LOUISIANA SPECKLED TROUT: POLITICS TRUMPS SCIENCE--AGAIN

 

It seems that every level of human endeavor has its own “big lie,” an idea that, although patently untrue, is repeated ever more loudly and insistently by its proponents, who hope that if they do so long enough, people will accept the falsehood as truth.

Probably the biggest lie in fisheries management, currently being perpetuated by groups such as the Center for Sportfishing Policy and Coastal Conservation Association, is that fisheries management is more effective when carried out on the state, rather than on the federal, level.

There’s no objective support for such proposition, if by “effective” fisheries management, one means the sort of management that leads to the prompt rebuilding of overfished stocks, and maintaining such stocks at healthy and sustainable levels for the long term.  

While federal fishery managers have an excellent record of ending overfishing and rebuilding overfished stocks, with the National Marine Fisheries Service having fully rebuilt 47 once-overfished stocks since the turn of this century, state managers have a far more checkered record; some of the most important state-managed recreational fish stocks, including striped bass, southern flounder, speckled trout, and even tarpon, along with local populations of snook, tautog, and red drum, are not doing too well.

When exposed to the harsh and objective light of science, supported by equally objective data, the big lie is quickly revealed; state-managed fisheries aren’t doing too well.

But that’s only true if one believes that science-based management, which yields healthy and abundant fish stocks for all stakeholders to use and enjoy, is the right criterion by which to judge the management process.

The federal fishery management process, bolstered by the legally enforceable management standards included in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, is fairly hard to warp in a way that will favor one stakeholder group over another, or that elevates the interests of a particular group over those of the general public.  With enough work, it can still be done, but it takes a lot of time, effort, and political clout, along with enough money to buy all three, to get there.

We actually saw it done—twice—in 2017, when then Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross overrode, without even consulting federal fisheries scientists, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s finding that New Jersey was out of compliance with the ASMFC’s summer flounder management plan, and also approved an illegal extension of the private boat recreational red snapper season in the Gulf of Mexico, knowing that overfishing would certainly occur.  But even in an administration that held conservation concerns in deep contempt, and sought to monetize the nation’s natural resources, such “wins” took some work to achieve.

On the other hand, the state fisheries management process is easier to push in any desired direction.  While the fishery managers themselves are, with few exceptions, dedicated professionals who try their best to serve the public interest, they work for administrative agencies that are very much subject to the chief executive’s whims.  While the President of the United States is unlikely to get deeply involved in fisheries matters, state governors, who may be elected by fairly thin margins, are far more attuned to the politics that surround fisheries issues.

State fishery managers, far more than their federal counterparts, can find themselves in a position where they must do as the chief executive dictates—even if the best scientific information dictates otherwise.

So if one takes the position that the most effective fishery management process isn’t the one that’s driven by science, but rather by political influence, and if one prefers a system that caters to short-term economic concerns over one that works to assure the long-term health of fish stocks, then state fishery management programs begin to look very attractive.

We saw why, one more time, last week in Louisiana, when the political process again trumped scientific advice, and doomed the state’s speckled trout population to a tenuous and troubled future.

I’ve written about this topic many times before, beginning over six years ago, in September 2016.  By then, Louisiana’s speckled trout were already in significant decline, with a spawning stock biomass about half of the target level.  Yet things have only gotten worse since then, despite the fact that the fishery was, and still is, overfished by any reasonable definition of that term.

It’s not that state managers haven’t tried to address the situation.  They acknowledge that

“overfishing and other factors have caused the stock to become almost completely comprised of smaller, younger fish.  While there are still some older and larger trout out there, nearly 95 percent of today’s stock is comprised of one and two-year old fish.  While it is true that larger fish are more likely to be female (and have more eggs per individual), these smaller fish make up the vast majority of spawning stock biomass (reproduction potential).  Given this imbalance, there is concern that a major collapse could occur in the event of a poor recruitment year (e.g. major freeze).  By decreasing the current creel limit and raising the minimum size, it is hoped that more of these young fish will be allowed to spawn and help the stock recover while rebuilding the older age classes of females.”

Louisiana’s state fisheries biologists invested about two years in constructing regulations that were generally acceptable to the state’s anglers, and yet would also allow the speckled trout stock to rebuild.  They ultimately proposed reducing the bag limit from 25 trout to 15, and raising the size limit to 13 ½ inches from 12. 

Even such more restrictive regulations were more permissive than those anywhere else on the Gulf Coast.  To the east, Louisiana’s neighboring state of Mississippi has a 15 fish bag limit and 15-inch minimum size, while to the west, Texas allows anglers to keep only 5 fish per day, with the same 15-inch minimum size, although no more than one of the five fish may be more than 25 inches in length.

In October 2022, Louisiana’s Wildlife and Fisheries Commission voted to approve the proposed regulations.

The science, and science-based management measures, had done the best that it could.  Now, it was time for politics to undo what the science had wrought.

While Louisiana fisheries managers had conducted surveys which found that

“a majority [of surveyed anglers] indicated they were moderately to extremely concerned for the spotted seatrout stock,”

and generally supported the proposed regulations, the sad fact is that individual anglers don’t have much political clout; such clout is largely reserved to the organizations with the money and contacts needed to move the political system.

In Louisiana, with respect to speckled trout, that boiled down to the Louisiana Charter Boat Association and the Louisiana chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, neither of which were enamored of the proposed regulations.

Neither organization seemed to have a problem with the proposed 15-fish bag limit; given that one angler, who was present at the Wildlife and Fisheries Commission meeting when it approved the proposed rules noted that

“The average guy catches two to five fish,”

such limit probably had no practical impact on fishermen.

However, both were adamantly opposed to the increase in the minimum size. 

The charter boat association claimed that it was hard to find a speckled trout more than 12 inches long—not surprising given how badly overfished the stock had become, and with continued overfishing removing most of the fish as soon as they grew into the existing size limit—and that a 13 ½ inch minimum would be bad for business.

The impacts of a continued decline in speckled trout abundance—spawning stock biomass is already at an unprecedented low level—on the charter business apparently never entered into the association’s considerations.  They may have yet not realized how difficult it will be to run a fishing business without any fish.

Coastal Conservation Association Louisiana claimed to be worried about the impact of a higher size limit on the number of larger, more fecund female trout—the same fish that both the state biologists and the charter boat association say no longer exist in appreciable numbers—and made the remarkable statement that

“Although Louisiana anglers harvest less than 2 trout per trip on average (according to [Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries]), we see a reduction from 25 fish to 15 fish as a reasonable move, in the spirit of conservation.”

CCA Louisiana also claimed that

“Based on our experience, changes in recreational regulations have rarely, if ever, resulted in a direct fishery recovery.”

Given that the speckled trout stock is both overfished and experiencing continued overfishing, that 99% of the fishing mortality is attributable to the recreational sector, and that Patricia Banks, assistant secretary of fisheries for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has flatly stated that

“The fact is that the population cannot sustain the level of removals that is going on right now.  We are taking too many fish out of our waters,”

it seems impossible to argue that reducing recreational landings would be the fastest, best, and really the only way to reduce the level of removals and stop overfishing from occurring.

However, such logic, along with the facts that support it, are no match for political maneuvering.  And so, after the Wildlife and Fisheries Commission approved the proposed regulations, they had to make it over one more hurdle—the state legislature, a place where politics ruled.

In that arena, given the recreational organizations lobbying against their approval, the proposed regulations were doomed.

Yet there are still hopes for Louisiana’s speckled trout.

Fishery managers could try to amend their proposal, in an effort to come up with something that the politically-connected fishing groups might accept.  However, at this point, it doesn’t appear that an increased size limit will meet with their approval, and the current size limit, absent an extremely small bag, won’t do the trout any good.

Fishery managers could also ask Louisiana’s governor, John Bel Edwards, to order the adoption of the proposed rules, and so cut the legislature out of the process.  That might be a somewhat more viable approach, but there is no guarantee that politics won’t prevail over science in the governor’s office as well.

If it does—or if the proposed rule never makes it that far—Louisiana’s speckled trout will be just one more species betrayed by the state management system, and one more victim of fisheries’ Big Lie.