You remember Peter Pan. He was the boy who wouldn't grow up, and remained a child for all eternity.
And such eternal
childhood appears to have been a conscious choice.
In the original
play where he was introduced to the world by author J.M Barrie, Peter Pan
says
“I ran away the day I was born, because I heard father and
mother talking about what I was to be when I became a man. I don’t ever want to be a man. I always want to be a little boy and to have
fun.”
Essentially, Peter Pan’s escape from the real world into his
sanctuary of Neverland was an escape from the need to don the mantle of
responsibilities that come with adulthood.
Psychology
recognizes the concept of the puer aeternus—the
eternal boy. Such an individual,
among other things,
“covets independence and freedom, opposes boundaries and
limits, and tends to find any restriction intolerable.”
Recent news in the angling press suggests that Peter Pan—the
puer aeternus—is still alive, and
living in New Jersey’s recreational fishing community.
Some might say that is hardly a revelation; for years, recreational
fishery management in the Garden State has been consistently characterized by
efforts to resist limits and restrictions, and to kill the most and smallest fish possible over the longest period of
time, without concern for the long-term health of fish stocks. At the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries
Commission, New Jersey’s representatives can be depended upon to try to harvest
as many fish as possible, whether the species in question is striped
bass or summer
flounder.
This spring, the New Jersey angling community displayed its
irresponsibility when it steadfastly refused to cooperate with the other
members of ASMFC and adopt summer flounder regulations that were supported by
the rest of the states with a declared interest in the fishery. Instead, it
went out of compliance with ASMFC’s summer flounder management plan,
successfully appealing
to the Secretary of Commerce, who allowed the state to keep its non-compliant
regulations in place in a decision that seemed to be based primarily on
politics, not science.
“If you can add up [New Jersey Governor] Christie, Trump and
[Commerce Secretary] Ross and not come up with the fact that this was a
political decision, you’ve got blinders on.”
But it wasn’t just the decision to ignore ASMFC and the
advice of its biologists that evoked images of puer Peter Pan, as irresponsible as that decision might have
been. There is more to the story that is
still developing.
That’s because, when New
Jersey decided not to increase its summer flounder size limit from 18 to 19 inches,
as ASMFC required, it argued that it was offsetting the impact of its smaller
minimum size by shortening its summer flounder season from 128 to 104 days. That season
thus ended on September 5, the day after Labor Day. That leaves New Jersey anglers with little to
do, since the state’s black sea bass season closed on August 31, and won’t open
again until the 22nd of October.
Such enforced idleness shouldn’t come as a surprise to
anyone. On
May 21, well before New Jersey’s summer flounder regulations were finally determined,
The Fisherman magazine noted that
“it’s…the first time in 7 years that New Jersey has been
limited to a Memorial Day to Labor Day season.
However, when the state was forced to cut the fluke season after Labor
Day in 2010, New Jersey anglers were also allowed to fish for black sea bass in
September.”
The article made it clear that such option would not be
available this year.
Regardless of that fact, The Fisherman celebrated the Commerce Secretary’s
decision to approve New Jersey’s noncompliant regulations, announcing it in a
piece that was titled
The same article reported that
“While not every angler in New Jersey is happy with the loss
of season in September, Jim Donofrio of the Recreational Fishing Alliance said
that the decision by the Trump administration, notably Interior Secretary Ryan
Zinke and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, represents a big win for coastal
fishermen.”
Based on such reactions, one might reasonably assume that
the New Jersey angling community decided that it was worth trading a smaller summer flounder size limit for significantly reduced fishing opportunities during September, and
accepted the fact that they would be sidelined for part of the fall. That’s the sort of decision that a
responsible adult might well have made.
But to believe that, one would have to forget that New
Jersey remains the salt water angler’s Neverland, where everyone wants to have
their irresponsible fun, and no one wants to grow up and assume a mature man’s
(or woman’s) burdens.
Thus, it was probably predictable that a
more recent article in The Fisherman,
this one dated September 4, announced a meeting of New Jersey’s Marine
Fisheries Council, and suggesting that anglers should show up and demand that
the Council endorse opening a state-waters black sea bass season that would
begin immediately and run through October 21.
Opening such a season would, for the second time this year,
take New Jersey out of compliance with an ASMFC fishery management plan. However, because of the time lags involved, it
would be impossible to effectively sanction the state for such action.
And, besides, even if ASMFC did try to penalize the state for
its failure to cooperate with everyone else, the Commerce Department’s summer
flounder decision gives reason to believe that, if challenged, New Jersey would
prevail once again.
Thus, The Fisherman
wrote that
“In a press release sent out before the Labor Day weekend,
the Recreational Fishing Alliance called the period between the [sic] September
6 and October 21 a regulatory ‘dead zone,’ while encouraging anglers to attend
the Marine Fisheries Council meeting on Thursday and show support for the
Council in taking action to open a limited fall fishery for black sea bass in
state waters effective immediately.”
Apparently, the shortened fluke season wasn’t as much of a “big
win” as RFA’s Donofrio originally announced.
Now, the organization is asking the state to go out of compliance again
in order to correct a problem created when it went out of compliance in the
first place—an action that Donofrio heralded at the time.
Does that sound like fully-mature adults taking
responsibility for the consequences of the initial decision to go out of
compliance? Or like a gaggle of puer aeterni—a bunch of Peter Pans—who oppose
“boundaries and limits, and…find any restriction intolerable,” and reflexively
resist needed rules?
Such attitudes seem to have deep roots in the Garden
State, where some anglers have just created a Facebook group called the “NJFFFR New Jersey
Fishermen Fight for Fishermen’s Rights” (note the emphasis on “rights”
without any mention of concomitant “responsibilities,” as the latter are
strictly an adult’s concern).
Perusing the group’s Facebook page, I discovered a poster
who said
“I’ve been a mate on a 4 hour party boat for the past 5 years
in wildwood…Normally during the summer, I work 3 trips a day. In the short span of time I’ve worked, even I
can notice the alarming decrease in fish populations. Some days, I’d fillet less than 10 legal fish
the entire day. Some days, we would fish
for the doggies, the skates and the sea robins [all generally considered
unwanted “trash fish”] just to give the tourists something to fish for. It’s absolutely pathetic. Beach replenishment killed our fishing, yet
the government still wants to blame us, the little guys. The government going after recreational
fishermen is an absolute joke. If the
government had their way, nobody would be fishing.”
He sees, and acknowledges, a real problem with the health of
fish stocks. Yet he still denies any
obligation to be a part of the solution, blaming government and refusing to
admit that recreational fishermen have any responsibility for conserving the resource.
Peter Pan, indeed.
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