STATE-BASED FISHERY MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS AGAIN FAIL FISH, FISHERMEN

The great debate over the so-called “Modern Fish Act” ended nearly a year ago, and the arguments made by that bill’s supporters have largely faded into the past.  Even so, the law that was finally adopted byCongress was so watered-down and weakened, compared to what it’s proponentsoriginally wanted, that we can expect the same issues to crop up again as soon as an opportunity arises.

In fact, they have already returned to Congress as part of H.R. 3697, the latest iteration of the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, a perennial effort to weaken federal fisheries laws and create loopholes in the current law that could delay the rebuilding of overfished stocks, allow overfishing to continue, and dilute the science used to drive fishery management decisions.

The good news is that H.R 3697 has little or no chance of being passed, or even considered, in the current Congress, and that so long as control of the House of Representatives doesn’t shift in the 2020 elections, it’s not likely to be passed or considered (because it or something very like it will almost certainly be introduced again) in the next Congress, either.

Thus, the angling-industry groups and anglers’ rights organizations that aggressively promoted H.R. 200, last Congress’ near-identical counterpart to H.R. 3697, over the course of the past year have not been very eager to support the current bill.  Out of all of the angling groups that supported H.R. 200 last year, only the Recreational Fishing Alliance, a small New Jersey-based group that often places itself at the extreme, anti-regulatory fringe of the angling community, appears to support H.R. 3697, although the bill has found somewhat broader support among the commercial fishing industry.

Nonetheless, the industry/anglers’ rights cabal that conceived of and promoted the Modern Fish Act aren’t going to abandon their agenda.  From what I’m hearing, their representatives still speak to politicians and fishing clubs, and still try to convince their audience that anglers should be relieved of some of the regulatory responsibility for conserving and effectively managing fish stocks.  

Because current federal fisheries law does not allow anyone to escape their share of the regulatory burden, industry/anglers’ rights organizations have often advocated taking management responsibility over recreational fisheries away from the National Marine Fisheries Service, and turning it over to the states, which for the most part are not legally bound to end overfishing or rebuild depleted fish populations.

That position was spelled out in a 2014 report issued under the aegis of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, titled A Vision for Managing America’s Saltwater Recreational Fisheries, which stated, in part

“Many state natural resources agencies, especially in the South, recognize the benefits of a vibrant recreational fishing community and have managed to promote it while conserving their saltwater resources.  Striped bass, red drum, black drum, summer flounder, sheepshead, snook, spotted seatrout and tarpon are examples of successfully managed state fisheries that sufficiently meet the needs of recreational anglers while providing extensive economic benefits to their state and the national economies.”

The only problem with that statement, both when it was made and continuing on to today, is that it’s not true.  Besides one obvious misstatement—summer flounder, at least for purposes of preventing overfishing, rebuilding an overfished stock, establishing annual catch limits and holding fishermen accountable for their overages, is a federally-managed fishery—data shows that some of the listed species are not doing very well at all.

For example, the report states that

“The NMFS should manage recreational fisheries based on long-term harvest rates, not strictly on poundage-based quotas.  This strategy has been successfully used by managers in the Atlantic striped bass fishery, which is the most sought-after saltwater recreational fishery in the nation.  By managing the recreational sector based on harvest rate rather as opposed to a poundage-based quota, managers have been able to provide predictability in regulations while also sustaining a healthy population.  [emphasis added]”

Of course, as we now know, the striped bass population is not healthy at all..  It is both overfished and experiencing overfishing, and has been for quite some time, although without annual catch limits that are adjusted each year to account for changes in stock size, it took managers a number of years to recognize and address the problem.  Even after a stock assessment update warned, in 2011, that the population would be overfished by 2017 if nothing was done, they elevated consistent landings and "predictability in regulations" over the long-term health of the stock, and decided to defer needed management action.

Thus, state fishery managers, assembled as the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, actually failed to sustain a healthy population, even though they were warned well ahead of time that problems were on the way.

Now, they have to deal with the consequences of their inaction and failure; we can only hope that lessons were learned.

But striped bass weren’t the only fish named in the “Vision” report that have fallen on hard times.

Down in Louisiana, speckled trout (more properly, “spotted seatrout”) are not doing well.  The state has been aware of the problem for years, but delayed taking action until things got bad, reluctant to cut the 25-fish bag limit—yes, you’re reading that right—or raise the 12-inch minimum size.

I first wrote about the issue in 2016, by which time the spawning potential ratio of Louisiana’s speckled trout population had fallen to just 10%, a little over half the 18% level that biologists believe necessary to support a healthy stock in the long term.  A state biologist justified taking no action to build up the stock because

“The current limits, biologically speaking, are designed to maximize angler yield while not putting the stock into a condition where we may see recruitment overfishing.”

In other words, putting a lot of trout in folks’ coolers took priority over keeping a lot of trout in Louisiana’s bayous.  

That was apparently want many Louisiana anglers wanted, although others complained about the fish’s dwindling size; some guides noted that the were releasing 50 to 150 undersized fish every time that they went out, and believed that most of the fish were being removed from the population as soon as they exceeded the 12-inch size limit.

A couple of years ago, I was invited to join a panel discussion sponsored by the Rhode Island Saltwater Anglers Association; the topic was federal fisheries management, and the changes sought by supporters of the Modern Fish Act.  It happened that one of the other panelists was the Marine Fisheries Director for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.  I presented my case that the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, with its strong conservation provisions, benefitted anglers in the long run, and that the Modern Fish Act threatened those provisions, and could result in long-term harm.

Naturally, the TRCP representative took the opposite tack, as the organization was a strong supporter of the Modern Fish Act.  It also happened that the TRCP rep grew up and still lived in Louisiana, so I used the speckled trout situation as an example of flawed state fisheries management, and argued that under Magnuson-Stevens, the situation would have been remedied years ago, and might not even have arisen in the first place, since overfishing wouldn’t have been tolerated for as long as it was. 

My fellow panel member was quick to aver that there was nothing wrong with Louisiana’s speckled trout population, and argued that it was better to try to change fishermen’s “culture” than to reduce the 25-fish bag.

Now, it seems that Louisiana, at least, is taking a new look at the problem.  A recent article in The Advocate, a popular southern Louisiana news outlet, noted that

“After studying speckled trout for several months, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ marine biologists came up with several startling statistics.  To wit:

·         The stock has been overfished since 2014;

·         Overfishing has occurred in six of the past 10 years;

·         The spawning stock biomass and proportion of age-3-and-older female speckled trout in the population are at the lowest levels in the biologists’ data base;

·         Recreational landings are at the lowest levels since 1990;

·         and, fishing effort continues to increase.”

It’s hard to understand why the author of the article found most of those conclusions “startling,” given that the problem had already been identified, and reported in local papers, years ago.  

The author even wrote another article last March that foreshadowed the more recent announcement.  On the other hand, that March article did provide one big reason why the stock was allowed to fall so low, when it quoted a state fishery manager, who said

“I think everyone knows that we’re reluctant to change regulations.”

The folks who people ASMFC's Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board voiced a similar reluctance to "overmanage" the stock in 2011, when there was still a chance to halt its decline short of the overfishing threshold.

For when all is said and done, changing fisheries regulations is always a difficult thing for state managers to do, at least when the regulations are being made more restrictive.  Some elements of the fishing community will always be opposed to any reductions in harvest, with industry folks claiming that they’ll lose too much business, and some anglers complaining that their “right” to fish is being infringed.

When that happens, fishery management becomes more a political process than a scientific one.  Needed changes supported by the professional fishery managers are often abandoned when politicians intervene; no matter how badly such measures are needed, managers know that they will end up in a bitter fight, not only with elements of the public, but often with higher-ups in their own department and in the governor’s office, before such rules are adopted.

Faced with that reality, state managers are often loath to propose harvest restrictions, and delay far too long, to the detriment of fish stocks, before putting them in place.

That doesn’t happen under the federal system.  There, the law requires that managers end overfishing, and compels them to promptly rebuild overfished stocks, thus relieving managers of both the option of doing nothing and the political exposure that would otherwise result if they made a politically unpopular, but biologically necessary, decision.

That, in the end, is one of the foremost strengths of Magnuson-Stevens, and one of the biggest weaknesses of the ASMFC and state management systems, where bad politics can, and often does, trump good science.