November 17, 2017 — The announcement in mid-October that James Gilmore had been elected Chairman of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) came as no surprise to anglers familiar with the fishery management process at the federal level.
Voted in by the ASMFC State Commissioners from Maine to Florida, the lifelong Amityville resident had spent the past two years as vice chairman. He is also Division of Marine Resources Director for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), a position he has held for the last decade and will continue to hold.
In his new role as ASMFC chairman, Gilmore oversees both administration and policy issues for the regulatory agency’s individual species management boards. The ASMFC, a joint commission of the 15 Atlantic Coast states, coordinates the conservation, management and sustainable use of shared coastal fishery resources including finfish. That process can trigger some strong debates.
“There are some challenges we need to tackle as quickly as possible,” said Gilmore, who has over 40 years of experience in resource, habitat and fisheries management, during a phone interview on Wednesday. “We need to rethink and modernize the way we allocate fisheries up and down the coast. For recreational fishing specifically, we need better data that is current and more closely resembles what is actually taking place on the water.”