A week before Christmas, the Cornell Cooperative Extension office in Riverhead was informed that the National Marine Fisheries Service did not plan to renew the extension’s contract to collect biological samples and landing data from commercial fishermen after a 15-year association. The contract is due to expire in April.
“They’ve told us they were in the process of reassessing their data collection needs in New York,” Emerson Hasbrouck, a longtime extension agent, said. Mr. Hasbrouck said he was shocked by the news, given what he said was the cooperative relationship his agency had established with the commercial fishing industry over the years, and given the growing importance of accurate data in fisheries management.
“It has become the basis of everything in terms of assessments, quotas, and allocation,” he said. “Even in terms of the businesses’ bottom lines. It all goes back to good, reliable fisheries data.”
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