Shellfish License

[Jennie@ifish]

Mail from biologist Matt Hunter:

Jennie and IFISH,

I applaud your successful efforts in rallying support and participation of the sport fishing community in the ODFW budget crisis, specifically attendance of the Tillamook meeting of 300 people. It is when the public and user groups of the resource in question become actively involved that budgets reflect their desires. Losing these hatcheries will have economic repercussions no matter how small or large.

I was quite saddened to the thought of revenues from a shellfish license being used to supplement state funding shortfalls for hatcheries. This would be a very inappropriate use of funds. A shellfish license or tag should fund Razor clam management similar to WDFW. Estimating populations and formulating indices to determine escapement goals. Sampling diggers and making catch and effort estimates and of course enforcement on the beaches. It should be used to have staff available to sample catch and effort of bay clam and mussel harvesters to get a better handle on what is being removed from the population. It should be used to sample the sport crab harvest. Estimating catch and effort as well as enforcement. There are potential needs for estimating population biomass and collecting other biological data on crab.

At present time, current recreational shellfish management is 1/4 of a full-time-equivalent (FTE) job for Razor clams on the entire Oregon Coast ,1/10 of a FTE for bay clams and mussels and basically zero for sport crabbing. There is extremely limited funding for staff, no funding for vehicles, paper, pens or other misc. items. The current amount of management allows for the potential of over harvest of clams and mussels. Using shellfish revenues for funding hatcheries would be a disservice to a public resource that deserves much better management.

Sincerely,

Matt Hunter
ODFW Shellfish Biologist

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Notice he said “recreational shellfish management”.

I wonder how much ODFW spends on commercial shellfish management and how much the commercial harvesters contribute monetarily to their own management?

In the fall of 2000, an external management review of ODFW was completed. In it were many recommendations including ideas regarding funding. It was stated that ODFW needed to find more stable funding sources that did not vary or decline from year to year. Shellfish license revenues would be wildly unstable with years of high funding and other years of very low monetary input. Although these are desperate times, it is important that good, long-term proposals be advanced

*** Clerk

[Straydog]

I agree with both of you to a degree.

One problem being overlooked is that of flexibilty within the departement to move funds as needed by demand.

If we are to put stipulations or ear marks on all funds we soon find ourselves unable to adjust as needed. This is a problem we are experiencing with OWEB funding as well as ODFW funding already.

I spoke with one commission member yesterday that stated he has been gathering information concerning time spent by the state on shellfish monitoring programs.

I suspect or at least hope that some clarification concerning the point *** makes and the breakdown of recreational and commercial expendiatures will be refelected.

We will hear more about this at the June commission meeting is my sense.

My thoughts are that it should not be limited to any one funding need, rather go into the pot if you will.

This is not to say that it should not be partially used for hatcheries yet I agree that there needs to be more attention given to recreational shellfish managment and it takes money to do so.

[Jerry Dove]

I think our thought on the shell fish lic. was just to raise $$. I feel that with Mr. Ball at the helm, all $ will be spent wisely. Now lets
convince the Leg. of that.
Lets get the letters of to them and the Governor. Also lets get letters to ODFW and thank them for having the meeting in Tillamook. Our friend(?) Les Helgeson is wrighting, the Gov. Staff, and Leg. and saying the Dept. folded, and the meeting the other night was nothing but a Governor bashing.He also is trying to discredit my character, but I am used to that. I was told today that the special session of the Leg. will be June 4,5 &6 We need to be there. We also need to be at the ODFW Commission Meeting on the 6th. Thanks again to all that showed up at the Tillamook Meeting. I hear that Salem is talking about it. thanks Jerry

[Pescador]

***, I assume you base your claim that shellfish license revenue would be wildly unstable from year to year because more licenses would be sold in good harvest years and fewer in bad harvest years. That's a good point and we will always have good and bad years, but if we had a more active shellfish management program(funded by license fees) it seems just as likely that we would have more stable shellfish populations with fewer bad years. That would minimize the revenue fluctuations. As far as having a more stable revenue source for this program is concerned, do you really think we'll ever get it from the legislature? Right, just like they are giving it to us for the hatcheries! I think license fees are a much more reliable source of revenue. By the way, I'd like to see some of the shellfish license fees go to hatcheries, but it probably all should be used for shellfish management.

[bigshark]

Just a thought......What if we had a saltwater tag and a freshwater tag? We could still have a shellfish as well. I don't want to fork out money I don't need to but I sure as heck don't want these hatcheries closed and I don't want to see the shellfishing go to heck. If I can afford the wheels and gas to make it down to the coast, let alone a boat & trailer, motor and gear, a few fees are a small cost. I do think accountability
is still an issue as some have pointed out. The idea of other funds being cut back concerns me as well. I certainly agree that we need to stick together on this clousure business but it should not stop the thinking process. Someone could hit on an idea that the ODFW would find helpful. We don't need to copy other states who have had money problems. I do however think it would be worth the effort to look around and see if any have done something that would make sence for us.

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Pescador

Funding based on license fees will vary from year to year with good or bad harvest conditions. Even commercial landing fees can vary from year to year when based on price received for harvested commodities. The following is a correspondence from Matt Hunter at ODFW. Please note the variance in contributions from commercial landings even in a stable and well managed renewable resource.

My letter to Jennie and IFISH was in regards to recreational funding and management. Sans any Pittman-Roberts money that might find a measly drip into recreational shellfish management, the recreational harvester contributes virtually nothing. Commercial harvesters have the "luxury" of having to, "pay a landing fee which is a percentage of the value of the food fish purchased from commercial harvesters: 3.15% for all salmon and steelhead; 1.09% for all other species of fish and shellfish." The two primary commercially harvested shellfish in Oregon are Dungeness Crab and the Pink Shrimp, with average annual landings of about 10,000,000 pounds and about 28,000,000 pounds respectively.
Ex-vessel value for crab harvest ranges from $15,000,000 to $30,000,000.
Ex-vessel value for shrimp harvest ranges from $6,000,000 to $10,000,000. When doing the math the commercial crab fishery can contribute from landings alone an estimated value of $164,000 to $330,000 annually. Pink shrimp contributes $66,000 to $110,000 annually. Take into mind that both of these fisheries also require landing fees to their respective commodity commissions. Also take into consideration that both of these fisheries are considered stabilized due to Limited Entry programs, seasons, gear restrictions, size and/or sex regulations and the fact that they are considered a renewable resource. (i.e. no artificial propagation). ODFW has roughly 1.5-2.0 full time equivalents (FTE)for commercial crab and 2.5-3.5 FTEs for commercial shrimp. Understand that since shrimp fishers can and do catch groundfish, there is some other federal funding that I don't know the specifics of. Between commercial shellfish and commercial
groundfish landing fees, the marine region is relatively self-sufficient in those departments.

As I noted in the letter to Jennie and IFISH, 20% of my time is allocated to
Razor clam management (sport and commercial) and I had to fight for that! My counterpart in Newport has only 5% of his time allocated to Razor clams. That means the state of Oregon only has 1/4 of a FTE dedicated to this resource. For perspective, the rest of my time is allocated 40% shrimp, 35% crab and 10% misc. species (scallops, squid, prawns, etc.)

There are 25 tide series this year of which 20 are during open harvest times for the Clatsop beaches (where better than 90% of the Razor clams are harvested), each series averaging 8 days, roughly 160 optimum days to dig razor clams out of 200 for the year. I get to try to sample this fishery to make catch and effort estimates for only 32 days! Statistically not very sound, but without funding that is all the resource gets. A recreational shellfish tag or license would allow a better overall management for all the recreational harvested shellfish.
Thank you for your time.

Matt Hunter
ODFW Shellfish Biologist

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Matthew Hunter
Oregon Department Fish and Wildlife
Marine Resources Program
North Coast Shellfish Biologist
2001 Marine Drive, Room 120
Astoria, Or 97103
(503)325-2462 ext. 116
(503)325-8227 FAX
email: matthew.v.hunter@state.or.us