DELMARVA - Local watermen along with numerous other charter boat associations from other East Coast states have filed a federal lawsuit against the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) over tightened restrictions on fishing for striped bass, or rockfish.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, May 13, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, include the Delmarva Fisheries Association and associations from Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut.
Along with the ASMFC, the suit names numerous state and federal agencies as defendants. The 15 states listed as defendants in the suit span from Massachusetts to Florida and are all members of the ASMFC, which was formed in 1942 with approval from the U.S. Congress.
The lawsuit’s main complaint centers on a December 2024 decision by the ASMFC to continue a limit on striped bass fishing for the 2025 season.
“While the 2024 Stock Assessment Update indicates the resource is no longer experiencing overfishing, it remains overfished,” ASMFC’s website reads.
Plaintiffs say the ASMFC’s strategy to limit fishing included shortening the fishing season, reducing the size of removable fish, lowering commercial quotas, and limiting recreational charter boat fishers to one rockfish per day.
“Despite massive opposition in the form of hundreds of letters and in person meetings pleading with the ASMFC, its members states and other active participants, its self-described federal “partners” and chief funding sources (namely, NOAA and USFWS), not to proceed with this flawed plan, that advice was glibly dismissed,” the lawsuit reads.
Here in the waters of the Chesapeake, repeated reports of lower-than-normal numbers of rockfish spurred ASMFC to enact and continue stricter regulations on fishing them, drawing the ire of local watermen and some elected officials. Charter boat captains and owners claim the restrictions threaten their livelihoods.
“For too long, our industry has allowed this obscure Interstate Compact founded in 1942 to help furnish the food supply behind the war effort to transform itself into a power-hungry partnership with massive funding support (up to 95%) from federal government agencies,” Chairman of the Delmarva Fisheries Association and local boat captain Rob Newberry said in a statement. “They apparently think that fish are more important than working people."
Newberry and the Delmarva Fisheries Association have previously filed a lawsuit against ASMFC over the restrictions, but a preliminary injunction against the Commission was denied.
The numerous watermen associations now filing this latest lawsuit claim ASMFC violated their constitutional and civil rights in adopting the restrictions and call on the federal court to strike down the rockfish restrictions.
WBOC reached out to ASMFC for comment but did not immediately receive a response.