Sunday, February 18, 2018

OVERFISHING: BY ANY OTHER NAME, IT'S STILL WRONG


Overfishing isn’t good for fish stocks.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has observed that

“Overfishing transforms an originally stable, mature and efficient ecosystem into one that is immature and stressed.  This happens in various ways.  By targeting and reducing the abundance of high-value predators, fisheries deeply modify the trophic chain and the flows of biomass (and energy) across the ecosystem.”
People who hear the term “overfishing” have an instinctive understanding of what it means—taking too many fish for the health of a population—although many slightly different definitions of “overfishing” exist.  It is said to occur

or
Here in the United States, where all fishing in federal waters is governed by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, that law includes a definition of overfishing based on the health of fish stocks.  Pursuant to Magnuson-Stevens,

“The terms ‘overfishing’ and ‘overfished’ mean a rate or level of fishing mortality that jeopardizes the capacity of a fishery to produce the maximum sustainable yield on a continuing basis.”
Such fishing mortality represents the aggregate number of fish killed as a result of fishing activity, whether such activity is recreational or commercial in nature, and whether the fish killed are harvested, represent dead discards or otherwise die as a direct result of fishing efforts.

Even so, in the minds of many people—and certainly in the minds of many, and probably most, anglers, overfishing is something done by the commercial fleets.  Often, such attitudes are justified; as noted by National Geographic magazine,   

“large, profit-seeking commercial fleets were extremely aggressive, scouring the world’s oceans and developing ever more sophisticated methods and technologies for finding, extracting, and processing their target species.  Consumers soon grew accustomed to having access to a wide selection of fish species at affordable prices.
“But by 1989, when about 90 million tons (metric tons) of catch were taken from the ocean, the industry had hit its high water mark, and yields have declined or stagnated ever since.  Fisheries for the most sought-after species, like orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, and bluefin tuna have collapsed.  In 2003, a scientific report estimated that industrial fishing had reduced the number of large ocean fish to just 10 percent of their pre-industrial population.”
Perhaps because of the obvious damage done by the industrial fishing fleets, anglers have rarely admitted or willingly accepted their role in overfishing fish stocks.  That can frequently be seen in the language used by various recreational fishing organizations.  The Coastal Conservation Association, arguably the largest anglers’ rights group in the country, proudly proclaims in its origin story that

“CCA began in 1977 after drastic commercial overfishing along the Texas coast decimated redfish and speckled trout populations.  14 concerned recreational anglers created the Gulf Coast Conservation Association to combat commercial overfishing.  [emphasis added]”

"The world of modern fisheries management is a complex and oftentimes contentious environment.  Many of our favorite recreational fisheries are imperiled due to habitat degradation and commercial overfishing.  Sadly, recreational fishing interests often take a backseat to commercial fishing practices.  The reason for this is simple.  Commercial interests are much better represented on management and political levels.  Recreational fishing as an ecologically friendly and economically viable alternative to unsustainable commercial fishing is a relatively new concept.  Thus, it is vital that recreational anglers are during the fisheries management decision making process.  Fisheries managers need to be shown that recreational fishing is a growing and vibrant entity of its own that has considerably participation and economic impact globally.  This cannot be done without active participation and interaction with fisheries management.  [emphasis added]”
While its impossible to disagree with the notion that recreational fishermen should be more involved with the management process—after all, the primary purpose of this blog is to encourage salt water anglers to do just that—it’s clear from the selections quoted above that angling organizations tend to present at least one aspect of the management process in black and white terms:  Recreational fishing is always a good thing, while commercial fishing is bad.

And it’s very possible to disagree with that.


“The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s marine hatcheries produce juvenile red drum, spotted seatrout and southern flounder for stock enhancement.  Stock is the release of hatchery-reared juvenile organisms into the wild to supplement the existing population.  It serves as a tool used by TPWD to manage the marine fishery along the Texas coast to ensure that harvest levels are sustained and stocks are replenished.  [emphasis added]”
Thus, despite CCA's willingness to criticize commercial overfishing, it seems unwilling to admit that recreational anglers can overfish and cause harm to stocks, too; instead of working to reduce recreational harvest to naturally sustainable levels, it instead champions the use of artificially-reared fish in order to keep the recreational kill high.

And just as the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has adopted the more benign-sounding “stock enhancement” as a euphemism for “fish stocking,” CCA, along with other industry and anglers’ rights organizations, have developed their own euphemism for recreational overfishing. 

They call it “access.”


“would improve public access to America’s federal waters, promote conservation of our marine natural resources and spur economic growth.  [emphasis added]”
It would do that by, among other things,

“allowing alternative management for recreational fishing, …smartly rebuilding fishery stocks, [and] establishing exemptions where annual catch limits don’t fit.”
Right now, federal recreational fisheries, like commercial fisheries, are managed with annual catch limits designed to prevent overfishing, and require stocks to be rebuilt promptly, and within a time certain; the law requires fishermen to be held accountable if they overfish a given stock.

So in order to “improve…access,” the Modern Fish Act would allow “alternative management” that does not necessarily require annual catch limits, promptly (or, perhaps, ever) rebuilding fish stocks or holding recreational fishermen accountable for their overages.

In other words, it would “improve…access” by allowing anglers to overfish.

To get a good idea of how that works, it’s only necessary to look at what happened to Gulf of Mexico red snapper last summer.



“the approach will necessarily mean that the private recreational sector will substantially exceed its annual catch limit, which was designed to prevent overfishing the stock,”
and predicted that

“this approach may delay the ultimate rebuilding of the stock by as many as 6 years.”

“the increased angler catch will result in the overall catch limit for this year being exceeded by 30% and 50%,”
yet they still allowed the reopening.

So did recreational fishing organizations, including those who rail against commercial overfishing, object to the reopened season and the inevitable recreational overfishing that would result?

Hardly.

Instead, they praised the Department of Commerce’s action.


“Anglers commend the Trump Administration and Members of Congress for hearing our calls for more access to federal waters—and for taking action.  [emphasis added]”

“to improve recreational red snapper access after a record low three-day federal season was announced earlier this year.  [emphasis added]”

“the chefs are associated with the Gulf Restoration Network, which is an environmental group (there are others) intent on restricting public access to public resources (fisheries under federal management)…  [emphasis added]”
He went on to say make the statement that

“[the Coastal Conservation Association] contends that the recreational angling community is more committed to conservation of fishery resources than any proprietary group that exists in the marine world.”
Let’s think about those two claims for a minute.

The Gulf Restoration Network says that

“The health of Gulf fish are at risk because of overfishing by commercial and recreational fishermen.  The lack of scientifically based catch limits created significant problems for the Gulf.  Catch limits that were too high led to the decline of many fish populations including red snapper and goliath grouper…
“…To ensure that the Gulf supports healthy fish populations now and in the future, we support science-based management of fish.
·         GRN works with Gulf and national partners to set annual catch limits that rebuild fish stocks and prevent current and future overfishing,
·         Focus on the ecosystem as a whole, including stronger protections for fish habitat and better management and conservation of forage (or small “bait” fish) species that feed larger fish and other predators, and
·         Ensure a sustainable future for Gulf fish.”


“action to extend the Gulf of Mexico red snapper season is a welcome boon to anglers…
“…anglers are right to be encouraged by the willingness of this Administration and the snapper fishery.  This alone is a tremendous achievement.
“The recreational angling community should feel vindicated, and we should take heart that after years of being systematically sidelined by NOAA Fisheries, our efforts to encourage our elected officials in Congress to engage on this man-made management disaster are yielding results…”
So, asking the most obvious question first, who is really “more committed to fisheries conservation”:  The anglers of CCA, who cheered when the Department of Commerce allowed them to overfish red snapper in the Gulf, or the Gulf Restoration Network, which fights for annual catch limits that would prevent such overfishing?

At the risk of offending some folks that I know, I’d have to say that the Gulf Restoration Network wins that one…

But it’s probably the second question that deserves more attention.  What does CCA—and the Center for Sportfishing Policy and all of the other groups that support the Modern Fish Act and criticize current federal management efforts—mean when they say that managers are “restring public access to public resources” when they manage fish stocks?

The answer to that one can be found in the fact that they hailed the increased “access” to red snapper that resulted from last summer’s reopened season, even though it also was expected to cause them to overfish their quota by thirty to fifty percent.

Which leads to another, and most significant, question.

Had the shoe been on the other foot, and the commercial red snapper fleet overfished their quota by a similar percentage, would the angling groups have celebrated the fact that commercial and consumer “access” to the resource had increased by more than thirty percent?

Or would they have complained that the commercial sector had “overfished” by a substantial amount, and demand that the commercial fishermen be held accountable?

We’ll never know for certain, because the commercial red snapper fleet, unlike the anglers, have stayed within their quota for more than a decade.  But I think that we can all guess how the anglers would have reacted.

And that, in the end, tells us two things.

It tells us who is “more committed to the conservation of fishery resources,” because a committed conservationist holds the health of the resource paramount, and is willing to make sacrifices to assure that such health is maintained.

And it tells us that the various angling groups who talk about weakening federal fisheries laws know that overfishing is a bad thing.  So when they overfish, exceeding the annual catch limit and impeding the recovery of an overfished stock, they call it “improved access” in a clumsy effort to disguise what they’re doing. 

Perhaps it’s an effort to conceal it, most of all, from themselves, and prevent them from looking in the mirror and having to admit that they’re not the good guys anymore.

Because overfishing is bad, no matter what you call it.

And it’s not something that a “good guy” would do.



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