When I look back at my earliest
days advocating for fisheries conservation, in the late 1970s when the striped
bass were collapsing and almost no one seemed to care, I get a little
embarrassed at how little I knew and how much I was willing to believe.
I clung to one truth, that the Maryland juvenile abundance index was in the tank, and the stock was headed for trouble, but other than that I had no idea what was going on.
Depending on who was talking, I was told
that the bass’ problems stemmed from some chemical—maybe PCBs, maybe the
insecticide kepone, maybe dioxins, no one was quite sure—depressing
reproductive capacity, or I was told that the problem stemmed from an active
sunspot cycle, or from too many pollutants of various sorts being washed into
the spawning rivers.
I was told that commercial
fishermen were the problem, particularly the ocean haul seiners who operated
from eastern Long Island beaches and could wipe out entire schools of bass with
a single set of their nets.
I was told that larval and
juvenile striped bass were being entrained in the cooling systems of power
plants, or impinged by the screens that guarded such systems’ intakes, and were
thus removed from the population nearly as soon as their lives had begun.
I was told a lot of things and,
trusting the messenger not to bear a false message, naively believed them all and faithrully repeated them to fisheries managers who, to be completely honest,
didn’t know much more about why the stock collapsed than I did.
But the striped bass collapse left a
scar, and like a few other anglers, I got involved in fisheries management for the long
term. So through the 1980s and most of
the ‘90s, I dutifully attended fisheries meetings that addressed everything
from striped bass to sharks, winter flounder to bluefin tuna, and said the
things that I thought to be true.
Looking back, the state and
federal managers were probably amused, and probably a little annoyed, at the
things that I said, because in those days, I was much like the other anglers
who showed up. We all repeated the things that just about all recreational
fishermen took as gospel at the time:
Commercial fishermen caused most of the problems, anglers wanted to do
the right thing, and “gamefish status,” which prohibited the sale of certain
species of fish, was the panacea that cured all of a fishery’s ills.
As I said, looking back, it’s
kind of embarrassing.
Fortunately, in the late 1990s, I
got involved with the Coastal Conservation Association which, back then, was
a legitimate conservation advocacy group that wasn’t ashamed to say that it put
the fishes’ interests first, even ahead of those of the anglers. While CCA still had a decidedly anti-commercial bent, and worked tirelessly to outlaw
gill nets and other commercial gear while placing red drum, speckled trout and
other species off-limits to commercial fishermen, the organization at least recognized (back
then; times have since, regrettably, changed) that recreational fishing could
also pose a threat to fish stocks and needed to be constrained by appropriately
precautionary regulation.
Perhaps more importantly, the
CCA of days gone by emphasized the importance of science-based
management, regardless of what that science might say. The first time that I
attended a board meeting at the association's Houston headquarters, all Friday—morning and
afternoon—was spent sitting in a big room listening to CCA leadership explain the details of fishery management, including its legalunderpinnings in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act,
the need for sound science, and the elements of effective advocacy.
As activve members of CCA, we were never allowed to forget
that an advocate’s most important asset was his or her credibility.
I still recall the late Walter
Fondren, the organization’s founding Chairman, repeatedly emphasizing how
important it was to get the scientific facts right when speaking with
regulators or legislative staff. Get the
science wrong even once, he told us, when advocating for a particular action,
and we could very easily lose whatever credibility we might have had with a
particular regulator or legislative office.
And once credibility is lost, we
were told, it would take us a very, very long time to get it back again—if
we ever did.
Such advice amounted to little
more than common sense, as no policymaker really has the time or the inclination to listen to
someone who either misrepresents the relevant facts or never bothers to take
the time to learn what such facts might be, yet when people are passionate
about a particular issue or their particular point of view, common sense often
falls by the wayside.
There is little doubt that the advocate who has a good working knowledge of both the science and the
law is in a far better position than those who ignore the facts and make purely emotional pleas.
Yet when I peruse
fisheries-related content on various websites, attend fisheries hearings, or
read the comments submitted on various management issues, I’m still taken aback
by the number of people who ignore the basic tenet that one should discern the
facts before forming or advancing an opinion, and instead first form an
opinion, and then advance only those facts that might provide support.
That is particularly true in
fisheries that kindle either substantial passion or substantial controversy,
and often ignite both. Striped bass may
be the best East Coast example.
The species supports both
recreational and commercial fisheries, although the recreational fishery is, by
far, the larger of the two. The
most recent benchmark stock assessment found that in 2017, the assessment’s
terminal year, the recreational fishery was responsible for 90% of overall
striped bass fishing mortality (42% taking the form of harvest, and 48% due to
release mortality), while the commercial fishery was responsible for the
remaining 10% (8% landings, 2% discards).
Yet when
the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission solicited public comments on
its proposed Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for
Atlantic Striped Bass in 2022, many anglers concerned about the health of
the stock suggested that a prohibition on commercial harvest would be an
important step toward sustainability, even though recreational fishing had
a far greater impact on the striped bass population.
Such unfounded comments aren’t
the sole province of recreational fishermen.
Such claims did little to promote the commenters’ credibility.
Pair a traditionally
controversial fish like striped bass with a “political fish”—that is, a fish
that has, for some reason, caught the popular imagination and has become a
cause celebre for various organizations—and credibility slips further downhill.
Atlantic menhaden have become
such a political fish. Thus, in
other comments submitted on Addendum II to the striped bass management plan,
many commenters stated that one of—if not the—major cause of the striped bass’
current decline is a lack of menhaden, even though the
reference points used to assess the Atlantic menhaden stock are directly
related to the amount of menhaden needed to support the striped bass stock when
spawning stock biomass is at its target level, and the most recent stock
assessment clearly indicated that menhaden spawning stock biomass was over the
biomass target, meaning that there was no menhaden shortage at all, and
certainly enough fish available to support the currently depleted stock of
striped bass.
Again, that can only hurt the
commenters credibility.
“I do want to point out that there is very
limited science to support the suggested regulatory changes, and only for some
of the regulatory changes. The petition
lacks scientific validity. It
cherry-picks fragments from scientific papers to try to support subjective and
often misleading statements. Several
statements in the petition made references to papers that my colleagues and
myself have written. I consulted with
several of those authors cited in this petition and I can say with certainty
that these are at best misrepresentations and at the worst purposeful
deceptions.”
Needless to say, after receiving
such criticism, the petitioner’s credibility was completely shot, and the
Virginia Marine Fisheries Commission, which was probably already disinclined to credit the petitioner’s claims, refused to take any action.
Because in the end, credibility
matters.
Anyone who comes to the
management table without understanding the relevant facts and applicable law is not only embarked
on a fool’s errand, but will also face a forum prejudiced against them when
they return again in the future.
In any given fisheries debate,
even a full command of the facts may not trump political considerations. But in the long run, understanding the facts
and presenting them honestly and without guile, is the surest way to prevail.
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