LOUISIANA REGULATORS STRIVE TO REBUILD INSHORE STOCKS

 

All is not well in the bayous and marshes of Louisiana.  Two of the state’s iconic saltwater fishes, red drum and speckled trout (more properly, spotted seatrout), are in serious decline.  Louisiana’s state fisheries biologists, working with the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, are trying hard to turn things around.

Unfortunately, while responsible members of the angling community are giving them solid support, they are running into strong political headwinds generated by some self-interested charter boat captains and, ironically, by some who claim to support “coastal conservation.”

Years ago, when Louisiana’s fish stocks seemed to be under stress, it was easy for the state’s anglers to point their fingers at commercial fishermen, and blame them for the declines in fish abundance.  Louisiana outlawed the commercial red drum fishery in 1988.  In 1995, at the behest of recreational fishermen led by the Louisiana chapter of the Gulf Coast Conservation Association [now known as Coastal Conservation Association Louisiana], the state banned the use of gill nets in its coastal waters.

Commercial fishermen naturally objected to such measures.  Water Log, a publication issued by the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, reported that

“Many commercial fishing groups argue that any harm to Louisiana’s marine finfish resources is coming from recreational fishermen.  They claim that recreational fishermen land four times as many speckled trout every year.  Besides, they say, the number of commercial fishermen has plummeted, while each year the state sells record numbers of sport licenses.  Manny Fernandez, a New Orleans attorney representing the commercial fishermen, said…’[t]his is not about conservation.  It’s about politics and greed.’”

The Water Log article went on to conclude, in part, that

“The gillnet question boils down to an issue of allocation.  According to Ron Lukens of the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission (GSMFC), the issue is not purely one of science.  It also involves the question of who gets the fish.  The parties in this debate have all used the facts and data to their advantage, and it is often hard to tell which arguments are credible.  Dealing with a mobile resource such as fish makes it even more difficult.  Politics and economics have played a significant role in the gillnet debate.

“Conservation should play an important role in dealing with natural resources.  Commercial fishermen should not decimate fish stocks for short term profit.  They ought to also address harm to endangered species and wasteful bycatch.  Fisheries management policies should ensure sustainable stocks.  If fish stocks are truly in danger, they need protection from all sorts of harvest, from gillnets to hook and line fishing…  [emphasis added]”

Nearly three decades ago, the Louisiana angling community declared victory after achieving a gill net ban.  But what they didn’t realize, and probably didn’t even consider, is that with red drum harvest limited to recreational fishermen, and with the gillnet ban reducing commercial speckled trout landings to a statistically insignificant level, responsibility for the health of both species now falls squarely on anglers’ shoulders. 

Recreational fishermen can no longer blame overfishing on the commercial sector.

Given the currently depressed state of Louisiana’s red drum and speckled trout stocks, that puts the state's anglers, most particularly those who advocated for “gamefish status” for red drum and for the gillnet ban, in an uncomfortable place.  

They now need to take responsibility for both stocks’ declines.

But there’s a funny thing about people, and anglers are no exception:  While they’re very willing to claim rights and privileges—say, to be the only sector allowed to harvest red drum, or forcing commercial fishermen to catch their speckled trout with what amounts to recreational gear—they are far, far less eager to accept any sort of responsibility for the health of fish stocks.

After all, it’s very easy to conserve someone else’s fish, and hold the commercial fishery responsible for conserving and rebuilding fish stocks.  But when there is no longer any commercial fishery to blame, some anglers and angling organizations can suddenly get very prickly about having restrictions placed on themselves.

The speckled trout issue was a case in point, one that I have written about it before.  The stock had been badly overfished for a few years, so Louisiana regulators began the process of changing the state’s 12-inch minimum size, as well as its astoundingly liberal 25-fish bag limit.

In doing so, the state didn’t act rashly.  Instead, it first considered the science and conducted extensive stakeholder polling, which revealed that

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

and would, for the most part, support a 15-fish bag limit and 13 ½-inch minimum size.  That was probably not unexpected, as the 15-fish bag was far more trout than Louisiana anglers were keeping on a typical trip; one angler who testified at a Wildlife and Fisheries Commission hearing noted that

“The average guy catches two to five fish”

when he goes out.

Thus, most of the harvest reductions achieved would come from the increase in the minimum size.

But two influential organizations, the Louisiana Charter Boat Association and Coastal Conservation Association Louisiana—yes, the same organization that, in the guise of the Gulf Coast Conservation Association, was so passionate about protecting speckled trout that it campaigned for the gillnet ban—railed against the size limit increase.  The charter boat association argued that, in many places, it was difficult to find speckled trout more than 12 inches long, unintentionally providing testimony confirming a badly overfished stock and the need for a larger size limit.  

CCA Louisiana, on the other hand, effectively acknowledged that the 15-fish bag limit would do little to rebuild the seatrout stock, but supported it anyway, saying

“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.”

Apparently, supporting “the spirit of conservation” was OK, but meaningful regulations that might increase seatrout abundance were not, as the organization adamantly opposed to increasing the minimum size.  CCA Louisiana was quick to trot out its favorite canard that

“Recreational anglers have always been the primary stewards of our marine resources,”

while aggressively trying to avoid any of the burdens of stewardship.  Instead, the organization made the remarkable assertion that

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

Immediately after claiming that

“we believe that recreational anglers should lead by example, in the spirit of marine stewardship,”

CCA Louisiana argued that changes in recreational regulations would not remedy the speckled trout’s problems, and came up with a list of solutions, other than regulating anglers, that the state should pursue.

In the end, most likely influenced by CCA Louisiana and its fellow travelers, committees of the Louisiana legislature vetoed the proposed regulations, allowing politics to trump science once again and forcing state fishery managers to go back to the drawing board to craft a politically viable way to effectively rebuild and manage the speckled trout stock.

Now, a new debate over red drum has begun, and could well follow the same discouraging path.

Red drum are managed a little differently from many other fisheries.  In the case of most fisheries, managers tend to establish biomass and fishing mortality reference points, which are essentially boundaries used to gauge the health of a stock.  

It's a logical approach for most situations, but red drum aren’t managed that way.  Instead, because of both their life history, which sees small fish remain in coastal waters while adults spend significant time offshore, and most angler’s aversion to the larger drum's coarse flesh, red drum are managed for “escapement,” the percentage of fish that grow past the maximum size limit and “escape” into the adult population.

Louisiana regulators try to maintain a minimum escapement rate of 30%, but the current rate is far lower, only about 20%.  Overall red drum abundance has also declined significantly over the past decade or so.  Thus, tightened regulations are in order.

Louisiana’s current rules allow an angler to retain five red drum per day, which must fall within a slot limit of 16 to 27 inches, although one larger fish may fall outside such slot.  In response to the current decline in both escapement and the spawning potential of the stock, Louisiana fisheries managers suggested a 35% reduction in landings, which would achieve that desired escapement rate but, because the spawning potential of the stock has fallen so low, would probably not restore the spawning potential of the red drum stock until 30 years after the reduction was implemented. 

When you push rebuilding out that far, so much uncertainty clouds the calculation that it becomes little more than an informed guess.

CCA Louisiana recognizes that there is a problem facing the red drum stock, writing on its website that

“redfish in Louisiana are experiencing overfishing.  The SPR (spawning potential ratio) has been declining since 2005 and is at its lowest level since the mid ‘80s.  Escapement (fish joining the spawning stock) and recruitment (juveniles entering the fishery) are also in significant decline.  Recreational harvest levels are at their lowest since the days of the gill nets.”

Yet, despite acknowledging that the red drum stock has been depleted, the organization supports only minimal changes to current management.  It is calling for nothing more than eliminating anglers’ ability to keep one over-slot drum per day. 

Such action would do nothing to address low escapement, as drum more than 27 inches long are already deemed to have “escaped” into the spawning stock.  It might make a minor contribution to increasing the SPR.  However, anglers would still be able to take home five 16- to 27-inch red drum each day.

It’s not clear whether merely eliminating the over-slot fish would have achieved the 35% reduction initially proposed by managers, or whether it was just one more effort to demonstrate “the spirit of conservation” while doing little to impact recreational landings.  After all, big redfish weren’t considered particularly good eating until New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme came up with his “blackened redfish” recipe in 1980, and sufficiently disguised the fish’s taste with an array of charred spices to make it a popular dish, so giving up a single large drum wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice for most recreational fishermen.

Still, the point of the management action was to rebuild red drum, and there were better and faster ways to do it.  By increasing the harvest reduction to 50%, the SPR could be restored to a sustainable level in just 16 years—a little more than half the time of the state’s original proposal.  Such a reduction could be achieved by narrowing the slot limit to 18 to 24 inches, eliminating the over-slot fish, reducing the angler’s bag limit to 3 and prohibiting the guide/captain/boat crew from keeping any red drum at all.

That would be a pretty big change, and maybe more than the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission thought it could achieve on its own.  But this time, unlike the case with speckled trout, the Commission and the red drum had allies, in the form of Louisiana fishing guides who had recently affiliated themselves with theAmerican Saltwater Guides Association, an organization with the mission of

“Promoting sustainable business through marine conservation.”

The association, although only a few years old, has already made its mark on East Coast fisheries management, having helped convince fishery managers to take the actions needed to rebuild striped bass.  The red drum issue marked its first foray into Gulf of Mexico issues.

Thus, when the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission met on July 6^th, there were plenty of guides in the room, who showed up to support effective red drum management.  It was the first public meeting for many, and few had ever spoken at such a meeting before.  But when their time came, they told the Commission that they didn’t want to wait nearly three decades to see the red drum stock rebuilt, and they called for meaningful management measures that could get the job done in about half that time.

Their comments made sense to the fishery managers, and in less time than expected, the Commission voted, four to two, to pursue the 50% reduction.  It was a big win for the guides and the red drum, and a big change in Louisiana’s status quo.

The Commission has since adopted a Notice of Intent to take the actions needed to achieve the 50% reduction.  The Commission has also opened a public comment period, which will run until October 5^th.  Once all comments are considered, and any appropriate changes made, the final proposal will, as was the case with the proposed speckled trout regulations, be sent to the Legislative Oversight Committee for its review.

At that point, politics could trump science once again; there is no guarantee that the proposed red drum regulations won’t founder on the same political shoals that wrecked the speckled trout rules.  The “spirit” of conservation, so loved by those who support conservation in theory, but oppose it in practice, might still overcome the real world application of effective, conservative management measures.

But this time, there is a difference.

Unlike the speckled trout, the red drum will not be on its own.  There will be an organized cadre of guides who recognize how important conservation is to their businesses and to the future of the red drum fishery.  Having spoken once on July 6^th, they will be even more willing to speak again, and to stand up against those who hold themselves out as conservationists, but somehow always end up opposing conservative management, if it might restrict the recreational kill.

It's too early to tell how it will all play out, for the “anglers’ rights” folks are deeply entrenched and well-funded; they understand why political contributions are made.

At the same time, given the passion and commitment of the guides who showed up last Thursday, they, and the red drum, may well prevail.