ASMFC CONFRONTS KEY SECTOR SEPARATION ISSUES

Earlier this month, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Tautog Management Board met to consider a conservation equivalency proposal made by the State of Rhode Island, which would have allowed anglers aboard Rhode Island-based for-hire vessels to enjoy 6-fish bag limit, one fish more than the 5-fish limit applicable to every other tautog angler in the state.

In support of that proposal, the Rhode Island Party and Charter Boat Association submitted a letter to the Management Board, in which it argued that

“We have a small presence but a long history in this fishery where possession limits have gone from no limit, to 10, to 6, and now under the [Massachusetts and Rhode Island] Plan, 5 fish per person.  The lower possession limit of 5 fish has had a particularly harsh impact on fall for-hire Tautog trips in RI.  It seems we may have hit a tipping point in the minds of our clients who fish for Tautog in RI.  The fall For-Hire harvest in RI has fallen from 4648 fish in 2017 to 2281 fish during the first year of the MARI plan and again dropping to 1506 fish in 2019 (preliminary data).

“…We would like the small nuances of our state fishery to be recognized and allowed though this Conservational [sic] Equivalency (CE) proposal.  For their needs, Massachusetts decided during the MARI plan development to allow harvest during a period of spawning that RI has chosen to keep closed.  When the MARI plan was implemented, the Mass For-Hire possession limit increased from 3 to 5 fish per person, while the RI For-Hire fleet possession limit decreased from 6 to 5 fish per person.  In return RI is now asking for a 1 fish increase in possession limit for its for-hire fleet during an important fall season.  The data provided by [the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management] in the proposal suggests that catch by Rhode Island’s for-hire fleet is low overall and comparable with the Massachusetts catch during the June/July spawning closure in RI.  The increase [sic] catch from the Mass for-hire possession limit increase was not analyzed in this proposal.  The biological impacts of approving this CE proposal will be minimal and offers a way to add needed flexibility to RI for considerations of the spawning closure in place during June and July…”

On its face, that argument doesn’t sound unreasonable, but it raises a number of issues that don’t only apply to Rhode Island’s for-hire tautog fishery, but have broader application to the entire concept of sector separation.

The Tautog Management Board gave Rhode Island’s proposal due consideration, but in the end did not approve it.  An after-meeting report highlighted some of the issues that led to that rejection.

“…The proposal would create a different set of management measures not only between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but also between different fishing modes within Rhode Island on the same water bodies…In submitting the CE proposal for Board review, the Plan Review Team (PRT), Technical Committee (TC), Law Enforcement Committee (LEC), and the Advisory Panel (AP) all reviewed the proposal and provided feedback for the Board’s consideration.  The PRT found the proposal was lacking standard information required as part of submitting a CE proposal, including how the proposal aligns with the FMP objectives, as well as monitoring of prospective impacts from the proposed measures.  Additionally, given that the proposal would result in an increase in harvest, and there were no offsetting changes in size limit or season length, the PRT found the proposal was more a request to change current recreational measures than a CE proposal as it was not ‘conservation neutral.’  Members of the TC and AP both agreed with the PRT’s assessment.  Lastly, the LEC noted points previously highlighted in its January 2020 memo regarding the challenges of enforcing differing measures on shared water bodies as well as differing measures by fishing mode…”

They are all valid points.  While the Rhode Island tautog proposal, had it passed, would probably have had only a trivial impact on the state’s overall tautog landings, it still would have increased landings above those contemplated in the current management plan.  Yet, because it contained no provisions for monitoring the for-hire fleet’s landings during that time, there was no assurance that would be the case.  

In addition, because fisheries management is a zero-sum game, in which there are only so many fish that can be landed without doing harm to the stock, the fact that the proposal to increase the for-hire bag limit wasn’t matched with offsetting changes in bag limit or season, and thus wasn’t “conservation neutral,” did incrementally increase the risk to the tautog population.  

Finally, any measure which would make the job of law enforcement more difficult should be viewed with substantial skepticism.

The proposal, and the Party and Charter Boat Association’s letter, raises other questions that were not directly addressed by the ASMFC, and apply to many, if not all, of the sector separation proposals that we see on the East Coast.

For example, why should only those anglers patronizing the for-hire sector, and not all anglers, receive the benefit of a higher bag limit?

From a surf or private boat angler’s perspective, it doesn’t seem equitable for a number of reasons. 

Perhaps first and foremost, anglers on for-hire vessels are the only Rhode Island anglers, apart from those who live in neighboring states that have reciprocal angling rights with Rhode Island, who don’t have to purchase a Rhode Island salt water fishing license (the same exemption exists in many coastal states).  While party and charter boats must purchase a license, in Rhode Island, that license costs only $25 per year, although it can be quite a bit more in other states.  But except in a very few states such as New York, where anglers don’t pay for a saltwater fishing license, there is something essentially unfair about allowing the anglers who contribute little or nothing to the costs of fisheries management to take more fish home than do those who are footing the bills.

But the equity issue goes further than that. 

The Party and Charter Boat Association’s letter suggests that reducing the bag limit from 6 fish to 5 caused their customers to become dissatisfied, that it thus hurt their businesses, and that the damage to their businesses justifies restoring the bag limit to 6 fish—but only for their customers.  Other anglers, who might also be dissatisfied with the reduced bag limit, and other businesses, including marinas, tackle shops, and fuel docks, that might also be seeing reduced revenues as a result of customer dissatisfaction with the new rule, would receive no relief, and would have to learn to live with the economic consequences of the lower bag limit.  

That, too, seems difficult to justify.

It also leads to a policy question.

If we take the arguments set forth in the Association letter at face value, and assume that reducing the bag limit by a single fish would cause significantly more anglers on for-hire vessels to stop fishing for tautog, as compared to surf or private boat anglers, those arguments should compel decisionmakers to take a long look at the question of whether it is good public policy to cater to a very small group of anglers (in Rhode Island, for the years 2018-2019 cited in the Association letter, for-hire anglers accounted for about 0.75% of all fall tautog trips, and for about 0.63% of all fishing trips taken during the months September-December), who are reluctant to go fishing unless they can do so under more lenient regulations than those that apply to the overwhelming majority of anglers.

Fisheries regulations are intended to protect the overall public interest in maintaining sustainable fish stocks; given that, should any sector of the angling public be permitted to enjoy a disproportionately larger share of the benefits, while shouldering a disproportionately smaller share of the conservation burden?

In the case of Rhode Island tautog, that’s not too critical an issue.  

While anglers on Rhode Island for-hire vessels do have a significantly higher success rate than the state’s overall angling population, taking home between 2 ½ and 3 tautog, in the years 2017-2019, for each tautog landed by anglers as a whole, they still only accounted for about 1.75% of the state’s recreational tautog landings.  But when we start looking at other species, for-hire anglers can have a much more disproportionate impact.  

One example is New York’s striped bass fishery during the years 2015-2019, when for-hire anglers were responsible for only about 2% of striped bass fishing trips, but accounted for about 9.5% of the harvest; in 2015, for-hire anglers made just 4% of the trips, but were responsible for about 19.5% of all striped bass landings.

And that was under uniform regulations.  Had sector separation been in play, the for-hire share could have been substantially larger—large enough to impact the population.

And certainly large enough to impact the regulations that affect surf and private boat anglers.

That’s the other issue with sector separation that wasn’t really addressed in ASMFC’s tautog decision.  Because fisheries management is a zero-sum game, absent sector-specific quotas, a sector separation approach that liberalizes regulations for one sector necessarily means taking fish away from everyone else,

That is a particularly important point given the comments made at recent joint ASMFC/Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council hearings on proposed amendments to the bluefish and summer flounder, scup and black sea bass fishery management plans.

At those hearings, some for-hire representatives called for a separate quota, which isn't an unreasonable way to proceed, provided that the quota represents the current state of the fishery, and doesn’t reach back more than five or so years, to a time when the economic, regulatory, biological and demographic situations were probably different than they are today.  

Others didn’t like sector separation at all, with one New Jersey for-hire operator saying

“…I’ve been in the business for 40 years and I am totally against sector separation.  Our club is totally against it.  We represent a number of for-hire vessels in the state.  Most of us are against sector separation because we carry rec. people.  So we have to adhere to the rec. data…”

On the other hand, some of the calls for sector separation were both unrealistic and irresponsible.  One New York party boat owner called for giving the for-hire sector 25% of the recreational bluefish allocation, when current for-hire landings only amount to about 3.6% of the recreational harvest.  Another spokesman for the for-hire sector was quoted in the comments as saying

“Shouldn’t we be talking about different bag, size, season and possession limits implemented through a framework instead of full sector separation.  Would that be easier for the Council and Board?  Could we have a ‘sub-ACL’ instead of sector-based allocations?”

While it’s not clear what distinction that speaker was trying to make between a “sub-ACL” and “sector-based allocations,” it’s perfectly clear that what he was shooting for was giving his sector the benefits of special regulations that increased for-hire anglers’ landings, without being held accountable for staying within a sector-specific quota.  

But then, having special rights without any related responsibilities is many peoples’ dream.

The ASMFC’s report on a meeting of the Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Advisory Panel also raised some interesting points with respect to sector separation.  

One of the arguments that the for-hire fleet has often used to justify special regulations is that its catch can be easily monitored because for-hire boats must file vessel trip reports for every trip made.  But not every member of the Advisory Panel buys into that argument.  As the summary of the meeting notes,

“Feedback regarding sector separation was mixed.  One advisor said that he supports sector separation as a concept, but in practice it would not likely work well.  He stated that VTR data is inherently biased because while some vessels report accurately, others do not.  Another advisor from the commercial sector agreed that VTR data is flawed because it is in the for-hire captain’s best interests to underreport catch.  One advisor said that based on the perceived accuracy of [the Marine Recreational Information Program], he doesn’t think that sector separation makes any sense.”

Other advisors did support the sector separation concept, but once again, eschewed sector accountability, as

“The second advisor supports separate management measures for the for-hire fleet, but does not support a sub-ACL for the for-hire fleet, and doesn’t believe that approach would work.  However, he thought it important that the for-hire sector be assigned its own measures to help party and charter vessels sell trips.”

Of course, without a sector-specific quota, those "measures to help paraty and charter vessels sell trips" would increase the for-hire harvest at the expense of the majority of saltwater anglers and the businesses that they support, but the for-hires aren’t too worried about adversely impacting everyone else, so long as they get more than their share of the landings.

And that’s why the discussions taking place at the ASMFC are important.

Sector separation is a legitimate management tool, and has demonstrated its worth in the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery.  But down in the Gulf, one of the strongest arguments for sector separation is that the for-hire boats were willing to be held fully accountable for their landings, and would not be taking fish away from the private boat sector.  

On the East Coast, just the opposite is true, with the proponents of sector separation eschewing accountability, while seeking to take additional fish out of a pool that they share in common with surf and private boat anglers.

So yes, the ASMFC and Mid-Atlantic Council should seriously consider sector separation for the for-hire fleet, but not until the issues surrounding such management have been thoroughly explored and resolved and, particularly, not until a mechanism is established for not only setting a sector quota that reflects todays harvest patterns, but for holding sectors fully accountable when those sector quotas—“sub-ACLs,” if that’s what folks want to call them--are exceeded in any given year.