It doesn’t really matter where you happen to be. As soon as a stock assessment is released,
that finds a particular stock to be overfished, fishermen will flock to the
follow-on hearings, and offer varied and often creative theories to explain why
the science is wrong, and fish stocks are as abundant as they ever were.
This week, some southern flounder news caught
my eye.
Southern flounder support important commercial and
recreational fisheries along the south Atlantic coast, but in recent years, the
regulation of those fisheries hasn’t been able to constrain landings to
sustainable levels. As a result, the
southern flounder stock suffered a precipitous decline.
“The fishing mortality reference points and the values of F
that are compared to them represent numbers-weighted values for ages 2 to
4. The ASAP model estimated a value of
0.35 for F35% (fishing mortality target) and a value of 0.53
for F25% (fishing mortality threshold). The estimate of F in 2017 is 0.91,
which is above the threshold (F25%=0.53) and suggests
overfishing is currently occurring. The
probability the 2017 fishing mortality is above the threshold value of 0.53 is 96%.
“The stock size threshold and target (SSB25% and SSB35%,
respectively) were estimated using a projection-based approach implemented in the
AgePro software. The estimate of SSB35% (target)
was 5,452 [metric tons] and the estimate of SSB25% (threshold) was 3,900
mt. The ASAP model of SSB in 2017 was
1,031 mt, which is below the threshold and suggests the stock is currently overfished. The probability that the 2017 estimate of SSB
is below the threshold value of 3,900 mt is 100%.”
Thus, the stock assessment demonstrated that the summer
flounder stock was badly overfished and experiencing severe overfishing.
North
Carolina is planning to take meaningful action to end overfishing and rebuild
the summer flounder stock. In order to
do that, 2019 landings had to be reduced by 52 percent, and landings in 2020
will have to be cut further, to achieve a 72 percent reduction. North Carolina shut down the 2019 fishery on
September 4, although it reopened
the commercial season for a short period later during the fall, with the length
of that season differing from region to region. The commercial and
recreational seasons will also reopen in 2020, although the lengths of such
seasons are not yet known.
Predictably, people who profit from the summer flounder
fishery aren’t happy with the current and pending southern flounder regulations. They’re challenging the conclusions of the
stock assessment, and questioning the validity of the data that led to those
conclusions. And predictably, they have
no valid, countervailing data on which to base such challenges. Instead, they’re falling back on the same sort
of claims and arguments that one always hears, every time a stock is declared
overfished or more restrictive regulations are proposed.
“I’ve been fishing for 50 years, so I should know a little
bit about it. The [flounder fishing this
year] was the best I’ve seen,”
thus suggesting that the assessment was wrong and that no further
restrictions were needed. Such claim is
reminiscent of the
sort of thing heard up in New England, after a stock assessment revealed that
cod stocks had crashed, perhaps as low as to just 4 percent of the target
biomass, but fishermen still tried to convince managers that
“Cod are everywhere, we can’t avoid them.”
Because if fishermen actually admitted that fish were having
a problem, that would justify managers’ efforts to fix things.
And that would mean new regulations.
Another fishermen made the argument that the North
Carolina stock assessment was probably wrong, for the simple reason that
fishermen weren’t willing to believe that the southern flounder stock was
facing a problem. He said
“It really feels like there is a fact gap here…how could
everyone [here] be so wrong? It’s
difficult to measure a shifting [flounder population] with environmental factors,
hurricanes, [etc.] Don’t disregard
hundreds of years of fishing experience that says the data doesn’t sound right.
“Have you been persuaded after listening [to the people here]
to keep an open mind to the question of ‘Could the conclusion that we’ve been
overfished be overestimated or incorrect?’”
To him, peer-reviewed data was far less reliable than
fishermen’s opinions.
That’s not a rare sentiment.
Other fishermen are willing to admit that fish have become a
little scarce, but aren’t willing to admit that fishing is a part of the
problem. In the North Carolina southern
flounder debate, that took the form of blaming weather events, such as
hurricanes, impacting environmental conditions along the coast, and leading to
problems caused by storm-related debris or pollution runoff from pig farms. Others argued that North Carolina’s problems
were caused, in part, by fishing in other states’ waters, and couldn’t be fixed
by North Carolina alone.
Once again, the
suggestion was that North Carolina shouldn’t further restrict fishermen’s
landings
Again, such views are echoed in other fisheries management
debates.
A
recent operational stock assessment found that bluefish has become overfished. Yet down in
New Jersey, a party boat captain casually rejected that finding, saying
“I don’t think they’re really overfished. Up until [Hurricane] Sandy they used to stay
in the area of the Mud Buoy. After
Sandy, they’ve been coming in and leaving.”
The captain was convinced that the population was still
healthy and that the fish were just moving around, “coming in and leaving;” the
possibility that the fish were no longer reliably available on traditional
fishing grounds, because fish numbers were down, apparently never entered his
mind.
Because, once again, if the fish were really overfished,
managers would be justified in doing something about it.
There is also the ages old notion that bluefish, more than
any other fish, are subject to some wort of mysterious “cycle” in which they
suddenly disappear, for no clear reason, before returning to abundance, with no
need for management intervention, at some point years in the future.
“Just as a historical point of view, bluefish has gone in
cycles. I remember my father telling me,
he started in the bluefish fishery in 1955 and it was robust, and then 1959 and
all of a sudden there were none. It went
for a 3-4-year period with none. You
would have a small fishery in the fall and the same in the spring. Suddenly, in the beginning of the 1960s it
changed, the only time you caught any fish is when you were in deep-water and
offshore, and when they were plentiful in shore [sic] they were never seen
offshore. The bluefish do not stay in a
certain place any given time. You can go
by past performance to predict future performance, but it is very difficult to
do. Taking this into consideration, I
think everything should remain status quo.
This is not an emergency, and historically it shows that this is not an
emergency fishery. You have ebbs and
flows and that is how the fishery goes.”
S. Kip Farrington, in his classic book Atlantic Game
Fishing, argued that the bluefish population waxed and waned in an eleven-
to thirteen-year cycle; at
a recent meeting called by the
New York Department of Environmental Conservation to discuss commercial quotas,
a number of fishermen maintained that bluefish populations fluctuate on a
shorter, 10-year cycle.
However, such regularly-occurring patterns are recognized in
neither the latest
benchmark stock assessment
nor in the operational assessment released in 2019.
Instead, the operational assessment, which incorporates the
most recent data, shows that the bluefish population has been suffering from
overfishing since at least 1985, and that, probably in response to such unsustainable
levels of fishing mortality, the population quickly declined from relatively
high levels in the mid-1980s, and since then has fluctuated just above and
below the threshold that defines an overfished stock.
The stock first became overfished in 1989, then
apparently benefitted from Amendment
1 to the rebuilding plan, which cut harvest, combined with improved
recruitment in the early 2000s to rise just above the threshold, and became
overfished again in 2014 after s a long-period of below-average recruitment began.
The biomass data shows no wide swings of abundance and
scarcity that suggest that the much-referenced “cycle” is real, although bluefish
abundance, like the abundance of most animals, demonstrated variations in
year-to-year numbers.
Yet many fishermen still insist that “the cycle,” rather than
overfishing, is the cause of low bluefish abundance.
Fishermen are also very fond of arguing that bluefish, along
with other species, are still perfectly abundant, but just went somewhere
else. That’s suggested in the party boat
captain’s comments quoted earlier, which assume that the bluefish that used to
be abundant in the Mud Buoy area are not “coming in and leaving,” although he
seems at a loss to identify the places where the bluefish are coming from or
leaving to.
It also emerges as a popular theme in the 2018 meeting
comments.
Another representative of the New York party boat fleet
first admits that
“We do not have bluefish in New York and New Jersey anymore
the way we used to. Warmer waters and changing
habitat have altered prey availability and thus, bluefish abundance. After traveling 35 miles of ocean at night,
we at times, do not see any bluefish.
This is unheard of in relation to past years.”
Although his comments about prey availability fail to
explain why the vast
menhaden schools in New York Bight, which are large enough to support
substantial numbers of humpback whales during the spring, summer and fall,
are not adequate to support bluefish, he does at least admit that the bluefish
are not there. But then, he argues that
“The for-hire fishermen…should not have the quota taken away because
there are no fish in the ocean. It is
not true; the bluefish are no longer here.
Migratory patterns have changed, and bluefish are now further offshore
being caught in 700 feet of water.”
Another fisherman, who may have also been associated with
the for-hire industry, made a similar argument, saying
“Assessments need to be reevaluated because we are now
finding bluefish way offshore. They are
being caught on tilefish trips in 900 feet of water.”
At a subsequent meeting, a New Jersey gillnetter agreed that
the bluefish were offshore, but disagreed about the abundance of prey in
inshore waters, with a summary of his comments noting
“Something inshore is happening that shifts bluefish all
offshore. Beach replenishment is an
issue that could be moving the fish offshore.
He also noted that prey are booming recently but there are no predators…”
Other people also made comments suggesting the bluefish were
really offshore, and not overfished, and even the operational assessment suggested
that “anecdotal evidence”—that is, fishermen’s reports—suggested that abundance
had shifted at certain times.
And there
is no doubt that bluefish are really out there.
I remember fishermen trolling for tuna in Hudson Canyon—more than 70
miles offshore—and catching bluefish that far offshoree as long ago as the mid-1980s, and I’ve
caught plenty of bluefish trolling for tuna and chumming for sharks more than
40 miles off the beach.
The last benchmark stock assessment clearly states that
“Bluefish, Pomatomus saltatrix, is a coastal, pelagic
species found in temperate and tropical marine waters throughout the world an inhabits
both inshore and offshore waters along the east coast of the United
States. [emphasis added]”
So the comments that bluefish are offshore are hardly new or
surprising. But they run into trouble when they
suggest that finding bluefish offshore is something driven by recently changing conditions,
or suggest that the stock is healthy because the stock has recently shifted offshore.
A few--but not all--of the bluefish have always been there.
But then, a few striped bass have always wandered offshore on
occasion, too, but
that didn’t stop Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) from criticizing the latest benchmark
striped bass stock assessment, claiming that
“New York area fishermen faced a major blow this season due
to ASMFC’s decision to cut the Atlantic Striped Bass fishery by up to 17% next
year and recommend maintaining the current ban on striped bass fishing in the
Block Island Sound Transit Zone. Rather
than rooting these decisions in local stock assessments, ASMFC uses
flawed data that measures the Atlantic Striped Bass stock based on the entire
eastern seaboard. However, it
fails to account for Atlantic Striped Bass outside of the 3-mile fishing area,
assuming fish abide by arbitrary bureaucratic boundaries. Alternative data that shows the Striped
Bass stock is in a better place outside the 3-mile limit was not only thrown
out by the Commission, but the Commission also moved to no longer perform data
collection in those waters, virtually ensuring that any future decision
regarding the Striped Bass Fishery will be based on flawed data in perpetuity. [emphasis added]”
Again, the findings of the benchmark stock assessment, that
the striped bass was both overfished and experiencing overfishing, was
challenged on the basis of “flawed data” and the bass being somewhere in the vast
waters offshore, with only “alternative data”—a term that pretty well translates
into made up, imaginary or statistically-invalid data—telling the supposed
truth that the stock was, in fact, OK.
It's all just part of a venerable pattern.
As is the final leg of the “they’re not overfished” platform.
Along with “the data is bad,” “it’s the cycle,”
and “they’re just somewhere else,” you can depend on someone arguing that “it’s
not the fishermen that caused the stock to decline; something else is eating them.”
In the case of bluefish, that “something else” is apparently
mako sharks. In the course of the 2018
bluefish meetings, a Massachusetts charter boat captain tried to convince
fishery managers that
“Abundances of (mako) sharks have a significant impact on
bluefish populations. This is very
important to take into account when looking at ecosystem-based management.”
while a New York party boat operator gave a more colorful
account, including a photo, of an alleged
“650 lb mako shark, this shark at the time had 9 bluefish
between 10-15 lbs in its stomach, and not a tooth mark in the bluefish. And this would happen every night. The blues would come in first, and then the
sharks would come in after that and then everything would clear out. Now since we’ve pretty much ended
recreational mako shark fishing by making the limit larger than most sharks that
are in near shore waters we have unleashed this species of shark that goes
across the ocean, same as the bluefish.
They follow bluefish across the ocean and harvest them, daily.”
While makos do like to eat bluefish, the
mako population is in far worse shape that the bluefish population is, both
overfished and experiencing overfishing, and even with the most conservative
management measures—which have not yet been imposed—unlikely to recover for at
least 50 years.
So blaming the mako
for the bluefish’s decline just isn’t credible.
But it’s not about credibility; it’s about finding a way to
deny that a species is overfished. Thus,
a
Cape Cod fisherman is more than willing to blame seals for the decline of
winter flounder, American eels and striped bass, and say that
“If we didn’t have any seals these fish would return,”
even though, looking at the problems besetting those
species, it’s clear that isn’t true.
In the same way, fishermen
blame cormorants for the lack of winter flounder, and blame
gray seals off Cape Cod for depressed herring and cod populations.
Because it’s always easier to blame a shark, or a bird, or a
seal, or to claim that the data is bad, the fish are offshore, or there’s some sort
of immutable cycle, than it is to accept the truth that a stock’s overfished.
Because once you admit that a stock is overfished, you then
need to do something about it.
And that’s when the hard work begins.
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