WILL NEW YORK'S SALTWATER ANGLERS PUT THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTH IS?

 

It doesn’t much matter where you run into anglers: at the dock, in a shop, at a club meeting or even in internet forums.  Talk to them for just a while, and you’ll start hearing the same complaints.

There are too many poachers, and far too few conservation officers to discourage the practice.

They’re losing beach access, and can no longer get to places where they had fished before.

No one asks them about what they’re catching and landing.

Fish populations are waning, and no one seems to know why.

I probably hear, or at least read, one or more such complaints every day of the week, and in truth, I largely agree with the sentiments behind them.  I also talk to fishery managers on a fairly regular basis, and know that they share many of the same concerns.  As frustrated as anglers might be about such problems, their frustration doesn’t match that of many in state fisheries agencies, who want to address such problems, but aren’t able to because of one little thing:  Fielding enough conservation officers to put a dent in the poaching problem, acquiring beach access, engaging in angler surveys and conducting fisheries research all cost money.

And money is one thing that, at least here in New York, fishery managers just don’t have.  Or, to be more accurate, they have enough money to get the basic work done—field some enforcement staff, occasionally develop a boat ramp, and comply with the monitoring requirements set by organizations such as the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission—but they don’t have enough to go beyond the bare minimums, and create the sort of enhanced angling environment that New York anglers seem to think they deserve.

And yes, that wording was intentional.

Because anglers seem to think that they deserve a lot—boat ramps, beach access, artificial reefs, law enforcement, abundant fish stocks and such—but when it comes down to the crucial question of funding such programs, their support doesn’t match their demands.

That's because, when all is said and done, the only way to fund a more effective management agency is through a user-paid license.

Freshwater anglers have been buying licenses for years, and don’t give them a second thought, realizing the benefits that accrue from angler-based funding.  And before I start hearing anyone bleat about freshwater hatcheries, I probably need to remind readers that not everyone fishing fresh water is looking for man-made fish.  Plenty of anglers—including me, when I fish in fresh water—spend far more time chasing bass, pickerel, pike, and panfish than they do chasing hatchery trucks and naive rubber trout.

Yet anglers who couldn't care less about manufactured trout still get quite a bit for their license money. 

New York has purchased fishing access rights to over 1,300 miles of riverbank, on 400 different waterways, where anglers can catch not only trout, but smallmouth, pike, walleye, and a number of other species.  The state has also developed over 500 boat launch sites, ranging from Suffolk County in the east to Erie County in the west, which allow anglers to access waters that hold just about every species of freshwater fish found in the state.  While law enforcement can’t stop every poacher, folks on every major water I’ve fished seem to have a healthy respect for the law, knowing that the “warden” might stop by at any time.  And the state regularly conducts research on important recreational freshwater species, whether humble panfish or the prestigious muskellunge.

Without the revenue that accrues from fishing license sales, and from the federal matching funds that are tied to such sales, such things would be beyond the agency’s reach.

Yet, for some reason, saltwater anglers are slow to understand the concept of “You get what you pay for,” and many still oppose the idea of a saltwater license.

At the same time, such anglers are envious of programs in other states.  I’m not sure how many times I’ve heard anglers praise Florida’s saltwater management program, or the maze of artificial reefs off Alabama, or—from a few in the know—the quality of North Carolina’s angler catch surveys.  But all of those things—and more—are funded by other states’ recreational saltwater fishing licenses.

It’s well past time that New York’s anglers stop complaining and start pitching in, to make things better for everyone.

New York had a recreational fishing license once, beginning in October 2009, but the rollout went badly, largely because some members of the recreational fishing industry, and some government officials, did their best to sabotage the licensing effort.  I was sitting on both the Marine Resources Advisory Council and the more informal group advising on the license back then, and saw the whole thing unfold.

First, there was the question of cost.  Freshwater licenses cost around $20 in 2009, but the industry representatives claimed that was too much to pay for saltwater angling, and that it would hurt business.  They convinced both the Department of Environmental Conservation and the state legislature that, at least to start out, a $10 fee was more appropriate. 

Back then, all of the state sporting licenses expired on September 30, but representatives of the tackle shops complained that having a saltwater license expire at the beginning of the fall striped bass and bluefish run, so they argued that the license should instead expire on December 31, when few were fishing in the ocean.  The state belatedly agreed with that argument, to the great annoyance of many saltwater anglers who found themselves paying for a license that was only good for three months.

Industry members fueled such annoyance by spreading the false rumor that license moneys were going to go into the state's general fund, rather than their true destination, a dedicated saltwater account within the state's Conservation Fund.

Then, some of the towns on eastern Long Island, including both East Hampton and Southampton, sued the state, claiming that the DEC had no authority to license those towns’ anglers, because such authority was vested solely in the Trustees of each town by the so-called Dongan Patent, a colonial grant that was issued in 1686, nearly a century before the United States won its independence from England.

Things got a little strange at that point.  

Andrew Cuomo, who was then New York State’s Attorney General and, as such, was responsible for defending state agencies in court, didn’t support the saltwater license as a supposed matter of principle, and refused to appear on the DEC’s behalf, forcing it to find other counsel and pay for such representation out of its own budget.  The trial judge, who lived in one of the plaintiff towns and was elected by its residents, decided against the DEC, writing

“Considering the issuance of a saltwater fishing license, the statute as applied to the respective plaintiffs is in violation of the rights of the people of the respective Towns [which rights were created by the Dongan and other colonial patents] and may not be enforced against those who seek to fish in the waters regulated by the respective Towns.”

His decision was largely based on an earlier appellate court decision, State v. Trustees of Freeholders and Comminality of Town of Southamption, which respect to which the court noted

“In 1984 the Town of Southampton enacted a set of rules and regulations as to freshwater fishing limiting such fishing to residents and student residents.  The State of New York and the Commissioner of Environmental Conservation commenced an action against the Town to the effect that the State pre-empted the Town’s rights to legislate fishing within the Town.  The Appellate Division, Second Department…reversed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment in the State’s favor, finding that ‘absent some countervailing consideration, the State may not interpose the legislation in issue here upon the people of the Town of Southampton.’  The instant case presents a similar issue, albeit, it involves saltwater fishing.  [emphasis added]”

It was a bad decision, in part because the phrase so easily thrown out by the court, “albeit, it involves saltwater fishing,” ignored the crux of the earlier decision, which found that

“There is no proof submitted herein regarding the specific waterways involved, the nature thereof, and the abilities of the fish in question to pass freely in and out of them.  The only assertion pertaining to those issues is the contention of defendants’ counsel in an affidavit that acceptance of plaintiffs’ arguments would permit State legislation with respect to a fishbowl.  If in fact the waterways involved are, in effect, very large fishbowls, from which the fish in the wild, ferae naturae, can neither enter nor escape, and their population is maintained solely through stocking and spawning therein, as appears to be the case, we see no need for State management.  [emphasis added]”

It was also a bad decision because it ignored the Appellate Division’s decision in Seacoast Products v. City of Glen Cove, a matter arising out of the city’s efforts to regulate menhaden fishing within its waters.  In that matter, the appellate court found

“Appellants concede that legislative power to regulate fishing resides in the State…and that migratory fish, as ferae naturae, are the property of the State.  Accordingly, there is no merit to appellant’s contention that section 13-0333 of the Environmental Conservation Law is in derogation of the rights conferred upon the towns of Long Island by the Kieft Patent of 1644 and the Dongan Patent of 1686.  [citations omitted]”

Since the recreational saltwater license was a tool used to manage migratory fish, and not lacustrine fish living in what “are, in effect, very large fishbowls,” the Seacoast Products decision, and not the 1984 Southamption matter, should have governed the court's decision regarding the legitimacy of the saltwater license.

The DEC appealed the trial court;s decision, expecting to prevail, but by that time Andrew Cuomo was governor, and ordered the agency to abandon the matter.

Shortly thereafter, with the license not yet enforceable along much of New York’s shoreline, then-state Senator Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley), already an anti-regulation zealot, introduced legislation to repeal the license requirement and, once that legislation passed and was signed by Governor Cuomo, to refund license fees to anglers.

Since then, New York has been one of only three, out of twenty-six, coastal states without a saltwater fishing license, and its anglers and its fisheries have suffered as a result.

Now, the state is considering putting a new saltwater license in place, and we’re already seeing the old lines of opposition and support begin to reform.

The New York Fishing Tackle Trades Association, the group who could probably claim the greatest role in scuttling the last license, is already asking anglers

“Fishing Tax Anyone??????”

and directing them to a DEC website where they can comment on the issue.  Given the “tax” reference, there’s no question what sort of comments it’s hoping to see.

Comments on at least one angling website indicate that at least some anglers are also opposed, although the opposition seems to arise out of generalized anti-government grumbling rather than any reasoned opposition.  Thus, we see comments such as

“lol another $ grab from the state.  Anyone actually believe the funds will go where they say they will?”

“Haha, why do I have absolutely no faith that a penny of the money would go to protecting the resource.  I guess they are out of red light camera locations,”

and

“Tax and spend.  All taxes are theft.”

There are rational comments, too, in support of the license, and we can only hope that the rational side will prevail.

To that end, the DEC is seeking stakeholder comments on the proposed license, asking how anglers would like to see license money spent, how much a license would cost, how license money should be administered, and other relevant questions—including whether there ought to be a license at all.

The questionnaire can be accessed at https://arcg.is/Oy5Ca1.

Whether you’re for or against the license—and if you’re against, please don’t complain about poachers, or access, or anything else a few dollars might cure—you ought to make your feelings known.