OF REGULATIONS, FAIRNESS AND RECREATIONAL FISHERMEN

As I’ve written before, I’m a big fan of Doug Olander, the editor of Sport Fishing magazine, and the thought that he puts into each editorial that appears in that publication. 

He doesn’t pump out the usual “conservation is a PETA plot,” “regulations are bad,” “they’re all trying to push us off the water” tripe that you see far too often in the saltwater press, and particularly in some of the regional rags.  Instead, he actually tries to inform his readers, presenting the facts as he believes them to be and giving fair consideration to both sides of an issue before reaching a reasoned conclusion.

The fact that I might or might not agree with that conclusion isn’t particularly relevant; what matters is that he consistently authors an honest piece that treats his readers with respect, and maybe even encourages them to really think about issues in a way that they hadn’t thought about them before.

The editorial in Sport Fishing’s February 2018 was no exception. 

In it, he related how Sport Fishing had posted a question on Facebook, “What would your fishing be like without fisheries regulation?” and how the responses fell into two camps.  It’s worth clicking on the link in the previous sentence to get a real feel for all the responses, but for those not so inclined, Olander reported that

“quite a few of the dozens who responded to this Question of the Day posted replies saying, in so many words, ‘if you think fishing sucks now, try it without regulations.'”

He notes that

“’Nonexistent’ was mentioned in many replies,”

and that

“A disaster [was] another oft-repeated opinion.”

He also informed readers that

“some fishermen feel quite differently.  Lots of respondents figure no regulation and no fisheries laws are exactly what we need.”

A few of the anti-regulations folks said that without regulations, fishing would be

“The same as 50 years ago,”

with one declaring that

“I’d spear every goliath grouper I saw,”

while another, who clearly never made it through the first year of law school, opined that

“I fish for food, not sport.  I have every constitutional right to do so without their interference.”

But then Olander made what was probably the most important observation in the piece.  He wrote that

“when it comes to antipathy to fishing laws, the greatest concern of anglers is fairness.”

He went on to provide a few examples of comments supporting that observation, including

“I would keep as many fluke as I want because I see the commercials doing it every day!”

and

“Members of NOAA owning commercial boats in the Gulf.  Conflict of interest much?”

Those two comments, among all the rest, stood out, because they led to another thought that went a step beyond Olander’s observation:  If “fairness” is a key to anglers accepting regulation, then education and an open mind are the keys to anglers’ understanding of “fairness.”

The angler who complained about commercial fishermen keeping as many fluke (more properly known as “summer flounder”) as they want certainly had a very incomplete understanding of fluke regulations, and how the commercial rules work.  For yes, commercial boats can keep far more fish each day than anglers can, but “as many fluke as [they] want” is very far from the truth.

Commercial fishermen in some states, including North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey and Rhode Island, have been awarded very large fluke quotas, and can kill a lot of fish in a single trip.  On the other hand, commercial fishermen in other states have much smaller quotas, and are subject to much smaller trip limits. 

Last year in New York, for example, the summer flounder trip limit never exceeded 70 pounds, even for the largest trawler, which makes it pretty hard to make a profit, once all of the expenses for the trip are paid (although the chance to combine daily trip limits into a single-trip weekly limit helps a bit).  

And commercial fishermen in Delaware have it even worse.  Because they exceeded their annual quota in a previous season, their 2017 annual quota was a negative 48,493 pounds; not only weren’t they permitted to land a single summer flounder last year, but it’s not at all clear when they will be allowed to land any summer flounder again. 

From the perspective of a Delaware commercial fisherman, an angler complaining about the “fairness” of recreational regulations, and suggesting that commercial fishermen could take all of the fluke that they want, would seem not just unreasonable, but completely irrational.  Particularly when one considers that when anglers overfish their summer flounder quota, as they have in some recent years, they merely face more restrictive regulations in future years, and don’t have their quota reduced, as commercial fishermen do, to account for any such overage.

But that’s the problem about “fairness,” as anyone who spends time with children can attest.  The kid who gets the bigger share of the birthday cake never starts wailing “You’re being unfair!  He got a smaller piece…”

And that’s a fair analogy, because anglers seldom address “fairness” issues as rational adults, who try to understand the full picture.  That’s not entirely their fault; there are certainly plenty of folks who could be shedding some light on the issue, but instead choose to keep much of the picture obscured.

That’s probably best illustrated down in the Gulf of Mexico, where various organizations keep whining about the “unfairness” of the red snapper regulations.  

Consider a press release issued by the Center for Sportfishing Policy, an umbrella organization that includes the primary fishing tackle trade association, the primary marine manufacturers’ association and a number of anglers’ rights groups among its membership.  It bemoaned the fact that

“While private recreational anglers—those who purchased a boat, fishing gear, fishing license, fuel, ice, etc.—were limited to a three-day red snapper season in federal waters this year, charter boat operators were granted a 49-day season and commercial fishermen were granted a 365-day season.”

Taking that statement on its face, as most anglers and probably most non-anglers would, it would seem that a great inequity had, in fact, taken place.  That’s what happens without education.

Because when you learn all the facts, facts that the leadership of the angling community down in the Gulf seems very reluctant to clearly provide to either their members or to the public, a very different picture emerges. 

Once you learn all of the facts, you learn that the short federal fishing season for private boat recreational red snapper anglers was caused by excessively long seasons in state waters, where anglers were expected to catch 81% of their red snapper quota.  Depending on the state, those seasons were scheduled to last between 67 and 365 days.  The three day federal season was just long enough to let recreational fishermen land the other 19%.

That knowledge turns the Center for Sportfishing Policy’s complaint on its head. 

Once state seasons are part of the picture, it becomes clear that, depending on where they’re fishing, private boat anglers may fish for Gulf red snapper for no less than 67, and perhaps as many as 365, days of the year, not merely for three.  

On the other hand, charter and party boats with federal reef fish permits—and, more importantly, the anglers who don’t own and maybe can’t afford a boat, and so depend on those for-hires to access the red snapper resource—are still stuck at 49 days, because federally-permittedvessels aren’t allowed to fish in state waters when the federal season is closed.

So once again, “fairness” is all a matter of perspective, tempered by knowledge

.

The same thing is true when it comes to the Center’s complaints about the 365-day commercial season.  

For yes, it’s true that the commercial fishery is allowed to operate for 365 days of the year, but it’s also true that the commercial fishery agreed to management measures that strictly limit each fisherman’s share of the overall harvest, and that thanks to such measures, the commercial sector hasn’t overfished its quota in more than a decade. 

On the other hand, the private-boat recreational sector chronically exceeds its allocation, but rejects management measures that would limit individual harvest enough to permit a year-long federal season.  In 2017, the sector hit a new low, convincing the Department of Commerce to reopen its season for 39 days, while knowing that such reopening would lead to “substantial” overfishing, delay the recovery of the stock for as much as six years, and so ultimately harm the commercial and for-hire fishermen.

So tell me, who is really being “unfair?”  NOAA Fisheries, or the so-called “leadership” of the recreational fishing community, who seem ready and willing to take fish away from the commercial and for-hire sectors, who don't overfish, and give them to private-boat anglers, who overfish on a regular basis, but also seem unwilling, and perhaps even afraid, to tell anglers, and the members of their organizations, all of the information that they need to make a fully-informed decision about whether the management system works as it should?

That’s the sort of question that needs to be asked when we look at another complaint of “unfairness” quoted in Olander’s editorial:  “Members of NOAA owning commercial boats in the Gulf.  Conflict of interest much?”

A quick Google search didn’t turn up any NOAA employees who own commercial boats fishing in the Gulf of Mexico (although that doesn’t necessarily mean that such folks don’t exist), so for purposes of this discussion, I’m making the (possibly false) assumption that when the commenter said “Members of NOAA,” he meant members of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, and not full-time NOAA employees.

As it turns out, there is only one full-time commercial fisherman on the Gulf Council, Leann Bosarge of Mississippi, who works in her family’s shrimp business.  In addition to Ms. Bosarge, a few other Gulf Council members have jobs related to commercial fishing.  Ed Swindell of Louisiana is a consultant to the menhaden industry, while John Sanchez of Florida is employed by a wholesale fuel distributor that includes commercial fishermen and fish houses among its customers, and Dale Diaz of Mississippi had recently provided the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources with advice on marketing Mississippi-sourced seafood.

However, none of those persons actually “[own] commercial boats in the Gulf”; even Ms. Bosarge is only an employee of her family’s business, and doesn’t actually own any of the shrimp boats that she manages.

But, having looked at the number of Gulf Council members who might feel some natural affinity for the commercial fisheries, it’s only right—only “fair”—to look at Council members who might, for one reason or another, feel some bias for the recreational side.

It’s difficult to deny that, of all the anglers’ rights groups railing against federal fisheries management in the Gulf of Mexico, the loudest voice belongs to the Coastal Conservation Association, which has called federal management of Gulf red snapper

“a man-made fishery management disaster,”

said that

“The waters of the Gulf of Mexico managed by the federal government are becoming an even more unfriendly place for recreational anglers,”

and even complained that

“red snapper, and the countless other species behind it like amberjack and gray triggerfish…are on the same federal management track to a dead end.”

Yet, if we look at the number of Gulf Council members who have CCA affiliations, we find Doug Boyd of Texas, who is a member of CCA’s National Executive Board and an officer of CCA’s Texas chapter, and Campo Martens of Louisiana, who is a member of CCA’s National Board, a board member of CCA’s Louisiana chapter and the chair of that chapter’s Government Relations Committee—as well as a member of the Center for Sportfishing Policy (formerly the Center for Coastal Conservation).  

In addition, Dr. Greg Stunz, a formally nonaffiliated Council member from Texas, is a professor at the Center for Sportfish Science and Conservation at Texas A & M University; the Center for Sportfish Science and Conservation was started with $500,000 in seed money provided by CCA’s Texas chapter, while Dr. Stunz himself is so highly regarded by CCA that he was recognized as an “innovator” in CCA’s Tide magazine.

And, completely apart from CCA, we find Florida’s Phil Dyskow, the former president of Yamaha Marine Group, who discloses on his Statement of Financial Interest that he has

“stock ownership in Sea Star Solutions, a maker of boat steering and accessory components,”

that

“I believe that Sea Star Solutions may be active in Recreational Fishing advocacy”

and that

“I am a consultant to Yamaha Marine Group,”

an organization that has aggressively criticized federal fishery management in the Gulf.

Thus, any angler who believes that Gulf management decisions are “unfair” because someone owning a commercial fishing boat might sit on the Council ought to take a look at the other side of the ledger, and see how the deck is stacked in favor of certain recreational interests and against the current science-based management system.

That gives “fairness” a whole different appearance.

And that’s why “fairness” is such a difficult criteria to employ when dealing with fisheries management.  Many fishermen are quick to complain that things are “unfair” when a single set of circumstances might militate against them, but like the child who gets the bigger piece of the cake, never worries about “fairness” when things go their way.

Thus, when it comes to federal fisheries management, perhaps we’d all be wise to stop thinking just about ephemeral concepts like "fairness" and instead think about some of the closing words of Doug Olander’s editorial.

“I think those of us in the recreational-fishing community need to continue to make our voices heard to make fisheries laws better, not abolish them.”

Although Olander didn’t go any farther than that, I would suggest that the way to make fisheries laws better is to insist that such laws put the fish first.  For when fish are abundant, we don’t need to squabble about whether laws are fair.  Whether we are commercial or recreational, there will be more fish available for all of us.

But if we put ourselves first, and like the coddled two-year old believe that everything resolves around Me…Meee…Meeeeeeeee!, and not the resource, fish will never return in abundance.

And that, in the end, would be the most unfair occurrence of all.