There are a lot of saltwater anglers out there, although estimates of the actual number can be a little hard to find.
The National Marine Fisheries Service doesn’t try to
estimate the number of fishermen, but instead counts trips, which are more
relevant to the fishery management process.
It’s most recent annual report, Fisheries
of the United States, reveals that in 2020, recreational
saltwater fishermen made nearly 200,000,000 trips. Close to 40% of those trips—more than
80,000,000—were taken in Florida, with North Carolina (16,400,000), New Jersey
(16,000,000), New York (14,800,000) and South Carolina (8,700,000) rounding out
the top five.
Those anglers catch a lot of fish—just about one billion—of which
about one-third are kept, although the patterns of harvest and release vary
from state to state. In New Jersey, for
example, nearly 84% of the fish caught by anglers were released, a fact that is
probably largely attributable to size limits for popular species such as summer
flounder and black sea bass. States
hosting a high percentage of anglers who primarily pursue “sport” fish, such as
striped bass, bluefish, permit, and red drum, as opposed to “meat” fish like
flounder, scup, snapper, and grouper, also see high release percentages. On the other hand, Hawaii, with its tradition
of subsistence fishing and relatively lax approach to regulations, lies at the
other end of the spectrum, with releases comprising a mere 13% of the overall
catch.
It’s clear from those numbers that anglers need to be
managed in order to preserve the health of fish stocks, but it’s also clear that
setting a national management policy can be difficult, as angler preferences
and expectations can vary from state to state, and even among different
constituencies within a single state.
Every four years, beginning in 2010, NMFS and the Atlantic
States Marine Fisheries Commission hold a “Recreational Fishing Summit” in an
effort to get some kind of handle on anglers’ thoughts, attitudes, and
concerns. I’ve attended them all, and
have watched them evolve from what was largely a platform that the big industry
associations used to spread their views into an event that reaches down into
the grassroots and comes up with meaningful feedback—which doesn’t always conform
to the industry line.
I wrote a little bit about the 2022 Summit right after it
was held last spring, although those essays were certainly colored by my personal
views. However, NMFS
and ASMFC have recently released the official National Saltwater
Recreational Fisheries Summit 2022, which provides a more comprehensive and
more objective review of what went on.
It makes an interesting read.
One of the first sections of the report noted that
“Across the four sessions, several cross-cutting themes
emerged. These underlying themes will be
considered as NOAA Fisheries and ASMFC review the ideas and suggestions from
the specific sessions.”
Those two sentences, as simple as they might be, underscore
the worth of the Summit, because the “cross-cutting themes” described came from
individual anglers, charter boat operators, and other people in the fishing
community whose concerns aren’t necessarily represented by the big
organizations with the staff and the lobbyists to get and hold managers’ ears;
although those folks were present at the Summit, too. But with everyone sitting in
the same room, their voices couldn’t override those of the anglers they claim
to represent.
The themes in question were described as “Human Dimensions,”
“Shifting Data Needs,” “Tradeoffs in Management, Conservation, and Opportunity,”
and “Community Engagement and Trust.”
All are important, and all four were given due consideration at the Summit and in the report; however,
it was the Human Dimensions and Tradeoffs discussions that explored the most
new and, at least for some of the managers present, unexpected ground.
As the report noted in the initial “Human Dimensions”
section,
“There is broad recognition that climate change is affecting
traditional angling opportunities, and in order to effectively adapt, more
attention is needed to understand and regularly incorporate human dimension
considerations into decision making.
This ranges from assessing the intrinsic values of fishing to better
understand [optimum yield], to considering cultural practices associated with
non-commercial fisheries in the Pacific Islands…”
Those considerations span a far wider gap than it may
initially seem, as the “intrinsic values of fishing” discussed at the summit
included the concept of managing for abundance and, depending on the fishery,
for catch and release, while in the Pacific Islands, subsistence fishing, and
sharing one’s catch with others in the community, have deep cultural roots; as
one Pacific Islander said at the meeting, “We don’t play with our food.”
But Pacific cultures aside, the fact that managers are even
considering a concept like “the intrinsic values of fishing” represents a big
move forward. At the end of one breakout
group discussion, one of the professional managers present admitted that she
never gave much thought to the concept of optimum yield before, and
more-or-less associated it with landing as many fish as the law and science
deemed prudent; the notion that optimum yield should be set at a lower level
that provided greater opportunities to interact with the fish, even if it meant
a lower harvest, was something completely new.
Yet it’s not a new issue.
As the report notes, the National Academy of Science panel that reviewed
the Marine Recreational Information Program recommended that
“NOAA and the [regional fishery management] Councils should
develop a process for engaging recreational fisheries stakeholders in a more
in-depth discussion of [optimum yield] and how it can be used to identify and
prioritize management objectives that are better suited to the cultural,
economic and conservation goals of the angling community.”
That’s something that has yet to be done; so far, just about
every fishery has been forced to fit into the Procrustean Bed of yield, a fact clearly
exemplified by the
most recent amendment to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Bluefish
Fishery Management Plan; even though the bluefish fishery is overwhelmingly
recreational, and recreational fishermen release about two-thirds of all
bluefish caught, that plan provides that if the recreational sector doesn’t
kill its entire harvest limit, the uncaught portion (provided the stock is not
overfished) will be transferred to the commercial fishery. The concept of managing for an abundance of
fish in the water, which provides greater recreational opportunities, was never
seriously considered.
The report captures this problem in its summary of the
presentation made by Michael Leonard, Vice President of Government Affairs for
the American Sportfishing Association.
“…Recreational fisheries sometimes focus on maximizing
harvest and sometimes it is about maximizing abundance/encounters and fishing
opportunities.
“[The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management
Act] and the National Standards [for Fishery Conservation and Management included
therein] specify that setting catch limits below [maximum sustainable yield] is
allowable when other factors are considered.
However, Mr. Leonard believes this has not been put into practice by
most councils. A review and analysis of
the use of [optimum yield] in U.S. fisheries found that current [annual catch
limit] and [optimum yield] specification processes rarely account for social
and economic factors, or ecosystem considerations, and if they do, it is on an
ad-hoc, species-specific basis.
“Catch and release is being viewed as underutilizing the
resource just because they are catching below the [annual catch limits]. This may drive a desire to transfer
allocation. However, there are different
motivations within and across fisheries that should be considered…”
While all of that discussion seems promising, there has yet to
be much evidence that fishery managers are willing to stop worshiping at the
altar of the highest permissible yield, even if anglers ask them to take
precisely that action. Nonetheless, the
first step in addressing a problem is admitting that it exists, so the Summit’s
discussion of optimum yield represented some kind of step forward.
The discussions that fell within the “Tradeoffs in
Management, Conservation, and Opportunity” theme sounded somewhat similar
notes, with “flexibility” in management being one of the key issues.
For many years, “flexibility” has been a shibboleth in the
fisheries arena, used by what I might politely term “conservation skeptics” to connote
management measures that allow a greater harvest of fish than either the
science or current law would allow.
Thus, in repeated sessions of Congress, we have seen the repeated,
so-far unsuccessful introduction of a bill
called the “Strengthening Coastal Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries
Management Act,” which is essentially intended to cut the conservation
provisions of Magnuson-Stevens off at the knees, and free fishermen from many
of the current law’s science-based management requirements.
But many recreational fishermen now realize that such
science-based management has helped to restore once-overfished stocks, understand
the need for good conservation, and are leery of efforts to weaken the
management system. Thus, as the report
notes,
“Management flexibility was viewed as a double-edged sword by
various stakeholders in the recreational fishing community, where some were
optimistic about its potential, and others expressed apprehension. There was traction around the desire of
anglers to maintain fishing opportunities (i.e, the experience) over catching
certain amounts of target species.
However, there was also a shared concern around the ability of the
management system to shift to new flexible management models.”
That’s a somewhat different perspective from the one often
portrayed by groups
such as the Center for Sportfishing Policy, or anglers’ rights groups such as
the Coastal Conservation Association or the smaller, but similarly disposed
Recreational Fishing Alliance, which frequently tout “flexibility” as a way to
maximize anglers’ landings, their time on the water, and their contribution to
coastal economies.
Thus, once again, the Summit demonstrated its worth by
letting the anglers speak for themselves.
Some of anglers’ concerns about flexibility came out in the
comments of Tony Friedrich, Vice President and Policy Director of the American
Saltwater Guides Association, who, the report states,
“noted that abundance equals opportunity, and that is what
drives fishing trips (i.e., people want to fish when fish are around)…
“One example of management reform is the development of the [Harvest
Control Rules] by the [Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council] and ASMFC…
“…ASGA as a whole is risk-averse, but they are open to other
flexible management approaches, as long as they do not jeopardize stock
stability.”
That is an important qualification. It came up again in a breakout group
discussion, where
“One participant expressed concern that ASMFC conservation
equivalency is a form of flexibility that is intended to address variability in
states’ needs, but can liberalize measures more than appropriate and may lead
to overages. Some participants discussed
how [the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council] is exploring flexibility, but
has strong sideboards for how far that flexibility can go. Whereas other
participants perceived the ASMFC as having more discretion.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean that flexibility didn’t have strong
supporters. In another breakout session,
someone reportedly suggested that
“the current system of overfishing limits, [acceptable biological
catch], and [annual catch limits] does not always work. These measures should be considered a
starting place, although they may also be used in reverse. For example, participants suggested defining
the desired outcomes, and then calculating the [annual catch limit] to achieve
those outcomes.”
I wasn’t in the room when that was said, so I’m unaware of
the context. However, if someone was
suggesting that we first set size limits, bag limits and seasons acceptable to a particular constituency, then adopt an
annual catch limit that would result from such measures, without reference to a
species’ biology (as such biology is the basis for the current approach), any
fishery so managed is likely to have a very rocky future.
But in the end, that wasn’t the critical point. The point was that the Summit generated a lot
of thought and a lot of angler input, and allowed individuals to provide that
input without being filtered through some organization’s lens. It gave NMFS and the ASMFC an opportunity to
hear stakeholders’ views from the stakeholders themselves, which is always a
good thing.
If you didn’t have the chance to attend, you ought to click
on the link near the top of this page, and peruse the report for yourself. Even if you decide not to read it all, it is
likely to stimulate thought.
And thinking can never be bad.
.
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