as many
12 shrimpers, it's only speculation now. But that
13 would be at least that amount of money would give
14 us some point to go and measure that.
15 CHAIRMAN BASS: Let me ask you about
16 reduction of license versus reduction of effort.
17 To date, as I recall, we've retired some 15, 16
18 percent of the licenses. I think in previous
19 discussions, much harder to measure, but you told
20 me that you felt that that probably represented a
21 reduction in effort, somewhere between five and
22 ten percent. Would you expect that same ratio of
23 license reduction to effort reduction on a whole
24 if -- at the 50 percent level? Or what's -- it's
25 really an -- effort is what has a conservation
.0093
1 impact, not actual license, so --
2 DR. McKINNEY: That's what we're
3 going to be looking for. You know, our staff to
4 this point says that for every three license we
5 retired, even to this point, it's two boats,
6 basically. For every three licenses, we've
7 gotten about two boats.
8 And a big part of the licenses --
9 and, Hal, step in here if I'm misstating here.
10 When we put the limited entry program into place
11 and kind of set up what's the definition of
12 limited entry, it was a pretty liberal package of
13 that definition, who was in the fishery. In
14 fact, as my staff told me, it was broader than
15 what we originally conceived. We wanted to start
16 more narrow so we could have an effect more
17 quickly. And I that's one of the things, I
18 think, that has contributed not only to the fact
19 that we haven't made more progress on the
20 buyback, and also the fact that we need to look
21 at the conservation rules because we started with
22 a fairly liberal package of who was in that
23 limited entry program.
24 So what we have bought back now has
25 been, I think, those peripheral but marginal ones
.0094
1 what may have -- you want to call it speculated.
2 We're holding those licenses in speculation of
3 buying back and those types of things. So as we
4 now cut those down, I think we're going to start
5 getting into the meat of the industry folks that
6 really have been trying to make a living at this,
7 and doing it, and trying to look for a way out.
8 So I gave you a long answer. I think my point
9 is, as you would expect, as we buy more into the
10 real fleet our ability to reduce efforts and
11 number of boats on the water, we'll enhance
12 increase.
13 CHAIRMAN BASS: This is, in some
14 sense, a different way of asking the same
15 question. I've had some significant players and
16 I guess some people that you would say have, in
17 many respects, been in leadership roles of the
18 recreational fishery and their conservation
19 efforts over the last ten or 20 years, espouse
20 that their personal belief is that the buyback
21 really does not represent a conservation effort
22 in that what will ultimately happen is that fewer
23 license holders will simply be able to have a
24 larger share of the same pie. They will be
25 financially healthier and -- no doubt about that,
.0095
1 and that those goals will be met, but that
2 basically the commercial fishery would be the
3 primary beneficiary, and that the recreational
4 fisherman won't see any significant conservation
5 efforts or results from a buyback simply because
6 the State -- the pie won't reduce in size, it's
7 just fewer people having to share it. How would
8 you-all respond to that issue?
9 DR. McKINNEY: My response would be
10 to a certain extent, you know, that's correct;
11 that as you buy a license back and you reduce the
12 group that's left, they're going to become more
13 efficient, more profitable, and that's fine. But
14 then you reach the point where there is only -- I
15 mean, only so many boats can operate. You can
16 only have so many boats out there, for one thing,
17 taking advantage of the fleet.
18 And as they become more profitable
19 and sustainable, then a lot of the pressures
20 begin to disappear. For example, right now, I
21 think, at least my view is that one of the main
22 problems we have is the fact that because of new
23 technologies with peelers and all that, that you
24 could take any size type of shrimp, where
25 historically we didn't do that. It didn't
.0096
1 happen, it was not very profitable.
2 And a lot of the regs that Hal are
3 talking about are things that the shrimpers
4 frankly did voluntarily back when they could,
5 frankly, afford to do that, do take an action to
6 increase their profits and things like that.
7 So I think to a certain extent, yes,
8 it is that. But as that fleet becomes profitable
9 and reduced in size, you're going to get those
10 benefits. It can't help but accrue. Now, you do
11 have to keep conservation measures into place.
12 You're not -- I don't think it was ever
13 contemplated that you say, okay, we have 500
14 shrimpers, go do whatever you want to do, type of
15 thing. So it's going to be a combination of
16 those things.
17 But when you reduce the number of
18 boats that you have, as we're doing, for example,
19 two boats for every three licenses, you're going
20 to have some conservation benefits. It's going
21 to accrue. I wish we could tell specifically
22 what they are. But some of that we're going to
23 have to try.
24 COMMISSIONER AVILA: Well, is not
25 the -- through reduction of the number of nets
.0097
1 you can use in nautical miles going to reduce the
2 efforts as well by definition?
3 DR. McKINNEY: Oh, clearly those
4 do. And, of course, a number of those rules had
5 to do with the gulf fleet, for which we have no
6 limited entry program. I think that's the
7 important thing to note what we're talking about
8 in the bay industry. That's the only place we
9 have the limited entry. That's the only place we
10 have the opportunity to take actions that are
11 not, quote/unquote, regulatory. In the gulf
12 fleet, we don't have a limited entry program.
13 The only tool we have for conversation and for
14 taking actions for where that industry affects
15 other industries is the regulatory one. It's the
16 only tool we have.
17 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Is it
18 realistic to think that this amount of money will
19 actually make it possible to buyback enough
20 licenses and to effectively cause some reduction
21 in effort? With the cost of equipment that is
22 being represented to us, and boats and everything
23 that go with it, is it a realistic thing to think
24 that we'll have enough money to actually effect
25 the impact?
.0098
1 DR. McKINNEY: Well, we're in kind
2 of new ground. There's a certain element of that
3 that we can't give you the assurance. We think
4 that's the case, from what we've seen. I would
5 tell you from, Mr. Angelo, since we're both from
6 West Texas and I've been in the farming business
7 and know what -- and there's a lot of analogies.
8 Believe me, there's a lot of analogies between
9 farming and shrimping, in particular,
10 overcapitalization and dependence on rain and all
11 that type of thing. I know that if my father had
12 that opportunity about ten years ago, he'd have
13 been gone, in reality, just because -- but there
14 was no option there. And, of course, the
15 difference being is, what we're talking about
16 here is a public resource where the extraction of
17 the shrimp from that resource can have an effect
18 on lots of other users, recreational or
19 endangered species or whatever. So my impression
20 is yes. I think if we can -- combined with some
21 other actions, frankly, that the legislature, and
22 talking with staff, are contemplating about
23 joining our buyback program with access to
24 retraining programs and other State and federal
25 programs to help do that, I think it very much
.0099
1 will. Because a lot of the folks there are very
2 much like my father and those types of things.
3 They have all -- they're totally invested in it.
4 They have no escape route. Any kind of escape
5 that would help set them up to move into
6 something else, at least for their families,
7 as -- could be important. That's the only answer
8 I could give you.
9 MR. OSBURN: And to follow up on
10 that, I mean, one of the -- it's nice to be on
11 the cutting edge. One of the down sizes is, you
12 don't have a real clear vision of the future with
13 lots of examples.
14 We think this model is worth trying,
15 you know. And you shoot -- I mean, you bring
16 money into a situation. We think it's got to
17 help. The alternatives were just unpalatable in
18 terms of -- for example, Florida passed a
19 constitutional amendment through a public voting
20 process to ban, you know, their shrimp fleet.
21 And you had thousands of people just displaced
22 instantly by that. And, you know, they absorbed
23 the social and economic chaos.
24 We don't think that's the right
25 management strategy. If this amount of -- we
.0100
1 think this amount of money will make a
2 significant dent, and the fleet will -- and then
3 we'll move on from that point and see what else
4 we need to do. That's our strategy for you. And
5 we would like to look at it on definitely five
6 years as how, where we're doing on our goal.
7 DR. McKINNEY: I think even before
8 that, the accountability, we'll be back as often
9 as the Commission would like, but certainly
10 annually to tell you where we are and to seek
11 your advice on where we should go even at that
12 point.
13 CHAIRMAN BASS: Let me ask you,
14 currently under the current statute, there's a
15 portion of the commercial license that's
16 dedicated for buyback. I know in some past years
17 we have supplemented that fund, at times rather
18 significantly with funds from other sources,
19 mitigation funds from legal action that --
20 against various pollution ^ incidents?,
21 et cetera. But if you just look at the funds
22 generated from the commercial license sales,
23 what's the annual budget, so to speak, for
24 buyback?
25 MR. OSBURN: For buyback? It's only
.0101
1 about 160,000, 170,000 a year. There was a cap
2 of $25 on -- per license back in 1995. At that
3 particular legislative action, that was their --
4 the legislature said, do $25. It did not
5 preclude the Commission from taking action.
6 DR. McKINNEY: And part of the
7 proposals that Hal is looking at is an increase
8 in that commercial -- to supplement that
9 program.
10 CHAIRMAN BASS: Now, the fiscal note
11 on the $3 proposed increase in the saltwater
12 stamp is a million four, so that basically is
13 almost a tenfold increase in -- some ninefold
14 increase in the budget for the buyback.
15 In the proposals from the commercial
16 side, there are some fee increases there as
17 well. Is the intent that some of that money
18 would -- or certainly I guess it could be also
19 spent -- be contributed to the buyback pool. Is
20 that part of the current proposal or --
21 DR. McKINNEY: We would add that on
22 top of the 1.4. I think where we've left that a
23 little bit open is that as we move forward with
24 these or some version of these rules, there's
25 some law enforcement issues and other things that
.0102
1 will be -- we need to make sure we provide the
2 funds to do.
3 CHAIRMAN BASS: There are some other
4 financial needs, I guess.
5 DR. McKINNEY: There are. But
6 they're all directly related to these proposals.
7 But we would certainly want to use as much of
8 that as possible. And I think as I briefed you
9 at one time, our goal would be to have -- I would
10 love to have $2 million a year to shoot. But
11 that's out of our original -- we've come down
12 from that estimate a little bit, one, because
13 clearly we have some needs with this money from
14 law enforcement and others. Also -- and there's
15 a bit of projection that we've asked Jayna
16 Bergdorf to do for us as far as there will be
17 some -- one of the positive sides of this is, if
18 we put that surcharge on the -- just the
19 saltwater stamp, it will likely move people to
20 our combo, where it isn't there. So that's a
21 plus side. So that's --
22 CHAIRMAN BASS: Any other questions
23 at this time, or should we move to get some
24 public comment?
25 Mr. Watson, do you have something
.0103
1 else you want to add at this time? We do have
2 some people that we have asked to give us some
3 comment, to get some flavor and some issues from
4 the affected constituent groups. And I
5 appreciate you-all agreeing to help us out here.
6 I'm just going to go in order of how they are
7 listed on the page, no particular order.
8 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Mr. Chairman,
9 before we begin, will we follow the same basic
10 rules or --
11 CHAIRMAN BASS: I believe so. We'll
12 ask you, if you could, to -- there are eight
13 people whose names I have here at this time, too.
14 If you would limit your comments to three
15 minutes. And obviously, if the Commission has
16 some particular questions to ask of you, that
17 would be in addition to your three minutes.
18 If you could try to organize your
19 thoughts and comments to some three minutes so
20 that we can try to keep on some type of schedule,
21 we sure would appreciate that. And obviously if
22 you would try to keep your comments constructive
23 in nature, we would appreciate that as well.
24 MR. SANSOM: I will keep time on the
25 clock in front of me so you can see it. And when
.0104
1 the light turns yellow, that means your time is
2 up. 30 seconds.
3 CHAIRMAN BASS: To help you know
4 that you need to summarize or get anything in
5 that you want to be sure you cover.
6 C.L. Stanley, would you start things
7 off for us. Mr. Stanley is the chairman of the
8 Shrimp Advisory Committee, and obviously this is
9 not the first hour that he's put in on these
10 issues.
11 MR. STANLEY: No, sir, it's sure
12 not.
13 CHAIRMAN BASS: And we appreciate
14 that.
15 MR. STANLEY: Thank you, Mr.
16 Chairman, members of the committee. Thank you
17 for this opportunity to -- I have a few
18 statements and I have to say that I have some
19 serious disagreements with some of the previous
20 comments.
21 In the executive summary that we
22 received, the blue book here, on the -- for the
23 Shrimp Advisory Committee meeting on April the
24 26th, we received it a week earlier. One of the
25 initial statements was that after several months
.0105
1 of intense research, that the staff found that
2 there was serious overfishing, including a
3 continuing long-term downward trend in population
4 of adult spawners. And the letter said that was
5 something like 30 percent.
6 In the Nance report, Dr. Jim Nance,
7 in his report to the Shrimp Advisory Panel of the
8 Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council in, I
9 believe it was January of this year, his report,
10 he stated that the stocks were healthy, referring
11 to the Gulf of Mexico as a whole. The stocks
12 were healthy and there was no sign of overfishing
13 of any kind. And when the committee met, most of
14 us had already seen before we got this report of
15 serious overfishing that has some 25
16 proclamations, of which I believe resulted in 33
17 rule changes.
18 And we also had, at the request of
19 industry, a statistical analysis from Sea Grant,
20 the A&M Sea Grant, in which they disagreed with
21 staff's interpretation of the long-term trends.
22 And what those long-term trends did not take into
23 account were rule changes that occurred in 1990,
24 we had the most comprehensive set of rule changes
25 since -- that's occurred since 1979, especially
.0106
1 with inshore fishery.
2 In 1995 we implemented the limited
3 entry program and we had a reduction in vessel --
4 a significant number of vessel reductions
5 occurring at a level. In 1972 there were a total
6 of 5,301 bay and bait licenses. In 1983 -- and
7 this is the actual year, the period 1982 to '84,
8 that number reached 8,052.
9 Then in 1995 at the time limited
10 entry was there, it dropped to 3,627. Three
11 minutes isn't very long, so I'm -- the Shrimp
12 Advisory Committee met once in 1998. We did not
13 meet in 1999. We had one week's notice on this.
14 And we were totally bypassed.
15 And a rule here from Mr. Ribchers or
16 the letter from him, he states, this committee
17 was created to advise the department on
18 preparation and formulate the rules and
19 regulations necessary to carry out the Shrimp
20 Management Plan. And the advisory committee
21 wasn't included in this plan at all until the
22 April 26th meeting.
23 COMMISSIONER WATSON: Mr. Stanley,
24 are you a bay shrimper or a gulf shrimper?
25 MR. STANLEY: I'm a bay shrimper.
.0107
1 Yes, sir. I've been shrimping for 25 years.
2 Before that, I taught school.
3 COMMISSIONER HENRY: You indicated
4 that A&M board disagrees with the staff report
5 and the direction of long-term trends.
6 MR. STANLEY: Yes, sir. Using --
7 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Would you
8 expand on that a bit, please? When you say --
9 MR. STANLEY: I can't understand --
10 when they get into what that -- what they
11 referred to was the trends and the sizes of
12 shrimp and so forth that were coming up. I would
13 have to have them explain that, as far as me
14 trying to explain exactly what their statement
15 was. But they got the opposite result, opposite
16 of what --
17 COMMISSIONER HENRY: When you say,
18 they, sir --
19 MR. STANLEY: They being Sea Grant.
20 Mr. Rush was there -- and primarily was the one.
21 He's their statistical man, and that's what he
22 came up with. But as far as trying to explain
23 how he arrived at it, it's over my head. I'm not
24 an analysis man.
25 COMMISSIONER HENRY: You must have
.0108
1 pointed this out at the meeting?
2 MR. STANLEY: Yes, sir.
3 COMMISSIONER HENRY: And what was --
4 MR. STANLEY: Well, he testified at
5 the meeting. He got up and presented --
6 COMMISSIONER HENRY: And was there
7 just general disagreement between the two sides
8 on this issue?
9 MR. STANLEY: Just a general
10 disagreement on which way the trend was headed,
11 whether there was a threat of imminent collapse
12 of the fishery or whether the fishery was
13 healthy. And granted, mother nature has kind of
14 kicked us in the teeth the last couple of years.
15 Fisheries are kind of like the dry land farmer.
16 If we don't get freshwater inflow, rainwater and
17 freshwater inflow, we have poor shrimp crops.
18 And that also applies for recreational fishery,
19 all marine life.
20 Our bays are dependent on freshwater
21 inflow, and if we don't have it, our bays reduce
22 their productivity, accordingly. Thank you very
23 much.
24 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Mr. Stanley,
25 could you characterize your view of the economic
.0109
1 situation for the shrimping industry?
2 MR. STANLEY: Economics? We're like
3 the farmer. We're dealing with a perishable
4 product. And it's subject to supply and demand.
5 And prices bounce around. 1997, we had good
6 prices, made a little money, although we were
7 having dry summers, and the shrimp crop wasn't
8 anything to brag about. But the money -- the
9 profit was there because the price was up.
10 1999, the price was down. Louisiana
11 had a good crop in the spring and the price was
12 down. We had the best recruitment in Galveston
13 Bay that they've had since the 1970s of brown
14 shrimp. But because of lack of freshwater
15 inflow, they just virtually disappeared, they
16 just -- predation is what gets them. I won't say
17 they die. Something eats them.
18 But we didn't see very many shrimp
19 leave. They stayed small. And the price wasn't
20 any good. It wound up being a poor year. The
21 dry summer created a very poor white shrimp
22 crop. White shrimp are more dependent on low
23 salinities or almost -- a lot of freshwater
24 inflow does best for whites. We didn't have it.
25 We had a poor fall season as well in Texas.
.0110
1 Last year inshore had one of the
2 worst seasons in a long time, especially the
3 lower coast -- or the middle coast.
4 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: I don't
5 believe we're going to be able to help with the
6 freshwater --
7 MR. STANLEY: We need to blow up
8 Lake Livingston. But, yes. Mr. Chairman, if
9 you'd just let some of that water out of Fort
10 Worth up there, let it rain a little bit. But as
11 far as Galveston Bay is concerned, Trinity River
12 is our key inflow. And they're taking so much
13 water up that, that does come down now.
14 And when I was in college, they
15 stated that someday water would be more valuable
16 than gasoline. Now, that was when gasoline was
17 very cheap. And you know, we -- I don't know
18 that we'll see it, but I think our children and
19 our grandchildren will see times when that may be
20 coming true. The demands for fresh water is
21 going to be critical. And without it, our bay
22 systems are in trouble.
23 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Mr. Stanley,
24 what's your view of the need or lack of need for
25 any conservation or even rule changes?
.0111
1 MR. STANLEY: Well, I look to our
2 neighbors to the east in Louisiana and how they
3 fish there, and it's almost virtually wide open.
4 It's closed when they close. And when it's wide
5 open, they go after it. They keep that crop --
6 and it's relative to all shrimp. When the volume
7 reaches its largest volume, they go after it with
8 almost no holds barred.
9 We don't do that. I don't want to
10 see that. I think there needs to be some
11 fine-tuning. I think there can be some
12 fine-tuning. There have been a lot of concern
13 about the pressure on little shrimp in the bays
14 and much of this was regulatory changes in the
15 '90s. Closure of the gulf beach at this time of
16 the year forced boats, hundreds of -- several
17 hundred boats to come into the bay that never
18 fished in the bay except in the fall.
19 And the time change, we could shrimp
20 under one license or the other, 24 hours a day.
21 You have bigger shrimp at night than you do in
22 the daytime, this time of the year, or a little
23 later in the year than this, in June and July.
24 So when we went to the two o'clock
25 cutoff, this forced boats -- you had a choice,
.0112
1 either go hunting, hope you could find something
2 by two o'clock or you go after what's there. And
3 the option -- at the end of the day, we have to
4 look at the bottom line on the ticket. So we go
5 after what's there. And --
6 But as far as any -- I don't think
7 there needs to be any major rule changes. I
8 think there can be some fine-tuning, and this is
9 what I would like to see. I would like to see us
10 sit down this winter when we're not working and
11 try to fine-tune this thing. It could be done
12 without -- you know, to the satisfaction, I
13 think, of all concerned.
14 Any other questions?
15 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you, sir. I
16 guarantee, if I could make it rain, I would, and
17 I'd probably be chairman for life.
18 MR. STANLEY: I refer to your area
19 up there because the Trinity River is so
20 important.
21 CHAIRMAN BASS: I understand.
22 MR. STANLEY: Thank you, sir.
23 CHAIRMAN BASS: All right. Jimmy
24 Evans, if you would come forward, and Ms. Tammy
25 Tran, if you would be prepared to come up after
.0113
1 Mr. Evans gives us his comments.
2 MR. EVANS: Hello, folks.
3 CHAIRMAN BASS: How are you?
4 MR. EVANS: Well, I'm fine.
5 CHAIRMAN BASS: You're a bait dealer
6 from Freeport.
7 MR. EVANS: Yes, sir. I have a
8 store, Beach, Bait, and Tackle in Freeport,
9 Texas, for many years.
10 CHAIRMAN BASS: Almost a member of
11 our Shrimp Advisory Committee.
12 MR. EVANS: Yes, sir. I think I've
13 solved this fishery problem. I think we just
14 need to hold one of these meetings weekly or
15 every day.
16 CHAIRMAN BASS: Not many boats in
17 the bay today, are there?
18 MR. EVANS: There wouldn't be very
19 many out today, I don't believe. That's a
20 lighter side.
21 The more serious side. I don't know
22 what the crowd would look like today if there was
23 no shrimp fishery yesterday. I do believe that
24 the shrimp fishery could collapse. Collapse
25 means that it could happen overnight, not in a
.0114
1 long length of time. We -- I believe that the
2 Parks and Wildlife is one of the -- State of
3 Texas Parks and Wildlife is one of the finest in
4 the United States. I think that we need to
5 continue to abide and listen to these people.
6 The meetings -- I had some health
7 problems back on advisory committee several years
8 ago, so I didn't make a few of them. I was aware
9 of all of the meetings that were going on in the
10 area. I was invited to several of the public
11 meetings that I didn't make.
12 And I've been aware of this, the
13 buyback program has came. I'm not satisfied that
14 the buyback is a complete -- is a satisfactory
15 answer. I don't think it's -- I don't think it's
16 going to do its job. I'm kind of like you,
17 Chairman, a while ago. I think I know the
18 answer. If you and I had the last two licenses,
19 and I said, I'm fixing to sell, I don't think
20 there's any doubt that you would not catch all
21 the shrimp that the 100 percent caught.
22 The answer to the 50 percent that's
23 there, I don't think that -- I don't think that
24 we know what percentage of the shrimp that they
25 would catch. Okay? I don't think we know that.
.0115
1 So I still think that we need to have stricter
2 rules to keep this fishery from collapsing. The
3 shrimp fishery can collapse.
4 I did not vote with the advisory
5 committee to vote against all of those
6 procedures. I actually think that the original
7 proposals were things that we probably need to do
8 with this fishery. One of them was, particularly
9 that -- not particularly to salvage a fishery,
10 but from the other area of the turtles is the
11 fact that the closure on the southern coast out
12 to ten fathoms would be a significant improvement
13 to the turtle coming back. And some day if that
14 turtle did come back, then we probably would not
15 have turtle excluder devices in any of the nets.
16 That's what we're -- that's the goal, is to try
17 to get it back.
18 The answer from some of the turtle
19 people on a scale of one to ten, how significant
20 would this closure be, they answered nine. And
21 only two percent -- less than two percent of the
22 shrimp are harvested in that area. And they
23 could also be harvested later in deeper water.
24 So that was a good proposal that we just blanket
25 voted down. We came to a meeting to vote it
.0116
1 down. I didn't. I vote for those proposals. I
2 didn't say before the meeting that I was going to
3 come in here and vote against all of these
4 proposals, just for the sake of voting against
5 them. Thank you.
6 CHAIRMAN BASS: Any questions for
7 Mr. Evans at this time? Appreciate your time and
8 commitment.
9 MR. EVANS: Thank you.
10 CHAIRMAN BASS: Ms. Tran? And Kevin
11 Daniels, if you'd be prepared to speak next.
12 Good morning. I guess it's still
13 morning.
14 MS. TRAN: Yes, it's still morning.
15 Good morning.
16 Mr. Chairman, distinguished
17 Commissioners, and Mr. Sansom, can you hear me?
18 CHAIRMAN BASS: Yes, we can.
19 MS. TRAN: My name is Tammy Tran and
20 I'm going to be short and sweet. I'm serving as
21 a licensed counsel for the Vietnamese
22 Asian-American Shrimper Association in Texas,
23 which is also known as VAASA. This association
24 represents 60 percent of the Vietnamese-American
25 shrimpers in Texas. We also represent the
.0117
1 related industries in the Vietnamese community,
2 such as medical, legal profession, insurance,
3 automobile dealerships, restaurants, supermarket
4 owners. Meaning that if the shrimpers collapse,
5 we all will collapse.
6 The Vietnamese community in Texas,
7 as you all know, consists of 400,000 people,
8 since the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. We also
9 have been requested by over 2 million Vietnamese
10 Americans in the United States, all over the 50
11 states, to be here to submit to the Commission
12 the following point.
13 As I have indicated, I am going to
14 be very short and sweet and all of the questions
15 I would defer to my cocounsel, Mr. Robert Miller
16 from Locke, Liddell & Sapp.
17 First, the Vietnamese-American
18 shrimpers have not been taken seriously. That is
19 our point.
20 Second, the proposed regulations,
21 even the revised ones, lack scientific data; and,
22 therefore, are very faulty.
23 Thirdly, we have not been invited to
24 participate in the discussions of the proposed
25 regulation, and that is the fact. From the very
.0118
1 beginning, we were left in the dark, until
2 April. We were only informed of the proposed
3 regulation in April within the -- in the last
4 meeting.
5 We suggest the adoption of more
6 formal procedures for the Shrimp Advisory
7 Committee and its interaction with the staff and
8 the department. We feel blindsided by the
9 proposed regulations. We cannot do business this
10 way.
11 We would like to have more members
12 participating -- to be on the advisory board.
13 In conclusion, we would love to work
14 with the Commission and the Texas Parks and
15 Wildlife department. We want to achieve the best
16 result for the shrimping industry while
17 preventing overfishing. But it has to be both
18 ways.
19 Mr. Chairman and distinguished board
20 members, last April, April 30th of this year,
21 marked the 25 years of the Vietnamese American in
22 this country after the fall of South Vietnam.
23 For 25 years, the Vietnamese American shrimpers,
24 together with over two million people, have
25 contributed sweat, blood, and tears to be of this
.0119
1 country and this state.
2 According to the Rice report in
3 1996, of the Rice University, we make the top
4 contribution in the State of Texas. That is the
5 fact.
6 MR. SANSOM: Thank you, Ms. Tran,
7 your time is up.
8 MS. TRAN: Yes. I will be short.
9 This is our second homeland. Scientifics have
10 proven our achievements; therefore, we submit
11 that. This is time to take us seriously. I
12 thank you.
13 CHAIRMAN BASS: Questions?
14 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Mr. Chairman, I
15 have two. You indicated that you felt that there
16 was a lack of scientific data to support what
17 particular conclusion?
18 MS. TRAN: Right. Supporting the
19 conclusion that, you know, the shrimping industry
20 is about to collapse. I am not an expert. And
21 our expert has submitted comment. I am only
22 legal counsel. But from what I saw and from what
23 I read, there are conflicting evidence concerning
24 whether the shrimping industry is about to be
25 collapsed. And we submit that this is not. And
.0120
1 we would like -- we submit that this
2 distinguished commission should delay adopting
3 the regulation so that we would have time to sit
4 down and work out a fair plan.
5 COMMISSIONER HENRY: You also
6 indicated that the group that you represent was
7 not invited to participate. Would you --
8 MS. TRAN: Not enough. For example,
9 we submit a letter to the staff and asking the
10 names of the people who were invited previously,
11 before April of the year of 2000. We were
12 informed that only two Vietnamese, and they are
13 not shrimpers. For example, if you ask me about
14 shrimping, I cannot know. I always have to refer
15 to my expert. They are Texas shrimpers.
16 And by the way, the new generation
17 of the Vietnamese Texas shrimpers are very
18 well-educated. So we feel like we were left in
19 the dark. We have not been invited.
20 COMMISSIONER HENRY: You also
21 indicated that either you were not represented or
22 was it a lack of representation on the advisory
23 committee. Is this the same point that you're
24 making?
25 MS. TRAN: Both. Recently, for 25
.0121
1 years -- and this is the first time, you know,
2 you know, because of the outcry of the public,
3 there is only one Vietnamese woman has just been
4 invited to the board. And by the way, I'm very
5 impressed because she's woman.
6 COMMISSIONER HENRY: And, finally,
7 you said that you felt blindsided. Are you
8 suggesting a conspiracy or something like that?
9 MS. TRAN: No. No, sir. I would
10 never dare to make that allegation. I would like
11 to see more participation.
12 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Thank you.
13 MS. TRAN: Thank you.
14 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Ms. Tran?
15 MS. TRAN: Yes.
16 CHAIRMAN BASS: Let's have a little
17 decorum. We don't need to applaud and boo here.
18 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: These are
19 proposed regulations. And I hope that if the
20 Commission does forward them for public comment
21 through the Texas Register, that your
22 organization will file comments. But while
23 you're here today and we are considering these
24 proposed regulations, could you share with us
25 which particular ones your group finds most
.0122
1 objectionable, and also why?
2 MS. TRAN: Well, with respect to
3 that issue, I would like to refer to my
4 colleague, who is a very known colleague,
5 Mr. Robert Miller from Locke, Liddell & Sapp, who
6 will answer those questions. And we also shall
7 submit all of our comments in writing.
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: Mr. Miller, would
9 you come forward and answer Ms. Dinkins'
10 question, if you would, please?
11 MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, we
12 actually have Ms. Thuy Vu who is on the
13 Shrimper's Advisory Board who is the one who is
14 our technical person who would answer that. She
15 may be outside. So --
16 MS. TRAN: Thuy Vu is the next
17 generation of the Vietnamese shrimpers and we're
18 very proud of her.
19 MS. VU: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
20 committee members, for allowing me to be up here
21 to address my comments.
22 As you asked Ms. Tammy about which
23 proposal we are opposing and which one we are not
24 opposing, as of this date, I'd like to get more
25 meetings out throughout the industry before we
.0123
1 give you that comment. I know that when we sit
2 down to talk, there's going to be some dispute
3 between us. But we haven't had enough meeting
4 scheduled throughout the coastal.
5 You know, when I asked, is there any
6 meeting been scheduled for our people, especially
7 our people, they said there was four. But when I
8 asked them, they said they didn't know anything
9 about all these proposals coming out. The first
10 time I learned about this was back in April -- a
11 week before the April 26th meeting. That's when
12 I started putting my time out, calling everybody
13 along the coast and ask them what's their input
14 on this proposal. And a lot of them said that,
15 really, there might be some fine-tuning need to
16 be done but we need more time. And you have to
17 understand, this is our busiest time of the
18 year. We have to be out there making money.
19 Like all the people out there standing, they
20 should be out there making money for their
21 family. But they're not. They have to come here
22 to show that their livelihood could be in your
23 hand. It's up to you to decide what we were able
24 to do.
25 CHAIRMAN BASS: Any other
.0124
1 questions?
2 MS. VU: And we also request that if
3 you can, before any public hearing to give us
4 time to the winter months to do more study.
5 Because when it turn into public, our people are
6 busy and a lot of time we may not be able to get
7 all the comments in and it's not fair for us to,
8 you know, be trying to work and trying to take
9 care of our -- the regulation and stuff like
10 that.
11 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Did we not
12 understand that some of the hearings this summer
13 would be during closed season? Is that not --
14 MR. SANSOM: Is that correct?
15 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Is that not
16 correct?
17 MS. VU: No, sir. Because
18 Mr. Howell said that the bay closed from July to
19 August the 15th. But some of them have a gulf
20 license and they have to go out there if the bay
21 is not producing what they can make.
22 And the gulf, right now, the gulf is
23 closed but we are allowed to go to Louisiana to
24 shrimp, to keep up our bills.
25 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: What months are
.0125
1 best for your groups?
2 MS. VU: After January.
3 And also, I wanted to comment on
4 Mr. Howell trying to refer us to, like -- he said
5 the Florida closure and the Louisiana closure.
6 Shrimp are very unique. It depend on the --
7 mother nature. Every state, the water is
8 different. We cannot take Texas and apply to
9 Louisiana. There is no way. And if you not out
10 there shrimping, there is no way you will
11 understand the trend and the movement of the
12 shrimp.
13 I can address one. Like the closure
14 of the brown from the South Padre Island or, I
15 guess, Corpus Christi Bay down to Brownsville.
16 If you close that area, what you do is you're
17 going to -- all those shrimp will migrate to
18 Mexico because there's no bay down that area.
19 And also the shrimp migrate from Louisiana -- if
20 Louisiana have a good season, we going to have a
21 good season. If Louisiana don't have a good
22 season, we're not going to have a good season.
23 Last year, the bay was the worst
24 season we ever had. But we had a pretty good
25 season out of the gulf because the shrimp migrate
.0126
1 from Florida, Mississippi, downward. And then
2 when we address the issue on the white shrimp,
3 you have to understand how the white shrimp
4 spawn, which Parks and Wildlife already done a
5 pretty good job of closing whenever they need
6 to. We don't get to shrimp at night at all.
7 During the year, from January till
8 February the 1st of -- let me go back. December
9 the 15th to February the 1st the inshore gulf are
10 closed for the shrimp spawning. And then from
11 February the 1st, it's open back up until May the
12 15th, or which sometime if the department feel
13 like the shrimp is moving out to be spawning,
14 then they will close it. Like this year, instead
15 of May the 15th, they went ahead and closed it on
16 May the 11th, which we understand. And then it's
17 closed until July the 15th.
18 All that time, the shrimp spawn.
19 And then after that, if we don't shrimp in that
20 area, it's all going to be gone, migrate down to
21 Texas. Because white shrimp are different. Like
22 Mr. Sandy said, it need fresh water and -- you
23 know. And in the bay, there is enough regulation
24 out there for them already.
25 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you, ma'am.
.0127
1 Any further -- hello, Mr. Ryan. We saved a seat
2 for you.
3 Any other questions at this time?
4 Thank you, ladies, very much.
5 MS. VU: Thank you.
6 MS. TRAN: Thank you.
7 CHAIRMAN BASS: I appreciate your
8 help this morning.
9 Mr. Kevin Daniels, if you would come
10 forward. And, Richard Morrison, if you would be
11 prepared to speak after Mr. Daniels.
12 MR. DANIELS: Thank you, Mr.
13 Chairman, Commissioners, thank you. I'm really
14 here to comment about the licensed buyback
15 program. But before I do that, I'd like to make
16 a comment about the --
17 CHAIRMAN BASS: If I could, would
18 you let us -- I know what group you're with and
19 what constituency you represent. But if you
20 would, just for the record --
21 MR. DANIELS: Right. I'm Kevin
22 Daniels and I'm the executive director of the
23 Coastal Conservation Association.
24 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
25 MR. DANIELS: Thank you,
.0128
1 Mr. Chairman. Before I make a comment on the
2 licensed buyback program, I would really like to
3 comment on some discussion that I've heard here
4 about being left in the dark and not communicated
5 with. I'll tell you that our organization, as a
6 stakeholder, was communicated regularly with by
7 the staff at Parks and Wildlife. Now, while it
8 may be true that this -- the briefing book with
9 actual regulations were only recently published,
10 over the last 18 months, we've had numerous
11 opportunity to comment on ideas that were being
12 considered. So only in our experience have we
13 seen that -- I think they have done the job they
14 were supposed to do.
15 I'd like to really comment again
16 about the -- about your consideration, about the
17 Commission's consideration of an increase in the
18 saltwater stamp for the purpose of shrimp license
19 buyback. We like the buyback idea. Let me
20 preface all this with that. But our belief is
21 that initially the buy-out of shrimp license in
22 and of itself has less conservation benefit than
23 is believed, I think, generally by the public.
24 At the very least, it's going to be difficult to
25 quantify that. The reality is that most
.0129
1 shrimpers possess two licenses, both a bait and a
2 bay license, and this buy-out plan really
3 proposes the purchase of only the license, not
4 the vessel. So there's really no direct
5 one-to-one reduction of shrimping effort.
6 To buy back a license is no
7 guarantee that we'll see less shrimping, or more
8 importantly, that we'll see fewer and fewer
9 shrimp caught. The reality is, as you pointed
10 out earlier, what we're really doing is reducing
11 the competition for the remaining people in the
12 industry. And you can bet that those are many in
13 the fishery -- in the industry will catch the
14 same amount of shrimp, if not more perhaps.
15 They'll just do so with less competition.
16 Perhaps they will catch them quicker, which is a
17 conservation benefit, because perhaps they will
18 have to trawl less hours, and also they will
19 probably reduce the operating costs. Hopefully
20 that would be a benefit.
21 But at some point in the future,
22 when enough licenses and vessels have been
23 retired to a point where the operator won't be
24 able to catch all the shrimp available to him, at
25 that point, they can be profitable to their own
.0130
1 level of satisfaction.
2 Because of this reality, because of
3 the reality of the lack of a direct one-to-one
4 reduction in effort, what we would really like to
5 see are some strong conservation measures, which
6 is what we're seeing right now, what we're
7 talking about.
8 I think that the proposed regulation
9 changes that Parks and Wildlife staff has made
10 are the kind of things that we're going to -- I
11 think that we will see to help ensure a healthy
12 fishery for quite a time to come.
13 Really, what we'd like to have
14 happen is to directly link this license buy-out,
15 the spending of those dollars to some
16 conservation measures. Only when those measures
17 are in place would you trigger the funding
18 mechanism to buy out. That way, I think that the
19 recreational fisherman is somehow assured that
20 he's going to approve his dollars right now to
21 spend his money now, but he'll have some real
22 conservation benefit sometime in the future.
23 I'd like to compliment the staff on
24 all their work, not only on this license buyback
25 but to really make some of the tough and
.0131
1 courageous recommendations that they're making in
2 light of the criticism they're receiving. And we
3 feel that most of this criticism is really sorely
4 incorrect.
5 Thank you.
6 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you. I think
7 part of your comments are something that we're
8 certainly in agreement with, which is that the
9 buyback program and the increased funding of it
10 from recreational fishermen is part and parcel of
11 the same issue as the proposed conservation
12 measures that would impact the commercial
13 fishery, which is why we're talking about two
14 agenda items and two different committees at the
15 same time. You know, unfortunately they're not
16 on exactly the same time line in terms of when
17 they would go into effect, and therefore, when
18 they need to be finalized and --
19 MR. DANIELS: Mr. Chairman, we look
20 at the buyback program as a tool in the whole
21 package.
22 CHAIRMAN BASS: I think the
23 department would agree.
24 MR. DANIELS: Absolutely. I mean,
25 the buyback in and of itself is not enough. It
.0132
1 will help. And I think it will not only help
2 from a conservation aspect, it will also help
3 economically for those who want to exit the
4 industry.
5 But without the conservation
6 measures it's an incomplete opportunity to really
7 fix something.
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: I think what we've
9 heard from staff this morning is that they would
10 agree with you in principle.
11 Questions or comments from the
12 Commission at this time? Yes, ma'am,
13 Ms. Dinkins.
14 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: I just wanted
15 to make sure that I understood what you were
16 saying, Mr. Daniels. When you say you want to
17 see us link spending the dollars to conservation
18 measures, is what you're saying very simply that
19 you would recommend that we not adopt one without
20 the other?
21 MR. DANIELS: I think you have a
22 timing problem right now. You obviously are
23 going to be asked to consider for approval
24 tomorrow on an increase in the saltwater stamp.
25 You will not be able to -- or you will not be
.0133
1 discussing or considering these regulatory
2 conservation changes, really, until I believe the
3 end of August. So we've kind of got the cart
4 before the horse here. And I think what we would
5 like to see is to -- let me give you an example.
6 If you consider tomorrow and approve that
7 recommendation to increase the saltwater stamp
8 fee, that you may hold that money, almost like a
9 dedicated fund, restricted fund, and not really
10 release those dollars until certain conservation
11 measures were approved and in place.
12 Now, that may happen on August the
13 31st, it may not. And I believe the staff and --
14 could develop a series of trigger points, whether
15 that be -- let's say there's four key items that
16 have to occur before the license buyback would
17 proceed. For example, let's say that the
18 approval of BRDs in the bay, for example, is
19 one. Perhaps a certain percentage of nursery
20 area. I believe that area is proposed to be
21 increased. Maybe that would be another.
22 But, I mean, a series of trigger
23 points that would occur that would then allow
24 that money to be released, you know, for the
25 buyback program. And what that really would do,
.0134
1 I think, is give the recreational fishermen --
2 the recreational fisherman I think is willing to
3 stand up now and say, we'll pay our fair share.
4 We would just like to see in 90 days when you're
5 considering the other part of this that nobody
6 loses their will. The recreational fisherman is
7 going to participate. I think the other
8 participant in this fishery needs to participate,
9 too. And I think they're willing to do that.
10 They're asking to give up a lot in many cases,
11 and we understand that.
12 I think that today is an example --
13 and, really, since the Shrimp Advisory panel
14 meeting, and all that occurred there, from that
15 point to today I think the staff has displayed
16 their willingness to work on an issue-by-issue
17 basis with the industry, and I think they will
18 continue to do that.
19 COMMISSIONER WATSON: Kevin, you
20 would agree that the buyback is one of the tools
21 in our toolbox, as you've just said?
22 MR. DANIELS: Absolutely.
23 COMMISSIONER WATSON: And you
24 wouldn't want us to defer using one of our tools
25 just to, you know, inordinately wait on getting
.0135
1 something else done?
2 MR. DANIELS: No. I think that what
3 I'm trying to say is, I believe that if you
4 choose to move forward on it -- we think it's a
5 good idea. We just would have much rather
6 seen -- the conservation measures, we would
7 rather see the regulatory changes occur first and
8 then the recreational fishermen step up to the
9 plate and contribute whatever dollars he can or
10 is willing to do.
11 I think the scenario I'm trying to
12 describe is one in which you go ahead and you
13 approve the -- an increase, but you basically
14 restrict those dollars, you designate those
15 dollars to be used only when certain other things
16 occur. And that may be 90 days, it may be
17 longer. But, you know, you basically would be
18 building a fund to use for the buy-out program.
19 I'm not suggesting that you delay.
20 I think that we've waited long enough to take
21 some of these actions, and I think we should
22 probably do that.
23 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you, Kevin.
24 Any other questions? We appreciate
25 you helping us out and being here.
.0136
1 MR. DANIELS: Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN BASS: Richard Morrison.
3 And Ms. Pam Baker from EDF, if you would be
4 prepared to speak after Mr. Morrison. Good
5 morning.
6 MR. MORRISON: Good morning. No.
7 Good afternoon.
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: It is afternoon
9 now. It is afternoon.
10 MR. MORRISON: Thank you for
11 allowing me to come today, Mr. Chairman, members
12 of the Commission. I'm Richard Morrison and I'm
13 representing the Calhoun County shrimpers. I
14 want to try to keep my time as short as I
15 possibly can.
16 The Calhoun County shrimpers are bay
17 shrimpers out of Calhoun County. They shrimp
18 along the mid coast. What I'm here on their
19 behalf asking for today is a postponement of
20 publishing these rules in the Texas Register.
21 You've heard today things from
22 Mr. Osburn. He said if it was a perfect world,
23 he would have liked to have had more time. He
24 said he knew it was a short time frame. It's a
25 very complex set of rules. Those were his words,
.0137
1 and we agree with all of that.
2 Today y'all have the power to
3 postpone the publishing of these rules to let the
4 shrimp industry have time when they're not
5 working, when they don't have to be out there
6 every day. You have the power today to postpone
7 that so they can come together, they can martial,
8 they can get their ducks in a row, they can
9 discuss this with every member of the industry
10 that wants a meaningful discussion on the issues,
11 and come to a resolution that the staff and the
12 industry can live with. We want to --
13 Mr. Stanley said it perfect, is,
14 we're not opposed to regulations. We believe
15 that some of these regulations are possible, but
16 they need tweaking. We believe that the buyback
17 program is a good program. Based on the science
18 out there today on fishery management, if you
19 have a buyback program and a comprehensive set of
20 rules, that's about the best there is out there.
21 And you already have a comprehensive set of rules
22 that governs the bay industry and the bait
23 industry. Putting forth the buyback program,
24 letting it have a chance to work is something
25 that we believe will work.
.0138
1 But in light of that, we also say
2 that we want to have time to look at these
3 regulations. We have to have time to review
4 them.
5 Everyone in the industry -- I
6 shouldn't say everyone. Most in the industry
7 rely on the shrimp management council -- or the
8 shrimp management committee, as their
9 representatives. When the shrimp management
10 committee got the blue book a week or so before,
11 it sent a shock wave through the industry that
12 Parks and Wildlife was trying to do too much with
13 too little of a time for everyone to get a look
14 at it. And all we are today is, we're just
15 asking Parks and Wildlife to don't publish these
16 rules, because once you publish them in the Texas
17 Register, that just sets the clock ticking on
18 deadlines and everything else, and it puts a lot
19 of pressure on the industry. And we would ask --
20 MR. SANSOM: Thank you, Mr. Morris.
21 MR. MORRISON: Yes, sir. We would
22 ask Parks and Wildlife today, you the Commission,
23 to postpone those until December. Thank you.
24 CHAIRMAN BASS: Any questions?
25 Thank you for your time. Appreciate
.0139
1 you being here.
2 MR. MORRISON: Thank you.
3 CHAIRMAN BASS: Ms. Baker. And
4 Ms. Wilma Anderson, if you would be prepared to
5 speak after Ms. Baker.
6 MS. BAKER: Good afternoon, Chairman
7 and members of the Commission. My name is Pam
8 Baker. I'm a fishery biologist with a public
9 interest group called Environmental Defense. I
10 live in Corpus Christi.
11 The negative trends in the health of
12 our shrimp stocks reported by Texas Parks and
13 Wildlife and confirmed by the National Marine
14 Fishery Service are disturbing to our group. The
15 persistent excessive harvesting of very small
16 shrimp and size of a drop in the number of shrimp
17 escaping from bays to offshore spawning grounds
18 provide a serious warning.
19 Similar overfishing trends have been
20 documented among fishery stocks worldwide that
21 have ultimately declined or even collapsed.
22 We recognize that pollution, habitat
23 degradation, fresh water inflows, and even
24 weather can affect shrimp and other marine life.
25 However, we agree with Texas Parks and Wildlife
.0140
1 scientists that current overfishing of shrimp is
2 a serious problem that demands action. We
3 believe that the Texas Parks and Wildlife review
4 and outreach process over the past year and a
5 half or so involving the shrimp industry,
6 environmentalists, and coastal citizens has
7 resulted in some proposals that are worthy of
8 serious consideration. I'll very briefly give
9 you our views.
10 We oppose the proposed minimum count
11 limits because they can increase the waste of
12 shrimp; and bag and possession limits and
13 restrictions on the number and sizes of nets used
14 can cause inefficiencies and drive up fishermen's
15 costs without helping shrimp stocks.
16 Second, we support rules that
17 designate no shrimping zones and reduce
18 incidental damage. We fully support year-round
19 disclosures and designated zones where special
20 protection is needed. The proposed southern
21 shrimp zone will protect mating sea turtles and
22 spawning white shrimp. In fact, we recommend
23 that this closure be also applied to the northern
24 shrimp zone.
25 We support proposed closures of bays
.0141
1 designated as nursery habitat to enhance juvenile
2 shrimp survival, and seasonal closures designed
3 to protect specific life stages, migration paths,
4 or special needs of shrimp and other marine life
5 species.
6 Finally, we support gear
7 improvements that help reduce the bycatch of
8 fish, turtles, and small shrimp.
9 The rules we support further
10 restrict areas available to shrimping and may
11 increase the cost of shrimping. However, we
12 believe the benefits will exceed the cost because
13 the rules will help improve the long-term health
14 of the marine ecosystem, including shrimp
15 stocks.
16 In addition, they will allow shrimp
17 to be captured when they are larger and more
18 valuable.
19 Third, we recommend a plan for
20 sustainable and profitable shrimping.
21 Overfishing of shrimp and the industry's high
22 level of bycatch and environmental damage is
23 caused by overcapitalization and excess effort.
24 The amount of shrimp available could be harvested
25 by fewer fishermen trawling significantly fewer
.0142
1 hours, thus reducing their fishing costs and
2 opportunities to capture unwanted fish, turtles,
3 and bycatch.
4 The proposal to raise additional
5 money by increasing the fee for the sports
6 saltwater fishing stamp and industry license fees
7 could speed up the buy-out of shrimp, fishing
8 licenses --
9 MR. SANSOM: Thank you, Ms. Baker.
10 MS. BAKER: Okay.
11 CHAIRMAN BASS: Any -- were you
12 finished?
13 MS. BAKER: No. I had a few more
14 sentences.
15 CHAIRMAN BASS: If you have one or
16 two sentences to close with --
17 MS. BAKER: I'll just summarize. In
18 summary, we urge the Texas Parks and Wildlife
19 Commission to move forward with public hearings
20 this summer. We believe a delay could
21 unnecessarily risk the health of our coastal
22 ecosystems and our public resources.
23 We also recommend that regulators
24 and coastal stakeholders take this opportunity to
25 speed up the license buyback program and begin
.0143
1 work toward ending excess shrimping effort and
2 overcapitalization.
3 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
4 COMMISSIONER HENRY: What
5 organization were you representing again?
6 MS. BAKER: Environmental Defense.
7 CHAIRMAN BASS: Formally known as
8 Environmental Defense Fund?
9 MS. BAKER: Yes.
10 CHAIRMAN BASS: Name change, same
11 organization. Correct?
12 MS. BAKER: Right.
13 CHAIRMAN BASS: Any other
14 questions?
15 Thank you for bringing us your
16 perspectives. We appreciate your time and
17 effort.
18 Wilma Anderson. And Brian Seibert,
19 if you would be prepared to speak after
20 Ms. Anderson.
21 MS. ANDERSON: Thank you,
22 Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. I'm
23 Wilma Anderson, executive director of the Texas
24 Shrimp Association. We represent the offshore
25 trawlers -- I'm not with the bay industry -- and
.0144
1 the shore side facilities that service that
2 industry. We have approximately 963 gulf
3 trawlers that belong to our association.
4 I'd like to hit on some things that
5 I haven't heard in here today. Shrimp is a
6 species utilized by five states and the country
7 of Mexico. It's in a very high demand for its
8 value. It is not just a Texas species. It
9 belongs to everybody.
10 If we lost our Texas crop under a
11 yearly renewable resource such as shrimp, it
12 would be replenished the following year. You are
13 not in a decline. You are not in a collapse.
14 I serve on the Shrimp Advisory Panel
15 for the Gulf Council. I work with Doctor Nance,
16 and we look at the shrimp stock every year.
17 We're not in a state of overfishing, nor are we
18 approaching overfishing. The shrimp stock has to
19 drop below the parent stock for two years in a
20 row to be in trouble. We have not seen that.
21 The long portfolios that we're going
22 to look at on these offshore trawlers on these
23 closures that's proposed for the gulf will be
24 devastating. For those of you not familiar with
25 the gulf trawler, to build a new one today ranges
.0145
1 anywhere from 450,000 to 650,000. It's a very
2 large investment.
3 To close waters when we're already
4 being penalized with testimony TEDs and BRDs in
5 closed areas, the lenders that's sitting with
6 these boat loans have hefty loan portfolios that
7 could go into trouble, taking the bank and the
8 fisherman into bankruptcy.
9 We are very heavy committed in our
10 schools, cities, and counties on the ad valorem
11 taxes that supports and our leases that we pay.
12 One vote in the 600,000 category may pay 18 to 20
13 thousand dollars in ad valorem taxes. We're a
14 very substantial economic base to these fishing
15 communities.
16 In your shrimping industry, you have
17 all ethnic groups that has the ability to come
18 in, work hard. Under the free enterprise, they
19 can own a boat. It is very discouraging to take
20 a look that none of these proposed rules was
21 there a regulatory analysis prepared to show any
22 benefit or any impact that these rules would
23 impose. I own vessels. I own three. I know
24 what that five-mile closure is going to do in the
25 Gulf of Mexico. It's going to be devastating.
.0146
1 Fishing gear will have to be
2 changed. We will have to change from four nets
3 to two 65s. You're talking approximately $4,000
4 a boat for that change.
5 On sea turtles, I've heard and
6 heard, and yesterday I faxed to you, Mr. Sansom,
7 what is happening at Rancho Nuevo, Mexico. The
8 highest nesting you have ever seen is occurring
9 this year on Rancho Nuevo. Over 5,000 nests will
10 be in Mexico.
11 MR. SANSOM: Thank you.
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: Do you have a
13 summarizing remark you would like to make?
14 MS. ANDERSON: I think that these
15 regs need to be totally relooked at. You cannot
16 manage this fishery on politics and media
17 science. It has to be on sound science and
18 common sense.
19 CHAIRMAN BASS: Any questions for
20 Ms. Anderson from the Commission?
21 COMMISSIONER HENRY: There was a
22 question raised earlier concerning the nets and
23 the changes that would need to be made. Would
24 you -- you referred to that in your comments.
25 MS. ANDERSON: Yes. What we
.0147
1 normally pull is four flat nets because they're
2 more economical in deep water. You're not going
3 to decrease any fishing effort in that zone of
4 265s. You're probably going to increase when you
5 look at it. But for us to change from a 432 or a
6 38-foot net to a two 65, we're probably talking,
7 per rig, about $4,000 a side.
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: Ms. Dinkins?
9 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Ms. Anderson,
10 in addition to the $4,000 for the net change,
11 though, the question that I had asked Mr. Osburn
12 earlier was whether there was an impact that you
13 could describe to -- with regard to the BRD being
14 added, in terms of would it increase difficulty
15 or time required for shrimping?
16 MS. ANDERSON: We're already in
17 compliance with that, Ms. Dinkins. Once they
18 mandated it in the federal waters and you put
19 BRDs in the nets -- there's one in each net in
20 four nets, they're already being pulled in State
21 waters. We already have the TEDs. We're under a
22 mandate there under the Endangered Species Act.
23 So we've been pulling the TEDs and BRDs.
24 We just got a recent report on what
25 the impact on the shrimp fishery is, and that's
.0148
1 $39 million in shrimp loss, what we're incurring
2 with TEDs and BRDs.
3 CHAIRMAN BASS: Is that just in
4 Texas?
5 MS. ANDERSON: No. That is for the
6 gulf.
7 CHAIRMAN BASS: Gulfwide.
8 MS. ANDERSON: That is a dock-side
9 landing with no economic added to it, Mr. Bass.
10 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: But on the
11 nets, if you put those on, would you see an
12 impact in addition to the $4,000 for the
13 out-of-pocket costs to the net itself.
14 MS. ANDERSON: Well, that would be
15 to change your gear over from the four 38-foots
16 to a two 65-foot. You would have to buy new gear
17 and new doors, the whole bit. What I'm saying
18 is, for us to take the four nets off of the
19 current rig boat and put two 65s on to meet the
20 mandate, we would be incurring that 4,000 per
21 side, gear cost increase just to fish in those
22 waters.
23 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Thank you.
24 CHAIRMAN BASS: Other questions?
25 Thank you, ma'am.
.0149
1 The last person we have on tap today
2 is Brian Sybert. Good morning -- afternoon.
3 MR. SYBERT: Hi, Mr. Chairman,
4 members of the Committee. My name is Brian
5 Sybert. I'm the natural resources director for
6 the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.
7 I would like to strongly urge the
8 Commission today to move forward with the
9 proposed regulations and publish in the Texas
10 Register. There's been an extensive amount of
11 work done on this very difficult and complex
12 issue by the Parks and Wildlife staff. I feel
13 that they have done a commendable job on trying
14 to tackle this very difficult issue. It took a
15 year and a half of study. There were numerous
16 workshops held up and down the coast to gather
17 input from the shrimp industry. We were well
18 aware throughout the entire process of the
19 shrimp -- of the entire shrimp regulation review
20 initiative. So there was an opportunity, ample
21 opportunity for both industry and other
22 stakeholders to comment on this process. And,
23 again, I would strongly urge that we keep this
24 process on the original time scale and keep
25 moving forward.
.0150
1 One thing that's been left out is
2 that we've been focusing a lot lately on how this
3 will affect the shrimp industry. And I agree,
4 the shrimp industry is a very important
5 stakeholder in this process. But there's another
6 important stakeholder, and that is the public.
7 The shrimp fishery, the saltwater game fish that
8 are caught as bycatch, the five species of
9 endangered sea turtles are all public resources.
10 And the general public, the citizens
11 of our state deserve an opportunity to comment on
12 the management of these -- on the management of
13 the shrimp fishery in a timely manner through an
14 official public comment period.
15 There's -- the Sierra Club, even
16 though we don't agree with everything in the
17 proposed regulations, we still want to see them
18 move forward. There's some aspects of it that
19 we're very strongly supportive of. There's other
20 aspects we'd like to see changed. We feel that
21 the proposed closures will go a long way towards
22 protecting habitat for white shrimp, the spawning
23 grounds, protecting the five species of
24 endangered sea turtles that migrate along the
25 coast, and reducing bycatch of saltwater fish.
.0151
1 For the northern half of the coast,
2 we would like to see more protective measures
3 than the gear restrictions. We don't feel that
4 the gear restrictions from basically Corpus
5 Christi to the Texas/Louisiana border are
6 sufficient to reduce the effort over the
7 long-term because there will still be numerous
8 boats that will still have access to that near
9 shore area.
10 We feel that the most effective way
11 to reduce the effort in the northern part of the
12 Texas coast would be through a closure similar to
13 that that has been proposed for the southern half
14 of the Texas coast.
15 But, again, I would urge that we
16 continue to move forward with this process. This
17 is a very important issue. And the public does
18 deserve their opportunity to comment through an
19 official public comment period. Thank you.
20 CHAIRMAN BASS: Any questions?
21 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Is your
22 organization's primary concern the turtles or the
23 shrimp?
24 MR. SYBERT: Primarily our concern
25 is going to be the bycatch, which is going to
.0152
1 be -- a significant part of that is going to be
2 the turtles, yes.
3 We feel that the proposed -- as
4 Jimmy Evans mentioned earlier, we feel that the
5 proposed closure for the southern half of the
6 Texas coast is very significant and will go a
7 long way towards helping to reduce that problem.
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
9 MR. SYBERT: Thank you very much.
10 CHAIRMAN BASS: Mr. Sansom has
11 pointed out to me that I may have inadvertently
12 precluded Mr. Miller from the opportunity to make
13 comments. He gave his chair up rather quickly.
14 And was --
15 MR. MILLER: Didn't want to go out
16 of turn, Mr. Chairman.
17 CHAIRMAN BASS: -- and never quite
18 had an opportunity to get back.
19 MR. MILLER: Right.
20 CHAIRMAN BASS: If you would,
21 please, give us what comments you have to add to
22 today's proceedings.
23 MR. MILLER: Thank you, Mr.
24 Chairman, Commissioners. My name is Robert
25 Miller. I'm an attorney with Locke, Liddell &
.0153
1 Sapp, and we're cocounsel to the Vietnamese
2 American Shrimpers Association. On their behalf
3 we ask that you not adopt these regulations
4 today. We ask that you delay them until the
5 winter months so that a consensus can be
6 reached.
7 We believe that the regulations are
8 not based on sound science. Mr. Osburn himself
9 conceded or stated in the Houston Chronicle on
10 Sunday that there is not a biological crisis. He
11 stated that the reason for the regulations is to
12 improve the profits of the industry. Obviously
13 the industry has great concern that their profit
14 is going to be improved, as you heard from their
15 compensate comments and their presence here
16 today. There's also been a lack of, shall we
17 say, consensus in developing these. I think
18 there needs to be a better process of
19 communicating with the association. They very
20 much do want to work with Parks and Wildlife.
21 Obviously they are stewards in this resource but
22 there certainly is a distrust and a
23 misunderstanding or nonunderstanding as to the
24 reason for these regulations.
25 So what we ask is that, again, you
.0154
1 delay the regulations. Let's go back, let's sit
2 down with the Shrimper's Advisory Board. Let's
3 have a dialogue. Let's see if we can reach
4 consensus. What is the rush? Why do they need
5 to be adopted now? This is not a moderate
6 package in my clients' viewpoint. They believe
7 the regulations are restrictive and very
8 burdensome on them. They believe that it may
9 cause severe economic arm to their industry
10 without a sound scientific basis. And they urge
11 you not to adopt the regulations today.
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: Any questions?
13 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: I would just
14 say that we're not proposing to adopt the
15 regulations today. We're proposing to propose
16 the regulations today.
17 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: I had a
18 comment or question in the same direction,
19 really. I'm not sure that I understand why
20 delaying publishing them is going to be that --
21 make that much difference in the outcome. I know
22 that there's been testimony that people will have
23 a difficult time being available to give their
24 input. But it seems to me that the organizations
25 that represent the various parties can certainly
.0155
1 make the input at any time. And even if we
2 decided to publish them, there's no commitment or
3 obligation on the part of any of the
4 commissioners to ultimately vote for them as
5 presented.
6 So it seems to me that if we had a
7 90-day period, whenever that period was, to have
8 them discussed publicly, to get all the input,
9 that the Commission would then be in a much
10 better position to make a decision on the
11 specific rules at the time of considering
12 adoption than we can right today. And I don't
13 know that our position is going to be benefited
14 by waiting 90 days, 180 days, whatever it is, to
15 get this public input that only comes once
16 they're published. Am I off track on that or --
17 MR. MILLER: Commissioner, I think
18 you have two issues. One is what you alluded to,
19 is the fact that they are constantly working and
20 this is their busy season and they don't feel
21 like they have the opportunity to be able to
22 adequately study and evaluate and input this
23 process.
24 I think the second issue is, you
25 have a community, a very large community that
.0156
1 feels like they've been excluded from this
2 process. Now, whether they have or not, they
3 feel that way. And I think that that's a very
4 great issue.
5 And what we're asking is, let's take
6 the time, let's go back and see if we can develop
7 the consensus. I know, as commissioners,
8 ultimately you're going to have to listen to the
9 staff and the public testimony and then make an
10 informed decision. But I do think that you will
11 agree that certainly this community feels like it
12 has not been included in this process. And all
13 we're asking is, let's give them an opportunity.
14 Let's see if we can make that work. And at the
15 end of the day, if you have to go forth, then
16 you're going to have to go forth.
17 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: And your
18 position is that the 90 days that would start
19 tomorrow are not sufficient?
20 MR. MILLER: It's basically a loaded
21 gun to their head. It starts the clock ticking,
22 that the intent has been stated that the
23 regulations will be adopted on August 31. And so
24 their perception will be, no, that it's not going
25 to be a fair opportunity.
.0157
1 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: From my
2 perspective, that's not a correct perception.
3 The perception is not the correct view as --
4 certainly we're not obligated to adopt them at
5 the end of that period.
6 CHAIRMAN BASS: I do think it's good
7 to make clear that if we start the clock ticking,
8 as you put it, with -- by publishing something
9 that -- that does not obligate us to take
10 anything into consideration in August. It simply
11 allows us to as the earliest date. We could
12 obviously extend past that should we so choose.
13 And there have been issues in the past that that
14 has been the case after publication, that it's
15 been extended for further discussion or
16 revision.
17 I think it's also very important
18 that everybody understand that if we were to go
19 forward and publish this for comment, that does
20 not bind the Commission to only voting on or
21 considering the regulations strictly as published
22 in August.
23 Basically the government codes allow
24 us to be less restrictive than what's published
25 without publishing for a second time. But the
.0158
1 law requires that if we wish to propose
2 regulations which are more restrictive, it would
3 require a second publication and review period in
4 the Texas Register.
5 So if this committee today does go
6 forward with publishing as proposed, it's very
7 important that everyone understand, one, that
8 does not bind us to having to vote in August on a
9 set of regulations, nor does it limit us to only
10 considering those proposed rules as published.
11 We can change from the published format as long
12 as that is one that is less restrictive on the
13 industry. So --
14 And, Mr. Miller, I'm sure that you
15 understand that. But I want to be sure everybody
16 in the audience understands those two very
17 important points of government procedure that we
18 have to operate under.
19 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: It's also
20 important that everyone realize that the
21 Commission definitely had no intent to limit
22 anyone's input. And if that perception is out
23 there, again, that's not -- it's not based on
24 intent or fact.
25 MR. MILLER: We understand. There
.0159
1 is a feeling, though, that the community has not
2 been adequately consulted by the Parks and
3 Wildlife staff.
4 COMMISSIONER AVILA: Well, what I
5 would like to add is, I think we hear that loud
6 and clear. Certainly the testimony has been
7 given here today, and certainly the amount of
8 Vietnamese Americans that have, you know, come to
9 Austin to express their sentiments just by being
10 here.
11 Plus, I hear a lot of, we need to do
12 some fine-tuning coming from all parties. And as
13 the chairman said, we have, in the past, been
14 less restrictive when presented with, you know,
15 some more scientific data or information. And I
16 would submit to you that I've also heard a lot of
17 people speaking that said, we need to refer to
18 the technical experts and y'all are all going to
19 go to the same technical experts that are going
20 to advise us, yourselves and us, as to what the
21 situation is.
22 And just for whatever, I was -- for
23 the Vietnamese, I was an advisor to your 2nd
24 Battalion 42nd armored regiment South Vietnamese
25 Army in 1969-70 in Vietnam.
.0160
1 CHAIRMAN BASS: Other questions for
2 Mr. Miller?
3 MR. MILLER: Thank you.
4 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
5 Appreciate your comments and patience.
6 Doctor McKinney, if you and
7 Mr. Osburn would return for -- go back to -- just
8 so we understand where we are in the committee
9 process, I think what we have before us at this
10 time for consideration by the committee are two
11 different items and two different proposed
12 motions by staff.
13 The first would relate to the
14 proposal and request by staff to publish in the
15 Texas Register for public comment, the amended
16 set of commercial shrimping regulations. That
17 would then be open for public comment, and during
18 which time, between now and our next meeting,
19 staff's intent would be to conduct quite a number
20 of subsequent meetings with constituent groups up
21 and down the coast.
22 The second item before us for
23 consideration at this time is from the -- Item 6
24 from the finance committee, which is
25 consideration of a $3 increase in the
.0161
1 recreational saltwater stamp fee. Those monies
2 which would be spent dedicated to the buyback
3 program with a five-year sunset on that, and that
4 that action item would be to put that on the
5 Commission's agenda for consideration tomorrow to
6 actually be enacted as an action item and put
7 into regulation for the license season commencing
8 September 1. So we have two issues to consider.
9 I guess back to square one with Doctor McKinney
10 and Mr. Osburn.
11 The Chair would entertain further
12 discussion or questions on these -- either of
13 these issues.
14 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: I did want to
15 ask Mr. Osburn to go back to the reference to the
16 Houston Chronicle article over the weekend,
17 because I didn't understand that your motivation
18 for working on these rules was only an economic
19 motivation. I had understood that it was also
20 related to the future of the fishery on a basis
21 other than just economics, as well as the
22 bycatch. And I wondered if you could just
23 address that briefly.
24 MR. OSBURN: Yes, ma'am. Let me
25 tell you, I did not read the article. I found
.0162
1 that having this debate in the media has not been
2 very successful. So -- but there is a biological
3 need associated with our proactive management
4 strategy. Bycatch is one of them. The habitat
5 impacts is another.
6 The shrimp resource itself, for the
7 long-term, we see trends in the size and numbers
8 of shrimp that indicate, for the long-term, we --
9 without reversing those trends, we will be in
10 a -- we will be in a biological threat. Today
11 we're not in that -- we're not in a threat today
12 in the sense that we have no time to do anything
13 but enact stringent new regulations.
14 We have an opportunity to be
15 proactive, which is what this whole debate is
16 about, is just getting a handle on this early.
17 But without -- certainly there is an economic
18 benefit to doing that and certainly the economic
19 benefit parallels the biological benefit if our
20 strategy of more shrimp and larger shrimp works.
21 So we'd like to emphasize the economic benefits
22 because that's how we can get better buy-in from
23 the industry. But the biological benefits are
24 part of our underlying rationale.
25 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: I also heard
.0163
1 two references to Doctor Nance's work. And I
2 wondered if you could comment, because the
3 remarks that were made about his work I took as
4 being at odds with your conclusions and those of
5 NMFS on the biological issue.
6 MR. OSBURN: I certainly regret that
7 misunderstanding being there. I take
8 responsibility for that. The exact same report
9 that we're talking about, once again, definition
10 of recruitment overfishing. The stocks are not
11 recruitment overfished. But that same report
12 indicates a 39-year downward trend in catch rates
13 and a 39-year downward trend in size of shrimp.
14 That same report says that the stocks are at full
15 maximum exploitation.
16 Doctor Nance, in a previous
17 publication in his office, describes the need for
18 proactive management before you get to a fully
19 maximum exploited shrimp stock. That's been
20 their standard advice to managers.
21 When they are asked for a technical
22 definition of overfishing, what they have been
23 able to come up with is defining the edge of the
24 cliff. And that's what they use. And this
25 department does not favor that as the technical
.0164
1 definition of overfishing. We think it's not
2 precautionary enough. We are going to ask
3 National Marine Fishery Service to review their
4 technical definition of that overfishing to move
5 it back to a safer level.
6 All of the advice from the
7 scientific community, no matter what species
8 you're studying, says, give yourself a margin of
9 error. We want to build a margin of error in the
10 Texas shrimp fishery. And that is -- but there
11 is no difference between our conclusions and
12 Doctor Nance's. And the exact same report is the
13 basis for that. So I'm afraid that it's just
14 folks that are aware of parts of it that aren't
15 fully aware of the whole context. Certainly
16 there's a lot of room for debate on something
17 like how many shrimp are out there in the world.
18 And, you know, having to drain the gulf and prove
19 that is just something we're not going to be able
20 to do. But we see warning signs, biological
21 warning signs. Basically if we can't manage for
22 those warning signs, then I guess we're not
23 managing at all.
24 DR. McKINNEY: I would make one
25 observation. I know the hour is late, so I'll be
.0165
1 very quick. But I'm not a fishery biologist. I
2 am an ecologist. And one of the things that I've
3 been doing through this past year and looking at
4 Hal's -- the proposal from coastal fisheries, and
5 working with this fishery is looking at what has
6 happened historically in other types of
7 fisheries. I mean, that's the issue we have
8 before us.
9 And what I've seen in those types of
10 situations is really classically what's happening
11 here, is that taking a look and raising issues of
12 science and challenging science and looking at
13 less delay and try to work this thing out as Hal
14 as put it, moving over the cliff, and what
15 historically has happened is that then a lot of
16 action is taken as hurtling down the cliff side,
17 that is really too late. And I don't think
18 anyone wants to be in that position.
19 So the proposal, I think, before
20 everyone here is, what can we do now? What
21 combination can we do now so that we don't get
22 into that problem? Because I don't think you
23 want to have us before you-all saying we have a
24 problem to solve. I think our job is to come to
25 you and say, how can we prevent those problems
.0166
1 from happening? And that's really what we're
2 trying to get at.
3 MR. OSBURN: I might also point out
4 that we recognize and acknowledge the lack of
5 consensus in the fishery. And I will tell you
6 that since 1985, when the legislature asked us to
7 look into taking, you know, management authority
8 for shrimp, we've been holding workshops for
9 different industry groups. And we can categorize
10 different stakeholders in terms of their
11 positions on these issues. And the last 18
12 months was a review of that same process, is
13 where are the different stakeholders coming
14 from? What suggestions do they offer? No, we
15 did not hold up exact rules in front of them, but
16 they had a -- they have a fishery and we were
17 trying to describe and have them describe back to
18 us how could we make this fishery better. We got
19 a very full range of comments, including from the
20 Asian-Americans, including from turtle advocates,
21 including from gulf bay recreational. My staff
22 was very diligent in having outreach efforts to
23 folks. And we categorized positions of
24 stakeholders.
25 Our approach at that point was to
.0167
1 take those different positions back and weigh
2 them against the biological science, the
3 economics, other sciences in anthropology, and
4 try to fit them together into a plan that
5 captured the needs of as many stakeholders as we
6 could within our biological mandates.
7 So I don't think it's -- I recognize
8 we don't have a consensus. I would offer to you
9 that we could have meetings from now until the
10 end of the next century and not be able to
11 develop consensus on some of these things. You
12 heard diametrically opposed positions about the
13 status of sea turtles, for example. And there is
14 a balance in there somewhere that I know it's
15 your job to achieve. And our part in it was to
16 try to find that balance and provide you pros and
17 cons. And that's why each of the recommendations
18 before you has a list of pros and cons. They're
19 in an attempt to show you that consensus is not
20 there but there is rationale on the side of each
21 of these proposals. And if they don't have a
22 positive overall benefit, then we are not
23 recommending them.
24 CHAIRMAN BASS: Any further comments
25 or discussion, questions?
.0168
1 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Just one,
2 Mr. Chairman, get back to the COMMISSIONERman's
3 question a little earlier concerning the
4 information that we received this morning and the
5 differences between this information and that
6 that we already had. And I think, Carol, your
7 question was that there were just two major
8 differences? I just want to get that clear.
9 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Yes.
10 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Because that's
11 something else that we're going to have to take
12 into consideration as we move forward for the
13 full meeting.
14 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: I've been
15 looking through the package while we've been here
16 this morning. And what I had asked Mr. Osburn
17 was if he could identify one or two of the most
18 dramatic changes between what we have seen in our
19 briefing materials and what we got here, which he
20 kindly did.
21 But I think that the summary that
22 they have at the very beginning of what we saw in
23 the bold type, about the more restrictive rules
24 that were deleted from the first proposals -- and
25 correct me if I've misunderstood this. I think
.0169
1 that's what their real summary is, to try and
2 tell us upfront how reduced or sought to reduce
3 the impact of the proposed regulations by making
4 these five changes and what they had originally
5 proposed and what we got now.
6 But I'm not saying that all of those
7 are different from what was in the briefing.
8 But, really, I think what I was trying to
9 highlight, also, was what had changed, what had
10 been reduced by way of severity of the proposed
11 regulations from what they presented to us the
12 last time before they got more workshops and more
13 discussions with people in the fisheries and what
14 we saw this morning.
15 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I just raised
16 that issue because certainly that would have some
17 consideration -- could possibly have some
18 consideration on the comments that were made this
19 morning, since they haven't seen these proposed
20 changes that are before us, I believe.
21 CHAIRMAN BASS: I believe they
22 have.
23 COMMISSIONER HENRY: They have?
24 CHAIRMAN BASS: Yeah. These are
25 changes from the proposals that were discussed in
.0170
1 the April meeting with the Shrimp Advisory
2 Council.
3 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Okay. I see.
4 CHAIRMAN BASS: But these changes
5 have been in the public realm for various lengths
6 of time since then.
7 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Okay. I
8 think --
9 DR. McKINNEY: My comment. I think
10 Commissioner Angelo summarized it very concisely
11 about what the staff position would be as far as
12 moving forward. I mean, I was very gratified to
13 hear a number of the speakers this morning talk
14 about well, fine-tuning, we would like to work
15 through some process to try to come to a
16 conclusion.
17 I would submit that I will not use
18 Mr. Miller's terms of holding a gun to the head.
19 But I think more of an incentive, putting the
20 rules on the table as proposed, as incentive to
21 work through that period of time, over 90 days.
22 Frankly, if we can't reach it over that period of
23 time, we probably won't. But I think if we work
24 together like they're talking about, we can make
25 some good progress to come back to you in
.0171
1 August. And then you can, obviously, as
2 appropriate, make a decision on whether we have
3 done so or not. But I think that incentive to
4 move forward is pretty necessary, just from my
5 experience.
6 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: In that
7 regard, I would have a very difficult time if we
8 were talking about voting on these regulations
9 tomorrow, to vote for them, with all the comment
10 we've heard today from people who feel they
11 weren't adequately informed or who have very
12 strong differences of opinion about the facts.
13 But I would certainly hope that
14 within 90 days, we could be presented with a lot
15 more information that would aid us in reaching a
16 decision that would be as fair as possible and
17 also accomplish something. So it seems to me
18 that 90 days should be long enough to do that.
19 COMMISSIONER AVILA: And even
20 moreover than that, but in fact the fine-tuning
21 has taken place.
22 DR. McKINNEY: Quite a bit of it
23 has, I believe, yes, sir.
24 COMMISSIONER WATSON: Well, I think
25 the staff ought to be complemented on the
.0172
1 presentation they've made today. I think it's
2 been very helpful to us.
3 And I agree with Commissioner
4 Angelo. I believe that, you know, the next 90
5 days ought to be a sufficient time for us to get
6 up to speed to make any further changes or
7 modifications to lessen the impact of the
8 regulations. And, you know, I -- I don't know if
9 it's appropriate right now. But I would like to
10 have us move to support the recommendation of the
11 staff to publish these regulations in the Texas
12 Register.
13 CHAIRMAN BASS: We have a motion.
14 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: Second.
15 CHAIRMAN BASS: The motion is
16 seconded. Any further discussion of the motion?
17 I think -- I just want to call a vote. I think
18 that there certainly, as on all issues, a desire
19 by the Commission that all stakeholders and
20 constituents have opportunity to comment and have
21 a voice. And I think as Mr. Osburn pointed out,
22 having your feelings known doesn't -- isn't
23 always synonymous with having an agreement. But
24 I would admonish the staff to continue to make
25 every effort to see that all stakeholders have an
.0173
1 opportunity to have whatever degree of input and
2 level of input in the process as they are willing
3 to come to the table with.
4 The Chair has a motion and a
5 second. Any further discussion? The Chair would
6 call a vote. All in favor? Any opposed?
7 Hearing none, the motion carries.
8 (Motion passed unanimously.)
9 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: I would, if
10 it's appropriate, move approval of the
11 recommendation regarding the $3 increase.
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: Motion to --
13 COMMISSIONER WATSON: Second.
14 CHAIRMAN BASS: Second for the
15 finance committee, Item 6, to accept the staff's
16 recommendation on that for consideration in
17 tomorrow's meeting. All in favor? Any opposed?
18 Motion carries.
19 (Motion passed unanimously.)
20 CHAIRMAN BASS: Ms. Dinkins would
21 like to make a comment before we adjourn the regs
22 committee meeting, please.
23 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: I just wanted
24 to say that I hope we will also be cognizant in
25 considering the proposed regulations as to
.0174
1 whether we do need to take a look at any specific
2 law enforcement issues. Because I'm very
3 concerned that as we consider the regs at a
4 future meeting, after comments, that we also
5 recognize that to make them effective, that they
6 have to be evenhanded in compliance. And I
7 greatly appreciate that the compliance level is
8 high. But I wouldn't want them to be competitive
9 disadvantaged to those who comply if we do adopt
10 more restrictive regulations at some point in the
11 future.
12 And so if we need to consider that
13 in the budget process, I would surely hope that
14 it would be part of the consideration.
15 CHAIRMAN BASS: Point well taken.
16 There's no further business to come
17 before the regulations committee, which I will
18 declare adjourned.
19 We, at this point, will go into
20 executive session, which I would like to announce
21 that pursuant to the requirements of Chapter 551
22 Government Code referred to as the Open Meetings
23 Law, an executive session will be held at this
24 time for the purpose of consideration of land
25 transactions.
.0175
1 I would -- those division directors
2 and members of the staff that are here that have
3 issues on this -- on the rest of today's agenda,
4 I would urge you to be sure that you're prepared
5 to make very expedited and efficient
6 presentations this afternoon. We have not gotten
7 very far in our agenda and we're well into the
8 afternoon. So be prepared to move quick and be
9 concise and to the point when we reconvene.
10 Thank you very much. We'll see you after lunch.
11 *-*-*-*-*
12 (HEARING ADJOURNED.)
13 *-*-*-*-*
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
.0176
1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
2 STATE OF TEXAS )
COUNTY OF TRAVIS )
3
4 I, MELODY RENEE DeYOUNG, a Certified Court
5 Reporter in and for the State of Texas, do hereby
6 certify that the above and foregoing 174 pages
7 constitute a full, true and correct transcript of
8 the minutes of the Texas Parks and Wildlife
9 Commission on MAY 31, 2000, in the commission
10 hearing room of the Texas Parks and Wildlife
11 Headquarters Complex, Austin, Travis County,
12 Texas.
13 I FURTHER CERTIFY that a stenographic record
14 was made by me a the time of the public meeting
15 and said stenographic notes were thereafter
16 reduced to computerized transcription under my
17 supervision and control.
18 WITNESS MY HAND this the 8TH day of AUGUST,
19 2000.
20
21
22 MELODY RENEE DeYOUNG, RPR, CSR NO. 3226
Expiration Date: 12-31-00
23 3101 Bee Caves Road
Centre II, Suite 220
24 Austin, Texas 78746
(512) 328-5557
25 EBS NO. 40483