NJSGC’s Fish and Wildlife marine recreational fishing regulation cards are now available for 2023. The free, downloadable cards are provided by New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Please clickhere to download a copy.
The cards provide information on the correct minimum size, possession limits, and season of catch. The cards are convenient to bring on any fishing outing, complete with built-in ruler to measure your catch and make sure they are above the minimum size. We recommend laminating after printing.
Fish are measured from tip of snout to tip of tail, with the exception of black sea bass and sharks. No species of fish with a minimum size limits listed on the card can be filleted or cleaned at sea.
The cards also serve as a reminder to register to fish. It is free and can be done at SaltwaterRegistry.nj.gov.
Please visit our website or NJFishandWildlife.com for more resources. Also feel free to contact NJSGC’s Assistant Director of Extension and Marine Recreation Agent: Fisheries and Boating Mike Danko for additional information.
NJSGC held its annual Jersey Shore Photo Contest again this year. The contest usually gets a lot of submissions, but the quality of photos we received this year was spectacular.
Twelve submissions won the contest and will be on display in our desktop calendar. The winning photos shown below were shot in familiar locations like Sandy Hook, Cape May, Seaside Heights, and many more. The 2024 desktop calendar with these dazzling nature photos will be available on njseagrant.org in a few months. But in the meantime, view the winners below (in no particular order). Congratulations to all of the winners!
Untitled, Melissa Laurino
The Seagull Lifeguard Takes a Stand, Richard Pasquarella
Common Tern Adults and One Hungry Chick, Scott M. Miller
Are you a K-6th grade teacher or non-formal educator interested in increasing your knowledge base on climate change? Join New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium this summer for a FREE workshop to learn more about climate science and effective ways to teach climate change to even the youngest of children. Learn with us as we utilize New Jersey’s coastal ecosystems and help you adapt classroom-ready activities to fit your needs in this FREE one-day workshop at New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium’s headquarters in Gateway National Recreation Area on Sandy Hook.
Discover ways to effectively communicate the science of climate change and its impacts, all while empowering and giving hope to elementary school students. Enhance your curriculum with new activities and learn how to frame discussions on this sometimes difficult topic. Don’t fret over, but learn how to incorporate New Jersey Student Learning Standards (NJSLS) for Climate Change Education into lessons you may already be teaching. Earn continuing 6 education credits, too!
Learn to employ successful strategies to help students understand the complex subject of climate change, inspire their curiosity, and motivate them to work towards solutions for the climate-related environmental challenges that they may face in the future. All K-6th grade teachers and non-formal educators are welcome to participate in this workshop.
When: Thursday, August 10, 2023 from 9:00 a.m. — 3:00 p.m.
Where: New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium Headquarters 22 Magruder Road, Fort Hancock (Highlands), NJ 07732
This workshop is FREE to participants and includes lunch. Registration is required to attend.
As you may know NJSGC holds the Favorite Beaches Contest in New Jersey every year. Well, the public voted and the results are in! Congratulations to all shore towns. The winners are as follows:
Over the weekend, NJSGC held it’s annual Favorite Beaches Contest Ceremony in Ocean City, New Jersey. Mayor Jay A. Gillian of Ocean City and Mayor Leonard C. Desiderio of Sea Isle City received their respective awards for best and runner up for Overall and for Cape May County. Special thanks to Ocean City for hosting our awards ceremony on their Music Pier!
In addition, the NJSGC communications team went live on the famous radio station 94.3 the Point with Matt Ryan to announce the winners. They also met with give Sylvia Sylvia, Executive Director, Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce to give the award for the Best Beach in Monmouth County to City of Asbury Park.
Samantha Kreisler, Julie Lang, Tom Hayes, Sylvia Sylvia and Matt Ryan announce the winners live on the radio at the historic Asbury Park Convention Hall.
Samantha at the Ocean City Music Pier.
Mayor Jay A. Gillian of Ocean City and Mayor Leonard C. Desiderio of Sea Isle City received their respective awards for best and runner up for Overall and for Cape May County.
Julie Lang and “Martin Z. Mollusk,” who is the mascot of Ocean City.
Dr. Pete Rowe and Samantha Kreisler announce the winners of the Favorite Beaches Contest.
The submissions have been collected and it is now time to decide the top photos to win the Jersey Shore Photo Contest. The winners will be featured in the NJSGC’s 2024 Desktop Calendar.
NJSGC Education Specialist Mindy Voss appeared on News 12 NJ, to remind all beachgoers about the greater importance of ocean safety and rip current awareness.
Mindy Voss appeared on News 12 NJ to talk about Rip Current Awareness and Safety. Click the picture or visit https://fb.watch/lbani1JTGh/ to watch the full video.
Moving faster than an Olympic swimmer, rip currents can transport bathers away from the shore in a matter of seconds. Panic and lack of safe swimming skills is what causes more than 100 people to perish from rip currents in the U.S. each year. Help keep your community safe by reserving an Ocean Hazards and Beach Safety: Sharks vs. Rip Currents program. This hour-long program can take place at your school/center or virtually anywhere via Zoom or Google Meets. For more information contact Mindy Voss, Education Specialist at mvoss@njseagrant.org or 732-872-1300, extension 30.
It’s finally time to cast your vote for New Jersey’s favorite beach! The fate of our beaches is in your hands. Choose your favorite local “hotspots” from a list of amazing beaches throughout the Jersey Shore’s four coastal counties – Atlantic, Cape May, Monmouth, and Ocean. New Jersey Sea Grant (NJSGC) will announce the winners around the July Fourth holiday.
Debuting in 2008 as New Jersey’s “Top Ten Beaches,” the survey was initially designed to encourage friendly competition and camaraderie amongst popular Jersey Shore communities along the coast. Following Hurricane Sandy, the contest was rebranded “Favorite Beaches” to diversify results so that ALL areas of the Garden State’s gorgeous oceanfront are recognized, inspiring a refreshing sense of unity and support.
Be sure to share NJSGC’s highly-anticipated “Favorite Beaches” poll with family and friends, and stay tuned for the official results later this summer. Send them this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/favoritebeach2023
Connect with New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter for more updates. Thank you for your continued support!
Spring is in the air and Summer is so close you can practically taste it. While It’s obvious that the locals and tourists of New Jersey are ready for this summer, the question remains: Are our beaches? Well, according to our State of the Shore Report they most certainly are! Our beaches are in good condition after a few relatively mild winters in a row. Not to mention that New Jersey has taken steps to improve resilience, including developing a statewide coastal resilience strategy, creating buyout programs and elevation solutions, and embracing living shorelines and other natural infrastructure.
In terms of coastal flooding, erosion, and wave activity, this winter was relatively uneventful. However, two large storms made quite the splashes in our home state. Although no longer a Category 5 by the time it reached New Jersey, Hurricane Ian not only caused billions of dollars in damages, but also created some of the largest impacts of the season. During a storm in a Spring tide in December, water levels measured by the tide gauge at Sandy Hook reached their highest since Hurricane Sandy.
The summer forecast is a bit more complicated and comes with a high level of uncertainly based on developing El Niño conditions and unusually warm surface water in the Atlantic Basin, which can both increase the likelihood of formation and the intensity of hurricanes. We will have to wait and see how the Spring and Summer season progresses, so please remember to be safe and prepared when it comes to the coast. Read more in this year’s State of the Shore Report.
Dr. Jon Miller gets interviewed by NBC News
From right to left: Dr. Tom Herrington, Dr. Peter Rowe, Shawn LaTourette, and Dr. Jon Miller.
Media at the State of the Shore
NJSGC invites media and tourism representatives to learn more about the ever-changing conditions of our shoreline from our group of local scientists and environmental managers. Like past years we hosted the State of the Shore press event at Tim McLoone’s Supper Club located on the iconic Asbury Park boardwalk, with guest speakers including NJSGC Coastal Processes Specialist Dr. Jon Miller, NJDEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette, and Coastal Community Resilience Specialist, Dr. Tom Herrington.
Want to see maps of each day’s location? Click here for the Island Beach State Park set-up for Saturday, May 20. Click here for directions to Island Beach State Park. Click here for Sandy Hook/Sea Grant Consortium’s set-up for Sunday, May 21. (Subject to change.) Click here for directions to Sandy Hook.
Enter the 2023 Ocean Fun Days Jenkinson’s Family Fun Pack Sweepstakes here! NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Begins May 10, 2023 and ends May 21, 2023. Open to Legal residents of New Jersey at least 18 years of age. Void where prohibited. Read the Official Rules here.
GET SOCIAL by using the #OFD2023 or #OceanFunDays2023 hashtags!
New Jersey is not only home to 130 miles of beautiful coastline, but also millions of fantastic photographers who love documenting it. If you have a great shot that celebrates and embraces the natural elements of the Garden State’s beautiful coastline, submit the image to NJSGC’s “Favorite Beaches of the Jersey Shore” photo contest! Ultimately, the top twelve photos will be used to create New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium’s annual desktop calendar for 2024.
About the Contest:
New Jersey Sea Grant’s graphic design team will select photos from all entries received up until Thursday, June 8th by 5 pm EST. Those finalists will then be posted on the NJSGC website where visitors can vote for their favorite throughout the month leading up to the July Fourth holiday.
NJSGC’s “Jersey Shore” Photo Contest Submission Guidelines: (If your submission does not meet the following guidelines, it will not be considered)
The email entry should include: name, email, photo location, and image title.
Stick to the contest theme: Nature’s Beauty on New Jersey Beaches. We welcome both traditional and innovative approaches to this subject, but please no family portraits.
Photo files must be .JPG or .PNG format and a minimum of 300 DPI saved at a quality setting of “10” or higher and 8 ½” for the longest side.
Images should be horizontal (landscape).
Entries will be accepted until 5 pm (EST) on June 8th, 2023 on World Ocean Day.
Submit only your own original work.
Photos should be appropriate for a general audience. Explicit content is expressly prohibited.
Post-processing and digital manipulation is not allowed, but minor adjustments to contrast, filtration, subtle burning, and dodging are acceptable.
All entries become the property of NJSGC and may be used by the organization for other educational or marketing materials.
Do not include any logos or text on the photo.
By submitting your photo to this contest, you grant NJSGC permission to publicly display, reproduce, and use the photographs in all manner and media for any and all purposes, including related promotional purposes, in perpetuity. You also warrant that the photo is your original work and does not violate the copyright or any other personal or property right of any third party, and that you may be required to and can obtain any and all releases and permissions necessary for its use in the production of our calendar, including releases for any recognizable faces, unless they are incidental to a larger scene (e.g., a group of sunbathers on the beach).
Winners will be announced prior to the July Fourth holiday. These images will be used to create the 2024 NJSGC downloadable desktop calendar (https://njseagrant.org/desktop-calendars/), which will also feature useful coastal facts and information to help locals and visitors learn more about and appreciate the Jersey Shore.