MANAGING GULF RED SNAPPER IN A POST-TRUTH WORLD

Regular readers of this blog know that I have often written about recreational fishing industry and anglers’ rights organizations' continuing efforts to disrupt science-based management of the recreational red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico.  It’s something that’s been going on for a decade or so, and it doesn’t look like the disrupters are going to give up the fight at any time soon.

The problem, of course, is that science-based fishery management is based on data, and research, and established facts.  Anyone who wishes to disrupt such management is already at a significant disadvantage, because facts pretty well speak for themselves.  However, the disrupters down in the Gulf have come up with what they feel is a simple solution to such a problem, a solution that has served other people well, or not so well, elsewhere in the political sphere.

They merely present “alternative facts” that seem to contradict the scientific data, and move the argument in the direction that they want to go.

As the Slang Dictionary explains,

“Alternative facts have been called many things:  falsehoods, untruths, delusions.  A fact is something that actually exists—what we would call “reality” or “truth.”  An alternative is one of the choices in a set of given options; typically the options are opposites of each other.  So to talk about alternative facts is to talk about the opposite of reality (which is delusion), or the opposite of truth (which is untruth).”

In the past, organizations seeking to maintain their credibility with policymakers and the public would have been hesitant about basing arguments on delusions or untruths, because such arguments would quickly undercut their standing with both constituencies.  But such concerns may no longer be too important, for over the past five years or so, we have seen expertise and truth discounted in many private and even some government circles, in favor of the sort of compelling delusions that prevail in what some have called a post-truth world.

Professor Julian Birkinshaw, writing for Forbes magazine, described the post-truth world as a world

“where alternative facts and fake news compete on an equal footing with peer-reviewed research and formerly authoritative sources.”

He explained that

“The post-truth era has emerged because of several long-cycle trends that affect how we make sense of the world around us.  The phenomenon even has a name—agnotology, the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt.  And it comes in a variety of flavors, from the relatively benign (persuading people through ‘spin’ or the selective use of facts) to the deliberately malicious (willful peddling of objectively incorrect information).”

Another source notes that

“Post-truth differs from traditional contesting and falsifying of facts by relegating facts and expert opinions to be of secondary importance relative to appeal to emotion.”

I was reminded of these things, and their relation to the Gulf’s recreational red snapper fishery, when I read a recent article in the online publication FishingWire.  It was written by Ted Venker, who is the National Conservation Director for the Coastal Conservation Association.  Given the positions that both the author and the organization he represents frequently take, the use of “Conservation” in both the job title and the organization’s name may, in themselves, be manifestations of the post-truth era, as the article itself most certainly is.

The title of the piece itself, “The Fishery that Won’t Stay Saved,” as well as the introductory paragraphs that invoke scenes from an animated film, reek of the sort of counterfactual emotional appeal that defines the post-truth era.

The theme that animates the entire article, and gives rise to its title, probably transcends mere post-truth and rises to the level of Orwellian double-speak,

“language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words,”

for when Venker speaks about a “saved” fishery, he is referring to a red snapper fishery where federal management measures designed to constrain recreational landings to a science-based annual catch limit are replaced by measures that allow a higher recreational kill.  Promoting a management philosophy that is eerily reminiscent of an infamous Vietnam War era quote, Venker argues we need to destroy more red snapper in order to save the fishery.

The article heads downhill from there.

Venker complains of

“federal mismanagement that resulted in recreational seasons as short as three days,”

but what he conveniently fails to mention is why the federal seasons had become so attenuated.  Venker completely ignores the fact that the 3-day federal season, in the year it occurred, was a counterbalance to longer state red snapper seasons that were established after state chapters of the Coastal Conservation Association encouraged their states to go out of compliance with the federal season. 

Because Gulf red snapper are managed as a single stock, the additional fish caught during the extended state seasons were counted against the recreational catch limit, and the only way to prevent overfishing was to shorten the federal season to compensate for the much higher landings that occurred in state waters.

But Venker doesn’t mention that part, even though his own organization substantially contributed to the states’ decisions to go out of compliance with the federal rules.  In his post-truth world, he would have you believe that it was all the feds’ fault.

In a similar act of incomplete disclosure, Venker claims that

“Congress had grown suspicious of a fishery in which seasons were continually being shortened but the fishery seemed healthier than ever.  So in 2016, Congress appropriated $10 million for an unprecedented independent study to determine the true population of red snapper in the Gulf once and for all,”

but fails to point out that it was comments by his own organization, and by the fishing industry lobbying group, the Center for Sportfishing Policy (to which CCA belongs), that created some legislators' suspicions in the first place.  Nor does he mention that the same legislators who supported the $10 million appropriation received significant political contributions from the Center.

It turns out that the population study, nicknamed the Great Red Snapper Count, did find more red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico than previous studies did—about three times as many, in fact.  But when describing the impacts of the study, Venker dives into not just post-truth reporting, but alternative facts as well.

And he kicks it all off with another episode of doublespeak, saying that once the results of the Count were in,

“the states and Congress appear to have saved the day.  But the federal agency managed to pull red snapper back into jeopardy again.”

How, one might ask, did federal fishery managers put red snapper back into jeopardy?  The answer, according to Venker, is by not allowing anglers to kill as many red snapper as CCA would like.

Yes, you read that correctly.  According to Venker, federal fishery managers put red snapper “back into jeopardy” by killing fewer of them.

Anybody remember that definition of doublespeak, “language that deliberately…reverses the meaning of words?”

After that, he serves up some alternative facts, suggesting that states “abandoned a broken [federal] system [for calculating recreational red snapper landings], built a better one, but are required to return to the broken system,” when the reality is that the state landings surveys are actually a part of the federal Marine Recreational Information Program, and designed in part by federal managers.  As noted on one National Marine Fisheries Service web page,

“supplemental and specialized surveys are used alongside MRIP general surveys to collect data for select fisheries or during select fishing seasons.  Pairing our general surveys—which provide annual catch estimates for all species encountered—with specialized surveys allows us to develop more comprehensive recreational fisheries statistics.”

Florida’s Gulf Reef Fish Survey, Alabama’s Snapper Check, Mississippi’s Tails ‘n Scales, and Louisiana’s LA Creel—all state-based surveys used to calculate red snapper landings—are listed among the specialized surveys employed by NMFS. 

The truth is that such state-specific surveys are part of MRIP, and were approved by NMFS before being fully implemented.  Because such state-specific surveys use methodologies that differ from that used by the general MRIP survey, their results will have to be harmonized with MRIP—a process known as “calibration”—before they can be used for management work.  Once that calibration occurs, it is expected to show that recreational landings were higher than the state surveys show, and that more restrictive regulations will be needed.

Fisheries scientists have understood the need for recalibration for a few years, but Venker, attempting to spur an emotional response, tries to turn what is merely good science into some sort of management scandal.

All, of course, so that anglers can kill more red snapper, and thus, somehow, “save” them.

Finally, he casts aspersions on the competence of the biologists on the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (“the same group of academicians and scientists who have presided over red snapper science for years and even decades in some cases”) for not substantially increasing the recreational red snapper quota in response to “work by the new group of scientists that revealed an additional 800 million pounds of red snapper that the SSC had somehow missed.”

In doing so, he wrongly attributes previous stock assessments to the Gulf Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, when they wereactually conducted through NMFS’ Southeast Regional Office’s SEDAR (SoutheastData Assessment and Review) process.  And his language wrongfully suggests that previous assessments’ lower estimates came from a lack of competence rather than a lack of money to conduct a survey of the entire Gulf, which was actually the case.  As NMFS explains,

“the preliminary abundance estimates produced by the study are consistent with those of the 2018 Gulf red snapper stock assessment conducted by NOAA Fisheries for natural and artificial structures, or high relief areas.  The commercial and recreational red snapper fisheries predominantly operate on those high relief areas.

“What’s new is this study better estimates the red snapper living in the low relief/bottom habitat, such as sand or mud.  Those areas are very extensive, but have low fish per area so are not where the fishery typically operates.  In fact, the study suggests that most of the Gulf red snapper is located in these low relief areas.  This confirms what some scientists, managers, and fishermen have long suspected, but did not have the means to prove until now.  [emphasis added]”

But such simple truths carry little emotional impact, so from Venker’s standpoint, it is far better to make his case by suggesting alternative facts that better support the point that he’s trying to make.

Such are the sort of things that fishery managers, as well as fishermen trying to truly understand the process, often have to deal with in this post-truth world.   Yet a few things will always prove true:

Truth stands on its own, without the need for embellishment.  Anyone who tries to hide or embroider the truth is not to be trusted.

Cold facts are always a better guide than hot emotions.  When someone tries to push emotional buttons, they and the facts are most probably standing on different sides of the issue.

Doublespeak is a tool of the con man, alternative facts the tools of a liar.  Both deserve to be shunned.

Even in a post-truth world, the truth can prevail, if people are only willing to give it a little help.