A "NO FISH DRY JULY" TO MINIMIZE RELEASE MORTALITY

 

This is one of those essays that shouldn’t have to be written.

We all know that fish live in water.  We know that fish breathe the oxygen dissolved in that water, and that with the exception of a handful of species typically native to still, hot, tropical rivers, fish are incapable of breathing air.  But it doesn’t take more than a few seconds of perusing folks’ social media accounts to find far too many anglers forgetting that fact, as they hold their gasping, slowly dying catch in their hands and pose in front of a lens.

While some species can tolerate that sort of handling, particularly when air temperatures are fairly low, others are extremely sensitive to any sort of handling.  Even relatively tolerant species become vulnerable when air temperatures rise.

Posing with a fish on a hot summer day is one of the best ways to increase the release mortality rate.

Thus, a group of conservation-minded anglers who have come together under the banner of the organization Keep Fish Wet have come up with their newest campaign, which promotes “No Fish Dry July,” which is described as

“an initiative to help anglers create better outcomes for each fish they release.  For the month of July, Keep Fish Wet and Ten and Two Co. challenge you to make a 31-day commitment to not take a single photo of a fish.

“…Instead, we encourage you to post other artful shots of your summer angling experience.  This simple shift in the angling community’s catch-and-release behavior could do years of good for your fish’s home water.”

The Keep Fish Wet webpage tends to focus on trout, although its message has wider application.  It states that

“In general, for every 10 degrees Celsius increase in water temperature, a fish’s metabolic rate doubles.  This means that at warmer water temperatures, fish have a higher metabolism and need more food.  It also means that at warmer water temperatures fish need more oxygen, a critical component of the metabolic process.  However, remember that, all else being equal, warmer water holds less oxygen than cooler water.

“As fish exercise, like on the end of a fishing line, their metabolism increases, as does their need to bring more [dissolved oxygen] into their bodies.  If water temperatures are high and [dissolved oxygen] is low, then fish need to work extra hard to recover from angling stress, and in extreme cases, they perish.”

That statement is as true for striped bass and bluefish as it is for trout and salmon.

More than two decades ago, the State of Maryland conducted extensive research on recreational striped bass release mortality.  It found that air temperature, as well as water temperature, affected the survival of released striped bass.

“A profound effect on shallow hooking mortality [as distinguished from deep “gut hooking,” which was the single most reliable predictor of death] was documented in relation to air temperature.  When air temperatures were below 95F, the mortality of shallow hooked striped bass, those fish only stressed by physical exertion not by lethal hook wounds, was 0.8%.  When air temperatures ranged from 95F to 105F in July, mortality rose to 17.2%.  The mortality rate of all shallow hooked fish combined was 3.5% for the entire study period.”

The Maryland study found that 95% of the bass that succumb to release mortality do so within 24 hours after release.  However, such death is generally not immediate.  Thus, as Keep Fish Wet notes,

“just because you watched the fish swim away does not mean it will be fine.”

So how can anglers spot fish at risk of succumbing to release mortality?  There are a number of reliable signs.  They generally fall into the categories of escape response, righting response, regular ventilation, and eye tracking.

Escape response is easy to check.  At the end of the fight, just reach over and grab the fish by tail, right ahead of the fin.  If the fish responds, and struggles to get away, it is healthy and likely to survive release.  If it seems indifferent to being restrained, it may not survive release.

Righting response is equally obvious.  Fish typically swim with their backs toward the surface of the water, and their bellies toward the bottom.  Tired fish often slump over on their sides, or even turn upside-down at the end of the fight.  If an upside-down fish can’t right itself within five seconds, it is a strong candidate for release mortality.

Regular ventilation merely means that a fish is opening and closing its gills at regular intervals.  If a fish is incapable of doing that—effectively, if it is having difficulty breathing—death probably isn’t too far away.

Eye tracking, the final criteria, is a little more difficult to gauge.  The fish must be placed in the water, then rolled gently from side to side.  If its eyes remain level, and move to compensate for its body’s movement, the fish is deemed to have a better chance of survival than it would if the eyes just glassily stared out from their sockets, and showed no movement at all.  If the latter occurs, the fish is very likely to die.

Fish that show positive escape or righting responses may be safely released; those that fail both tests have substantially impaired chances of survival.  One study suggests that bonefish which fail to show a strong righting response are six times more likely to be attacked and killed by predators, probably within 20 minutes of release.  Notably, the study also found that

“Longer air exposure and overall handling times were significant predictors of the loss of equilibrium in angled bonefish.”

Of course, longer air exposure and longer handling times are exactly what results when fish are kept out of the water for photos, instead of being quickly returned or, even better, released without removing them from the water at all.

The next question that arises is what ought to be done with fish that fail the righting response test.  Anglers typically hold such fish beneath the water’s surface, trying to force water over their gills by moving them back and forth, but it’s not clear that such actions do very much good.  Keep Fish Wet suggests that any such fish, even if they subsequently meet the regular ventilation and eye tracking standards, be held in a net or live well until they recover enough to make survival likely.

While that may be possible for some species and some anglers, it is extremely impractical for others.  No matter how good their intentions, anglers can’t legally toss an exhausted striped bass into their boat’s live well until it begins to recover, if they already have a striped bass in the cooler; doing so would constitute a violation of the 1-fish bag limit.  For similar reasons, anglers can’t retain an under- or over-slot bass, or a fish caught outside the season for legal retention, without violating the law.

There are also physical limitations.  While putting a fish in a live well sounds good on paper, it assumes that the angler’s boat contains such a holding device.  Many don’t, either because the boat is too small or because the boat came without that particular amenity.  When I had my current boat built, I opted against having a live well included, since I don’t normally liveline baits, and had better use for the space that I live well would have occupied.

Shore-based anglers, under most circumstances, also lack access to a live well, and so cannot use one to nurse exhausted fish back to health prior to release.

The most practical option, then, is not to exhaust the fish in the first place.  Exhaustion attributed to the fight can be minimized by using heavy tackle; exhaustion attributed to the release is best avoided by releasing the fish in the water whenever possible and, as the No Fish Dry July campaign suggests, by minimizing the time fish spend out of the water by eschewing cameras and relying on memories to record the experience.

Having said that, will I be completely abandoning my cameras this summer?

Absolutely not.  I’ll continue to record the release of big fish—probably mostly sharks, but other pelagic species can’t be wholly discounted—that are never removed from the water, but are unhooked and set free while water flowed over their gills.  And I’ll photograph fish such as dolphin (mahi-mahi), black sea bass, and the occasional tuna, which are caught and retained for food, making the release mortality issue irrelevant.

There is no reason why other folks shouldn't do the same.

But for fish intended for release, the no-photograph pledge is a very, very good idea.

 

 

RANDOM THOUGHTS ABOUT BLACK SEA BASS

 

Of all the recreational fisheries managed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and/or the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, few provide more challenges than black sea bass.

That’s not because the fish are scarce.  2011 produced the largest year class ever recorded, which was followed in 2015 by another smaller, but still very strong cohort.  Except for 2017, which produced the smallest cohort in many years, recruitment has remained good. 

As a result, black sea bass seem to be everywhere.  I grew up fishing the western end of Long Island Sound, when catching even a single black sea bass was a noteworthy event.  Today, in the same waters that I fished for the first 27 years of my life, they are avidly sought when the season opens in May.

The same thing is apparently happening in the Chesapeake Bay.  In Maryland, black sea bass were once thought of as a denizen of ocean reefs, but are now being caught in the upper bay, where they provide a viable alternative for anglers faced with a declining striped bass population.

Angler effort has spiked in response.  New England anglers made a little over 125,000 directed black sea bass trips in 2011; that number spiked to nearly 785,000 directed trips—a sixfold increase—by 2021.  Something similar occurred in New York, where angler effort tripled from somewhat over 100,000 directed trips in 2011 to about 320,000 last year.  (Those two areas were selected because their combined landings account for the largest share of the recreational black sea bass harvest in the northeast/mid-Atlantic region.)

Such effort routinely drove landings above the recreational harvest limit, which led to more restrictive limits which, given the undeniable abundance of black sea bass, generated more and more vehement complaints, particularly from the for-hire community.  Neither the ASMFC nor the Mid-Atlantic Council was ever able to breakthe cycle, and constrain recreational fishermen to their sector’sallocation—although, in truth, they didn’t try very hard, never creating abuffer to account for management uncertainty and, in the end, often settingrecreational harvest limits that were almost certain to be exceeded.

In the end, they effectively threw up their hands and surrendered, adopting something they called the “Harvest Control Rule,” a management approach that will allow recreational fishermen to kill more black sea bass (along with scup, summer flounder and, eventually, bluefish) than they previously might have when the fish are particularly abundant, but might constrain landings more than strictly necessary when abundance is low.

The last stock assessment update, issued last year, indicated that the spawning stock biomass at the end of 2020 was in steady decline, although it remained about double the target level.  Biologists are now preparing a new “research track” assessment that should be completed last fall, which will take a comprehensive look at the health of the black sea bass population north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina; the results of such assessment will inform management over the next couple of years.

As part of the assessment process, a work group of scientists held a Black Sea Bass Stakeholder Engagement Meeting on May 16, to get fishermen’s perspective on issues relevant to the black sea bass fishery. 

A few themes emerged.

One was the overall abundance of black sea bass, along with observations of recent incursions into places where larger fish, or any fish at all, were not seen before.  Those places not only included the Chesapeake Bay, but also New Jersey’s back bays and estuaries.  A Rhode Island fisherman also noted that larger sea bass had become more abundant in Narragansett Bay, and that some sea bass were now remaining in Narragansett Bay throughout the winter.

There also seemed to be some concerns, or at least comments, relating to the size of the black sea bass being caught, particularly in the upper mid-Atlantic and southern New England.

The results of a study published in 2009 suggested that there are three sub-stocks of black sea bass in the New England/mid-Atlantic region that may mix on the wintering grounds, but rarely did so during the late spring/early summer spawning period.  The northern sub-stock summers between eastern Fire Island, New York and New England; most of those fish wintered off New York/New Jersey, in the vicinity of Hudson Canyon, although a few traveled as far south as North Carolina, with a concentration of fish off the DelMarVa Penninsula.

The central sub-stock summers between tidewater Virginia and Fire Island; its winter migration is shorter, tending to move south and into deeper water.  The southern sub-stock, which summers between Cape Hatteras and the Chesapeake Bay, migrates offshore into deeper water during the winter.

That stock structure seemed to color some of the stakeholder comments.

For example, one New Jersey fisherman noted that

“Large [black sea bass] appear in winter time, seeing 3-5 lb. males.”

That would make sense, as large sea bass, which summer in the structure-rich waters of New England and the East End of Long Island, move south as waters cool and spend the winter in the warmer seas off New Jersey.  Yet the presence of northern stock fish off New Jersey during the winter months creates an issue that no one has yet made a serious effort to resolve.

The ASMFC has grouped New York into the same region as New England, which is somewhat problematic. It makes some sense given that eastern Long Island does share the northern sub-stock with the New England states.  However, the remainder of coastal New York (with the possible exception of The Bronx and Westchester County, which were not included in the study of stock structure) fishes on the central sub-stock over the summer.  Thus, as a member of New York’s recreational fishing community observed,

“[New York] is the border between the northern and southern portions of the stock.  Having different size limits and bag limits is another issue since New York’s regulations require discarding more fish than New Jersey in the summer months.  This has also been an issue in winter, but less so.”

While that situation certainly creates difficulties for New York’s anglers, particularly during the summer season off western New York, when New Jersey’s earlier start and smaller size limit results in far fewer New York-legal fish remaining on the wrecks and the reefs by the time New York’s season opens on June 23, it also makes little sense for the northern fish, which are now protected by a 16-inch size limit during the summer but, once they migrate onto their wintering grounds, are vulnerable to New Jersey’s 13-inch minimum size (as well as to New Jersey’s 15-fish bag limit, which is more than twice the 6-fish bag governing New York vessels), even though boats from both states may be sharing the same wreck or piece of hard bottom.

Given that New Jersey shares New England’s fish during the winter, and that both New Jersey and western New York fish on the same central sub-stock during the summer, it would make sense to include New Jersey into the northern region, along with New York and New England, to better assure that the same fish are governed by the same rules.

Unfortunately, that approach was proposed at the February 2018 meeting of the ASMFC’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board, but was defeated after New Jersey objected and convinced the southern states to support its position.

I don’t like the idea of regulations that change through the season, because the data isn’t precise enough to provide a reasonable assurance that such shifting rules are going to serve their intended purpose.  But given that New Jersey already has sea bass regulations that see the bag limit shift six different times over the course of the season (10 fish from May 17 through June 19, then -0- for the rest of June, increasing to 2 from July 1 through August 31, going back to -0- until October 7, at which point it goes back to 10, drops back to -0- on October 27, and finally, beginning on November 1, rises to 15 for the rest of the year), it might make sense to at least increase the New Jersey size limit, beginning on November 1, to 16 inches, so that the northern sub-stock will at least enjoy a consistent size limit throughout the year.

Of course, such a suggestion probably wouldn’t seem reasonable to New Jersey.

Despite the current size of the black sea bass biomass, there are some indications that current fishing effort might be having some impact on the stock.  

As I noted in my written comments to the Stakeholder Engagement Meeting, I’ve observed a marked decline in the size of the fish that I’ve been catching on wrecks south and east of Fire Island Inlet (central sub-stock).  In 2010, fishing in early July, I had no problem catching a 15-fish limit, with perhaps one-third of those fish males in the 3 to 4 pound range.  By 2014, the bag limit had dropped to 8 fish, but I could limit out on the same, well-known wrecks in less than an hour, still with fish between 3 and 4-plus pounds in the bag, and nothing under 15 or 16 inches.  By 2016, increasing fishing pressure forced the bag limit to drop to just 3 black sea bass; fishing in the same places at the same time as before, it was now taking me a couple of hours to limit out, with most of my fish just over the increased, 15-inch minimum size.

A large population of smaller fish can still be sustainable in the long term, but the drop in the numbers of larger males can be an early sign that the stock may be more vulnerable than it was before.

Other stakeholders have noticed the same thing.  At the Stakeholder Engagement Meeting, one New Jersey fisherman expressed concern that

“Removing the large males may result in a continuous [black sea bass] sex ratio in local areas, causing females to switch to males [black sea bass are protogynous hermaphrodites, that usually, but not always, begin life as females and become male later in life] therefore reducing the number of females.”

Another New Jersey stakeholder cautioned that

“When considering stock shifts, it is usually blamed on oceanic changes, although they are relatively minor.  Need to pay more attention to fishing pressure.”

A Rhode Island angler also connected recreational fishing activity to black sea bass abundance, saying that

“There was certainly a correlation between the explosion of [black sea bass] and the closure of the wave 1 [January/February]/wave 2 [March/April] offshore recreational [black sea bass] fishery.  It has always been the assumption that those are the spawners critical to the stock.”

Despite the current black sea bass abundance, it probably wouldn’t hurt to take a longer look at recreational fishing, and consider its potential impact on the long-term health of the stock—if doing so is even still possible under the new “control rule” approach.

The other effort-related concern, particularly in recent years of high size limits, is rising discard mortality.

Multiple stakeholders noted that the critical depth for barotrauma—injury to the fish caused by changing water pressure—is about 100 feet.  In my own experience, I’ve noted that the critical depth is a little shallower, about 15 fathoms; there is a wreck that I frequently fish in 85 feet of water, where released fish rocket right back to the bottom, and another wreck in 95 feet, where about one in every four released fish floats on the surface, and requires some help to return to the depths.  Whatever the depth at which barotrauma begins, there is widespread agreement that it becomes a problem in the winter fishery, which typically takes place in 180 to 240 feet of water.  A 2019 study indicated that, at those depths, no more than 50% of released fish survive, unless they are either vented or helped to the bottom with a weighted descending device.

Despite such study, the biologists who produce the stock assessments still assume that only a 15% discard mortality rate throughout the entire year.  When asked about that assumption, the Work Group responded that

“Currently, the assessment uses only one discard rate across the entire year and area.  Mortality rates may be different at different times of year, so the assessment may be able to incorporate that.”

A Rhode Island stakeholder supported that idea, noting that the depth at which black sea bass are caught, and so the discard mortality rates, vary during the season, and told the Work Group that

“You need to include seasonal and depth-related discard mortality rates.”

So did a Massachusetts fisherman, who opined that

“In Massachusetts, the fishery from May to September is in 15-40 feet of water.  It is not appropriate to lump in discard mortality with boats that fish in 200 feet of water.”

Using depth-based discard mortality rates would undoubtedly improve the accuracy of the assessment.  However, if the assessors decide that doing so isn’t practical, it would make sense for regulators to take a page from the book of their southern colleagues, and require anyone fishing for black sea bass in depths exceeding 100 feet to keep a venting or descending device on hand, in order to reduce the impacts of barotrauma.  A federal statute informally called the “DESCEND Act” incorporated such requirement into federal fisheries law.  A similar requirement applicable to black sea bass, whether created by regulation or statute, would help reduce barotrauma in the deep-water fishery.

In the end, many of the stakeholders’ messages repeated the same common themes:  There are a lot of black sea bass out there right now.  Current management is, if anything, too conservative.  However, there are also real issues in the fishery that should be addressed.

Addressing those issues now would be a very good idea, for the best way to address a fisheries problem is to prevent it from cropping up in the first place.

 

FLORIDA SHARK TOURNAMENT TAKES A BIG STEP BACKWARDS

 

I grew up during the middle years of the 20^th Century, when what we might term a “conservation consciousness” was just beginning to emerge in the saltwater angling community.

When I was a boy, there was a 16-inch fork length minimum size on striped bass, which also couldn’t be legally sold in Connecticut, where I lived at the time.  Otherwise, fisheries were wide-open, with people keeping as many fish as they wanted, with no restrictions on size.  Anglers could sell their fish with no license needed (except in the case of Connecticut’s striped bass, which were sold illegally, and far more discreetly, through the back doors of shops and restaurants all along the coast).

The keeping extended to fish that weren’t wanted for food. 

Giant tuna were hauled to the dock and weighed, then carted away to a landfill or, if the angler was lucky, sold for pet food at maybe a dime per pound.  Billfish got about the same treatment, except that there weren’t any markets, so they were either dumped on land or towed out to sea.  As for sharks, all I can say is that, well into the 1980s, I heard speakers at shark-fishing seminars provide detailed advice on how to slit a shark’s belly so that the fish wouldn’t float to the surface after being dumped into a less-traveled section of Great South Bay.

Over the years, fish grew a lot more scarce and anglers grew a little more responsible.  

Killing a bunch of blue (or other species of) sharks, to weigh and show off at the dock, and then towing them back out to sea is pretty much frowned on these days, and many serious shark anglers have begun to tag and release almost all of their fish.  And, although there are still a few holdouts, the trend in shark tournaments has been to limit entries to threshers and, until this week’s closure, makos, fish which are often kept and eaten by anglers, whether they are fishing in a tournament or not.

Thus, it’s always a bit of a surprise to see a new tournament crop up that not only encourages killing large sharks, but focuses on species that, while edible, aren’t particularly prized for human consumption.

It’s not just surprising, but also disconcerting, when one of the explicitly stated goals of such tournament is to reduce the number of sharks in the sea.

Yet just such an event is scheduled to be held in Palm Beach County, Florida this weekend.

The event smacks of a tournament lost in time, of a contest held in the mid-1960s that took a wrong turn when the centuries changed, and accidentally found itself in 2022.

I remember being in my earliest teens, and reading magazine articles with titles like “The Day We Cheated the Sharks,” which described how, with luck and well-placed rifle shots, the crew of a boat managed to land a big, unmutilated blue marlin, preventing the sharks from eating it so the successful angler and crew could hang it on a scale, take some photographs, and then toss the fish in the trash.  

No one ever thought to suggest that letting the sharks eat the marlin might have been a higher and better use.

I also remember articles praising the strategy of holding shark fishing tournaments just before more prestigious “big game” tournaments were held, in order to thin out the local population of sharks so that participants in the later tournament could  weigh in and throw out more billfish.

This weekend’s event seems to be following in the latter tradition.

It’s hard to say too much more about the event, because the organizers are being very hush-hush about the whole thing.  The tournament was apparently born somewhere on Facebook, where a post by someone named Corey Hexter read

“Shark tournament…July 9^th…$100 entry fee per boat…Capt meeting July 8^th…Palm Beach weigh in…cash prizes for 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd place…hit up @frigate83 to register”

and was accompanied by a photo of what looked like a big bull shark, with other sharks milling around in the background.  Other than that, there have been few public details, including things like where the event will be held.

Apparently, at least part of the reason for the promoters’ reticence stems from the public backlash to the tournament.  Killing sharks isn’t as popular today as it was when I was in grade school; most people have moved on since then.  Many people have objected to the tournament, citing sharks’ role in the ecosystem and the fact that many species are seriously depleted.  Some have asked the State of Florida to stop the event from moving forward, something that the state, which doesn’t regulate such events, is powerless to do.

A protest, driven largely by the diving community, was held last weekend; protesters again emphasized sharks’ role in ocean food webs.  Unfortunately, a handful of people have gone to ridiculous extremes; instead of merely protesting the event, or assuring that it is being conducted in accordance with the applicable law (which, at least so far, appears to be the case), some have resorted to threats of violence.  One of the tournament organizers, who identifies himself merely as “Captain Jason” to avoid being further targeted by the extremists, alleges that he has been victimized by

“Threats against my life, my family’s life, everything like that just because we’re holding a tournament that is literally for research.”

While any such threats would clearly be unjustifiable, organizers’ claims that the tournament is being held “for research” are also open to doubt.  Researchers will take a look at sharks entered in the event, and are likely to measure the fish, take blood and tissue samples, and do all of the other things that scientists do when presented with such opportunities.  Organizers claim that most of the fish caught will be tagged and released as well, actions that could contribute to shark science.

However, when the tournament organizers speak more generally, the real purpose of the tournament is quickly revealed:  They want people to kill more sharks, in order to prevent “depredation,” which occurs when sharks steal hooked fish before they can be boated.

Florida news website WSTPost reported that

“officials at the event said that the shark population needs to be controlled and they hope the tournament will draw public attention to it.  Captain Jason, who helps organize the tournament, said it was affecting their livelihood.  ‘Any boat that comes out and parks on the local reef immediately has 10 to 12 sharks under your boat every second or every time you go out there and fish,’ said Captain Jason.  ‘You can’t bring fish to the boat anymore because once you’re hooked, they’ll eat them."

Another tournament organizer, Robert “Fly” Navarro, claimed that

“What we’re doing brings it to the fore.  There is a small imbalance in our shark population and we would like our federal government to conduct a shark assessment.”

Given his conclusory comment regarding “imbalance,” it seems as if the only research he’s interested in is research that confirms what he already believes.

On balance, both sides have valid points.  Sharks are clearly not overpopulated, even if they might seem very abundant in certain geographic areas.  Gavin Naylor, who directs the Florida Program for Shark Research at the University of Florida, advised that

“Different species have different dynamics.  Some of the coastal species appear to be in higher numbers than they have been in times past but globally almost all species are down.”

At the same time, the depredation problem is real, and the National Marine Fisheries Service has commissioned a study to help determine its extent, impacts, and possible solutions.

In the end, it comes down to a question that has been asked—or, perhaps more accurately, should have been asked—since the first English riverkeeper killed an otter to prevent it from eating his lord’s precious trout:  Do people’s recreational interests justify killing predators, so that such people can have more fish, birds, or game for themselves?

Traditionally, the answer was “Yes,” and countless hawks, otters, wolves, seals and similar creatures were killed as a result.  Today, as we slowly grow a more realistic awareness of our place in the ecosystem, other answers more and more come to mind.

However, many anglers haven’t yet reached that level of awareness, and still believe that thinning out sharks is the right thing to do.  And those anglers aren’t limited to the southeast Florida coast.

A paper, “Clashing conservation values:  The social complexities of shark depredation,” published in the August 2022 issue of Biological Conservation, addresses the shark depredation issue from the viewpoint of recreational and commercial fishermen, including for-hire captains and spearfishermen, who operate off the coast of Queensland, Australia.  That paper takes a preliminary look at the issue not by asking the typical “Are sharks good or bad?” question often seen in angling-related debates, but rather by using a “Levels of Conflict framework” that reaches down to deeper levels of what becomes a more complex human/wildlife conflict.

Such framework establishes three different levels.  The first, “Dispute,” sets out the problem itself; in this case, fishermen think that sharks are too abundant and taking too many fish.  The paper notes that

“While it is possible conflicts may solely lie on this level and thus be solved with a technical fix, typically conflicts at this dispute level represent the surface layer of deeper conflicts.”

The second level, “Underlying Conflict,” identifies an initial dispute which is made worse because previous efforts to solve the problem have proven unsatisfactory.

“Underlying conflicts still have the same visible problems of the dispute level, but there is also a history of damage from wildlife that has been unsatisfactorily managed.  This type of conflict can create an ‘us versus them’ mentality…This mentality generally arises from the perception that previous management of the conflict was unfair, disappointing, or misleading.  For example, a farmer choosing to illegally retaliate on protected wolves despite management’s non-lethal solution to build fences.  [internal references omitted]”

The third and final conflict level is “Deep-Rooted Conflict,” in which a “perceived threat to personal values or identity” is added to the frustrations of the Underlying Conflict phase. 

“This level tends to result from the growth of underlying conflicts that align with pre-existing socio-political conflicts that stakeholders perceive as a threat to their own values or identity.  Individuals involved in the conflict tend to view their views and identities as fundamentally different from those managing the issue.  This ultimately creates another, deeper ‘us versus them’ mentality between stakeholders and managers.  Identity-based conflicts cannot be solved with dispute level fixes, and attempts to do so may widen the division further.  Conflict resolution for this level relies heavily on facilitating open dialogues between stakeholder groups.  [internal references omitted]”

The southeast Florida shark depredation conflict arguably exists on this level, with fishermen and charter boat operators unhappy, and feeling threatened, by managers who prioritize ecosystem health and maintaining shark populations above reducing shark depredation of hooked fish, and divers and conservationists feeling equally threatened by the tournament’s “varmint hunter” mentality, which sees fishermen seek to kill sharks that are neither wanted nor needed for food.

Conversations among all the parties will be needed to reach a solution that addresses the needs of all, including the sharks themselves.

What isn’t needed is an old-fashioned kill tournament, an event not too different in nature from the predator hunting contests held in inland venues, where contestants are awarded for killing coyotes, bobcats, foxes and similar creatures, animals that aren’t being hunted for food and, in many cases, not even for fur but, like the Florida sharks, merely end up in a dumpster, because someone mistakenly believed that such predators, while performing their role in the food web, kill wildlife that would be better killed by people.

It's a position without scientific support, and one that takes us back to the days when bounties were paid for dead foxes, hawks and seals.

A tournament that supports such an outlook accomplishes nothing of value, while taking us back to a time we should never want to visit again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE NMFS' MAKO SHARK CLOSURE

 

Last Friday, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued the long-awaited rule that prohibits the retention of all shortfin mako sharks caught along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.  Beginning on July 5, no shortfin makos may be landed by anyone until NMFS determines that retaining such fish will do no harm to the shark,

The regulation was issued in response to last November’s action by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, which requires all member nations to prohibit shortfin mako landings throughout the North Atlantic.  If and when shortfin mako fishing mortality, including discard mortality, throughout the entire North Atlantic basin is reduced to or below 250 metric tons—roughly 550,000 pounds—ICCAT will consider reopening the fishery with a 250 metric ton annual catch limit.

Should ICCAT authorize such a reopening, NMFS will likely reopen the U.S. fishery, too.  However, because the United States is only responsible for about 14% of North Atlantic mako landings, and it is highly unlikely that fishing mortality will fall much below 250 metric tons, such landings will be very limited, and will probably be restricted to sharks that are brought to the boat dead in the longline fishery.

The recreational mako shark fishery that we once knew will probably be gone for a very long time.  Scientists are only giving the North Atlantic mako stock a 60% to 70% chance of rebuilding by the year 2070, so it’s far from certain that the traditional recreational fishery will ever return at all.

All things considered, that might not be a bad thing. 

When I first started shark fishing, more than a half-century ago, the mako shark fishery was almost all catch and kill.  There were no size or bag limits.  Juvenile makos, no longer than a loaf of French bread, commonly met their end in someone’s fish box, while slightly larger sharks, fish in the 40 to 60 pound range, were killed as a matter of course. 

Throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, shark tournaments flourished; here on Long Island, from the middle of June through the end of July, and sometimes into early August, there was at least one tournament held every weekend.  For much of that time, until NMFS finally put size and bag limits in place, many fish that had no realistic shot at a prize were killed and weighed anyway…just in case.

Makos were seen as both a prestige catch and a valued source of food, so even anglers who weren’t involved in a tournament usually wanted to put their fish on a scale.  The good news is that most weren’t wasted, although some of the largest, most valuable breeding females were discarded, either because their flesh was too coarse to provide good dining, or because they were too big to bring into the boat, had to be towed back many miles to get to the dock, and their uniced flesh degraded along the way.

At the same time, the makos were just fun to fight.  They were fast, they pulled off spectacular jumps, and they were as beautiful as any tuna or marlin when brought to the side of the boat.  So some anglers who participated in NMFS’ Cooperative Shark Tagging Program eventually began to tag and release more and more makos, recognizing them as not merely food, but as a valuable and valued sport fish.

That recreational release fishery will still be allowed under the closure.  In response to stakeholder comments suggesting that such fishery should also be shut down, NMFS responded that

“The purpose of this action is to implement ICCAT Recommendation 21-09, which prohibits retention of shortfin mako sharks.  Catch-and-release fishing is consistent with the measures in Recommendation 21-09 and with implementation of a flexible retention limit with a default of zero.  The retention limit of zero would prevent recreational fishermen from retaining shortfin mako sharks, which would reduce mortality.  Allowing catch-and-release is consistent with the non-retention requirements…Additionally, by allowing fishermen to catch-and-release shortfin mako sharks, data required for stock assessments would continue to be collected…”

Thus, while anglers might lose their seared mako steaks, and some opportunities to compete for prizes (although, having fished in my share of tournaments and having seen the relatively low standards of sportsmanship that prevailed—I once heard an angler auctioning off a good-sized mako over the VHF radio to participants in a particularly large and well-paying event, and he had no shortage of bidders—the latter is probably a good thing), NMFS left them the speed and the leaps and the beauty, which in the end are the best things of all.

For some anglers, that wasn’t good enough.  NMFS received a number of comments that argued for management measures short of a complete ban on recreational retention, including

“a recreational limit of one shortfin mako shark per vessel per year; a limit of two sharks per year: one trophy size and one for personal consumption; banning the retention of females; banning retention in tournaments; mandatory reporting; increasing the minimum sizes; and managing shortfin mako sharks like deer (i.e., through administration of a system that provides fishermen with a tag or limited number of tags).  NMFS received a suggestion to implement a fee for each shortfin mako shark caught, and a higher fee if the shark is brought to the vessel dead.”

However, all of those suggestions were, at least for the moment, dead on arrival, as NMFS must comply with the ICCAT decision to ban all mako landings over the next couple of years. 

We can probably expect some illegal landings to occur, primarily in the recreational fishery, where too many anglers seem to feel that the simple fact that they purchased fuel and bait gives them the right to take a fish home, regardless of any regulations that might say otherwise.  We saw such anglers violate the size limits that previously applied to shortfin makos, just as we saw some charter boat operators allow their fares to retain undersized sharks in order to make them happy and increase the chances for repeat bookings.

Having said that, an absolute ban will probably make poaching a little more difficult, for while no one but NMFS or state enforcement agents are likely to measure a fish to see whether it fell a few inches short of the limit, the very act of lifting a mako out of the boat now marks the people involved as poachers, and in this era of smartphones, could easily inspire a quick photo and a call to the enforcement folks.  

Since anglers will no longer be able to massage their egos by hanging big makos on the scale for all to see, the motivation to kill such fish will probably be somewhat diminished.  Once the landings ban goes into effect on Tuesday, the makos that will be most at risk are likely to be the forty-pounders that can be slipped into a cooler and clandestinely transported to the poacher’s barbecue.

The next big question is whether the new NMFS regulation will be the final word on the subject, or whether even greater protections will be put in place.

On January 25, 2021, Defenders of Wildlife, a prominent animal rights group, filed a petition with the Secretary of Commerce, seeking to have shortfin makos listed under the Endangered Species Act. 

On April 15, 2021, NMFS issued a so-called “90-day finding” which concluded that

“the petition presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted.  Therefore, we are initiating a status review of the species to determine whether listing under the [Endangered Species Act] is warranted.  To ensure this status review is comprehensive, we are soliciting scientific and commercial information regarding this species.”

The key word in the above finding is “may.”

While NMFS found that a listing “may” be warranted, its final decision will be based on the information reviewed during the status review.  Pursuant to the Endangered Species Act, if a federal agency finds that a listing under the Act may be warranted, that agency has 12 months from the date the initial petition was filed to determine whether the relevant species should be listed as “threatened” or “endangered.”

Thus, NMFS should have published its final decision on shortfin makos more than five months ago.  Because it has failed to do so, Defenders of Wildlife recently served NMFS and the Commerce Department with a Notice of Intent to Sue, which sets the stage for it to begin legal action 60 days after such notice was presented.

While such notice might help to ensure that NMFS completes the status review over the next few months, it probably wasn’t needed, as in its comments accompanying the retention ban, the agency noted that

“NMFS is actively working on the 12-month finding to consider listing shortfin mako sharks under the ESA and plans to release the determination soon.”

Given the need to comply with the ICCAT decision to prohibit all mako landings, it wasn't unreasonable for the agency to address that issue first.  I also suspect that completing the regulation was the more compelling task, because the agency will ultimately decide that listing shortfin makos, or at least listing the North Atlantic stock of shortfin makos, under the ESA is not warranted.

That’s because one of the criteria for an ESA listing is

“the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms.”

I believe that NMFS will find that the ICCAT decision to ban shortfin mako landings, coupled with the new NMFS regulations, created a regulatory environment likely to rebuild the North Atlantic stock of shortfin mako by 2070, thus rendering a listing unnecessary.

That thinking might change if the ICCAT action doesn’t adequately reduce discard mortality in the pelagic longline fishery, but for now, I predict that NMFS will base its status review, and its finding that listing is not warranted, on the ICCAT decision.

And, in the end, that probably makes a lot of sense, because any action taken under the Endangered Species Act would probably have little impact on the North Atlantic shortfin mako stock, while having a substantial impact on commercial and recreational fisheries.  

Since the U.S. has already banned shortfin mako retention, the only additional restrictions that could result from an ESA listing would be regulations designed to reduce other sources of mako “take,” which the law defines as

“to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.”

In other words, to place further restrictions on fisheries that might accidentally “harm…wound, kill,..[or] capture a shortfin mako, which as a practical matter includes just about any commercial or recreational fishery operating in the ocean off the New England or mid-Atlantic coast.

I’m pretty sure that NMFS has no intention of going that far.

So where does that leave the mako?

Certainly, in a far better place than it was in last October, before ICCAT imposed the retention ban, and in a better place than it was before the U.S. prohibition on landings was released.

Yet it is still an animal facing real risks. 

The shortfin mako’s late maturity and relatively slow reproductive rate makes it vulnerable to even low levels of harvest, and there is no guarantee that the Spanish and Portuguese longliners, who are responsible for most of the bycatch mortality, will make much of an effort to avoid killing a fish that now provides them with no economic benefits at all.  There is also no guarantee that they will accurately report their dead discards.  In fact, there is no guarantee that such longliners will even honor the ban, and won’t attempt to land illegal makos or, probably more likely, mako fins in the hope that enforcement of the landings ban will be lax, if such enforcement exists at all.

At the same time, the retention ban is probably the last, best hope that the North Atlantic stock of shortfin makos can be restored.

As for mako fishermen?

While some commercial fishermen will undoubtedly complain, the landings ban will have minimal economic consequences for the pelagic longline fleet; for the years 2018 through 2020, commercial mako landings for the entire Atlantic and Gulf coasts only generated an average of $96,000 in annual revenues.

Recreational fisheries will be hit somewhat harder.  NMFS estimates that the retention ban will eliminate about $1.1 million in angler expenditures attributed to traditional kill tournaments, and will have only a “minor” impact on the for-hire fishery, as only about 10% of for-hire vessels operating between Maine and Virginia target mako sharks, and just 7% of all for-hire trips targeting highly migratory species in that region are directed at shortfin makos.

Over all, that seems a small price to pay for measures which help to ensure that the fastest, highest-leaping, and arguably the most beautiful shark in the sea still exists, hopefully in greater abundance, when the twenty-second century dawns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NMFS GETS SERIOUS ABOUT CALIBRATING RED SNAPPER DATA--AND GETS FLAK FOR DOING ITS JOB

 

For people who write about fishery conservation issues, the recreational red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico is the gift that just keeps on giving. 

Fishery managers keep coming up with new strategies to end overfishing.  Recreational private boat fishermen keep finding new and creative ways to defeat those strategies and increase the rancor directed at fishery managers.  And the whole situation has become so filled with trouble and turmoil that even when the recreational folks come up with an idea that looks like it should finally make everyone happy, they find a way to torpedo their own plan, and launch an attack on the very program that they created.

Anyone who believes that’s an exaggeration need only look at the short but controversial history of Amendment 50A to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council’s Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico.

For many years, recreational fishing organizations, which primarily represented the private boat sub-sector, chafed against the science-based red snapper catch limits imposed by NMFS, railed against both the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and the federal managers who had to abide by its terms, and generally kicked their feet and screamed like petulant children every time they were asked to do their part to help conserve and rebuild the red snapper stock.

State fishery managers weren’t bound by the provisions of Magnuson-Stevens, so the Gulf’s red snapper anglers then tried to take management responsibility for the species away from the feds, and hand it over to the states, where regulations could, and often were, based as much on political considerations than on scientific advice.  

When politics dictated that states go out of compliance with federal red snapper regulations, and to allow excessively high recreational landings in state waters, federal managershad to compensate by imposing more restrictive regulations offshore. 

Recreational fishermen responded bydemonizing NMFS, even though it was the anglers’ placing incessant political pressure on states to break with federal managers that was the real cause of the restrictive NMFS rules.

After Wilbur Ross became the Secretary of Commerce in the Trump Administration, and was given the ultimate say over NMFS policy, politics carried more weight than science at the agency, too.  The recreational fishing groups hailed a decision to extend the federal red snapper season, even though overfishing would certainly ensue, as a win for private boat anglers.  Only a legal action brought by the conservation community led the Trump-era NMFS to back down.

And that’s when Amendment 50 came along.

Amendment 50, as finally adopted by the Gulf Council, was largely the brainchild of the recreational fishing industry and recreational fishing organizations.  It represented a sort of compromise between the militant red snapper anglers, who liked the idea of having the snapper managed by politically-influenced state management bodies, and federal fishery managers bound by the provisions of Magnuson-Stevens.  Pursuant to the amendment, which was adopted in 2020, federal fisheries managers would, based on the best available scientific information, set the overall red snapper catch limit. 

That limit would then be allocated among the five Gulf Coast states, based on their historical landings.  The states, in turn, would be allowed to set their own seasons for both state and federal waters and, within certain specified limits, their own size and bag limits as well, provided that such state regulations would successfully constrain recreational limits to each state’s quota.  In that way, each state would be able to tailor its recreational red snapper rules to the needs of its particular fishery, rather than be forced into a one-size-fits-all management measure that might not fit any state’s needs particularly well.

Amendment 50 seemed like a good idea, and it probably was.

Jeff Angers, President of the Center for SportfishingPolicy, an umbrella group that includes some of the most militant recreationalfishing groups in the Gulf, hailed adoption of the amendment, saying

“We have reason to celebrate today thanks to the willingness of the state fish and wildlife agencies of the Gulf Coast and the leadership of Secretary Ross and congressional champions like Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala) and Representatives Garrett Graves (R-La.), Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Austin Scott (R-Ga.).  Over the past two years, private recreational red snapper anglers in the Gulf have become more active partners in the states’ data collection systems and enjoyed much longer red snapper seasons than the federal system was able to provide.”

The problem was, no one seemed to stop and think that, if red snapper seasons were longer, and if anglers could fish in deeper, snapper-rich federal waters during that season, recreational landings were likely to spike.

At first, it was hard to tell, because all of the Gulf states had developed their own ways to count anglers’ landings.  The state data programs ranged from the technically advanced Tails ‘N Scales in Mississippi to an archaic system in Texas that predated the obsolete Marine Recreational Fishing Statistics Survey that NMFS abandoned a few years ago. 

While NMFS helped the states develop their individual data programs, and eventually certified all of them, other than the old Texas system, for use with the federal Marine Recreational Information Program, each program uses a slightly different methodology from those used by other states.  Thus, their results can’t be directly compared with one another, but must be converted into a “common currency,” that is, the data across the array of surveys must be calibrated in a way that accounts for each program’s differences.

When the first rough estimates of the calibration results came out, it appeared that the data collection programs utilized by two neighboring Gulf states, Alabama and Mississippi, grossly underestimated recreational landings.  Managers believed that anglers in those states overfished so badly that their landings would have to be reduced by roughly 60% to keep them within their state quotas.

That’s not something that such states’ anglers wanted to hear, particularly because if they did overfish their quotas, such overages would have to be remedied with pound-for-pound paybacks in subsequent years.  

Perhaps hoping to find a way to avoid such remedial action, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council delayed the data calibration process, ignoring NMFS’ warnings that basing management actions on uncalibrated data represented a failure to employ the best scientific information available.  NMFS allowed the Gulf Council to get away with such delay, and not use calibrated data until 2023.

At the same time, “anglers’ rights” organizations allied with the recreational fishing industry continued their cynical campaign intended to undercut recreational fishermen’s faith in the Marine Recreational Information Program and the federal management system.  They repeatedly claim that state landings data need not be adjusted, and repeatedly attack the accuracy of federal landings estimates.

Such organizations, which were so willing to extol the virtues of Amendment 50 just a couple of years ago, were no longer so enamored of the red snapper management program that they, themselves, had created.  While Amendment 50 might have been praiseworthy when it led to longer seasons and bigger red snapper kills, it suddenly looked far less attractive when it held anglers, and those anglers’ states, accountable for their red snapper overages.

Calibration of the state data, or at least any calibration that would result in reduced harvests for one or more states, became a hot issue, as the organized Gulf angling community did what it could to assure that no such calibration took place.

Amendment 50, after all, wasn’t supposed to be about managing and conserving red snapper, it was about creating a longer fishing season for red snapper anglers, and allowing those anglers to take more snapper home.

At least, that’s how the various recreational fishing advocacy groups viewed—and still view—the amendment.

However, NMFS sees things a little differently.  On its website, it notes

“some constituents believe the agency is forcing states to modify their red snapper data to match federal data.  That is incorrect.  Fishery managers need to compare red snapper catches to established landing limits to understand if the catch limits were met or exceeded.

“Red snapper catch limits were developed using state and federal data that included inputs from NOAA’s Marine Recreational Information Program.  Red snapper landings are being estimated using state landings data using multiple and differing state surveys.  The data behind the red snapper catch limits and the states’ landings estimates are collected in different ways and rely on different calculations.  The data have to be standardized, meaning converted to a standard set of units.  This ensures that catch limits are set in units that are consistent across states, monitor catches, and allows managers to see apples-to-apples results…”

This week, NMFS took a big step toward achieving that goal, issuing proposed regulations that would establish calibration criteria for recreational red snapper landings.  Such criteria, designed to standardize all of the state and federal landings data, establishes ratios that make the state and federal data directly comparable and compatible.  Two states, Florida and Louisiana, are thought to slightly overestimate their recreational landings; to compensate for such overestimation, federal data will be multiplied by 1.602 and 1.600, respectively, to translate it into a common standard for such states.

On the other hand, to account for underestimated landings in Alabama and Mississippi, federal data, including state quotas, will be multiplied by 0.4875 and 0.3840, respectively, to achieve a similar translation.

Since data from the questionable Texas system can’t be directly translated into or made comparable with the more contemporary surveys, no adjustment ratio will be applied to its estimates, which will be assumed equivalent to the federal data.

Needless to say, red snapper anglers in Alabama and Mississippi aren’t happy with the proposed rule. 

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), representing the desires of Mississippi’s recreational fishermen, released a press release in which he stated that

“NOAA’s proposed rule on red snapper represents a gross failure by the agency to improve the quality of data it uses to manage federal fisheries.  Mississippi’s recreational anglers are tired of seeing their seasons cut short unnecessarily based on faulty data.  The Tales ‘n Scales program run by Mississippi produces far more accurate data that should be used.  I will keep fighting for the Department of Commerce to develop a higher quality data collection process for recreational fishing.”

There is some irony in the senator’s statement, as recalibration would go a long way toward providing “higher quality data” for recreational fishermen, and yet Sen. Wicker seems to be trying to frustrate the calibration process.  

In addition, he seems to be missing one of the most important points about the calibration issue:  That all data created by the states or by NMFS must be converted into a single standard form. 

Tails ‘n Scales may well be a state of the art program, but it is only used in Mississippi.  Adopting Tails ‘n Scales as the quality standard for red snapper data might benefit Mississippi, but it will do nothing for data from Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, or Texas, nor for federal managers, who must utilize the data from every state to establish the Gulf-wide annual catch limit, that is then broken down to set the individual state quotas.

In order to set a Gulf-wide catch limit, fishery managers need a Gulf-wide data standard, which is precisely why NMFS’ recently proposed rule makes a lot of sense.  Anything less will make it far more difficult to protect the long-term health of the red snapper stock.

Of course, “the long term” means somewhat different things to different people.

When Amendment 50 was finalized, the Center for Sportfishing Policy celebrated, hailing it in a press release issued on February 6, 2020.  Yet by September 29 of the same year, the Center was complaining that if the Gulf states had to calibrate their data, and put it into a standardized, statistically useful form,

“it puts us right back to where we were before Amendment 50 was adopted.”

For some folks, even just seven months can be a very long time.