1. a. There is established the Fisheries Information and Development Center, hereinafter referred to as the center, at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers, The State University. The center shall be administered by the Director of the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences in consultation with the coordinating board of the center established in subsection a. of section 2 of this act. The director in consultation with the coordinating board shall administer funding and provide scientific support for the center, and shall coordinate the distribution of funds, program design and research team development, oversight of project accomplishments, and information transfer activities for the center.

b. The purposes and objectives of the center shall be to:

(1) Address the most urgent research and development needs of the commercial and recreational fisheries industries in the State, including all fisheries species landed in the State throughout the geographic range of those fisheries resources ;

(2) Provide critical, unbiased data for the Marine Fisheries Council established pursuant to section 4 of P.L.1979, c.199 (C. 23:2B-4), the Department of Environmental Protection, the fishing public, the commercial fishery industry, including shellfish and finfish fisheries in the State and fisheries in State and federal waters, and the recreational fishery industry, including the hook and line and party and charter boat fisheries industries; and

(3) Continue the viability of New Jersey fisheries through research and development concerning the enhancement of fish stocks and the improvement of fish stock management.

For the purposes of this act, “fisheries” means all harvesting of marine fish and aquatic organisms not defined as “aquaculture” pursuant to section 3 of P.L.1997, c.236 (C. 4:27-3).

c. The center, at the direction of the coordinating board and with the approval of the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection and in cooperation with any nonprofit groups related to the fisheries industries in the State, shall carry out scientific research programs including, but not limited to, those which :

(1) Provide the scientific basis for improvements in stock assessment methodology and the development of improved stock assessment models;

(2) Develop ways to utilize the most up-to-date satellite and oceanographic data in stock assessment models to analyze and assess the annual fluctuations in stock size and distribution;

(3) Develop new and improved methods of data collection;

(4) Reduce the impact of fishing on the mortality of juvenile fish and aquatic life, and reduce the mortality of non-targeted species and threatened and endangered species by the development and implementation of improvements in fishing technology, by-catch reduction devices, and fishing and processing methods;

(5) Provide the best scientific data available on species population dynamics and processes controlling age structure, sources and rates of mortality, rates of recruitment, catch and release mortality, the relationship of oceanographic variables to fish stock distribution patterns, the degree of reproductive isolation of species populations and the location of brood stocks, and the relationship of food supply to fish yield;

(6) Enhance understanding of the economic and sociological issues affecting fisheries in the State and evaluate the influence of State and local policies, changes in fishing technology, and variations in demand and supply on jobs, income, and business success or failure; and

(7) Address issues including, but not limited to, horseshoe crab resource questions, incidental catches of marine mammals and their resulting injury or death, hook and line mortality in the recreational fluke fishery, menhaden resource questions, and stock assessments of surf clam and ocean quahog populations.

L.1999,c.419,s.1.