For advocates of salt water fish conservation, 2017 was not
a good year.
It marked the first year of an administration that appears
to have no connection with the natural world, on either land or water, and
perhaps for that reason, has a seeming contempt for conservation issues. Such administration serves as the perfect
partner for a Congress heavily biased toward extractive users of all stripes,
and equally hostile to the concept of conserving natural resources of all
sorts.
That decision was followed up, in
July, by the Secretary of Commerce overruling the Atlantic States Marine
Fisheries Commission’s finding that New Jersey had gone out of compliance with
ASMFC’s summer flounder management plan.
It was the first time in more than 23 years that such an ASMFC determination
was overturned. The consequences
were much more far-ranging than merely allowing New Jersey anglers to enjoy
too-lax rules; other states, which formerly feared having fisheries shut down
if they defied ASMFC, are now more willing to push the boundaries of fishery
management plans, knowing that there is a good chance that Commerce will
ultimately reward their noncompliance.
That sort of thinking, and the resulting fear that ASMFC’s
remaining authority to manage coastal fisheries might be effectively erased,
may have played a role at a November meeting of the Atlantic Menhaden
Management Board, when that board surprised and dismayed the conservation
community by not adopting interim ecological reference points that would have
required managers to consider the species’ role as a forage fish when setting
annual catch limits for the menhaden stock.
Faced
with the threat of Virginia going out of compliance with an adverse Management
Board decision, and the possibility that Omega Protein, the largest harvester
of menhaden, might bring suit, ASMFC voted 16-2 against adopting such
ecological reference points, when well-informed vote-counters predicted,
ahead of the meeting, that the reference points would, instead, be approved
11-7.
On the West Coast, the
Environmental Protection Agency, immediately after speaking to representatives
of the mining industry, reversed the previous administration’s decision to stop
development of the so-called Pebble Mine, which threatens the watershed of
Bristol Bay, Alaska. While the mine
hasn’t yet been approved—the EPA decision merely allows the permitting process
to move forward—given that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is, and long has
been, a lapdog for various extractive industries, there is scant reason to hope
that the permit will be withheld; the odds have gotten good enough that Northern
Dynasty Minerals, the primary developer of the proposed Pebble Mine, has just
received new funding from a new business partner. Thus, one of the last healthy natural salmon
runs in the United States, which includes all five Pacific species—kings, coho,
pinks, chums and the world’s largest run of sockeye—are likely to be threatened
by pollution caused by mine tailings and runoff, and a near-pristine watershed
badly degraded.
Finally, to close the year off on a sour note, in
December the House Committee on Natural Resources, on what were essentially
party-line votes, marked up and favorably recommended H.R. 200, a
bill that will badly weaken federal fisheries laws, and H.R. 3588,
the so-called “RED SNAPPER Act,” which will permit recreational fishermen
in the Gulf of Mexico, with the connivance of state fishery managers, to
effectively evade the impacts of whatever federal fisheries laws may remain,
whether or not H.R. 200 is passed.
Now, as we look ahead to 2018, it is clear that some of the
old battles will continue into the new year, and that even more, new battles
loom on the horizon.
In Congress, it is probably impossible to prevent the House
from passing H.R. 200, as it is exactly the sort of bill the majority prefers,
placing short-term economic gains ahead of the long-term health of America’s
natural resources. It’s likely that the
RED SNAPPER Act, which also weakens conservation measures, will also win House
support.
The real fight for
the health of our fisheries will take place in the Senate, where the outlook
not quite as dim. On the whole, the
Senate has a more reasoned and deliberative approach toward legislation than
does the House, and the key senators don’t exhibit the same sort of
slash-and-burn mentality toward both marine and terrestrial resources that is
enthusiastically displayed by the majority on the House Natural Resources
Committee. Thus, there is reason to hope
that the Senate bill reauthorizing the Magnuson-Stevens
Fishery Conservation and Management Act will look substantially better than
H.R. 200.
S.
1686, the Senate version of the RED SNAPPER Act, is also unlikely to sail smoothly
through that chamber, although it may ultimately pass in some form.
The most immediate threat will probably be S. 1520,
the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act, often called the “Modern
Fish Act.”
The House
version of the Modern Fish Act, H.R. 2023, was bad enough that many of its
provisions could be seamlessly incorporated into H.R.
200, a bill so bad that it is being called “another ‘Empty Oceans Act,’” a
sobriquet first given to a predecessor bill in an earlier session of Congress. S. 1520, which remains a stand-alone bill, doesn’t
sink quite so low, but it does contain provisions that threaten the quality of
the data used to manage federal fisheries, and others that could undercut
current provisions that prohibit overfishing and require the timely rebuilding
of overfished stocks. The real danger of
S. 1520 is that it could be folded into whatever Magnuson-Stevens
reauthorization bill finally emerges from the Senate, and that a lot of the bad
provisions of H.R. 200 are included in whatever compromise legislation results
from a House/Senate conference.
At the regional level, East Coast anglers are looking at two
pending threats.
The first affects the striped bass.
Amendment 6 to the
Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass has, as
its stated goal,
“To perpetuate, through cooperative interstate fishery
management, migratory stocks of striped bass; to allow commercial and
recreational fisheries consistent with the long-term maintenance of
a broad age structure, a self-sustaining spawning stock; and also to
provide for the restoration and maintenance of their essential habitat. [emphasis added]”
Management “consistent with the long-term maintenance of a
broad age structure” requires regulations which maintain harvest at relatively
modest levels, and allow fish to survive to reach older age, larger sizes and, particularly
in the case of striped bass, greater fecundity.
But there
is currently an effort taking place at ASMFC, supported by some members of the Atlantic
Striped Bass Management Board, to change the biological reference points that ultimately
decide what striped bass regulations will be.
Instead of regulations that provide for a greater abundance
and a broad and more stable age and size structure of the striped bass stock,
they are seeking reference points that will maximize yield, significantly
reduce the number of older, larger females in the spawning stock, and so make
the striped bass more vulnerable to consecutive years of poor spawning success.
“…Do we want to maximize yield, which…is a historical
traditional reference point for a commercial fishery is [maximum sustainable
yield]. Do we want to maximize catch
rates, so that you can go out and have a high chance of catching a fish?
“Is that what we want?
Do we want to maximize trophy-sized fish? Do we want regional reference points or do we
want a coastwide reference point? Do we
want a less conservative threshold? Do we
want a threshold to really represent a threshold that is a danger zone, or do
we want it to represent something different?”
Most serious recreational striped bass fishermen would like
to see the species managed for abundance; those of us who lived through the
collapse of the 1970s and 1980s, as well as younger anglers who know their
striped bass history, would like to see it managed for a resilient spawning
stock structure as well. On the other
hand, some commercial fishermen, who see the world through the lens of maximum
yield, as well as many members of and spokesmen for the recreational fishing
industry, who equate bigger kills with bigger profits, would love to see harvests
increased, even if that puts the stock in greater jeopardy in the long term.
ASMFC’s
Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board will discuss, but probably not make a
final decision, on the question at their February meeting. However, one issue they will decide, and
which will have an impact on how much of the big 2015 year class survives to
enter the coastal migratory population and, eventually, the female spawning
stock, is whether Maryland should be granted a “conservation equivalency”
exception that would permit the state to lower its minimum size for striped
bass.
Right now, Maryland
does not allow fishermen to retain striped bass smaller than 20 inches in
length under any circumstances. Although
the details of the state’s conservation equivalency proposal have not yet been published
by ASMFC, it’s widely expected that it will seek to decrease the minimum size
to 18
inches. That’s the size of a typical
three-year-old bass, and it’s no coincidence that the 2015 year class will
be three years old this spring, just as any such conservation equivalency
proposal becomes effective.
So the effort to emphasize yield instead of abundance has,
in a way, already begun.
The second thread addresses the striped bass’ frequent
companion in the northeast, the bluefish.
As
ASMFC announced in its latest edition of its newsletter, Fisheries Focus,
“In December, the Commission and [the Mid-Atlantic Fishery
Management Council] initiated a new amendment to the Bluefish [fishery
management plan]. The intent of the
Draft Amendment is to review and possibly revise recreational/commercial
allocation of the resource…A Scoping Document will be released sometime in
2018.”
Currently, recreational
fishermen are allocated 83% of the bluefish harvest. However, because anglers release more than
60% of the fish that they catch, they do not land their entire allocation.
Commercial fishermen, on the other hand, often land their full
allocation, and under the terms of the existing management plan, are also allowed
to harvest a percentage of the recreational sector’s unused allocation.
A strict reading of the Magnuson-Stevens Act casts some
doubt on the legitimacy of such reallocation.
One of the stated purposes of the Act is
“to promote domestic commercial and recreational fishing
under sound conservation and management principles, including the
promotion of catch and release programs in recreational fishing. [emphasis added]”
The recreational bluefish fishery is a perfect example of a
fishery that has been embracing such catch and release, with release rates increasing from 18%
in the early 1980s to 62% in recent years.
However, transfer of recreational allocation to the commercial sector,
far from promoting catch and release programs, does exactly the opposite: It teaches anglers that catch and release accomplishes
very little, for rather than increasing the abundance of bluefish, allowing
more encounters and better recreational opportunity, it merely provides
additional quota for the commercial sector to kill.
Furthermore, although part of the law’s definition of “optimum”
yield is
“the amount of fish which will provide the greatest overall
benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and
recreational opportunities…”
which language places “food production” and “recreational
opportunities” on an equal footing, the reallocation of unharvested—but not unused,
as caught-and-released fish can be “used” by multiple anglers on multiple
occasions—elevates food production above recreation, contrary to the language
of the law.
Now, managers are considering going one step further, and
permanently reallocating bluefish not regularly harvested by anglers to the
commercial sector.
Given the contribution that catch and release fishing, as
opposed to harvest, makes to the maintenance of healthy stocks, such reallocation
would not benefit conservation goals, and certainly violates the spirit, if not
the letter, of the Magnuson-Stevens provisions quoted above. Anglers should be ready to oppose any such reallocation
when the scoping documents become available.
Finally, up in Alaska, opponents of the Pebble Mine and the
destruction that it will bring will be fighting a very difficult battle.
Last year, despite
receiving well over 200,000 comments in opposition to reopening the permitting
process, the Environmental Protection Agency, at the behest of its chief
administrator, Scott Pruitt, is allowing that permitting effort to move
forward. The process will hopefully be
long, complicated and, with any luck, further delayed and complicated by litigation
brought by champions of the salmon, clean waters and wilderness.
But this is an administration that only
values land that can be drilled, logged, mined or paved over, with no regard
for the beauty of pristine open spaces, so we can expect it to fight as hard as
it can, and with the benefit of its new court appointees at every level, to put
the Bristol Bay watershed at
risk.
Right now, given the current Congress, individuals will not have too many ways to defend the watershed
and its salmon. But there will certainly
be opportunities to donate to organizations opposing the mine, who will carry
on the fight in the courts and in Congress and perhaps can delay the destruction
long enough for the political landscape to change. At the least, merely raising public awareness
about what we could lose is a step in the right direction.
It would be nice to say that those are the only threats we
will face next year, but that wouldn’t be true.
I’m winding down now only because I’ve already run on too long for one blog, not because I'm running out of problems.
The
Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine Monument off New England, created to
protect unique deep-water ecosystems, is under siege, just as other monuments
were besieged on land, and for the same reasons—short term gain from resource
extraction trumps, in this administration’s mind, any other values.
Regulations governing mako shark harvest are likely to be
revised; shortfin
makos are declining badly, and though ICCAT’s
recent actions weren’t enough to ensure a recovery, we need to be sure that
whatever actions the National Marine Fisheries Service takes in response to ICCAT
will maximize benefits to the resource.
Anadromous fish
on both the East and West Coasts are having their migrations blocked by dams
and their spawning
and nursery grounds threatened by siltation from unsound logging practices,
drawdowns
for irrigation, agricultural
runoff and other pollutants.
Nitrogen
and phosphorus runoff from agriculture, septic systems and other sources is
causing harmful algae blooms in our bays, while beds of eelgrass and other
aquatic plants decline.
So yes, those who support the conservation and restoration
of our marine fish stocks have a lot of battles ahead.
They will be difficult fights. There will be losses.
Nevertheless, if we are to have healthy fish stocks in our
future, they are fights that we cannot avoid.
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