September 16, 2015 — Olaf Jensen, assistant professor at Rutgers University’s Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, is one member of the scientific community who helps decide how best to manage fish species in New Jersey as a member of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee.
On Sept. 9, he was a guest lecturer at the Tuckerton Seaport as part of the Lunch n’ Learn series co-hosted by the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve.
Jensen explained the challenges and difficulties in assessing dynamic fish populations. To put his audience of mostly recreational fishermen at ease, he told a funny story about a forester and a scientist having a conversation on numbers. “The forester says he goes out and counts the trees and makes a decision on how many he can cut down while still sustaining the forest. The fisheries manager says, ‘I do the same thing, except you can’t see the fish and they move.’”
Three fisheries that hold the most interest to recreational fisher-folk are summer flounder, black sea bass and striped bass. Jensen promised to discuss their numbers, but first he gave a little quiz and imparted some interesting facts:
He asked if the group could estimate how much the commercial fisheries dockside landings in New Jersey are worth. No one came close to the $150 million annual figure.
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