BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF THE MODERN FISH ACT

The Wizard of Oz first appeared in movie theaters nearly eighty years ago, and has since become a classic. 

In its climactic scene, the heroine Dorothy, along with her dog Toto and companions the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, enter the home of the film’s namesake wizard, who presents himself as a great disembodied head surrounded by flames, and tries to intimidate the visitors with his power.  

However, Toto ends up pulling aside a curtain to reveal that the “great” wizard is just a conman who uses tricks—smoke and mirrors—to create a false aura of potency.

The scene gave birth to the cliché “the man behind the curtain” to describe those who use illusions of power to manipulate public opinion.

An essay by Stella Morabito, titled “10 Key Ways to Beat the Mass Delusion Machine,” appeared in a 2015 edition of The Federalist.  It begins

“Perception is everything.  Wars are often won or lost based on how the actors perceive one another’s strengths and weaknesses, not so much how strong or weak they are in reality.  So it goes with any agenda item. 

“When people sense a shift in public opinion on an issue, a fair number will shift right along with what they perceive.  Thus, power elites can shape behaviors and attitudes by applying various techniques of crowd psychology, focused on propaganda and silencing dissent.

“The end product is thought reform, or ‘collective belief formation.’  It’s all about molding your perception of a given issue so your perception will influence others’ perceptions, creating an ‘opinion cascade.’  Effective propaganda also keeps you in the dark about the fact that you are being manipulated.”

Which brings us, the long way around, to the Modern Fish Act, (formally titled the “Modernizing Recreational Fishery Management Act, and designated H.R. 2023 in the House, with provisions incorporated into the even-worse H.R. 200 and S. 1520 in the Senate).

At its heart, the Modern Fish Act is an effort by the recreational fishing and boatbuilding industries, abetted by some anglers’ rights groups, to steal some extra fish from the commercial fishing sector, and from the future, by changing the process by which such fish are allocated between commercial and recreational fishermen, and by weakening the conservation and stock rebuilding provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens FisheryConservation and Management Act.

The Modern Fish Act made its formal appearance on April 6, 2017, when H.R. 2023 was introduced in the House of Representatives, but its proponents—the men behind the curtain who have been pulling the levers, setting up the mirrors and generating all of the smoke surrounding the legislation—began more than two years before.

Behind the curtain, drafts of a “white paper” setting out its basic principles were being circulated by the late winter/early spring of 2013; I became aware of the effort then, after being given a copy, although the ideas were already well-enough developed that it was clear that the work had begun some time before.

The folks behind the curtain were located not in the Emerald City, at the palace of Oz, but instead at a group called The Center for Sportfishing Policy (then known as the Center for Coastal Conservation), an organization formed to find political solutions to sportfishing issues, which included groups such as the Coastal Conservation Association (a Texas-based anglers’ rights organization), the American Sportfishing Association (the trade association for the recreational fishing tackle industry), the International Game Fish Association and the National Marine Manufacturers Association among its founding members.

The first public display of smoke and mirrors came a year later, at the 2014 Miami Boat Show, when Mike Nussman, president of the American Sportfishing Association, compared a pitcher full of gumballs and another, almost completely empty container to demonstrate the difference between commercial and recreational harvest, and argue for a new law.  Nussman failed to mention that most of thatcommercial harvest is made up of fish of no interest to anglers, or thatanglers dominate fisheries for many or the species that they actually careabout, including striped bass, bluefish, speckled trout, red drum and others—but, of course, such omissions are a big part of the smoke and mirrors trade.

Nussman’s exhibition set the stage for the release of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership report, “A Vision for Managing America’s Saltwater Recreational Fisheries,” which was designed to enhance the illusion. 

The report was created by a “Commission on Saltwater Recreational Fisheries Management,” a name that conveys the perception of being an important, independent body impaneled by someone seeking to find objective answers to recreational fishing issues.

In fact, the "commission" was co-chaired by Johnny Morris, the chief executive officer of Bass Pro Shops, a “Sustaining Member” of the Center for Sportfising Policy, and Scott Deal, a current director of the Center for Sportfishing Policy and president of Maverick Boats, another of the Center’s Sustaining Members.

So much for independence…

And, although though the “Vision” report talked a lot about conservation—it uses the word twenty-seven times in just a dozen pages of text pages—says that

“Recreational anglers are more focused on abundance and size, structure of the fisheries, and opportunities to get out on the water,“

than, presumably, on merely taking home fish, and shows a lot of pictures of smiling kids and families, its take-home message is that the key conservation provisions of Magnuson-Stevens, which required annual catch limits and deadlines for rebuilding depleted fish populations, had to be weakened or eliminated in order to further the “socio-economic” goal of letting recreational fishermen harvest more fish.  Which isn’t about conservation at all.

But as the essay quoted above points out, that reality doesn’t matter; it’s the perception that counts.

So press releases extolling the Modern Fish Act frequentlymention conservation, and try to conjure up all-American images of familiesfishing together, but never seriously discuss the impacts of the proposed law on overfishingand overfished stocks.  Rosy images sway public perception far better than grim and gloomy data...

And the Modern Fish Act supporters also need to promote the perception that the entire recreational fishing community is behind their effort to weaken federal fisheries law.  We see the Center for Sportfishing Policy announcing on its website that

“The Modern Fish Act (included in H.R. 200/S. 1520) will make critically important changes to federal fishing regulations, including several key provisions included in both bills that are supported by a broad coalition of recreational fishing and boating organizations.”

But when we look at a joint press release put out by the Center, praising the Modern Fish Act, we find that of the nine organizations listed, besides the Center itself, five—the Coastal Conservation Association, National Marine Manufacturers Association, International Game Fish Association, American Sportfishing Association and The Billfish Foundation—were the Center’s original “Institutional Sustaining Members.”  A sixth, the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation, is a current Sustaining Partner.

The seventh listed organization, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, doesn’t seem to be a member of the Center, but Center president Jeff Angers, is a former director of the foundation, and Pat Murray, president of the Coastal Conservation Association, is both the Secretary of the Foundation and a member of the Center for Sportfishing Policy’s Board of Directors.

We see the same sort of thing with an eighth organization, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.  It does not appear to be a member of the Center, but its board includes Bob Hayes, Chairman of the Center, and Mike Nussman, president of the American Sportfishing Association.  In addition, CCA, ASA, the International Game Fish Association, The Billfish Foundation, the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation and the National Marine Manufacturers Association are all listed as “Partners” of TRCP.

Only the final listed organization supporting the Modern Fish Act, the Recreational Fishing Alliance, has no connection to the Center for Sportfishing Policy, although it did appoint the legislative counsel for the National Marine Manufacturers Association to its board.

Thus, what the Center for Sportfishing Policy wants legislators to perceive as a “broad coalition” is, once you look behind the curtain, a very small and very incestuous private club.

Anglers, and angler-related businesses who don’t support the Modern Fish Act need to let their legislators know that that the little private club, despite its skill at illusion, does not speak for them.

One fishing tackle trade organization, the American Fly Fishing Trade Association, has already come out with a clear policy statement, supporting an effective Magnuson-Stevens Act that conserves and rebuilds marine fish stocks, and opposing

“measures that would compromise the scientific and conservation principles currently in the law that have led to the recovery of fish populations.”

Such a statement makes it abundantly clear that not all of the fishing tackle industry wants to weaken federal fisheries law. 

Now it’s up to the rest of us to make it clear that recreational fishermen, too, can think for themselves, and don’t merely dance when the men behind the curtain choose to pull on their strings.

FISHERMEN THREATENED; WHY ARE ADVOCACY GROUPS SILENT

With all the hype taking up the news outlets these days, whether we’re talking about the national news or things that matter mostly to fishermen, it might have been easy to miss the fact that the administration’s proposed budget slashed quite a few dollars from the NOAA Fisheries budget.

The overall budget for NOAA Fisheries is being cut by 14%.  However, law enforcement is taking a 25% hit, and all of that money would be taken out of the budget for cooperative enforcement programs; if the cuts go through as planned, there will be no federal money available for joint enforcement agreements, which funnel federal money to the states’ various environmental enforcement staffs.  If you’re a striped bass fisherman, such joint agreements, and the related federal funds, support the apprehension of poachers targeting bass in the EEZ; striped bass and many other important species will suffer, and poachers will benefit, on every coast should the program be defunded.

$17.7 million would be cut from the science and management budget, while $5 million less would be spent obtaining the data needed for stock assessments.  The proposed budget would also provide $2.9 million less for cooperative research.  The bottom line is that you might believe that our fisheries would benefit from more and better science and more and better data, but the administration apparently disagrees. 

Or doesn’t care.  Which, come to think of it, is probably more likely, but still takes us to the same place.

Of course, we don’t need science to tell us that fish need a place where they can live, feed and reproduce, or to tell us that a lot of coastal habitat has been degraded by development, polluted runoff, and the loss of coral reefs and seagrass beds.  We can hope that the administration includes folks who know that as well, but if there are such folks down in D.C., those who drafted the budget ignored them as well, since they hope to cut $4.8 million from habitat and conservation programs, thus eliminating all funding for fisheries habitat restoration projects.

And the National Sea Grant College Program, which for more than half a century has been conducting fisheries research and providing support to the fishing community, would receive no funding at all.

That makes it pretty clear that neither fisheries science, informed fisheries management nor fisheries education ranks very high on the administration’s priority list.

But perhaps you missed the news.  If you don’t live in a coastal town with a big fishing industry and a newspaper that covers fisheries issues, you may not have heard anything about it at all.

Certainly, the big sportfishing groups that have spent the past few years blasting out press releases attacking federal fisheries managers and fisheries management have not seen fit to mention the topic.

The Center for Sportfishing Policy, for example, claims that it is

“the nation’s leading advocate for saltwater recreational anglers.  The Center organizes, focuses and engages recreational fishing stakeholders to shape federal marine fisheries management policies.”

It claims that

“Recreational anglers are America’s leading conservationists,”

and that

“Anglers work to sustain healthy fish stocks and access to these public fishery resources.”

Certainly, the current budget proposals, which are a clear reflection of the administration’s federal marine fisheries policies, promote neither conservation nor healthy, sustainable fish stocks, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect the Center to speak out against them.

But when you look at the Center’s website, and go to its “Media Room,” that’s not what you find.

Instead, you’ll find support for two pieces of legislation that would undercut key conservation and management provisions of current fisheries law, S. 1520, the so-called “Modern Fish Act” that seeks to exempt recreational fishermen from annual catch limits, slow the rebuilding of overfished stocks and limit NOAA Fisheries’ ability to employ other valuable management tools, and H.R. 200, a sort of Modern Fish Act on steroids, which is formally known as the “Strengthening  Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act,” but is being called “another ‘Empty Oceans Act’” by members of the conservation community because of the impact it would have on fish stocks.

If you dig a little deeper, you’ll find a piece in which the Center praises the Department of Commerce for reopening the 2017 recreational red snapper season in the Gulf of Mexico, even though that agency knew that such reopening would lead to “substantial” overfishing and delay the recovery of the stock by as much as six years, and thus was almost certainly illegal.

And when you put all those things together, perhaps it’s not surprising that the Center hasn’t issued even a mild condemnation of the proposed budget cuts.  After all, this administration is willing to violate federal law in order to let recreational anglers overfish the red snapper stock.  That’s clearly the sort of thing that the Center supports, so why would they want to alienate a friend over such apparently trivial things as good science or fisheries habitat?

The websites of other Modern Fish Act supporters reveal a similar pattern. 

The American Sportfishing Association represents the fishing tackle industry.  Its website contains a lot of support for the Modern Fish Act, and praise for both the regressive H.R. 200 and Commerce’s decision to let anglers exceed their Gulf red snapper quota.  But it says nothing about the bad proposals in the administration’s budget, or the threat that such budget cuts pose to fisheries science and management efforts.

Anglers’ rights organizations take the same sort of positions, then follow up by asking their members to take political action.

The largest and most politically sophisticated such group, the Coastal Conservation Association, also praises H.R. 200, although it contains provisions contrary to positions taken by CCA a few years ago.  CCA celebrated the decision to let anglersoverfish Gulf red snapper.

CCA states that its purpose

“is to advise and educate the public on the conservation of marine resources.”

That is, without doubt, a worthy goal, but it’s hard to understand how supporting both the latest incarnation of the Empty Oceans Act and overfishing red snapper advances the cause. 

Perhaps the problem lies with CCA’s current understanding of the word “conservation,” for when you click on the “conservation” tab on CCA’s website, and then on “TAKE ACTION,” you’re directed to a page that asks you

“to tell your representatives in Congress to support the Modern Fish Act,”

even though the Modern Fish Act will weaken federal mangers’ ability to restrict recreational harvest and make it more likely that anglers will overfish various stocks.

It could just as easily have said “tell your representatives in Congress to restore NOAA Fisheries’ funding,” but CCA apparently decided against doing that--if they thought about it at all.

That might now be what you’d expect from a group that talks a good conservation game, but then again, most of us learned, well before we cut our first wisdom tooth, to judge a person—or an organization—not by what they say, but by what they actually do…

There is no such seeming dissonance at the Recreational Fishing Alliance, an organization that is smaller and less polished, but ideologically similar to, CCA.  RFA recently announced that

“In an effort to bring cohesion to the saltwater recreational fishing community, the RFA has launched the RED ALERT campaign.  We can no longer afford to work as individuals or splinter cells.  We have to work together and pool our resources or the days of freedom in our fisheries may well be over.

“In cooperation with our state chapter [sic] we are launching this campaign to raise money, awareness, and membership so that we can for once and for all stand up to the corrupt and unfair management practices that have plagued us for so long.  [emphasis added]”

And, of course, RFA supports the Modern Fish Act, it supports H.R. 200, and it praised the reopening of the red snapper season, despite the overfishing it caused, just as the other organizations did.

And, like the other organizations, it never spoke out against the proposed cuts to NOAA Fisheries, even though there has been plenty of time to do so in this era of Voter Voice and Constant Contact and like applications, that allow messages and “action alerts” to be sent out to members with a minimum of delay.

Given the similarity of all the organizations’ positions, it’s not hard to believe that they all have the same motivations as well, although most of them probably realize that there could be political and public relations advantages to letting those motivations remain unsaid.

It's not hard to believe that they all want to escape the bounds of annual catch limits and stock rebuilding deadlines, and enjoy the sort of “freedom in our fisheries” that lets them overfish red snapper, or any other fish stock, should they have a mind to.  

It's easy to believe that they all feel “plagued” by, and wish to escape, the kind of “corrupt and unfair management practices” that use science and data to restrict anglers’ landings, instead of letting such landings by guided by the simple marketplace forces of scarcity and abundance, as they were before the Sustainable Fisheries Act was passed in 1996.

Given that, its also easy to believe that they would also be fine with the administration’s plans to cut money for data and science and, perhaps particularly, enforcement, tools that have historically been used only to restrict their “freedom” to fish without chafing rules.

The good news is that the administration budget needs to be passed by a Congress that doesn’t necessarily agree with all of its provisions.  In fact, this particular budget has strayed far enough from the norm that many people, including some well-known lawmakers, have called it “dead on arrival.”

Yet even if much in it is changed, some provisions will remain largely intact, and it is very possible that the cuts to NOAA Fisheries could be among them.

So individual anglers have their own choice to make.

They can do what the various organizations tell them to do, tell Congress to support the Modern Fish Act, and perhaps be able to kill a few more fish while they can still find enough fish to kill.

Or they can think for themselves, and think strategically.  

They can realize that without science-based management, without good data, without restored habitat and without good law enforcement, there’s going to be a time when they won’t be able to bring many fish home, regardless of what the regulations might be.  

And they can understand that, instead of asking Congress to weaken federal fisheries laws, they would be better off using their calls and letters to insist that their folks in Washington oppose cuts to NOAA Fisheries’ budget be restored, so that our fish populations can continue to be restored as well.

Because if those cuts survive, nothing else will really matter.

OVERFISHING: BY ANY OTHER NAME, IT'S STILL WRONG

Overfishing isn’t good for fish stocks.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has observed that

“Overfishing transforms an originally stable, mature and efficient ecosystem into one that is immature and stressed.  This happens in various ways.  By targeting and reducing the abundance of high-value predators, fisheries deeply modify the trophic chain and the flows of biomass (and energy) across the ecosystem.”

People who hear the term “overfishing” have an instinctive understanding of what it means—taking too many fish for the health of a population—although many slightly different definitions of “overfishing” exist.  It is said to occur

“when more fish are caught than the population can replace through natural reproduction,”

or

“when there is so much fishing that a population of fish is in jeopardy of not being able to sustain themselves within a certain area.”

Here in the United States, where all fishing in federal waters is governed by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, that law includes a definition of overfishing based on the health of fish stocks.  Pursuant to Magnuson-Stevens,

“The terms ‘overfishing’ and ‘overfished’ mean a rate or level of fishing mortality that jeopardizes the capacity of a fishery to produce the maximum sustainable yield on a continuing basis.”

Such fishing mortality represents the aggregate number of fish killed as a result of fishing activity, whether such activity is recreational or commercial in nature, and whether the fish killed are harvested, represent dead discards or otherwise die as a direct result of fishing efforts.

Even so, in the minds of many people—and certainly in the minds of many, and probably most, anglers, overfishing is something done by the commercial fleets.  Often, such attitudes are justified; as noted by National Geographic magazine,   

“large, profit-seeking commercial fleets were extremely aggressive, scouring the world’s oceans and developing ever more sophisticated methods and technologies for finding, extracting, and processing their target species.  Consumers soon grew accustomed to having access to a wide selection of fish species at affordable prices.

“But by 1989, when about 90 million tons (metric tons) of catch were taken from the ocean, the industry had hit its high water mark, and yields have declined or stagnated ever since.  Fisheries for the most sought-after species, like orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, and bluefin tuna have collapsed.  In 2003, a scientific report estimated that industrial fishing had reduced the number of large ocean fish to just 10 percent of their pre-industrial population.”

Perhaps because of the obvious damage done by the industrial fishing fleets, anglers have rarely admitted or willingly accepted their role in overfishing fish stocks.  That can frequently be seen in the language used by various recreational fishing organizations.  The Coastal Conservation Association, arguably the largest anglers’ rights group in the country, proudly proclaims in its origin story that

“CCA began in 1977 after drastic commercial overfishing along the Texas coast decimated redfish and speckled trout populations.  14 concerned recreational anglers created the Gulf Coast Conservation Association to combat commercial overfishing.  [emphasis added]”

The International Game Fish Association, an organization which, among other activities, maintains records of the largest fish caught and hung on a scale by recreational fishermen, argues that anglers need to be active in the fisheries management process because

"The world of modern fisheries management is a complex and oftentimes contentious environment.  Many of our favorite recreational fisheries are imperiled due to habitat degradation and commercial overfishing.  Sadly, recreational fishing interests often take a backseat to commercial fishing practices.  The reason for this is simple.  Commercial interests are much better represented on management and political levels.  Recreational fishing as an ecologically friendly and economically viable alternative to unsustainable commercial fishing is a relatively new concept.  Thus, it is vital that recreational anglers are during the fisheries management decision making process.  Fisheries managers need to be shown that recreational fishing is a growing and vibrant entity of its own that has considerably participation and economic impact globally.  This cannot be done without active participation and interaction with fisheries management.  [emphasis added]”

While its impossible to disagree with the notion that recreational fishermen should be more involved with the management process—after all, the primary purpose of this blog is to encourage salt water anglers to do just that—it’s clear from the selections quoted above that angling organizations tend to present at least one aspect of the management process in black and white terms:  Recreational fishing is always a good thing, while commercial fishing is bad.

And it’s very possible to disagree with that.

While CCA is always proud to describe its role in ending the commercial fishery for redfish (more properly, “red drum”) and speckled trout in Texas, it never mentions the fact that recreational red drum and speckled trout harvest along the Texas coast is now so high that such stocks may no longer be able to naturally replace all of the fish removed from the water by anglers.  Instead of reducing recreational landings to naturally sustainable levels,    

“The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s marine hatcheries produce juvenile red drum, spotted seatrout and southern flounder for stock enhancement.  Stock is the release of hatchery-reared juvenile organisms into the wild to supplement the existing population.  It serves as a tool used by TPWD to manage the marine fishery along the Texas coast to ensure that harvest levels are sustained and stocks are replenished.  [emphasis added]”

Thus, despite CCA's willingness to criticize commercial overfishing, it seems unwilling to admit that recreational anglers can overfish and cause harm to stocks, too; instead of working to reduce recreational harvest to naturally sustainable levels, it instead champions the use of artificially-reared fish in order to keep the recreational kill high.

And just as the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has adopted the more benign-sounding “stock enhancement” as a euphemism for “fish stocking,” CCA, along with other industry and anglers’ rights organizations, have developed their own euphemism for recreational overfishing. 

They call it “access.”

References to greater “access” to fish stocks abound in press releases and other promotional efforts in support of the so-called “Modern Fish Act,” more properly called the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act.  For example, a statement on the website of the American Sportfishing Association, which represents the fishing tackle industry, says that such legislation

“would improve public access to America’s federal waters, promote conservation of our marine natural resources and spur economic growth.  [emphasis added]”

It would do that by, among other things,

“allowing alternative management for recreational fishing, …smartly rebuilding fishery stocks, [and] establishing exemptions where annual catch limits don’t fit.”

Right now, federal recreational fisheries, like commercial fisheries, are managed with annual catch limits designed to prevent overfishing, and require stocks to be rebuilt promptly, and within a time certain; the law requires fishermen to be held accountable if they overfish a given stock.

So in order to “improve…access,” the Modern Fish Act would allow “alternative management” that does not necessarily require annual catch limits, promptly (or, perhaps, ever) rebuilding fish stocks or holding recreational fishermen accountable for their overages.

In other words, it would “improve…access” by allowing anglers to overfish.

To get a good idea of how that works, it’s only necessary to look at what happened to Gulf of Mexico red snapper last summer.

Because of long state-waters seasons, where anglers were expected to land about 81% of their overall quota, the initial federal-waters red snapper season lasted only three days.  Anglers whined loudly about the season, even though it was necessary to prevent them from overfishing.

The Department of Commerce ended up giving in to anglers’ complaints and reopened the season for an additional 39 days, all falling on weekends and holidays during the summer, even though it knew that

“the approach will necessarily mean that the private recreational sector will substantially exceed its annual catch limit, which was designed to prevent overfishing the stock,”

and predicted that

“this approach may delay the ultimate rebuilding of the stock by as many as 6 years.”

In fact, an agency email obtained as a result of litigationbrought by conservation groups opposed to the reopening revealed that theSecretary of Commerce and other high-level officials were fully cognizant ofthat fact that

“the increased angler catch will result in the overall catch limit for this year being exceeded by 30% and 50%,”

yet they still allowed the reopening.

So did recreational fishing organizations, including those who rail against commercial overfishing, object to the reopened season and the inevitable recreational overfishing that would result?

Hardly.

Instead, they praised the Department of Commerce’s action.

The Center for Sportfishing Policy, a political advocacy group that includes both CCA and the International Game Fish Association among its members, gushed that

“Anglers commend the Trump Administration and Members of Congress for hearing our calls for more access to federal waters—and for taking action.  [emphasis added]”

The trade publication Fishing Tackle Retailer stated that the reopening was an effort

“to improve recreational red snapper access after a record low three-day federal season was announced earlier this year.  [emphasis added]”

After a group of Louisiana chefs wrote an op-ed piece opposing the Modern Fish Act, a representative of the Coastal Conservation Association’s Mississippi chapter called the letter “hogwash” and claime that

“the chefs are associated with the Gulf Restoration Network, which is an environmental group (there are others) intent on restricting public access to public resources (fisheries under federal management)…  [emphasis added]”

He went on to say make the statement that

“[the Coastal Conservation Association] contends that the recreational angling community is more committed to conservation of fishery resources than any proprietary group that exists in the marine world.”

Let’s think about those two claims for a minute.

The Gulf Restoration Network says that

“The health of Gulf fish are at risk because of overfishing by commercial and recreational fishermen.  The lack of scientifically based catch limits created significant problems for the Gulf.  Catch limits that were too high led to the decline of many fish populations including red snapper and goliath grouper…

“…To ensure that the Gulf supports healthy fish populations now and in the future, we support science-based management of fish.

·         GRN works with Gulf and national partners to set annual catch limits that rebuild fish stocks and prevent current and future overfishing,

·         Focus on the ecosystem as a whole, including stronger protections for fish habitat and better management and conservation of forage (or small “bait” fish) species that feed larger fish and other predators, and

·         Ensure a sustainable future for Gulf fish.”

The Gulf Restoration Network was also critical of the reopening of the recreational red snapper season last year, has been critical of chronic recreational overfishing of the red snapper resource and has expressed concern that the red snapper spawning stock has not yet grown large enough to support significant increases in harvest.

The Coastal Conservation Association, on the other hand, welcomed the reopened season, despite the inevitable overfishing it would cause, saying

“action to extend the Gulf of Mexico red snapper season is a welcome boon to anglers…

“…anglers are right to be encouraged by the willingness of this Administration and the snapper fishery.  This alone is a tremendous achievement.

“The recreational angling community should feel vindicated, and we should take heart that after years of being systematically sidelined by NOAA Fisheries, our efforts to encourage our elected officials in Congress to engage on this man-made management disaster are yielding results…”

So, asking the most obvious question first, who is really “more committed to fisheries conservation”:  The anglers of CCA, who cheered when the Department of Commerce allowed them to overfish red snapper in the Gulf, or the Gulf Restoration Network, which fights for annual catch limits that would prevent such overfishing?

At the risk of offending some folks that I know, I’d have to say that the Gulf Restoration Network wins that one…

But it’s probably the second question that deserves more attention.  What does CCA—and the Center for Sportfishing Policy and all of the other groups that support the Modern Fish Act and criticize current federal management efforts—mean when they say that managers are “restring public access to public resources” when they manage fish stocks?

The answer to that one can be found in the fact that they hailed the increased “access” to red snapper that resulted from last summer’s reopened season, even though it also was expected to cause them to overfish their quota by thirty to fifty percent.

Which leads to another, and most significant, question.

Had the shoe been on the other foot, and the commercial red snapper fleet overfished their quota by a similar percentage, would the angling groups have celebrated the fact that commercial and consumer “access” to the resource had increased by more than thirty percent?

Or would they have complained that the commercial sector had “overfished” by a substantial amount, and demand that the commercial fishermen be held accountable?

We’ll never know for certain, because the commercial red snapper fleet, unlike the anglers, have stayed within their quota for more than a decade.  But I think that we can all guess how the anglers would have reacted.

And that, in the end, tells us two things.

It tells us who is “more committed to the conservation of fishery resources,” because a committed conservationist holds the health of the resource paramount, and is willing to make sacrifices to assure that such health is maintained.

And it tells us that the various angling groups who talk about weakening federal fisheries laws know that overfishing is a bad thing.  So when they overfish, exceeding the annual catch limit and impeding the recovery of an overfished stock, they call it “improved access” in a clumsy effort to disguise what they’re doing. 

Perhaps it’s an effort to conceal it, most of all, from themselves, and prevent them from looking in the mirror and having to admit that they’re not the good guys anymore.

Because overfishing is bad, no matter what you call it.

And it’s not something that a “good guy” would do.

THE COST OF CLOSING YOUR EYES

Over the past few weeks, Carlos Rafael, New Bedford’s infamous “Codfather,” has been back in the news.

This time, it wasn’t for the illegal landings and tax evasion that ultimately put him in jail.  

There was some mention of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s efforts to revoke 38 of Rafael’s fishing permits and assess a civil penalty of nearly $1 million because of those unlawful acts.  There were a few blurbs about one of his scallop boats, supposedly unconnected with illegal doings, found with contraband shellfish on board.  But that wasn’t the big news.

Instead most of the stories didn’t directly involve Rafael himself, but instead NMFS’ decision to suspend the groundfish allocations assigned to “Sector IX,” the sector of the New England groundfish fishery to which Rafael belonged.

For those not familiar with that New England fishery, groundfish—or, more properly, fish managed under the Northeast Multispecies fishery management plan, which includes cod and related species, various flatfish and a handful of other things such as ocean pout, Acadian redfish and spotted wolfish—are managed under a unique hybrid system. 

About 55% of the fishing vessels participate in a catch share program, which assigns a defined percentage of the landings to vessels that have voluntarily grouped into 17 separate “sectors”.  Vessels within a sector are subject to less day-to-day regulation, in terms of trip limits, etc., but such vessels must stop fishing when their sector harvests its share of the fish (unless it can purchase or lease additional quota from another sector).  The remainder of the vessels participate in a traditional derby fishery, targeting the “common pool” of fish that remains once quotas are awarded to the catch share vessels.  Common pool vessels’ harvests are governed not by individual or sector quotas, but by trip limits, limits on the days that may be spent at sea, etc.

Sectors were generally established by fishermen from the same part of the coast, who shared a common gear type and targeted the same species.  According to the final environmental assessment that preceded the creation of Rafael’s sector, Sector IX,   

“Members of [Sector IX] would primarily land their catch in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and secondary ports would include Provincetown, Massachusetts and Point Judith and Newport, Rhode Island.  The primary fishing activity would occur on Georges Bank…and inshore southern New England waters…Some fishing, on a limited basis, could also take place within statistical areas in the Gulf of Maine…The primary gear for [Sector IX] would be trawl gear, although a limited amount of gillnets (<10 percent) may also be utilized.  [Sector IX] would consist of 51 permits, however, it is anticipated that only 22 active vessels would fish these permits.”

In reality, almost all of those 51 permits were assigned to vessels owned by Carlos Rafael.

NMFS clearly states that

“sector members may be held jointly liable for violations of the following requirements:  Annual Catch Entitlement (ACE) overages, discarding of legal-sized fish, and misreporting of catch (including landings and discards)."

If there is an overage,

“The overage(s) would be deducted from the next fishing year’s allocation(s) for those stock(s) for which the overage(s) occurred.  Because sectors are required not to exceed their quota, a sector that does so could be subject to enforcement penalties.

NMFS also requires each sector to file an operations plan, and have it approved by the agency, before it may begin fishing each year.

That being the case, and given both Rafael’s dominance of Sector IX and the extent of his illegal activities, it’s hardly surprising that, late last year, NMFS withdrew its approval of Sector IX’s 2017 and 2018 operations plans and ordered all Sector IX vessels back to port.  In taking such action, NMFS explained that

“The Regional Administrator determined that the sector and its participants have not complied with the requirements of their approved operations plan, and that the continuation of the Sector IX operations plan will undermine achievement of the conservation and management objections of the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan.  This action follows the guilty plea and sentencing of Mr. Carlos Rafael, a major participant in Sector IX, who admitted to falsely reporting catch information.”

It all would seem reasonable and in accord with the law.  However, a lot of people disagreed.  Virginia Martins, the president of Sector IX, reportedly called NMFS’ decision “surprising and troubling,” telling NMFS that

“Sector IX strongly believes that your initial determination was based upon incomplete information and respectfully asks that you reconsider your position.”

That’s sort of a puzzling statement, as there is no doubt that Rafael both overfished multiple sector quotas and intentionally misreported his landings.  And NMFS made it clear years ago that all members of a sector would be held jointly responsible should any sector member engage in such conduct.  

That being the case, the only “incomplete information” likely to bear on a question is an incomplete accounting of Rafael’s illegal landings.  His vessels might have poached a lot more fish than NMFS realizes right now…

But that’s not the way people are thinking up in New Bedford.

The city’s mayor has traveled to Washington, D.C., where he asked NMFS to allow Sector IX vessels to go back to catching groundfish.  In an interview, he stated that

“The tying up of these vessels will deprive crew members opportunities to earn a living and it will eat into the revenues of shoreside businesses that support the industry.”

Such concerns might be valid, had such crew members been free of guilt.  However, it’s hard not to believe that they were Rafael’s willing co-conspirators, and were fully aware that 

something illegal was going on.

As the New York Times recently reported, Rafael was a larger-than-life figure on New Bedford’s waterfront, and he admitted that he’s been illegally harvesting fish for “over 30 years.”  It’s naïve to believe that no one knew what he was doing.  He didn’t earn the nickname “Codfather” by consistently obeying the law…

The U.S. Attorney who prosecuted Rafael said,

“Carlos Rafael has been well known in the commercial fishing industry for 30 years.  And for almost as long, federal law enforcement has heard rumors and concerns about Rafael acting illegally.”

If federal law enforcement had heard that kind of rumors for so many years, you can be sure that the facts behind the rumors were well-known, and well-discussed, on the docks and in the bars of New Bedford.  The fishermen, the ice houses and the other waterfront businesses knew just what sort of man they were dealing with, but they were willing to keep on dealing, and ignore his illegal activities, in order to share in the revenues that tons of poached groundfish brought to the port.

As the New York Times observed,

“Some people in New Bedford saw Mr. Rafael far differently—as a Robin Hood of sorts, with a pack of cigarettes and a dinged-up Silvarado.”

And so they looked the other way when their latter-day Robin Hood stole fish from the “rich” federal government and shared them with the “poor” fishermen.  But now that the Sheriff has Robin Hood locked up in his prison, the poor are asking him to overlook their complicity.

And yes, they were complicit.  The New York Times tells us,

“Mr. Rafael told the undercover agents that the captains knew of his schemes; Mr. Lelling, the prosecutor, said a decision was made to go after Mr. Rafael, and not the fishermen working for them.”

Had that decision gone the other way, at least some of those fishermen could have joined Rafael behind bars.

So it’s hard to feel any sympathy for folks who should be happy that they’re not sitting in jail, even if they’re not currently on the water. 

It’s hard to feel sorry for anyone in any fishery, commercial or recreational, who sees something wrong going on, and just looks the other way.  Such folks like to say that it’s none of their business but, in truth, it is.

Fish are a public resource, and every fish that we harvest—or catch and release—comes from the same resource pool.  When someone fishes illegally, taking more or smaller fish than the law allows, it does harm to that pool and so ultimately affects us all.

We might not be as clearly and directly affected as the folks in New Bedford, who benefitted from Rafael’s industrial-scale poaching, and have since suffered from federal regulators shutting off the flow of illegal cash, and forcing Sector IX to account for the damage it has done.  But we still suffer, as illegal harvest drives down the abundance of important fish stocks, and regulators must impose strict management measures that ultimately hold legitimate fishermen, who follow the rules, accountable for the poachers’ sins.

So we have to be careful to know who’s at fault.  Poachers aren’t our Robin Hoods, stealing NMFS’ riches on the public’s behalf.  They’re just resource pirates, out for themselves.

Back in the sailing ship days, pirates were deemed hostis humani generis, the enemy of all mankind, and could legally be apprehended, imprisoned and even summarily executed by anyone who encountered them, even if they had not suffered any loss at their hands.

In the same way poachers are the enemy of all legitimate fishermen, whether recreational or commercial.  While summary execution would be a little extreme, and more than a little illegal--we should never make the mistake of thinking them friends.

Providing state and federal law enforcement agencies with the information they need to take poachers down is, in the end, the right thing to do.

And as the fishermen in New Bedford have learned, looking the other way, and letting them continue to follow their illegal ways, is not just wrong.  It can prove personally costly as well.