UNIVERSAL ANGLER REPORTING: A REAL-WORLD TRIAL

The Marine Recreational Information Program, which the National Marine Fisheries Service uses to gauge angler catch, landings, and effort, is the program that just about all recreational fishermen, or at least all of the recreational fishing industry, loves to hate.  Editorials in the angling press and statements made by various organizations regularly castigate MRIP, declaring it flawed and calling for it to be replaced, possibly by some sort of direct angler reporting, based on a cell phone app.

I have always been, and remain, a skeptic.  Response rates to other, supposedly mandatory reporting programs—bluefin tuna on the East Coast, red snapper in Alabama, and deer and turkey and other game all across the country—is typically dismal unless there is an effective enforcement mechanism to encourage compliance, and there is no reason to believe that universal angler catch reporting will meet any better fate.  And that doesn’t even consider biased reporting, a broad category that includes everything from anglers who habitually fail to report their landings to those who only report part of the time to less ethical persons who intentionally misrepresent their catches—or lack thereof—because they’re trying to manipulate the management system in a certain direction.

But there are apparently folks out there who have a far higher opinion of mandatory angler reporting than I do, because the North Carolina legislature recently passed a law stating, among other things, that

“Any person who recreationally harvests a fish listed in this subsection from coastal fishing waters, joint fishing waters, and inland fishing waters adjacent to coastal fishing waters or joint fishing waters shall report that harvest to the Division of Marine Fisheries within the Department of Environmental Quality in a manner consistent with rules adopted by the Marine Fisheries Commission and the Wildlife Resources Commission.  The harvest of the following finfish species shall be reported:

(1)   Red Drum.

(2)   Flounder.

(3)   Spotted Seatrout.

(4)   Striped Bass.

(5)   Weakfish.”

It’s not too clear what happens to anyone who fails to report, because the law provides that

“Violation of [the recreational reporting] subsection…shall only be punishable by a verbal warning, [emphasis added]”

that

 “Violation of [the recreational reporting] subsection shall only be punishable by issuance of a warning ticket…an inspector or protector may issue additional warning tickets for repeat violations…  [emphasis added]”

and

“Violation of [the recreational reporting] subsection…shall only be an infraction…punishable by a fine of thirty-five dollars ($35.00).  A person responsible for an infraction under this subsection shall not be assessed court costs, but the Fisheries Director of the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries is authorized to suspend, revoke, or refuse to issue a…recreational fishing license to any individual guilty of an infraction for violations of [the recreational reporting] subsection…The Executive Director of the Wildlife Resources Commission is authorized to revoke or refuse to issue a recreational fishing license issued by the Wildlife Resources Commission for any individual guilty of an infraction for violating [the recreational reporting] subsection…for two consecutive years or upon failure to pay infraction fines when required to do so.  [emphasis added]”

Thus, the new language seems to create three different, yet seemingly exclusive (“violation…shall only” be punishable by) penalties for violating the same subsection, which seems to create a significant ambiguity, but maybe the folks in the North Carolina legislature speak a little different dialect of English than the rest of us do, and “only” means something different down there.

At any rate, the legislature did the easy part—they passed a law, which North Carolina’s governor, for whatever reason, signed despite its seeming flaws.

Now, it’s up to the state’s Marine Fisheries Commission and Wildlife Resources Commission to do the real work of figuring out how to implement the reporting requirement and put a workable system in place before the law becomes effective on December 1, despite the legislature’s apparent failure to appropriate any program funding. 

I don’t envy the commissions, given the job that they’re tasked to do.

To begin, it’s clear that one size won’t end up fitting all.

When people talk about direct angler reporting of catch and/or landings, they usually mention smartphone apps in the same breath.  So the first problem the commissions must address is that North Carolina has not yet designed or developed such app and, without any directed appropriation, it’s not clear where it’s going to get the money to do so. 

Does the state legislature intend the Division of Marine Fisheries to delve into its budget and divert funding away from other important programs to fund a reporting process that the legislature apparently didn’t deem important enough to fund on its own?

Right now, the answer appears to be yes.

But even when and if such an app is released, not everyone owns a smartphone, and not everyone who has a phone is comfortable using apps.  Some people just don’t like cellphones, some are uncomfortable with the technology, and some people just can’t afford them.  Plus, there are others who have a phone, but only use it for its most basic purpose—making calls and maybe sending texts—and have little use for or familiarity with other features.  I have friends and family with that sort of attitude toward phones, and there’s little reason to doubt that North Carolina has its share of such folks, too.

So even if North Carolina develops a recreational harvest reporting app, it’s also going to have to develop an alternate reporting procedure for those who don’t have or don’t feel comfortable using a smartphone.  It’s going to be up to the commissions to decide what that alternative will look like.

It might look like a call-in system, which requires any angler harvesting a fish belonging to one of the five reportable species to dial up a number and leave their name or other identifier (maybe a fishing license number) and their harvest information on some sort of voice recording device.  The other alternative, even more low-tech and clumsy, would require such reports to be submitted in writing to a Division of Marine Fisheries-designated address.

Either of those alternatives would be extremely labor-intensive.

In 2023, North Carolina anglers harvested about 230,000 red drum, 1,000,000 spotted seatrout, 75,000 weakfish, 120,000 flounder, and 1,000 striped bass.  It’s reasonable to assume that, had the reporting requirement been in place last year, most of those fish would have been reported via smartphone, but if even 10% of those fish had to be reported through alternative means, that’s over 140,000 fish tallied by either a voice recording or mail-in system.

While the fish reported through a smartphone app might be automatically recorded and tallied, reports received via voice recorder or the mail would have to be individually, manually recorded, a process that would require a Division of Marine Fisheries employee to download each voice-recorded report, or open each piece of mail, and record the information provided therein on a system capable of merging the input data with the data recorded by the smartphone app.

Thus, the Division of Marine Fisheries would incur additional expenses, in the form of added personnel costs to do the needed tabulation, and in the form of a voice recording system and perhaps other technology needed to receive and accurately record the information reported.  Again, given the legislature’s apparent failure to appropriate funds, that means diverting people and funding away from other needed programs.

The commissions are going to have to decide just what such reporting systems will look like, and figure out how to put them in place, bug-free and ready for use, by the December deadline. 

Of course, those systems will only deal with the information that is provided.  The Division of Marine Fisheries is also going to have to figure out how to deal with the information that isn’t.

It’s probably a pretty good bet that a large percentage of North Carolina anglers are not going to immediately comply with the reporting requirements when they go into effect.

For some, that will be because they weren’t aware of the new rule.  For others, they will be aware, but forget to report.  But many will choose not to comply, and when you look at the likely overall process, there won’t be much incentive to go along with the law.

The reporting can take one of two forms:  The commissions might decide that anglers must report their harvest within a time certain—say, 24 or 48 hours—after the fish are caught or, probably far less likely, they may require reporting immediately upon retention (which works fine with a smartphone, but would be problematic with a voice recorder or mailed report).  Both would be practically unenforceable.

If the commissions allow anglers to report hours after the fish are harvested, there is no way for law enforcement to know whether a violation ever occurred, for the enforcement agent will encounter such angler in the field, hours before any mandatory report would have to be made, and will have no way of knowing whether the report was ever sent.  The Division of Marine Fisheries would find itself in a position similar to that of the National Marine Fisheries Service, with respect to recreational bluefin tuna landings.  A mandatory requirement would be in place, but most people ignore it, knowing that they can do so with impunity.

On the other hand, if the commissions decide that harvest had to be reported as soon as a fish was retained, it would be theoretically easier to enforce the reporting requirement, but only if the reporting system allowed law enforcement agents to make a real-time inquiry to determine whether a report had been filed, and only if every law enforcement agent on the coast was equipped with the technology needed to make such inquiry.  Again, the legislature did not appropriate funding for such technology, and it is unlikely that anyone would believe that it would be worth purchasing such a system with the Division of Marine Fisheries’ already-allocated funds, particularly to enforce an infraction that will likely draw only a verbal or written warning or, at worst, a $35 fine.

So compliance with the new reporting law is likely to be fairly poor.

It will also fail to provide the Division of Marine Fisheries with another very important bit of information:  the number of fish caught and subsequently released.

While harvest numbers matter, and are usually the largest contributor to fishing mortality, that isn’t always the case.  In some species, release mortality can also make a significant contribution.  That was probably best illustrated in the most recent benchmark stock assessment of Atlantic striped bass, which found that release mortality comprised 48% of overall fishing mortality, compared to 42% for recreational harvest. 

That’s not the typical case, but given that both North Carolina’s southern flounder and its Albemarle/Roanoke stock of striped bass are severely depleted and subject to very restrictive regulations, release mortality could well be a very significant source of removals of both species.

Thus, it is difficult to see how a reporting system that is likely to see high levels of noncompliance, and in any event doesn’t record a potentially significant source of fishing mortality, is going to prove more reliable data than the Marine Recreational Information Program.

Yet that is the system that the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission and Wildlife Resources Commission are being asked to design from scratch, and the Division of Marine Resources will be expected to build and operate, without any dedicated funding from the state legislature.

The commissions are asking the public for any suggestions that they might have.  Input can be provided on online forms provided by both commissions, by mail, or at a public hearing to be held on May 1.  The comment period ends on May 20.  More information can be found at https://www.deq.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2024/04/22/public-comment-period-opens-temporary-rules-implement-new-mandatory-harvest-reporting-law.

As I noted before, I don’t envy the folks assigned to do the job, but it will be interesting to see what they come up with, and whether, against all odds, it somehow might almost work.