The current effort to weaken the conservation and stock
rebuilding provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens
Fishery Conservation and Management Act was launched by a coalition of
fishing tackle industry, boatbuilding and anglers’ rights groups in early 2014. That assault was supported by a report
entitled “A
Vision for Managing America’s Saltwater Recreational Fisheries,” which was
used to generate buzz in the press and outlined a number of alleged flaws in
the federal fisheries management system.
The “Vision” report was produced by what
its sponsors called a “blue-ribbon panel” that, although a completely
private enterprise, was given the grandiose and official-sounding name of “The
Commission on Saltwater Recreational Fisheries Management,” which was
co-chaired by Johnny Morris, Chief Executive Officer of the Bass Pro Shops
sporting goods chain, and by Scott Deal, the President and co-founder of
Maverick Boats.
The report was issued under the aegis of the Theodore
Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, an organization who has usually been on the
right side of conservation issues, but found itself out of its depth when it
entered the salt water fisheries arena, and somehow ended up trying to
upend what is arguably the most successful and effective marine fisheries
management program in the world.
The key message of the “Vision” report is that the current
federal fishery management system is not optimized to serve recreational
anglers, and that the federal management system should be amended to more
closely resemble the systems that currently exist in several states. The report claims that
“The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)…is the federal
agency responsible for fisheries management in federal waters. Given its mandated commercial focus, the fact
that NMFS has not embraced fisheries management practices that also meet the
unique goals, needs and motivations of recreational anglers should come as no
surprise. While the NMFS has made great
strides in recent years in improving communications and interaction with the
recreational fishing community, much work remains to be done to effectively
integrate recreational fishing into its policies and procedures.
“Many state natural resource agencies, especially those in
the South, recognize the benefits of a vibrant recreational fishing community
and have managed to promote it while conserving their saltwater resources…
“Many coastal states have adopted management models that are
well tuned for their particular saltwater fisheries. These models conserve fishery resources,
provide multi-year consistency in regulations and allow for ample public access. However, these approaches have not yet been
embraced by the NMFS, which is a significant contributing factor to the current
dilemma in saltwater recreational fisheries management.”
Among the recommendations made in the report was one that
Magnuson-Stevens’ current requirement that
“the timeline for ending overfishing and rebuilding fisheries
‘be as short as possible’ and ‘not exceed 10s years’”
be weakened, to give
“the regional councils and fisheries managers greater
latitude to rebuild fish stocks in a timely and reasonable manner.”
They argue that states don’t have rebuilding deadlines, and
manage their fish better than the federal managers do.
They say that. But
then, some people say that the world is flat, or that they have been “taken” by
UFOs; it’s pretty clear that just saying something does not make it so.
Over the last few years, I’ve provided a number of examples
where state fishery managers, including “those in the South” that are praosed
in the “Vision” report, have failed to properly manage local fisheries.
Both
Mississippi and Louisiana have mismanaged speckled trout, with the latter
state seeming to believe that growth overfishing is perfectly fine. Last month, I
wrote about an Internet gag that ended up revealing a truth about a dearth of
red drum on the west coast of Florida.
Recent state efforts to manage striped
bass and winter
flounder hardly provide grounds for confidence, while New Jersey state
managers’ successful effort to overturn the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries
Commission’s summer flounder management efforts represent a
new milestone in the annals of bad fisheries actions.
However, the biggest failure of state managers at ASMFC may
be its failed effort to rebuild a depleted tautog population. ASMFC knew what to do as early as 1996, but never
had the will to impose needed measures. According
to a recent document,
“Since the Tautog [Fishery Management Plan] was implemented,
in 1996, the resource has experienced changes in stock status, as well as
management measures used to control harvest.
Based on the 2015 Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Report…tautog
is overfished and overfishing is occurring on a coastwide scale.”
The state managers that make up ASMFC had plenty of
opportunity to correct both problems. As
the same document notes,
“Fishery
Management Plan (FMP) (March 1996)
The FMP established a 14” minimum size limit and a target
fishing mortality of F=M=0.15. The
target F was a significant decrease from the 1995 stock assessment terminal
year fishing mortality rate in excess of F=0.70, so a phased-in approach of
implementing these regulations was established…
“Addendum
I (May 1997)
In response to northern states’ difficulty in achieving the
interim F by their deadline, Addendum I delayed implementation of the interim F
and target F for all states until April 1998 or April 2000 depending on the
state…
“Addendum
II (November 1999)
…Addendum II further extended the deadline to achieve the
F=0.15 target until April 2002…”
I could go on, but it would serve no purpose other than to further illustrate the 21-year pattern of delay, and ASMFC’s
endorsement of state regulations insufficient to rebuild the stock.
And it’s not over
yet. Just this month, ASMFC failed to
adopt measures that, according to the best available science, were needed to
rebuild the tautog population in Long Island Sound. Instead of the 43% harvest reduction that,
according to biologists, are needed to rebuild the population, ASMFC
delayed taking action because,
“…The states within the Long Island Sound (LIS) region needed
additional time to explore other management strategies that would moderate the
severe social and economic impacts and provide flexibility in achieving such a
large reduction in fishing mortality.
The two states will also be exploring a more modest harvest reduction,
20-30%...”
It seems that nothing was learned by the failures of the
past 21 years, and states still believe that they can overfish their way to the
stock’s recovery. And without the strict
rebuilding requirements of Magnuson-Stevens, nothing will prevent them from
reliving past management errors, again and again…
Now, there’s news out of the State of Florida, and it
involves the same Scott Deal and the same Theodore Roosevelt Conservation
Partnership that were behind the “Vision” report. Only now, they’re not saying positive things
about inshore angling down in the Sunshine State.
According
to the Miami New Times, Ed
Tamson, who represents the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership in
Florida, said
“It’s the tipping point.
Fishing here has gone to hell in a hand basket.”
To be fair, the problem appears to be a sharp decline in
water quality, caused by pollution-filled runoff from agricultural operations;
attempts to abate such runoff are met with fierce opposition from the
politically influential sugar industry.
And as the New Times reports,
“With little reform to water management regulations, water
quality has continued to diminish, accompanied by a decline in many fish
species. Recreational anglers have been
forced to contract their fishing grounds and pole closer to one another. With more concentrated fishing, many worry
the added pressure will only further decimate the fish population.”
Scott Deal’s boat manufacturing companies were hit hard as a
result, reportedly losing about 80% of their Florida business. Fishing guides, who don’t have Deal’s option
of selling their services outside the state, report losing up to 70% of their
customer revenues.
Florida’s fishery managers can’t be blamed for what has
proven to be an intractable political fight with the sugar industry. Even so, how can the various organizations who
want to weaken Magnuson-Stevens argue that Florida fishery managers are doing a
good job “conserve[ing] fishery resources, provid[ing] multi-year consistency
in regulations and allow[ing] for ample public access” when, by the words of
one of their own representatives, “Fishing…has gone to hell in a hand basket”?
And that leads to the biggest question of all. With the threats that angling is facing from
polluted runoff in Florida, a New
Jersey-sized hypoxic dead zone—the largest ever seen—in the Gulf of Mexico,
and another, larger-than-average
dead zone predicted in Chesapeake Bay, why do groups representing the
fishing tackle industry, boating industry and some anglers try to weaken
Magnuson-Stevens, rather than going after the real problems that hurt anglers
on a regular basis?
Magnuson-Stevens has successfully ended overfishing for most
species, and has successfully rebuilt about 40 once-overfished stocks in the
past twenty years—far more than have been rebuilt by either ASMFC or the
states. Yes, the law constrains
recreational harvest, but only to maximize fish abundance, and given that the “Vision”
report states that
“What recreational anglers want and need is wide-ranging,
dependable access to healthy and abundant fish stocks,”
the report’s authors should logically be Magnuson-Stevens’
greatest supporters.
On the other hand, pollution provides no benefit to anyone
but the polluters, and as the New Times
article shows, do the fishing and boating industries real harm. So why aren’t the industry folks, and their
fellow travelers in the anglers’ rights community, focusing their rancor—not to
mention their lobbyists, their public relations efforts and their political
clout—on polluters who degrade our waters, instead of on a good law?
When poor water quality and the resultant decline in
both fish stocks are threatening fish stocks, and the angling experience, on
multiple coasts, it just doesn’t make sense to attack a law that made fish such
as summer flounder, black sea bass and red snapper more abundant than they were
in decades.
Because pollution can destroy angling’s future, but only
good management, as provided by Magnuson-Stevens, can save it.
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