RECREATIONAL/COMMERCIAL ALLOCATIONS: SHOULD SLEEPING DOGS BE ALLOWED TO LIE

Any regular reader of this blog knows that there is no issue that I dislike more than allocation.

It doesn’t really matter what species is involved, or whether the allocation is between states or between sectors; the pattern will always remain the same.  Those who want to increase their landings will whine and complain that the existing allocation is unfair, is based on old data, and/or doesn’t represent the best economic use of a limited resource, while those trying to hold onto the fish that they already have (and if a state or sector is on the winning side of the current allocation, it can be safely predicted that they will fight any effort to reallocate even a single fish with every tool at their disposal) will argue that shifting some of their current quota to another state or sector is unfair, ignores well-established landing histories, and will cause economic harm to existing fisheries and related infrastructure.

It’s always the same old song, as established and predictable as the rising and setting of the sun.

Any reallocation debate, regardless of the facts or factions involved, will be highly contentious, bitterly fought and, in the end, largely pointless, as the allocations in question shift little, if at all, from what they were before the debate first started.

It always seems that if the time and energy spent debating who gets what share of an often-depleted resource was spent figuring out how to restore that resource to health and maintain it that way for the long term, everyone would end up with more fish, no one would need to fight over the scraps of a declining stock, and the whole allocation issue might even become moot.

But it seems that folks would far rather fight over who gets the most crumbs from a shrinking pie, rather than work together to bake a pie large enough to feed everyone.

While reallocation might be the most bitterly contested issue to arise at a fisheries meeting, recreational catch, landings, and effort data is not far behind.  While the National Academy of Sciences gave the Marine Recreational Information Program, which is used to generate such data, a reasonably clean bill of health, recreational fishing groups have frequently condemned MRIP and questioned its accuracy.

An editorial in The Fisherman magazine said that

“I often refer to MRIP as a silk pillow case; if the old MRIP was a burlap sack carting a load of manure, what we have today is just a prettier external package for the same stuff.”

That’s hardly a strong endorsement of the data collection system.  A joint press release issued by the Center for Sportfishing Policy and the Coastal Conservation Association, employing more discreet language, merely referred to MRIP as a

“flawed federal data system.”

Such disdain for MRIP has little to do with the program’s statistical validity; it’s safe to say that, unlike the folks who reviewed the program on behalf of the National Academies, the magazine editors, anglers’ rights advocates, and fishing industry spokesmen who routinely condemn MRIP are not PhD-level statisticians, and it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that most such critics have received little if any formal training in statistics, fisheries management, or any related discipline.  Their objection to MRIP arises not out of earned knowledge, but largely from the fact that regulations based on MRIP data often force anglers to kill fewer fish than regulations based on other data sets; to justify their demands for higher landings, MRIP must be discredited, so they do their best to undercut anglers’—and legislators’—perceptions of the program.

But their efforts to impeach MRIP recently hit an interesting snag, which brought the two highly contentious issues of reallocation and recreational data together on a snarl that presents a modern-day Gordian Knot to MRIP’s detractors.

When old recreational landings data is recalibrated through the lens of modern MRIP methodology, it turns out that recreational landings in past decades were significantly higher than previously believed.  If such recalculated landings for the base years used to set current recreational/commercial allocations are considered, and such allocations adjusted to conform to the recalculated data, anglers would receive a larger share of a number of important fisheries.

In the mid-Atlantic, the recreational share of summer flounder landings would increase from 40 to 45 percent, the recreational share of black sea bass landings would increase from 51 to 55 percent, and the recreational share of the scup catch would jump from 22 to 35 percent.  A similar application of the new MRIP methodology to red grouper allocation in the Gulf of Mexico would result in a substantial increase in the recreational share of red grouper landings.

As a result, the same Coastal Conservation Association that moaned about a “flawed federal data system” being used to limit recreational catch of red snapper embraced MRIP data that supported a reallocation favoring the angling sector, saying that an increase in the recreational share of red grouper landings represented only

“a relatively simple, technical fix to the allocations of red grouper between the commercial and recreational sectors based on the newest data available as part of revisions to historical recreational harvest data collected by the federal government.”

While CCA still called for the Gulf states to take over responsibility for recreational data collection, something that, based on the results of state-gathered red snapper data, would almost certainly result in even higher recreational landings, the organization called the recalculated MRIP data

“the best information available,”

and argued that

“past federal recreational data collection efforts were found to be significantly in error and [any change in allocation] is an attempt to fix those errors.  Feeding the corrected recreational data into the latest red grouper assessment results in a larger recreational allocation.  Not adjusting the allocations or allocating less than the corrected data indicates is a de facto increase to the commercial sector.

“Corrections of this type to historic federal recreational data will be occurring in many fisheries and it is important that the [Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management] Council and NOAA be consistent and fair in how they apply the new data.  That is why this decision on red grouper will set an important precedent…”

It’s a clearly hypocritical and self-serving statement; the same MRIP data that is produced by a “flawed federal data system” when used to restrict recreational red snapper landings becomes “the best information available” when used to expand anglers’ red grouper kill.  As in just about every fisheries debate, “good data” is data that increases someone's landings, while “flawed data” leads to landings reductions; viewed through such a lens, the statistical validity—or invalidity—of the data means nothing at all.

On the other hand, CCA does make a valid point.  

If a recreational/commercial allocation is based on a series of “base years,” whether the 1981-1989 used for summer flounder or the 1986-2005 used for red grouper in the Gulf, then until such base years are changed, the current recreational/commercial allocation ought to reflect whatever the true landings were during the relevant years, and if a reexamination of historical data shows that managers originally got the allocation wrong, then resetting such allocation to reflect the true relationship between each sector’s landings in the base years does not represent a true reallocation, but merely a correction that managers must make in order to carry out the original intent of the management plan.

Of course, the parties involved don’t see it that way.  While anglers might want to see the resulting allocation shift—which gives them more fish—as merely a “technical fix” that, in all fairness, must adopted, the commercial sector—which ends up with fewer fish—sees the same shift as a gross inequity.

One spokesman for the Gulf of Mexico’s commercial fleet stated that

“Taking 600,000 pounds of red grouper quota not only hurts hard-working American fishermen who rely on grouper for their businesses, but it also takes fish away from the American consumer who, through the covid-19 pandemic, proved that they are looking for more seafood and more domestic seafood.”

Another spokesman for the Gulf’s commercial fishermen noted that

“Hundreds of fishermen attended hearings and the Gulf council meeting in Key West to tell the council how taking away red grouper quota will hurt their livelihoods, their businesses, and the American consumer.  This is a devastating blow to the commercial industry.”

In neither of those comments did the commercial spokesmen address any possible inequity arising out of an ongoing allocation based on data now known to be wrong, or how the former allocation, which granted only 26 percent of red snapper landings to the recreational sector, instead of the 40.7 percent of the landings that, according to the revised MRIP data, anglers actually harvested during the base years, might have harmed the recreational fishing industry or the anglers who could have chosen to retain more fish for personal consumption, rather than being forced to buy their grouper at a local store.

Because, after all, this is an allocation fight, where the “haves” try to hang onto every fish that they can, the “have nots” try to take as many as they can for themselves, and no one particularly cares what is right, fair, or makes any kind of sense when viewed through an objective lens.

The same sort of pattern emerged at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which was considering similar MRIP-based allocation modifications for summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass.  Capt. Rick Bellavance, representing the Rhode Island Party and Charter Boat Association, made a reasonable observation when he noted that

“The revised MRIP numbers were used in the assessments that create our [total allowable catch] and quotas, and if we use it for that then we have to use it for allocation distribution so that they are appropriate and fair…The commercial sector will lose some fish, but they gained some in the assessments due to the new MRIP numbers.”

Capt. Bellavance was referring to how the recalculated MRIP numbers are used in stock assessments; because MRIP revealed that anglers had been landing far more fish than previously thought, when the new MRIP data was fed into the existing stock assessment models, the estimates of population size, as well as estimates of acceptable biological catch (and so recreational and commercial quotas) spiked. 

For example, the acceptable biological catch for summer flounder in 2019, which was used to calculate the annual catch limits for the commercial and recreational sectors, was 15.41 million pounds.  But after a 2018 benchmark stock assessment employed updated MRIP estimates to recalculate the size of the summer flounder stock, the 2020 ABC jumped to 25.03 million pounds, more than a 60 percent increase. 

The commercial sector was more than willing to accept the resulting quota increase, but their failure to also accept the allocation change that flowed from the same MRIP data clearly demonstrates that, in matters of allocation, hypocrisy and self-serving comments are not limited to the recreational side.

Thus, the question remains:  How to deal with the allocation issue unleashed by MRIP.  

CCA predicted that the outcome of the red grouper allocation debate would set an “important precedent” in similar situations elsewhere on the coast.  So far, that hasn’t happened.  While the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council opted to revise its recreational/commercial allocation for red grouper, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council decided to postpone any action on summer flounder, scup, or black sea bass allocation issues, leaving open the possibility that other fishery management actions might render revisiting contentious allocation issues unnecessary.

Thus, there is no consensus on what ought to be done.

Should managers act to correct past errors, and seek some sort of retroactive fairness that reflects council actions at the time that the base years were set?

Or should they bow to error perpetuated over years, perhaps decades, rather than implement change, because fishermen always gravitate toward the status quo.

Right now, the answers to those questions seems to depend not on data, nor equity, nor any sort of consistent, rational policy at all, but instead on which sector happens to hold enough power to control the outcome of a council vote.