MODERNIZING RECREATIONAL FISHERIES MANAGEMENT: NOT WHAT YOU MIGHT THINK

For the past year and a half, anglers have been bombarded with press releases from various industry and anglers’ rights groups, urging them to support two bills, H.R. 2023 and S. 1520, which are both formally titled the “Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act,” but are better known as the “Modern Fish Act.”

A third bill, H.R. 200, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, has also been referred to as a “Modern Fish Act” bill, but such claims are deceptive; although H.R. 200 and the Modern Fish Act legislation share a few common provisions, H.R. 200 is a much more comprehensive, and potentially much more harmful, piece of legislation.

The Modern Fish Act bills, as originally filed, differed in some details, but had similar goals. Both sought to change the current recreational and commercial harvest allocations. Both sought to create exceptions to the annual catch limit requirements and to the deadlines for rebuilding overfished stocks. Both sought to significantly impair fishery managers’ ability to create catch share programs that might effectively end overfishing.

And neither one sought to change the primary tools that managers use to control recreational harvest, bag limits size limits and seasons.

It’s difficult to understand how such legislation would be “modernizing recreational fishery management,” as they are deeply rooted in timeworn management policies and approaches. That’s too bad, because a recently released paper suggests that recreational fishery management could use some modernization.

The paper, titled “Status-quo management of marine recreational fisheries undermines angler welfare,” (Paper) appeared in the respected Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Its authors note that “Recreational fisheries have experienced little of the policy transformation seen in many commercial fisheries. Most operate under regimes of nominal license fees and season, size and retention constraints…As a result, they have done little to contain fishing mortality in popular sport fisheries. Instead, many recreational fisheries are caught in a spiral of shorter seasons and increasingly tight regulation…”

Such language actually echoes that of Modern Fish Act supporters. The American Sportfishing Association, which represents the fishing tackle industry, has justified its support for the Modern Fish Act by saying that “The current federal laws have never properly addressed the importance of recreational fishing. This has led to shortened or even cancelled seasons, reduced bag limits, and unnecessary regulations…”

But while the Paper’s authors and the Modern Fish Act supporters might agree on some of the problems that confront recreational anglers, they disagree on such problems’ solution. The Modern Fish Act would not introduce any new approaches to recreational fishery management. Instead, it strives to increase recreational landings by reallocating commercial quota to the recreational sector, eliminating some or all recreational catch limits, and delaying the recovery of overfished stocks.

Under such circumstances, as the Paper notes, “anglers secure their rights at the expense of future generations.”

The Paper, on the other hand, suggests a truly new approach to managing recreational fisheries. It concludes that a management approach that has already proven effective in the commercial fishery, the adoption of “rights-based management,” more commonly known as “catch shares,” would better maintain the long-term health of fish stocks while also maximizing the economic value of the recreational fishery.

Requiring anglers to fish under such a catch share system would completely change the management paradigm. It would certainly qualify as “modernizing recreational fisheries management.” Even so, such a cutting-edge management approach would be very tightly constrained, and perhaps completely frustrated by the so-called “Modern Fish Act.”

On the other hand, new ideas aren’t always good ones. Should recreational fisheries be managed with catch shares?

To answer that question, it’s probably best to go back and look at the fishery that gave birth to the Paper, the for-hire red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico.

By 2014, that fishery faced a unique, and very threatening, situation. The recreational sector had chronically overfished its annual allocation, which led to increasingly restrictive federal regulations. The five Gulf States failed to conform their red snapper regulations to the federal standard, but instead instituted longer seasons that allowed private boat anglers to fish in state waters when the federal waters were closed.

For-hire vessels holding federal reef fish permits did not have that option. Instead, they had to comply with federal regulations even when fishing within state waters. Thus, when liberal state regulations led to continued recreational overfishing, which led, in turn, to shorter federal seasons, the for-hire boats, as well as their customers, found themselves in a bind.

Eventually, they convinced the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council to split the recreational sector into private boat and for-hire components, and establish separate catch limits and regulations for each, in order to maintain a viable for-hire fishery.

Some for-hire vessels went even farther. A group of 17 vessels, that called itself the Gulf Headboat Collaborative (Collaborative), obtained an exempted fishing permit (EFP) from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), that allowed members of the Collaborative to catch red snapper and gag grouper whenever their customers chose to pursue such species, without regard to federal fishing seasons. Federal size and bag limits would still apply.

Pursuant to the EFP, the Collaborative was allocated an annual harvest of 148,089 pounds of red snapper and 42,114 pounds of gag grouper, which it allocated among its member vessels. When any vessel caught its share of the quota for either species, it could not harvest any more such fish unless it acquired more quota from the Collaborative or from another vessel. Each member vessel was also required to install vessel monitoring systems, notify NMFS before going fishing, and call in to NMFS at least one hour before returning to the dock, so that NMFS could inspect its catch if it so chose.

The EFP remained in force for the 2014 and 2015 seasons. Once it expired, the Paper’s authors began their research on the economic value of catch share programs in recreational fisheries. They found that such programs would increase the value of recreational fisheries by approximately $139 per angler, at least in the case of Gulf of Mexico red snapper and gag grouper. They admitted that such estimate is “undoubtedly crude,” but nevertheless maintained that “our analysis shows that the status-quo policies used in most recreational fisheries may fall well short of maximizing the net [economic] benefit of anglers.”

And in the case of the fisheries examined, that is probably true. It is not clear that similar benefits would accrue in other fisheries.

The fisheries discussed in the Paper are tightly regulated; thus, the ability to catch red snapper or gag grouper outside of the current, short fishing season has a very real value that doesn’t exist in fisheries that enjoy much longer seasons or, in some cases, no closed season at all. Recreational catch share systems would probably only add value in fisheries where the annual catch limit is too small to satisfy angler demand.

There is also the question of whether a catch share system would have to be limited to for-hire boats. The Paper’s authors admit that “extending these approaches beyond the for-hire sector to encompass anglers fishing from their own vessels faces significant practical and political challenges.”

However, private-boat fisheries for very highly regulated species could benefit from a catch share system, too. It is not hard to imagine such a system being adopted for red snapper in the South Atlantic, where the 2018 federal fishing season lasted for only six days in August, with tags issued in an automated lottery at the time anglers purchase their fishing licenses.

Clearly, catch share programs aren’t appropriate for every recreational fishery.

Still, they remain a valuable tool that belongs in the tool box of any truly modern recreational fishery manager.

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This essay first appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which can be found at http://conservefish.org/blog/

FISHERIES: AS WE HIT THE WALL

In 1882, famed biologist Thomas Henry Huxley presented the opening address at the London Fisheries Exhibition.  In that address, he said, in part,

“[My previous] remarks must suffice to indicate the wide field of interesting research which fisheries offer to the philosophical historian, and I pass on to speak of the fisheries from the point of view of our present practical interests.

“The supply of food is, in the long run, the chief of these interests.  Every nation has its anxiety on this score, but the question presses most heavily on those who, like ourselves, are constantly and rapidly adding to the population of a limited area, and who require more food than that area can possible supply.  Unlike these circumstances, it is satisfactory to reflect that the sea which shuts us in, at the same time opens up its supplies of food of almost unlimited extent.

“The produce of the sea around our coasts bears a far higher proportion to that of the land than is generally imagined.  The most frequented fishing grounds are much more prolific of food than the same extent of the richest land.  Once in a year, an acre of good land carefully tilled produces a ton of corn, or two or three hundredweight of meat or cheese.  The same area at the bottom of the sea in the best fishing grounds yields a greater weight of food to the persevering fishermen every week of the year.  Five vessels belonging to the same source in a single night’s fishing brought in 17 tons weight of fish—an amount of wholesome food equal in weight to that of 50 cattle or 500 sheep.  The ground which these vessels covered during the night’s fishing could not have exceeded an area of 50 acres…

“Are fisheries exhaustible?  That is to say, can all the fish which naturally inhabit a given area be extirpated by the agency of man?

“I do not think that this question can be answered categorically.  There are fisheries and fisheries.

“I have no doubt whatever that some fisheries may be exhausted.  Take the case of a salmon river, for example.  It takes no argument to convince anyone who is familiar with the facts of the case that it is possible to net the main stream, in such a manner, as to catch every salmon that tries to go up and every smolt that tries to go down.  Not only is this true, but daily experience in this country unfortunately proves that pollution may be poured into the upper waters of a salmon river of such a character and in such quantity as to destroy every fish in it…

“And now arises the question, Does the same reasoning apply to the sea fisheries?  Are there any sea fisheries which are exhaustible, and, if so, are the circumstances of the case such that they can be efficiently protected?  I believe that it may be affirmed with confidence that, in relation to our present modes of fishing, a number of the most important sea fisheries, such as the cod fishery, the herring fishery, and the mackerel fishery, are inexhaustible.  And I base this conviction on two grounds, first, that the multitude of these fishes is so inconceivably great that the number we catch is relatively insignificant, and secondly, that the magnitude of the destructive agencies at work upon them is so prodigious, that the destruction effected by the fisherman cannot sensibly increase the death-rate…  [emphasis added]”

The image of the “inexhaustible” ocean has stuck in the public psyche for a very long time. 

In the mid-1960s, when I was an 11- or 12-year-old Boy Scout working toward my Oceanography merit badge, one of the requirements was to provide five uses for the oceans and its resources.  Food production was among the forefront of those, with the notion of a nearly inexhaustible ocean still very much a part of the curriculum (it’s nice to see that the old direction to provide five uses for the ocean has since been replaced with “five reasons why it is important for people to learn about the oceans,” which hopefully tempers the former purely utilitarian approach with a bit of knowledge and wisdom).

And just two years ago, when supporters of the so-called “Modern Fish Act” met to urge Congress to support such bill, one speaker, Nick Cicero, a top employee of the fishing tackle companies Bimini Bay Outfitters and Folsom Companies, said

“These amendments need to not only support the existing population of recreational anglers and fishing related businesses also allow for new entrants to come into the fishery and businesses to grow and expand…

“The law needs to recognize the fact that in its current form, our tradition of fishing cannot be passed onto [sic] our children without [the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act] taking away opportunity from the rest of the fishing community.  [Magnuson-Stevens], as it applies to the recreational fishing, is a flawed law, one that stifles growth of our industry and challenges the very future of our tradition.”

Such statement implicitly embraces the notion of an inexhaustible ocean, with its promotion of policies that would increase harvest levels in order to supposedly benefit fishermen and fishing-related businesses, rather than the current law, Magnuson-Stevens, which constrains landings to levels likely to assure the continued health of fish stocks.

The problem is that events which have occurred since Huxley made his London address prove, beyond doubt, that he was wrong.  The three fish stocks that he deemed “inexhaustible,” Atlantic cod, Atlantic herring, and Atlantic mackerel are, as you read this, all overfished.  (It should be noted that Huxley was talking about European fish stocks, but the three species that he mentioned are also found off the United States coast where, in the early 1880s, stocks were arguably healthier than were their European counterparts.)

The decline in American fish stocks led Congress to pass the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996, which favored conservation and the long-term health of fish populations over the short-term economic benefits that overfishing can bring.  Since then, “sustainability” has been federal fishery managers’ watchword.

However, in more recent years, some scientists are beginning to question whether the idea of truly sustainable food fisheries is realistic.

Five years ago, James Smith, a research fellow at Australia’s University of New South Wales, published an article in which he asserted that

“Seafood sustainability is not a sustainable reality.”

Smith argued that

“we must acknowledge that our demand for wild-caught seafood outstripped the ocean’s sustainable supply decades ago.  If we rehabilitate the oceans, to the tune of $200 billion dollars [sic], we could potentially increase our current harvest a little and keep it there sustainably.  Even so, we would need more.

“This brings us to the crucial point:  there is no such thing as a sustainable type of seafood, only a sustainable harvest rate.  If we are to demand truly sustainable fisheries, and we admit that harvests cannot continue to grow, then we conclude that what must change is our consumption.  As long as humans demand ready access to seafood whenever they want it, there will be pressure to exceed those rates…

“Ultimately, we should not demand sustainable seafood—we should demand sustainable consumption.”

Although Smith’s comments were aimed primarily at commercial fisheries, they are just as applicable to the recreational sector—Nick Cicero’s statement, quoted above, notwithstanding.

Now, Dr. Sylvia Earle, a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence, former chief scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and one of the most respected marine biologists in the nation, is taking that sentiment one step farther.  Speaking before the Good Food Institute Conference last Thursday, a setting not too different from the London Fisheries Exhibition where Thomas Huxley spoke more than 135 years ago, Dr. Earle noted that

“’We think of fish as free.  Free goods for us to extract.  We’re not thinking about what we take out of the system…

“We should be looking at fish as something that makes the ocean functional, that makes our lives possible…

“If you consider the cost of the food chain, [fish is] really a pretty expensive choice.”

According to the food industry website Food Dive, Dr. Earle argues that it’s time to cut back on the amount of seafood landed, because

“She advocated for less commercial fishing and more work on determining plant-based or possibly lab-grown substitutes for seafood,’

because

“Fishing as it is known today will end by the end of the century because the supply will not be there.”

One of the points she made is that there just isn’t enough seafood available to feed everyone, particularly those who reside in inland communities where seafood is not a historical part of people’s diet.  As Food Dive reported,

“while fish have been a necessary part of coastal peoples’ diets for generations, they are not needed in the places and at the scale that the commercial fishing industry currently serves.  People in a place like Chicago, for example, do not need to subsist on tuna.  For those who have not relied on seafood for generations, eating seafood is a choice.”

That’s certainly true. 

Again, relying on my early memories, I recall an uncle who lived in Lorain, Ohio (just outside of Cleveland) back in the ‘60s, who talked about an ambitious young businessman who, every week, drove out to the coast to pick up a vanload of lobster, then made the 12-hour trek back to Ohio.  Once back in the heartland, he set up his van at the side of the road and quickly sold all of his lobster, which were a novelty in the Cleveland area, for a very good profit.

Today, he would quickly go broke.  Thanks to advances in storage and transportation technology, consumers across the country expect and can access a wide variety of seafood, sourced from all over the world, in their local markets, even if they live a thousand miles from the ocean.

But that just can’t go on, particularly as the human population continues to expand.

As both the Smith essay and Dr. Earle’s comments suggest, we’re already up against the wall.  We can no longer expand landings in order to satisfy consumer demand, whether those consumers are shoppers in their local markets, restaurant patrons, or recreational fishermen trying to catch their own meals. 

Demand needs to be carved back to meet supply.

And that’s going to happen.

It’s going to happen if fishery managers try to make reductions gently, cutting back harvest to sustainable rates that supply sustainable levels of consumption.

It’s going to happen if commercial and recreational fishermen, refusing to accept sustainable harvest, don’t set a prudent stopping point, but instead try to drive right through the wall, and send everything crashing down.

Which woul crush our fisheries, and fishermen, along the way.

NEEDED: A BETTER WAY TO MANAGE RED SNAPPER ANGLERS IN THE SOUTH ATLANTIC

The 2018 recreational red snapper fishery in the South Atlantic is over.  From some reports, things didn’t go too well.

The South Atlantic red snapper population had been badly overfished, but the National Marine Fisheries Service recently determined that it could permit a limited amount of recreational and commercial fishing without leading to overfishing, or a delay in rebuilding the stock.  On the recreational side, it determined that it could allow fishing over three extended weekends in August—August 10-12, and August 17-19.

A lot of people wanted to fish, and what resulted was a classic “derby” fishing event that, from reports, created a situation that was less than ideal for the private-boat fleet, for for-hire vessels or for the red snapper themselves.

In announcing the season, NMFS noted that

“The latest population assessment (SEDAR 41) was completed in 2016 and revised in 2017.  It indicated the South Atlantic red snapper population is overfished and undergoing overfishing; however the population is rebuilding.” 

However, NMFS also noted that

“Recent studies show red snapper abundance has increased in the South Atlantic since 2014, and was highest in 2017…The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission study also shows a greater number of large red snapper and a broader range of ages in recent years suggesting the red snapper population is rebuilding despite the limited harvest allowed in 2012, 2013, and 2014,”

and that

“The harvest prohibitions on red snapper since 2010 have resulted in adverse socio-economic effects to fishermen and fishing communities such as loss of additional revenue and recreational opportunities, as well as indirect benefits to businesses that provide supplies for fishing trips.”

NMFS opined that

“The red snapper overfishing determination in the assessment came from 2012-2014 when only a small amount of harvest was allowed to occur.  However, discards during this time period were high due to fishermen targeting other species that co-occur with red snapper, which likely contributed to the overfishing determination.”

Based in part on those findings, NMFS established a 29,656 fish catch limit for the recreational fishery. 

In setting that catch limit, NMFS largely discounted the likelihood of discards leading to overfishing, noting in a response to comments questioning its action that

“The [South Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (“SSC”)] provides an [allowable biological catch (“ABC”)] recommendation based on catch projections from a stock assessment.  The Council’s SSC total ABC recommendation for 2018 is 53,000 red snapper, which is the sum of landed fish (18,000) and dead discarded fish (35,000).  However, NMFS has determined that that relying on those dead discard estimates for the management of red snapper is not appropriate.  NMFS has determined that the dead discard estimates should be regarded as unreliable for management action due to the extreme uncertainty of the estimates, coupled with the fishery-independent evidence of substantial gains in stock abundance and rebuilding.”

Whether NMFS’ decision in that regard was correct, particularly in light of a provision of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act’s provision that a regional fishery management council, and by implication, NMFS, shall

“develop annual catch limits for each of its managed fisheries that may not exceed the fishing level recommendations of its scientific and statistical committee or the peer review process established [elsewhere in Magnuson-Stevens],”

is open to debate, but it was nonetheless made and not challenged. 

So what was the result?

According to a recent article on TCPalm, a website that is part of the USA Today network, at least part of the result was chaos.  The website reported that

“In some places, anglers set out in anything that would float.  One charter boat captain off Port Canaveral even snapped a Facebook photo of two anglers on jet skis, 10 miles offshore…

“Capt. Glenn Cameron of Floridian charters out of…Stuart had near run-ins with ‘weekend warriors’…

“’People lost their minds,’ said Cameron…’If they saw us fighting a snapper they would nearly run into us’…

“Capt. Rich Kluglein of Fins charters out of Fort Pierce City Marina echoed similar frustration…

“’So many people were stealing numbers—there were 10-20 people at every spot—and I had 8-10 boats following me,’ Kluglein said…

“’My numbers (spots) in 27 fathoms are trashed.  The grouper fishery will be done there, too.  I never thought I wanted to quit charter fishing, but they have destroyed a fishery.”

“Destroyed” might be a bit of an overstatement, expressed by a frustrated charter boat captain.  At the same time, it appears that mere crowding, spot-stealing, and such weren’t the worst things that happened.

“Kluglein also said that he witnessed culling [throwing back a smaller, dead snapper in order to keep a larger one] and poor release techniques by anglers.  It resulted in dead discarded snappers floating on the surface.  Way too many, by his estimation…

“Kluglein said the intention of the mini-season was to enable access to an important fishery.  But the unintended consequences resulted in dead 5-pound red snapper floating everywhere feeding no one but the sharks.

“’It was terrible—10 years of rebuilding red snapper stocks gone in six days,’ Kluglein said.”

The author of the piece observed that

“The process as [sic] anything but quick or nimble,”

asked

“Is there a way charter clients and weekend warriors can co-exist in South Atlantic snapper and grouper fisheries?”

and concluded

“Perhaps.  But it will require some creative action.”

Based on the reports, it’s hard to disagree.

The question is, do managers have the political will to do what is needed?  

And will the recreational fishing and boatbuilding industry, and the various anglers’ rights groups, try to fix the problem, or will they looking back into the past, and keep fighting old, pointless battles, instead of moving into the future and finding innovate answers to intransigent problems?

Unfortunately, recent industry and anglers’ rights groups' support for the pending, badly misnamed “Modernizing Recreational Fishery Management Act,” often referred to as the “Modern Fish Act” in the press, suggests that no real creativity will be proposed, or supported, by the most vocal, self-appointed representatives of the recreational fishing community.

Both “Modern Fish Act” bills, H.R. 2023 and S. 1520, seek to manage recreational fisheries by moving backwards, by eliminating some or all annual recreational catch limits and delaying the rebuilding of (what proponents call “smartly rebuilding”) overfished stocks.  They would increase recreational harvest by stealing quota from the commercial sector.  And they would make it far, far more difficult to adopt truly creative and innovative recreational management measures, by placing draconian restrictions on the use of such management measures as catch share programs and exempted fishing permits.

S. 1520 has been cleaned up a bit during the Senate markup process, but if passed, would be conferenced with H.R. 200, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fishery Management Act, which is even worse, and far more retrogressive, than  the Modern Fish Act bills, although Modern Fish Act supporters are now claiming such bill as their own.

Fortunately, there is a truly “modern” approach to recreational fishery management that could provide a viable remedy to the South Atlantic recreational red snapper problem, and to similar problems elsewhere on the coast.

Recently, a new research paper, titled “Status-quo management of marine recreational fisheries undermines angler welfare,” appeared in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.  It suggested that the traditional recreational fishery management measures, of size limits, bag limits, and seasons,

“fail to adjust to anglers’ adaptive behavior and provide little incentive for anglers to reduce their effort.”

Although it occurred well after  the paper had been completed, the chaotic South Atlantic red snapper season could be cited as a case in point.

The paper suggested that the solution to such problems is one that has a proven track record in the commercial fishery—the adoption of a “’rights-based” management system, the sort of system colloquially known as “catch shares.”

Yes, that’s exactly the kind of really modern fishery management that “Modern Fish Act” supporters seek to outlaw.  Yet, as the paper suggests, it has proven successful in the one recreational fishery where it was given a fair chance—the for-hire fishery for red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico.  Such a program, which assigned a quota, based on historical landings, to certain for-hire boats, allowed such boats to fish for red snapper at any time of the year, whenever their passengers wanted, so long as they had quota remaining.

In that way, the boats avoided the chaos of a “derby” fishery, and could spread out their effort throughout the year.

The paper’s authors note that

“extending these approaches beyond the for-hire sector to encompass anglers fishing from their own vessels faces significant practical and political challenges.”

While there’s no doubt that the political challenges are very real—Modern Fish Act supporters would desperately fight to prevent any such modernization of fishery management measures—the practical challenges would be very easy to overcome, with a modicum of federal/state cooperation, with an approach already familiar to hunters across the nation.

Here in New York, for example, if a hunter wants to obtain a “deer management permit” that allows the harvest of an antlerless animal, he or she need only notify the clerk, and pay $10, while buying a hunting license.  The application is immediately submitted to a random selection process, and the permit is immediately either granted or denied.  If a permit is denied, the hunter is granted a “preference point” that makes it more likely that a permit will be granted in the following season.

A similar system could be set up for recreational fishermen.  

If, for example, a South Atlantic angler wishes to participate in the red snapper fishery, that angler could express that interest when purchasing his or her annual fishing license (and probably pay a small application fee to discourage fishermen unlikely to pursue red snapper from seeking permits unlikely to be used). 

The permit would allow anglers to retain a modest number of red snapper, which would have to be tagged immediately upon capture in an effort to deter culling.  Once all of the tags were used, the angler couldn’t retain any more snapper that year.  Tags could be made transferrable at the discretion of the angler (true of New York deer management permits, too) if using them all appeared unlikely; catch would have to be reported promptly, and anglers who failed to obtain a permit for any given year could be awarded preference points that increase the odds of obtaining one in the future.

It’s a simple system that has already been tested in the sportsmen’s arena.  It would spread out angling effort throughout the year, and perhaps result in anglers tagging red snapper that they catch incidentally when fishing for grouper and other species, rather than feeling obligated to target red snapper during the short, derby season.  If so, that would substantially decrease dead discards.

It would work. 

Although in order to work, it would first have to be given a chance.

In the current management environment, where the recreational fishing industry is aggressively hostile to anything truly new, that chance isn’t likely to happen.

BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES

It was the headline that first caught my eye.

“Sportfishing boat burns at Newburyport waterfront, deemed total loss.”

I read the article almost out of reflex.  Anyone who spends much time on the water understands that, even at the best of times, there’s a shadow of risk and impending tragedy that always lurks somewhere around the margins of the maritime life, even when conditions are good.

A boat just sunk on a glass-calm day out at Montauk, apparently the victim of a bad through-hull fitting. 

A boat burned at the Newburyport docks.

When you see articles like that, you read them, as much out of empathy than anything else.  You sympathize with the folks on the vessel, because sometimes things happen, and you’re always aware that someday they may happen to you.

But as I read the article, I found myself thinking about the headline.  It had nothing to do with the fire and loss, which were tragic enough, but about what the term “sportfishing boat” means.

According to article, the boat was owned by “Hitlist Sports Fishing LLC,” so it was probably a charter boat, and given that it had seven people on board, it was probably had customers on board at the time it caught fire.  The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which governs all fishing in federal waters, defines “charter fishing” as

“fishing from a vessel carrying a passenger for hire…who is engaged in recreational fishing.”

That sounds like “sportfishing” to me.

The article also notes that the boat was

“[taking] part in Gloucester’s Bluefin Blowout [fishing tournament]…, catching fire while the captain and mate were waiting to unload an Atlantic bluefin tuna.”

Tournament fishing is certainly one aspect of sportfishing, so nothing seemed out of line there, either.

But out of curiosity, I went to the webpage of the Bluefin Blowout, just to learn a little bit about the tournament and how it was run.  I found out that it does truly good work, donating many thousands of dollars each year to Alzheimer’s research.  I also took a look at the tournament rules, and found a provision that read

“It shall be the responsibility of the boat to notify their dealer of arrival time, and in the event a dealer is delayed, the fish will be put back on the boat until dealer arrival, or the boat may then bring the fish to the dealer’s wharf.  [emphasis added]”

That’s when things start to get a little blurry, because sport fishermen don’t have any “dealers.”  Sport fishermen have nothing to “deal,” as sport fishermen just don’t sell fish.

A lot of folks are going to object to that statement, particularly those in the northeast tuna fishery, because it’s pretty common for folks who claim to be anglers to flaunt their big, expensive boats at the dock, then turn around and sell all their tuna, because “You gotta pay for the trip.”  

But the fact remains that sport fishermen don’t sell fish; and that’s not just my opinion.  It’s the law.

Magnuson-Stevens clearly states that

“The term ‘recreational fishing’ means fishing for sport or pleasure.”

If you fish with intent to sell, that falls under an entirely different definition.

“The term ‘commercial fishing means fishing in which the fish harvested, either in whole or in part, are intended to enter commerce or enter commerce through sale, barter, or trade.”

So if you’ve got a dealer waiting for you on the dock, or you deliver your fish to a dealer’s wharf, you’re a commercial fisherman.  There’s no argument you can make to the contrary.

Of course, when you talk about bluefin tuna charters, things get blurry again.

The National Marine Fisheries Service issues three different categories of Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Permits to rod and reel bluefin tuna fishermen.

One is the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Angling Permit.  According to NMFS, the Angling Permit

“Authorizes vessels to recreationally fish for or retain any Atlantic HMS with rod & reel; tunas, sharks, and swordfish with handline; and free-swimming tunas (excluding bluefin) with a speargun.  NO SALE OF CATCH ALLOWED.”

But there is also the Atlantic HMS Charter/Headboat Permit, which

“Authorizes charter and headboat vessels to take for-hire passengers to recreationally fish for or retain any Atlantic HMS with rod & reel; tunas, sharks, and swordfish with handline; tunas with green-stick or bandit gear; and free-swimming tunas (excluding bluefin) with a speargun.  Authorizes some commercial sale of tuna, swordfish, and sharks, with restrictions depending on the for-hire status of the vessel and the additional possession of certain limited access permits.”

It turns out that, in the case of bluefin,

“When fishing other than in the Gulf of Mexico and when the fishery in the General [commercial] category has not been closed…, a person aboard a vessel that has been issued an HMS Charter/Headboat permit may fish under either the retention limits applicable to the General category…or the retention limits specified under the Angling category…The size category of the first [bluefin tuna] retained will determine the fishing category applicable to the vessel that day.”

 That means that, if the first bluefin retained measures 73 inches or more, a charter boat can engage in commercial fishing even though it has passengers on board, and sell such tuna, but if the folks on the boat elect to keep a smaller tuna before hooking and landing the 73-incher, they may not sell any fish caught that day, because bluefin less than 73 inches in length may not be sold.

Thus, bluefin caught by recreational fishermen may not be sold, unless such recreational fishermen fish from a charter boat, in which case their bluefin may be sold, but only if the first fish that they kill is at least 73 inches long, and provided that the charter boat has a Commercial Sale endorsement.

As I said, the whole situation can get a little blurry…

And, it can have some real consequences, apart from just the “what can I keep and what can I sell?” aspect of the thing.

For example, all vessels are required to have safety equipment, such as life preservers, on board, in order to help protect passengers in case of a sinking or other catastrophic event.  The requirements for charter boats are more stringent than those for private vessels, while the requirements for commercial vessels may be even stricter, mandating items such as full-body survival suits for every person on board when fishing in colder waters—which is exactly where most of the bluefin fishery takes place.

Not long ago, because charter boats could sell their fish, there was concern that they had to have the same survival equipment on board their boats as was required for the commercial fishing fleet, something that isn’t practical when they may be carrying passengers of many different sizes and shapes, who would require different survival suits, etc.  That problem was solved by requiring charter boats that intended to sell their catch to get a Commercial Sale endorsement on their permit; vessels which had such an endorsement would fall under the Coast Guard requirements for survival gear when embarked on a commercial trip.

But that’s the sort of complications that you’re likely to run into any time that supposedly recreational fishermen try to blur the line by selling their catch, losing their “recreational” status and becoming commercial fishermen in their spare time.  

So far, I've mostly be talking about charter boats.  But the same situation exists in the private boat fishery.  And let’s be honest about one thing:  When you talk about private-boat anglers who sell their fish, most of them don’t need the money.

If you can pay anywhere from $100,000 or so into the millions of dollars to buy a tuna-capable boat, you don’t need “to pay for the trip.”  Maybe what you need is a slightly smaller and more economical boat, but you don’t need to sell fish to survive.  

You’ve got your day job for that.

But then, sometimes the line between “need” and “greed” gets a bit blurry, too.

WILL HERRING SHORTAGE AFFECT MENHADEN MANAGEMENT?

Pioneering conservationist John Muir once said

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

That’s a truth particularly relevant to fishery management, where single-species management efforts often run afoul of the realities presented by food webs and overlapping fisheries.  In the coming months, we may see that relevance reinforced once again, if actions taken to conserve Atlantic herring up in New England impact the menhaden fishery in the mid-Atlantic.

To understand what’s going on, it probably makes sense to take a look at both fisheries, as they exist today.

Both are what can be termed “high volume, low value” fisheries, in which profit can only be made by selling large volumes of fish that command a very low price per pound.  

According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, nearly 138,000,000 million pounds of Atlantic herring were landed in 2016, which sold for about $29,000,000, or roughly 21 cents per pound.  The story is similar for Atlantic menhaden which, in the same year, saw more than 390,000,000 pounds landed, which sold for nearly $37,500,000, or about 9 ½ cents per pound.

Where the fisheries differ is in the concentration of fishing effort, and in the eventual use of the fish.

The Atlantic herring fishery is concentrated in the New England states.  Maine was the biggest harvester, landing about 78,000,000 pounds, 56.5% of the total, in 2016, while Massachusetts accounted for a little over 47,000,000 pounds, or 34% of the overall landings.  Rhode Island and New Jersey were third and fourth in line, with 9,500,000 and 2,800,000 pounds, respectively.  

In recent years, the overwhelming majority of the Atlantic herring catch has been sold for bait, primarily to the lobster fishery.  Perhaps 10 or 15 percent of the landings are sold domestically and internationally for human consumption, while a very small number of herring may also be processed into feed for domestic animals and aquacultured fish, and for other industrial uses.

The Atlantic menhaden fishery is prosecuted, to a greater or lesser degree, by almost all Atlantic Coast states, but the vast majority of the harvest, 323,000,000 pounds, or more than 80% of the total 2016 landings, was landed in Virginia.   Out of that total, about 315,000,000 pounds, was caught by the so-called “reduction” fishery, which “reduces” menhaden into fish meal and oil used in various industrial products, from aquaculture and livestock feeds to paint additives to human cosmetics.  The remaining landings are used for bait in various fisheries, including the New England lobster fishery.

In November 2017, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission revised its state menhaden allocations.  Such reallocation reduced Virginia’s share of the overall quota, and redistributed such fish to other states, particularly to states in the Northeast.  Virginia challenged such reallocation, even though an increase in the overall quota, along with transferred quota from other states, allowed the state to actually land more menhaden than it had landed before.  

Although that challenge was eventually withdrawn, there is no question that Virginia’s share of menhaden landings remains a touchy subject, and there is little doubt that any further effort to reduce that allocation will again draw Virginia’s fire.

Now, given recent events in the Atlantic herring fishery, it seems likely that another attempt to reallocate menhaden landings will be made in the not-too-distant future, as New England lobstermen seek to whittle down Virginia’s dominant share in order to secure a reliable source of inexpensive bait.

The first shot in that upcoming battle may have been quietly fired at the August meeting of ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, when a Commissioner from the State of Rhode Island noted that the future management of Atlantic herring may soon impact menhaden management, too. 

That’s a real possibility, because Atlantic herring haven’t been doing too well in recent years.  A 2016 article in the Portland Post Herald noted that

“The offshore supply of fresh Atlantic herring, the go-to bait for most Maine lobstermen, has been in short supply, driving prices up as much as 30 percent in late July, the Maine Lobstermen’s Association said.  The shortage triggered near-shore fishing restrictions to try to stretch out the summer herring catch in hopes of keeping bait bags full as Maine’s lobster season hits its peak.

“With herring getting scarce and expensive, fishermen have turned to other bait for relief, especially the pogie, the local name for Atlantic menhaden.  It’s the No. 3 bait fish among Maine lobstermen, according to a state Department of Marine Resources survey.”

 The herring shortage was a serious problem in 2016, and last year as well, although ASMFC did take some steps to give Maine relief in the form of somewhat higher menhaden landings.  However, an action taken by the National Marine Fisheries Service earlier this month is going to take that problem to a whole new level of severity.

A new benchmark stock assessment of the Atlantic herring revealed a fish population in serious decline.  Recruitment—the number of new fish entering the population—has fallen to all-time lows over the past five years.  In response to that new information, NMFS cut the 2018 Atlantic herring quota from 110,536 metric tons to just 49,900 mt, a reduction of about 55%. 

In taking such action, NMFS explained that

“The stock assessment projected that the [New England Fishery Management] Council’s recommended level of catch was likely to result in overfishing for 2018, so we chose to reduce the Council’s recommended catch so that we would meet the 50 percent probability of overfishing target that was used in previous specifications for setting the overfishing limit…Based on the 2018 stock assessment projection, we expect this reduction to reduce the probability of overfishing in 2018, increase the estimated herring biomass in 2019-2021, and provide for more catch for the fishery.”

It was a prudent action on NMFS’ part, and one that was completely consistent with federal fishery management law.  However, there’s little doubt that the lobstermen up in Maine, and elsewhere in New England, are already wondering how they’re going to make up for the approximately 60,000 metric tons of herring that have suddenly been removed from their bait supply.

Menhaden are the obvious answer, but what isn’t obvious are where those menhaden will come from.  The entire menhaden quota is just 216,000 metric tons, and Maine only gets a tiny fraction, 0.52%, of that, much of which is already being caught and turned into bait.  Another 1% or so is set aside for “episodic events,” or an unexpected abundance of menhaden in northeastern waters, but even that will leave them well short of what they’ve lost.  The only big bait harvester on the coast is New Jersey, which is allocated nearly 11% of all landings, but once again, just about all of that quota is already being caught and utilized.

So that just leaves Virginia.  Its 78.66% of the harvest, about 170,000 metric tons in 2018-2019, makes it an obvious target for those who might want to redistribute menhaden landings.  But, as mentioned before, Virginia would certainly fight any such reallocation with every tool at its disposal.

Based merely on ASMFC’s guiding documents, it would be an interesting debate.  ASMFC’s Interstate Fisheries Management Program Charter requires that

“Fishery resources shall be fairly and equitably allocated or assigned among the states.”

The problem with that, of course, is that the meaning of “fairness” shall ever and always lie in the eye of the beholder.  Rare is the child who, after receiving the bigger scoop of ice cream or larger slice of pie, will deem the distribution process “unfair,” although those getting smaller allocations might see the whole thing a lot differently.

Thus, Virginia clearly believes that it is entitled to 80% of the entire menhaden harvest and, in its aborted challenge last winter, argued that it was being “unfairly” reduced to a mere 78.66%.  Maine, which was given a quota just 0.7% the size of Virginia’s, is unlikely to be sympathetic to such a position.

On the other hand, ASMFC’s Appeals Process guidance document clearly gives a state the right to appeal an ASMFC action if

“Historical landings period [is] not adequately addressed.”

Virginia could and did make that claim in its recent challenge, but once again, the apparent validity of any such assertion depends very much on perspective.  In the course of any allocation of fishery resources, the various interested parties will argue and maneuver in an effort to convince fishery managers to select “base years” that provide the greatest benefit to the party in question.  In the case of Atlantic menhaden, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission based the allocation on years when Virginia was the dominant harvester.  If they had chosen other years, before the reduction fishery had consolidated in a single state, and was spread out along the Atlantic Coast, the allocation would look very different than it does today.

In addition, while the Appeals Process guidance document does require historical landings to be “addressed,” neither it nor any other ASMFC document requires historical landings to be determinative of how landings in any fishery are allocated.  As ASMFC leadership noted in their response to Virginia’s challenge,

“Commission guiding documents do not require Boards to allocate quota based solely on historic landings information”

Instead, management boards may use other criteria

“to accommodate changing conditions in a fishery that cannot be addressed through the use of historic landings.”

Of course, there is also the practical aspect of any attempted reallocation.  Virginia could just tell ASMFC to take its new allocation and shove it, flatly refusing to reduce its menhaden harvest.  That’s far from an unlikely scenario, as Virginia is currently defying ASMFC on another menhaden-related issue, refusing to amend its state law to reduce the quantity of menhaden that the reduction fleet can remove from Chesapeake Bay.

Such refusal to reduce its overall landings could well see ASMFC refer the state’s noncompliance to the Secretary of Commerce, who has the power to impose a complete moratorium on the state’s menhaden fishery.  On the other hand, given that the Secretary would have to find that such harvest reduction is

“necessary for the conservation of the fishery in question,”

and given that ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Technical Committee advised, in August 2017, that even increasing the annual harvest as high as 280,000 pounds would only present a 2.5% chance of overfishing the menhaden stock, it is very possible that the Secretary, who believes in the importance of

“obtaining maximum sustainable yield for our fisheries,”

would rule in favor of Virginia, and decide that if ASMFC wanted to give more menhaden to New England, it could do so by increasing the overall quota and not by reducing Virginia’s share.

And thus the stage is set for an intense fisheries battle, in which New England states try to obtain more bait for their lobstermen by taking menhaden away from Virginia while Virginia resists, a fight in which the final decision rests in the hands of a Secretary of Commerce who doesn’t seem to believe in conservation at all.

Of course, right now that’s all speculation.  Such a fight may never occur.  But right now, the pieces are in place for a landmark debate that has the potential to completely change the menhaden management paradigm.

Whether that change would be for good or ill is something that, at this point, no one can know.