IS SECTOR SEPARATION APPROPRIATE IN THE MID-ATLANTIC?

As I listened in to last week’s joint meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Bluefish and Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass management boards, I noticed that a few themes repeated themselves.

One of those themes was sector separation.

Normally, all anglers fish under the same set of regulations.  But when managers adopt a "sector separation" strategy, they adopt regulations that, as you might guess, differ by recreational sector.  Most typically, that means setting regulations for the for-hire fleet that differ from those that apply to shore and private-boat fishermen, but sector separation can also take different forms, such as allowing shore-based anglers to harvest fish under different rules than those that apply to boat fishermen.

Arguably, the most effective, and also the most necessary, use of sector separation occurred in the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery, where managers ultimately decided to allocate the red snapper harvest between the commercial and recreational sectors, and then further divide the recreational allocation between the for-hire and private boat fisheries.

In that case, the need for sector separation was compelling.  

As described in the Final Amendment 40 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico, which established the sector separation structure,

“Since 2004, there has been a moratorium on the issuance of new federal reef fish for-hire permits.  This means that participation in the federal for-hire component is capped; no additional federal permits are available.  This also means that access to these vessels is limited to the recreational anglers that can fit on these permitted vessels.  On the other hand, there is no limit to the number of anglers fishing from private recreational vessels which may target reef fish species; it is an open entry fishery.  There is also no limit to the number of state-licensed for-hire vessels.  These state-licensed for-hire vessels may land federally managed species in state waters only…

“With overall angler effort increasing, the moratorium on federal for-hire permits has limited growth in the for-hire industry and, in turn, anglers’ access to vessels.  An evaluation of effort by fishing mode suggests that private recreational anglers now account for an increasing share of the red snapper-related effort in the Gulf…A part of this shift is attributable to changes in state regulations where state waters are open when federal waters are closed.  For 2014, while the season in federal waters was nine days long, Texas waters were open a total of 365 days, Louisiana for 286 days, Florida for 52 days, and Mississippi and Alabama for 21 days.  Charter vessels and headboats with a [federal] reef fish for-hire permit are not allowed to fish in state waters for red snapper when federal waters are closed.”

In that situation, for-hire vessels and the anglers who fished from them were clearly and severely disadvantaged, when compared to private boat anglers participating in the Gulf red snapper fishery.  The federally-permitted for-hire boats weren’t allowed to compete on a level playing field.  

Instead, while the number of federally-permitted vessels, and thus their likely landings, was legally capped, the private boat fleet was allowed to experience unrestricted growth.  

While the federally-permitted for-hires could only fish for red snapper when the federal waters season was open, private boats, and state-licensed for-hires, could continue to land red snapper for a much longer time—in Texas, the season never closed—and because all of the red snapper, wherever caught, were tossed in the same basket for management purposes, the expanding state waters fishery caused the federal red snapper season, along with the federally-permitted for-hire boats’ opportunities, to steadily shrink.

It was inequitable, with the states’ longer seasons creating an unfair situation for the federally permitted for-hire vessels.  The creation of sector-specific regulations was probably the only way to correct what seemed to be a clear injustice.

No similar situation currently exists in the Mid-Atlantic.  While the for-hire sector catches many fewer fish in the bluefish, black sea bass and scup fisheries—the fisheries that inspired most of the sector separation comments at last week’s joint meeting—than the combined shore and private boat sectors do, its landings are not artificially constrained in the same way that the for-hire sector’s landings were constrained in the Gulf red snapper fishery. 

The bluefish, black sea bass and scup for-hire fisheries remain open-access; while federal permits are required, the number of such permits is not restricted.  Thus, Mid-Atlantic for-hire vessels, unlike their counterparts in the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery, are free to cancel their federal bluefish, scup or black sea bass permits at any time that they choose to, in order to take advantage of more liberal state waters regulations, knowing that they will be able to renew those permits later on, when they want to resume fishing in federal waters.

Such cancellation and renewal became standard operating procedure for many for-hire vessels during the recent past, whenfederal black sea bass regulations closed the federal waters fishery for onemonth during the fall, but state fisheries remained open.  It no longer occurs, but only because the federal and state seasons are now congruent, and there is no need to game the permit process in order to continue fishing.

Gulf for-hire vessels in the red snapper fishery were severely disadvantaged by regulations that forced them to adhere to a federal season that lasted for mere days, while private boat anglers could remain in state waters (or, too often, take the chance that no one was looking and poach snapper from closed federal waters, using the state waters season as cover) and continue to participate in the red snapper fishery for weeks, months or, in Texas, for the whole year despite the federal closure.

In the Mid-Atlantic, the for-hire fleet typically fishes under the same regulations that govern private boat anglers.  In the few situations where the regulations governing the fishery differ from sector to sector, anglers fishing from for-hire vessels enjoy privileges not available to private boat fishermen, such as the for-hires’ 50-fish bag limit for scup during the so-called Northern Region (New York to Massachusetts) “bonus season,” when private boat fishermen are still restricted to 30 scup throughout the year, and last Tuesday’s decision to cut the shore and private boat bluefish limit by 80 percent, to just 3 fish, while anglers fishing from for-hire vessels will be allowed to retain 5.

Thus, the calls for sector separation in the Mid-Atlantic aren’t a call to remedy an existing regulatory inequity between the private and for-hire fleets.  Instead, they represent an effort to create an inequity between the shorebound and privateboat anglers, who account for most of the fishing trips and most of thelandings, and the minority of anglers who fish from for-hire vessels, by granting the for-hire fleet special privileges, most often in the form of higher individual bag limits.

Such privileges would be granted not to level the playing field, but to tilt it in a way that would support the business decisions made by most—but not all—members of that fleet, to market their businesses primarily to harvest-oriented anglers and to adopt a business model that is dependent on relatively liberal bag limits.

Yet, while those calling for sector separation in the Mid-Atlantic are seeking special privileges, they are not as eager to seek special, concomitant responsibilities.  

Thus, when the 5-bluefish bag limit for the for-hire fleet was discussed last Tuesday, and someone asked whether there would also be separate accountability measures imposed on the for-hire fleet in event that such limit led to an overage, the response was that any accountability measures would apply to the entire recreational sector.  There was no for-hire-specific quota established to accompany the higher, for-hire-specific bag.

Yet if the Mid-Atlantic is going to seriously consider sector separation—and I’ll admit that there are some limited instances when that might make sense, if properly done—then it must consider real sector separation, that links sector-specific regulations with sector-specific quotas and sector-specific accountability measures if those quotas are ever exceeded.

For without all of those things being in place, measures such as next year’s bluefish bag limit, or the scup “bonus season” aren’t really sector separation at all, but just special privileges, granted to a privileged few.