COMMENTS ON MID-ATLANTIC CONTROL RULE DEMONSTRATE LITTLE APPETITE FOR CHANGE

 

Over the past few weeks, and also over the past few years, I’ve written about the so-called “Harvest Control Rule” that was adopted by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and Atlantic States Maine Fisheries Commission. 

Recently, I’ve written about the notable lack of scientific support that such Control Rule received, and also about the confusion that ensued when managers first used the Control Rule to set 2023 recreational specifications for summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass.  

Previously, I’ve written about how the Control Rule instructs the Council and ASMFC to adopt recreational landings limits that exceed the recreational harvest limit and even the annual catch limits for managed species, and how such excesses, although condoned by fisheries managers, might conflict with the clear requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

The Control Rule concept supposedly arose out of casual conversations between a handful of people speaking after Mid-Atlantic Council meetings, but the concept was first formally proposed in a letter sent to the Council by six recreational fishing industry organizations, including the Center for Sportfishing Policy, Coastal Conservation Association, Recreational Fishing Alliance, American Sportfishing Association, Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, and National Marine Manufacturer’s Association.  

With the exception of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, all such organizations are affiliated with the Center for Sportfishing Policy, issue joint press releases, and for all practical purposes can be considered a single entity.  The Center’s letter read, in part,

“Our organizations represent the recreational fishing and boating industry and our nation’s anglers, and we strongly support NOAA Fisheries using management approaches for our sector other than pound-based quotas, which are best suited for commercial fisheries.  Alternative methods are used by coastal states to manage marine fisheries and those methods are better suited to recreational fishing in state—or federal waters.  Many of the challenges facing federal fisheries managers and the resulting frustration from anglers is rooted in management approaches designed for commercial fishing being shoe-horned and contorted to manage recreational fishing…

“Recreational and commercial fishing are fundamentally different activities and should be managed differently.  Yet, antiquated, one-size-fits-all federal policies have been unnecessarily limiting the public’s access to our nation’s abundant natural resources.”

Such language was new to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, but anyone who follows marine fisheries management on a coastwide basis, along with folks who regularly read One Angler’s Voyage, will immediately recognize it as the same sort of rhetoric that the same cabal of organizations have long been spewing in the Gulf of Mexico and, more recently, in the South Atlantic.

In its concerted drive to give the public more “access” to the nation’s marine resources—that is, in its constant effort to find ways to let anglers kill more fish than science-based management allows—the Center continues to promote the myth that “alternative measures used by coastal states” will adequately conserve fish stocks heavily targeted by anglers. 

In doing so, it conveniently forgets to talk about the condition of many such state-managed fisheries, with Atlantic striped bass overfished, red drum and speckled trout running into difficulties in the Gulf of Mexico, and southern flounder troubled throughout its range.  Other state-managed fisheries are also in decline.

Yet, perhaps because higher recreational harvest levels might, in the short term, allow its members to sell more boats, engines, and fishing gear, it is that sort of ineffective management that the Center is trying to foist on federally-managed fisheries.

One of the Center’s affiliates, the Coastal Conservation Association, has even gone so far as to claim,

“Changes in recreational regulations have rarely, if ever, resulted in a direct fishery recovery.”

Perhaps those folks on the Gulf just never heard of striped bass…

But whether they’ve heard of striped bass or not, it’s clear that maintaining the long-term health of fish stocks is not the Center's primary concern.  Its letter to the Council notes that

“Over many decades, states have proven the ability to balance conservation and access by managing America’s millions of saltwater anglers through these [alternative] approaches in state waters.  An Annual Catch Limit is simply a trigger to limit fishing mortality in some form.  It does not necessarily mean hard-pound quotas only…

“We applaud the Mid-Atlantic Council for their Recreational Management Reform initiative and have developed the enclosed harvest control rule as a demonstration that our industry is ready to work collaboratively with the Councils and NOAA Fisheries to pursue management alternatives better suited to recreational fisheries.  We ask the Council to continue to develop this harvest control rule as part of the management alternatives considered in the allocation amendment for summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass.”

As that language suggests, the Mid-Atlantic Harvest Control Rule was originally conceived as a way to steal some additional quota from the commercial fishery.  By allowing anglers to regularly exceed their recreational harvest limit and annual catch limit, it will create a de facto reallocation of fishery resources in favor of the recreational sector.  Officially, the Council admits that using the Control Rule to reallocate fishery resources violates the provisions of Magnuson-Stevens.  Unofficially, however, the Fishery Management Action Team looking at the Control Rule, along with the Recreational Reform Steering Committee established by the Council and the ASMFC,

“expressed an interest in further considering the aspects of the proposal which address the setting of recreational management measures, considered independently from the commercial/recreational allocation aspects of the proposal.”

So, when all of the euphemistic and seemingly idealistic language is stripped away, the Control Rule is and always was primarily about greater recreational “access”—that is, about anglers killing more fish—than science- and data-based management allowed, even if some of those fish had to be quietly stolen away from the commercial sector.

Thus, it is interesting to see where things stand now that the comment period for the proposed rule to adopt the Control Rule has closed.  

If the Control Rule was, as the Center argued, a great boon for the recreational fishing sector, one might think that many recreational fishermen and recreational fishing organizations would have stood up to support it.  Yet, when we look at the comments received since the proposed rule was published on December 15, we find only a single letter of support.  And that letter was written by the same coterie of usual suspects:  The Center for Sportfishing Policy, and its affiliated Coastal Conservation Association, American Sportfishing Association, National Marine Manufacturers Association, and Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation.       

None of the many organizations that usually support proposals likely to lead to higher recreational landings—not the various party and charter boat groups, not the Jersey Coast Anglers Association, not even the Recreational Fishing Alliance, which signed on to the original Control Rule letter and can almost always be counted on to get behind anything that might yield a few more dead fish—asked the National Marine Fisheries Service to approve the proposed rule.

It would seem difficult to argue that the Control Rule has broad recreational support when even those groups aren't seeking its approval, and its only public supporters are the same group of malcontents that are attacking federal fisheries management elsewhere on the coast.

On the other hand, there were four conservation groups which called for the Control Rule to be disapproved.  The Marine Fish Conservation Network argued that the Control Rule was inconsistent with various provisions of Magnuson-Stevens, including national standard 1, which states that all fishery management measures must prevent overfishing, and national standard 2, which requires such measures to be based on the best scientific information available.  The Network also noted that the Control Rule, which can call for recreational landings targets that exceed the sector’s annual catch limit, is not in accord with other sections of Magnuson-Stevens which require regional fishery management councils to establish annual catch limits, and hold fishermen accountable when such limits are exceeded.

Three other organizations, the Natural Resources Defense Council, The Ocean Conservancy, and the Conservation Law Foundation, jointly submitted a tightly written and well-reasoned letter in opposition to the Control Rule.  Such groups addressed many of the same points made in the Marine Fish Conservation Network comments, while also noting that by allowing recreational landings targets in excess of the recreational harvest limit and annual catch limit, the Control Rule results in an illegal reallocation of fishery resources.

The organizational letters in opposition to the proposed rule went into far greater detail than did the sole letter in support, which provided little in the way of reasoned argument as to why the Control Rule should be approved.

There were also seven letters sent by individuals, including my own.  Six of the seven letters did not address the supposed merits of the proposed rule.  Five didn’t even mention the Control Rule at all, instead providing comments that included complaints such as

“How about leaving rod and reel fishermen alone?”

“Virginias [sic] hate and are tired of y’all,”

“I can see no reason why black sea bass season and harvest cannot continue past the month of December when they are readily abundant and according to your data, a stock that is rebuilt,”

“Stop closing the sea bass during the summer,”

and

 “Over the past 30 plus years, fishing on a head-boat has become no longer viable.  To spend money on gas, tolls, tackle food [sic]—and to continually throw back sea bass and go home with an empty cooler, is not worth it.”

The sixth letter, which sort-of acknowledged the proposed rule’s existence, offered no opinion, but merely asked

“Please provide more detail on how data was collected from fishing user groups ie fishermen, to help shape this proposal and show specifically where the data was used in shaping this proposal,”

which, in some ways wasn’t unreasonable, because the Council never did explain how—or if—the Control Rule’s management recommendations were supported by data, or by any sort of science at all.

But the greater point is that the proposed rule, which would authorize use of the Control Rule to manage recreational fisheries in the mid-Atlantic, didn’t get a lot of—let’s be honest, didn’t get any—enthusiastic support from anyone other than the same small group of industry organizations that oppose firm, science-driven annual catch limits for any recreational fishery.

However, the Control Rule did attract some well-reasoned opposition from legitimate conservation groups, for both legal and practical reasons.

And that’s something that leadership at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration ought to take into account.  NOAA counsel ought to take a long look at the arguments that the proposed rule is in conflict with Magnuson-Stevens, while NOAA administrators, including those at every level of NMFS, ought to look themselves in the eye and ask why they ought to abandon a time-tested management approach, which has rebuilt a number of mid-Atlantic stocks and helped grow some to previously unrecorded abundance, in favor of a new and scientifically questionable Control Rule that could cause stocks to decline.

Sure, there might be some short-term benefits to the industry that supports the Control Rule.  But the notable lack of support strongly suggests that there might be some real long-term pain for everyone else.