THE ROLE WISHFUL THINKING PLAYS IN FISHERIES MANAGEMENT

Early 2019 is going to be a momentous time for fishermen, and fisheries managers, in the Mid-Atlantic and southern New England.  Benchmark stock assessments for striped bass and summer flounder have been completed, and will be evaluated by a peer review panel later this week.  Later in the spring, the 2015 benchmark assessment for bluefish, and the 2016 benchmark assessment for black sea bass, will be updated.  The results of those updates should be released before the end of April.

The question is:  What happens then?

We’d all like to think that the results of the assessments and assessment updates will dictate the course of fisheries management, and that everyone will get behind what the science tells us is best for fish stocks.  Unfortunately, real-world experience tells us that usually does not occur.

Instead, we’ll hear a lot of talk about the science being wrong.  In the case of striped bass, which are managed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, so the provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act do not apply, we’ll probably hear more than one member of ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management arguing against accepting the conclusions in the stock assessment at all, if that assessment suggests that the stock has some problems.

Some of the folks who rail against the science will just be making noise, trying to fend off new regulations that might cut into their bottom line.  But a large percentage of those questioning the stock assessments will be absolutely sincere in their disbelief, and will be able to cite real-world observations, and probably sections of the assessments themselves, that seem to prove that they’re right.

That would be a very human thing to do.

Psychologists have long described a phenomenon called “confirmation bias,” which one source describes as

“the direct influence of desire on beliefs.”

That source goes on to explain

“When people would like a certain idea/concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true.  They are motivated by wishful thinking…

“Once we have formed a view, we embrace information that confirms that view while ignoring, or rejecting, information that casts doubt on it.  Confirmation bias suggests that we don’t perceive circumstances objectively.  We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices.  Thus, we may become prisoners of our assumptions…

“Wishful thinking is a form of self-deception…

“Self-deception can be like a drug, numbing you from harsh reality, or turning a blind eye to the tough matter for gathering evidence and thinking…

“In sum, people are prone to believe what they want to believe.  Seeking to confirm our beliefs comes naturally, while it feels strong and counterintuitive to look for evidence that contradicts our beliefs…

“The take-home lesson here is to set your hypothesis and look for instances to prove that you are wrong…”

To anyone who has spent any time at the table, taking part in fishery management discussions, such self-deception scenario is going to sound extremely familiar.  It’s hard to think of any contentious fishery management debate in which confirmation bias didn’t demand, and take, center stage.

I’ve already told the story of the ASMFC tautog meeting here in New York where, when the session was just getting underway, a local party boat captain interrupted the discussion to say

“We don’t care about your science.  Your science is bullcrap.”

Because, after all, that science contradicted everything that the captain wished to believe.  

If he had accepted the validity of the science, he would logically also have had to accept the validity of the management decision that flowed from such science:  that the tautog harvest had to be substantially reduced.  And since reduced regulations would likely result in a reduction in his own short-term earnings, it was far better to convince himself that the science was wrong than to accept it as right and live with the consequences.

There are plenty of other examples.

Any time that someone suggests that the striped bass population has been in a decline, someone else will inevitably pop up to say that there as many bass around as there ever were, but that now, they’re just farther offshore.  

It doesn’t matter that research conducted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts seems to demonstrate that bass tagged offshore will inevitably return to inshore waters, or that the seeming lack of fish finds confirmation in many elow-average spawns recorded in the Maryland young-of-the-year index, which has arguably been the most accurate predictor of striped bass abundance for decades.  A decline in the striped bass population is unthinkable, as it could lead to reduced landing limits.

Thus, if striped bass are less available inshore, the only acceptable explanation is that the bulk of the fish are offshore, where some have been caught and seen, because any other explanation would have unacceptable consequences.

The same sort of thing manifested itself last summer, at a bluefish meeting convened in New York by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.  

The meeting was only indirectly related to bluefish regulations; the main issue at hand were a possible reallocation of fish from anglers to commercial fishermen, and adjustments of the commercial bluefish quotas granted to the various states.  But anglers from Massachusetts to North Carolina have begun expressing some concern over a troubling absence of bluefish, and it was always possible that such concern could eventually lead to more restrictive bluefish quotas.

Perhaps for that reason, a group of for-hire vessel operators, at least a few of whom also sold blues on the commercial market, struck an aggressively defensive position on bluefish abundance at the hearing, arguing that there was nothing wrong with the stock, which had either 1) moved farther offshore, 2) moved north into cooler waters, or 3) was somewhere in mid-ocean between North America and Africa, because bluefish are found off Africa, too (the person making that pitch was apparently unaware of the fact that the North American and African populations are genetically isolated, and do not intermix).  There was even a suggestion that if bluefish were less abundant, such decline was due to increased regulation on the harvest of mako sharks, which were now eating too many bluefish.

They were willing to accept any of those possibilities as true.  The only possibility that those folks would not entertain was that the population was, in fact, in decline, because if they could believe that, well, they might have to believe in more regulation, too, and they were not going to accept any belief that might head them down that sort of road…

At any rate, striped bass and bluefish, as well as summer flounder and black sea bass, are a very important part of New York’s recreational fishery.  In 2017, those four fish accounted for nearly 40% of all recreationally-harvested fish in the state (nearly 50%, when landings are measured in pounds rather than individual fish), and any reduction in the permitted landings isn’t going to be readily accepted by the fishing industry.

Thus, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens when the stock assessments and updates come out.  

Bluefish, summer flounder and black sea bass are all federally-managed species, so if the science goes the “wrong” way, and calls for harvest reductions, there’s not too much that people can do.  They can yell and curse and write nasty editorials in the local fishing rags, but in the end, the law will require that fishery managers follow the best available science, whether or not fishermen—or the fishing industry—choose to believe that it’s true.

But striped bass could turn interesting for a few reasons.

First, because the species is managed by ASMFC, the conclusions in the benchmark stock assessment don’t have to be adopted for management purposes.  That very issue was debated when the last stock assessment came out in 2013.  It called for a 25% reduction in harvest, but it took ASMFC until the October 2014 meeting of its Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board to accept the assessment, and that recommendation, for management purposes, and even then there were four votes against.

So it’s pretty clear that there will be some people who will choose not to believe the conclusions contained in the stock assessment.  And if the assessment reveals that more restrictions are needed, it’s pretty clear who those people will be—the same members of the commercial and recreational fishing industries who typically choose to disbelieve objective science if it might affect their bottom line, the same people who, regardless of the species involved, elect to challenge scientific conclusions with whatever casual observations and stories  seem to support their position (while ignoring any information that tends to support the scientists’ side of things).

But if the stock assessment reveals that the bass population is in fairly good shape, some people are also likely to reject that conclusion.  

There are a lot of anglers—and I’ll admit, I’m one of them—who aren’t happy with what they’re seeing on the water right now.  They have real concern that striped bass abundance is far lower than it ought to be.  There are even some anglers who have convinced themselves that things are so bad that a imposing a 1980s-style ban on striped bass landings could be the right thing to do.

So if the assessment comes out and says that the health of the bass population is more-or-less OK, it’s likely that some of those folks will not believe it, and will replace the scientists’ determinations with their own bad experiences (but with none of their good ones), and insist that regulations be made more restrictive, despite what the assessment says.

Although such folks may be altruistic, they would also be victims of confirmation bias, who believe what they choose to believe and are unwilling to give due consideration to contrary data.

The bottom line is that the stock assessments and updates are coming, and it’s important that we all know what they say.  But it’s equally important that, whatever we want to  believe, we don’t allow our own beliefs and suppositions to take the place of real science, particularly if we have a peer-reviewed assessment, which is as close to a gold standard as real science gets.

Everyone is biased, whether we want to admit that or not.  

Some of us tend to be conservative, and would resolve any uncertainty in favor of the fish.  Some of us lean the other way, and would give fishermen the benefit of the doubt.  Whichever way each of us leans, our desires, and our experiences, give us all a prejudiced view of what we think of as truth.

The beauty of science is that, while it can't eliminate all sorts of bias, it can identify the fact that bias exists, and account for it in its final conclusions.  Conclusions based on hard data, collected in a statistically valid manner and compiled by persons with no personal interest in the final result, are a lot more reliable than impressions based on personal observations that are not carefully measured, but merely compared to our views on how things ought to be.

Thus, when a stock assessment seems to clash with our view of the world, the first thing we should do is take a step back and try to find a good reason why we, and not the assessment, are wrong.