SOUTH ATLANTIC RED SNAPPER: THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN

 

I don’t know what it is about red snapper.  

I’ve fished for them on multiple occasions, and they’re nothing particularly special.  Just another bottom fish that’s common enough to provide reliable action for the for-hire fleet, and easy enough for the average private boat angler to catch without trying too hard, although finding the bigger fish on a regular basis can take some real skill.

They’re shaped something like the porgies we catch here in the northeast, and fight much the same way, although they can grow an order of magnitude larger and pull quite a bit harder as a result.  But when you compare them to some of the other fish available to boats fishing out of the same ports, species like amberjack, yellowfin tuna, cobia, or wahoo—not to mention pure gamefish like tarpon, billfish, and even swords—snapper are clear also-rans, lacking the strength, speed, size and/or pure athleticism to .make the first team.

Yet I’ll argue that no other single species—not Atlantic cod, not any of the Pacific salmons, nor bluefin tuna, striped bass, red drum, summer flounder, swordfish, nor any other fish one might think of—has done as much to disrupt the fishery management system as the red snapper has.

The fight over red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico spanned three decades or more, and it’s not over yet.  It saw federal fishery managers rebuild a very badly overfished stock—spawning stock biomass had fallen below five percent of its unfished level—to something not very far below its biomass target , despite the efforts of recreational fishing organizations and the recreational fishing industry, organized under the banners of groups such as the Coastal Conservation Association, American Sportfishing Association, and Center for Sportfishing Policy which, to perpetuate anglers’ overharvest, did everything in their power to obstruct and delay federal fishery managers’ rebuilding efforts.

As we see more and more troubling reports suggesting that Gulf red snapper stocks may be suffering from too much recreational fishing pressure, the same recreational advocacy groups are calling for more state autonomy in managing the red snapper resource, and arguing that state estimates of recreational red snapper landings, which are generally lower than those produced by the National Marine Fisheries Service and so allow longer seasons in which more fish can be killed, should replace the federal data.

Now, the same circus that has beset the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery for so many years is pulling up stakes and moving, tent, showmen, clowns, and all, into the South Atlantic, where another recreational red snapper fishery will inspire it to put on a brand new show.

In truth, it’s not precisely accurate to say that the red snapper show in the South Atlantic is “brand new.”  A case could be made that it was actually South Atlantic red snapper, and not those in the Gulf, created the impetus for formerly conservation-oriented individuals and organizations, who had previously had a very good record of working with federal fisheries managers and for rebuilt fisheries, to take an “anglers’ rights” tack that would eventually lead them to make federal fisheries managers their prime boogeyman, and exchange their commitment to future abundance for one that emphasized full coolers now.

The South Atlantic's problems started in early 2008, after SEDAR—the South Atlantic Data, Assessment, and Review process—released SEDAR 15, which included an assessment of the South Atlantic red snapper stock,  It declared

“The assessment indicates that the stock has been overfished since 1960 and overfishing is currently occurring…

“The fishing mortality (F) is compared to what the fishing mortality would be if the fishery was operating at the proxy level for maximum fishing (F_40%).  The ratio of F/F_40% suggests a generally increasing trend from the 1950s through the mid-1980s, and since 1985 has fluctuated around a mean near 14.  This indicates that overfishing has been occurring since 1960 at about 14 times the sustainable level, with the 2006 estimate of F/F_40% at 12.021.  [emphasis added]”

Spawning stock biomass had been fished down to just 3 percent of its unfished level.

It was pretty clear that such level of overfishing could not continue for long, particularly with the spawning stock biomass so low, and in 2009 the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed shutting down the commercial and recreational red snapper fisheries for 180 days, with the possibility that the closure might be extended for another 186 days after that.

The recreational fishing industry, and many recreational fishermen, did not like that idea.  They were also concerned that the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council was contemplating a further step, completely shutting down a large section of ocean bottom to all fishing, because so many red snapper were being killed by anglers targeting other species that regulations restricting red snapper landings alone would not be enough to end the overfishing.  On October 23, 2009, an article appeared in the Florida Times-Union/jacksonville.com that described the recreational position this way.

“Because fishermen catch a lot of snappers accidentally while targeting other species, the management council is considering four different plans for shutting down any fishing that might lead to those accidental catches, called bycatch.  The plans affect different sections of the ocean, but they all apply to nearly every one of about 70 fish the council lumps together as the ‘snapper grouper management complex’ because they’re found in similar locations.

“That last step has people in the fishing industry stunned and alarmed…

“Calling the potential rules ‘unprecedented in their depth and scope,’ an executive of the nonprofit Coastal Conservation Association asked federal officials in July to revisit the idea.

“The association, started decades ago by recreational anglers, has a long history of championing fishing regulations, including a net ban Florida voters approved in 1994.  But it has balked at the snapper proposal, questioning whether it’s based on good science.

“’In this special instance where the potential economic ramifications are so severe, we believe there must be another review,’ the association’s government relations chairman, Chester Brewer, wrote to a regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

“Florida Sportsman magazine founder Karl Wickstrom, a leading advocate for Florida’s net ban in the 1990s, joined the new debate by writing in his magazine’s November issue that federal scientists are ‘cherry picking’ data to support drastic solutions.  Two scientists also critique the management council’s study of snapper populations in the same issue.”

Which is sort of what happened, although the article leaves a few important things out.

I was a very active member of the Coastal Conservation Association back then, and sat on its National Executive Board.  The South Atlantic red snapper issue spawned a sort of crisis of conscience for the organization, that forced everyone to take a look at whether the values they and the organization espoused were honestly held, or were merely something they gave lip service to, but didn’t truly believe.

Prior to that time, CCA unabashedly declared that it “put the fish first,” and had a strong record of supporting management measures that would help to conserve fish stocks.  But when you started to look at the measures that it supported, it didn’t take long to note that most of those conservation measures restricted the commercial, rather than the recreational, fishery, or impacted anglers who fished for things such as summer flounder or striped bass, rather than anglers in the Gulf States or South Atlantic, where the overwhelming majority of the Association’s anglers were located.

The South Atlantic red snapper issue was the first one that could have resulted in severe restrictions being imposed on recreational fishermen in CCA’s core membership states, and while it’s always easy to conserve someone else’s fish, conserving your own is a much harder thing to do.

And it wasn't at all clear that CCA members were willing to accept the hardships and do it.

In addition, the aforementioned Karl Wickstrom had a lot of clout among Florida’s anglers in those days, due to the influence of his Florida Sportsman magazine, and while he was all for restricting the commercial fleet, his advertising revenues came from the recreational industry, which perhaps influenced him to vehemently oppose the proposed red snapper rules.

So, while there was divided opinion among the leadership of CCA’s Florida chapter, with some supporting the NMFS proposal and others, including some of the founding members and the executive director, opposed to such restrictions, it was generally recognized that if CCA Florida supported NMFS on the issue, they would probably suffer Wickstrom’s wrath, which would have a dire negative impact on the organization's membership and fundraising efforts.

I was driving to dinner with the aforementioned Chester Brewer one night, and asked why CCA Florida wasn't willing to do the right thing and support meaningful restrictions on the red snapper fishery, regardless of what Florida Sportsman might say.  Brewer looked back at me wide-eyed and said something like "B..but it's KARL WICKSTROM!" as if I was suggesting he insult the reborn Messiah, and I understood that there was no point continuing that particular line of conversation.

Thus, conscience and principle yielded to inside politics and organizational economics, and CCA became an ever more aggressive opponent of federal red snapper management, both in the South Atlantic and in the Gulf.  That loss of principle eventually led me to walk away from the organization, although I wasted a few more years before I left, trying to make an appeal to an organizational conscience that had died long before.

Now, after honing its skills at opposing federal red snapper conservation efforts in the Gulf of Mexico, CCA and various other fishing industry groups have returned to the South Atlantic, hoping to frustrate federal conservation efforts there.

Much has changed since the 2008 stock assessment found the South Atlantic red snapper stock at a dangerous low.  Federal management measures have helped to rebuild the stock, which is no longer overfished, thanks in part of a very sharply reduced recreational red snapper season—this year’s season lasted only two days—and a very small commercial quota.  But overfishing continues, and it is still largely due to recreational red snapper bycatch when the season is closed.

And NMFS keeps getting sued for not getting that recreational overfishing under control.

A little over a year ago, Tilman Gray, a commercial fish buyer in North Carolina, and Slash Creek Waterworks, a commercial fishing operation in the same state, sued the federal government over its failure to end recreational overfishing of the South Atlantic red snapper stock.  Knowing that it was in the wrong, NMFS didn’t try to fight the action, but instead agreed to publish a rule ending such overfishing by June 6, 2025.

Pursuant to that agreement, NMFS proposed a draft Amendment 59 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper/Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic, which recognized what managers already knew in 2009—that it is impossible to end recreational overfishing of South Atlantic red snapper without addressing the problem of recreational bycatch in the closed season.  So the proposed Amendment 59 would have closed an expanse of ocean off Georgia and northern Florida to all bottom fishing for three months each year, in return for a longer recreational red snapper season and a near-tripling of the recreational and commercial red snapper quotas, as fish previously wasted as bycatch would be converted into landings that people could take home and use.

As might be expected, the same crowd that fought federal red snapper management in the Gulf of Mexico had no use for the proposed Amendment 59.  The American Sportfishing Association, concerned that the Amendment might cause its members to lose some income (and completely unconcerned about the recreational overfishing, since it generates tackle sales), said that

“The ASA is deeply disappointed to see NOAA Fisheries propose this drastic action, which may cause irreparable economic damage to the coastal communities and businesses that rely on recreational fishing, as well as recreational fishing manufacturers and suppliers across the country”

while the Coastal Conservation Association, true to its new mission of advocating for “anglers’ rights” and undercutting the federal fishery management system whenever the opportunity arises, whined

“the proposal ‘drops [a] solution in search of a problem’ and is proof that the federal management system is broken.”

And, of course, between the time that NMFS agreed to settle the Tilman Gray lawsuit and end overfishing, and the time that Amendment 59 was released, a new administration took over the White House, which had implications for the nation’s fisheries policy, too.  With the monetization of the nation’s natural resources now trumping conservation considerations, the current leadership at the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NMFS has different priorities than did the people whom they replaced.  Thus, when Amendment 59 was finally released, it did not impose any closures on the recreational or commercial fisheries.  Instead, the final Amendment 59 increased the annual catch limit of South Atlantic red snapper, while making small reduction in both the commercial and recreational quotas.  The final Amendment also moves the goal posts for what's deemed "sustainable," increasing the overfishing limit for South Atlantic red snapper to the average level of landings for the years 2021-2023, which is probably a pretty good strategy for keeping landings somewhere close to the overfishing limit, even if it might not be the best way to conserve the stock.  And, by the same sort of impeccable logic, the final Amendment will give anglers two days, instead of one, to catch their reduced quota, even though they managed to overfish last year with only a one-day season in place.

There’s probably good reason to believe that the final Amendment 59, even with its newly inflated overfishing limit, probably won’t end recreational overfishing of the South Atlantic red snapper stock.  At least, enough people seem to believe that, that NMFS is getting sued once again.  Commercial fishermen are asking a court to compel NMFS to end recreational overfishing and put South Atlantic red snapper on a path to sustainability.  With respect to Amendment 59, the plaintiffs note that

“The red snapper annual catch limits established in the Amendment 59 Final Rule only serve to limit landings,”

but do nothing to limit the number of fish killed and wasted due to recreational bycatch.

Of course, CCA and the rest of the recreational fishing groups don’t want to take any responsibility for their own actions, so they have a different solution for the red snapper problem:  Move management responsibility from NMFS, which has a legal obligation to end overfishing, to the states, which have no such obligation, and may allow anglers to overfish the stock down to the very last snapper.  Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina have already put laws in place leaving them ready to take over red snapper management should the possibility ever arise.  And as a recent article in Sport Fishing magazine notes,

“With state seasons passed into law, South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources must now come up with the mechanisms to collect recreational data on these species, which is crucial, according to Ted Venker with the Coastal Conservation Association.

“Venker says Florida, Georgia and South Carolina are now on a path to actively manage these resources.  The Georgia Legislature set aside budget in its 2026 budget to establish a reef/migratory fish data collection program.  Florida obtained exempted fishing permits and is currently using them to conduct extensive studies of red snapper on its Atlantic coast.

“’It may seem like it doesn’t do much now, but it is an important domino that has to fall first,’ said Venker.  ‘There is a lot going on to wrest control from the feds beyond this bill.  This is just one piece of the puzzle, and in that regard this is a lot like how it went in the Gulf—lots of little steps finally got us where we wanted to go.’”

Of course, what the CCA and other angling groups never admit is that they didn’t “wrest control [of red snapper management] from the feds.”  NMFS still sets the annual recreational and commercial catch limits for Gulf of Mexico red snapper, and the Gulf [formerly, the Gulf of Mexico] Fishery Management Council is still solely responsible for the red snapper management plan and any amendments thereto.  

All that the states can do, pursuant to Amendment 50 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources in the Gulf of Mexico is, in the words of the Gulf Council, is exercise

“some management authority for recreational fishing of red snapper by private anglers in federal waters to the Gulf states.  Each state is allocated a portion of the red snapper private angling quota and has authority to set the private angling fishing season, bag limit, and minimum size limit (between 14 and 18 inches).  If the landings of a state exceed that state’s quota, the state’s quota will be reduced by the amount of the overage in the following year.”

That’s hardly wresting control from the feds, but rather merely allows the states some flexibility to carry out the federal management plan.

But we’re nonetheless seeing the recreational advocacy groups going through the same political machinations in the South Atlantic that we saw years ago in the Gulf, trying to put pressure on NMFS and essentially extort it into making concessions.  Thus, we see the governors of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida writing a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, seeking the same sort of exempted fishing permits that ultimately led to the states’ being given some limited management flexibility in the Gulf.  In a letter, clearly worded to appeal to the current administration, the governors complain that

“Unfortunately, decades of inaction by career bureaucrats within the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), combined with actions in the waning hours of the Biden Administration to cut-off public access to the fishery, have hampered access for our recreational angling communities from exercising their God-given right to fish and support their local economies and way of life.”

And, of course, federal legislators also had to be a part of the show, with more than 20 Florida Senators and Representatives sending their own letter to Secretary Lutnick, in which, according to the Tampa Free Press,

“the delegation expressed their gratitude for [the Secretary’s] collaboration with President Trump in prioritizing American interests, specifically commending the rejection of proposed ‘bottom closures’ that would have severely impacted Florida’s fishing industry…The delegation argues that while the federal government has struggled with reliable data collection, Florida and other South Atlantic states possess the capability to gather accurate information, leading to better fishing o opportunities and continued conservation.”

And so the circus plays on, with the magicians doing their best to create illusions of federal incompetence while the dancing bears write their fawning letters to the Administration, seeking to charm someone into granting a boon.

But in the end, the finale of this story may well belong to the clowns, who seek to capture their audience’s attention with inane acts that mock reality. 

The same clowns who pretend that the South Atlantic, with its high levels of recreational discard mortality, is just like the Gulf, where discard mortality remains fairly low.

The clowns who pretend that the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act isn't still the law of the land.

The clowns who pretend that recreational bycatch, discard mortality, and the resultant recreational waste of South Atlantic red snapper will just go away because some wizard in Washington agreed to wave his or her wand and let states set the red snapper seasons.

Let’s assume that the recreational groups get what they want, and state managers in the South Atlantic are allowed to set the seasons, bag limits and, within set parameters, size limits for South Atlantic red snapper, as state managers currently set some aspects of red snapper management in the Gulf. 

Should that be allowed, NMFS will still have the responsibility of setting the overfishing limit, acceptable biological catch, annual catch limit, and commercial and recreational quotas for South Atlantic red snapper.

NMFS will still have to allocate portions of the recreational catch limit to the four South Atlantic states, and the states will presumably be required to pay back any overage should they exceed their annual allocation.

And Magnuson-Stevens will still require that

“Conservation and management measures shall prevent overfishing while achieving, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield from each fishery for the United States fishing industry,”

that, within two years after being notified that a fishery is overfished, the relevant fishery management council

“shall prepare a fishery management plan, plan amendment, or proposed regulation for the fishery to which the identification or notice applies, to end overfishing immediately in the fishery and to rebuild affected stocks of fish, [formatting omitted]”

and that the time for rebuilding such overfished fishery shall

“be as short as possible…and not exceed 10 years, except in cases where the biology of the stock of fish, other environmental considerations, or management measures under an international agreement in which the United States participates dictates otherwise.  [formatting omitted]”

So even if the states get their way, and are allowed manage aspects of the South Atlantic recreational red snapper fishery, the strictures of Magnuson-Stevens will not go away.  The recreational waste, in the form of dead discards from bycatch in other fisheries, is still going to be deducted from the acceptable biological catch to determine the annual recreational catch limit, and without the states taking some sort of action to reduce the current high bycatch level, the annual catch limit will remain very small, and the recreational season will remain very, very short.

Yes, the states can try to lengthen their seasons, in an effort to convert dead discards into landings, but since not every red snapper released dies, trying to turn releases into landings will only serve to increase the overall harvest.  Given the need to prevent overfishing, anglers will never be allowed to take more red snapper home, unless they first get their waste under control.

But whether or not that ever happens, the circus will, of course, go on.

The bears will dance, and the magicians will try to create their illusions.  But be sure to keep watching the clowns, because they’re really the key to the show.

 

 

JUST OUT: AN OBJECTIVE LOOK AT BYCATCH IN THE MENHADEN REDUCTION FISHERY

 

Anglers often like to throw (mostly metaphorical) stones at commercial fishermen, and every angler has a favorite target.

Some have a particular antipathy toward gillnetters, while others abhor folks who pull trawls.  Longliners, whether pelagic or bottom, have their share of critics, as do haul seiners, harpooners, and even those who earn their pay fishing with hook and line.  The hostility can vary by region, or the fish targeted.  Every angler has their own idea of what makes a commercial fishery particularly vile.  They often disagree.

Except when it comes to the menhaden reduction fishery, which has managed to attract the slings and arrows of just about every recreational fisherman, environmental advocates, and even some members of the commercial fleet.  And when you stop to think about it, that’s probably not surprising, because if you’re looking for a fishery to despise, the menhaden reduction fishery offers something for just about everyone.

Start with the fact that all of the menhaden reduction fishing in the United States is done by just two companies, Alpha VesselCo LLC,which does business under the name “Ocean Harvesters” and operates in both the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, and Daybrook Fisheries, which fishes solely in the Gulf.  Both operations are, at least for the fishing industry, large and heavily capitalized corporations, and certainly the antithesis of what might be called an “artisanal” fishery.  

Thus, the companies are a natural target for those who might sympathize with hardscrabble fishermen trying to make a living from the sea, but are philosophically opposed to “industrial fishing,” large corporations and the lobbyists, political connections, and financial influence that is carried along in their wake.

Taking things a step farther, the menhaden reduction operations are not completely domestic, but instead are operated by U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations.  While Alpha VesselCo owns and operates the 30 purse seine vessels that actually catch the menhaden, such vessels were originally owned by Omega Protein, which had to divest its fleet after it was acquired by, and became a division of, Cooke Inc., one of the world’s largest seafood and aquaculture companies, which is located in New Brunswick, Canada.  A long-term contract to supply menhaden to Omega Protein effectively ties Alpha VesselCo to Omega, even though the company is legally an independent entity.

Daybrook Fisheries is owned by the Oceana Group, a South African company specializing in fishing, fish products, and aquaculture.

Thus, although the people who are actually doing the fishing are United States residents, the foreign connection makes both Omega and Daybrook targets not only for those who don’t like large corporations, but also for those who don’t like the idea of “foreigners” harvesting fish in United States waters.  It’s a line you often hear from folks who want to shut down the reduction fishery, with one anti-reduction industry group going so far as to post on its website

“Who will win?  A Foreign Industrial Conglomerate or America.”

Of course, a fish neither knows nor cares who kills it, it is merely dead.  If one reduction fleet vessel ends up killing 1,500,000 menhaden on any given day (the Alpha VesselCo boats can hold between 1.3 and 2 million fish at any one time), or if 150 pound netters and smaller “bait” purse seiners kill just 10,000 menhaden each, the net result is still 1.5 million dead menhaden removed from the ecosystem.

But there’s something about the big reduction boats that draws a disproportionate amount of folks’ ire.

And it doesn’t help that at least one of the big operators, Omega Protein, has long maintained a sort of institutional arrogance, flaunting its political connections and openly defying decisions of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board. 

People tend to get upset about that sort of thing.

But from a policy perspective, what matters isn’t who gets their feelings hurt, or who might dislike large-scale fisheries, but whether those fisheries do any lasting harm to marine resources and marine ecosystems.  In that regard, the reduction fishery has come in for a lot of criticism, but as heated as that criticism might be, it rests on shaky factual foundations.

One organization, called “Save Our Menhaden,” has a fairly well-designed website (which nonetheless fails to disclose the name of even one of the people managing, directing, and/or financing such organization) urges people to

“Harass the ASMFC Menhaden Board,”

claiming, contrary to easily located information, that

“These are the folks who are in charge of setting limits and restrictions on industrial menhaden reduction fishing on the Atlantic Coast.  So far they have done nothing but sit on their hands and ignore all calls for a solution.  Give them your two cents by making a call or sending an email.”

In fact, the ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board constantly monitors both the state of the menhaden stock and level of menhaden harvest, including the harvest of the reduction fishery.  In 2006, despite the lack of any data suggesting that the move was needed, it imposed a precautionary harvest cap of 109,020 metric tons on the reduction fishery in the Chesapeake Bay, a cap that, despite a continuing lack of data justifying such action, was more than cut in half, to 51,000 metric tons, in 2017.

The Management Board also conducts regular stock assessments of the Atlantic menhaden resource, which utilize so-called “ecological reference points” that measure stock health in terms of the menhaden’s ability to fulfill its role as a forage fish.  The most recent full, or “benchmark,” stock assessment found that Atlantic menhaden biomass was above its target level, and that fishing mortality was below target, meaning that the stock was both completely healthy and on a favorable trajectory.  A stock assessment update released in 2022 came to the same conclusions.

Thus, any claims that the reduction fishery is doing harm to Atlantic menhaden stocks, or rendering the Atlantic menhaden stock unable to perform its ecological role as a forage fish, are without scientific support.

Although that doesn’t prevent folks from making such claims, particularly when they get paid to do so.

Critics of the reduction fishery have also claimed that the fishery generates high levels of bycatch, leading to the death and subsequent waste of a substantial number of non-target species, including many valued food and sport fish.

The reduction industry tries to minimize the issue, arguing that the bycatch level in the Atlantic menhaden fishery is less than one percent.  Still, one percent of 1.2 billion pounds of menhaden landings adds up to a substantial number.

And the reduction fishery certainly generates some bycatch.  When I was still living in Connecticut back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the big purse seiners often came all the way into western Long Island Sound, where their nets sometimes dragged across the bottom.  For a while, relations between anglers and the purse seiners weren’t too bad, and recreational fishermen were known to go up to the purse seine boats and ask for a bucket of menhaden, perhaps in exchange for a six-pack of Schaeffer, Piels, or some other cheap beer, so that they wouldn’t have to catch their own bait.  I know of at least one occasion when the bucket was returned full of weakfish rather than menhaden, mute testimony to the bycatch that was then taking place.

More recently, a purse seiner operating within the Chesapeake Bay incidentally caught and killed a number of big red drum, an incident that received quite a bit of publicity at the time.

So we know such things happen.  What we didn’t know was how often they happen, with anglers tending to think that bycatch is out of control, while the menhaden industry argues that it is negligible.

This week, a new study financed by the State of Louisiana provided one of the first good looks at bycatch in the reduction fleet.  It found that the reduction fleet in the Gulf of Mexico does have a substantial incidental catch, but not one large enough to have a material impact on important sport fish species.

Observers providing data for the study sampled 418 of the 13,144 sets made by menhaden reduction vessels in Louisiana waters during 2024—about 3.2 percent of the total—spread out across the fishing season.  The characteristics of the sampled sets, including depth, water temperature, and dissolved oxygen, were similar to those of all sets made by the reduction fleet.

Bycatch composition and survival rates differed depending on how fish interacted with the fishing gear.  Once a purse seine is set and drawn tight, the menhaden are removed by means of a 10-inch suction hose.  The head of that hose, which is lowered into the fish packed into the seine, is surrounded by a metal cage which limits the size of the fish that can enter the system.  At the other end of the hose, where fish are deposited into the vessel’s hold, there is a screen designed to divert bycatch into a chute and back into the water.  As a result, only menhaden and smaller fish taken as bycatch end up in the hold.

The study places all reduction fleet bycatch into one of three categories:  1) Rollover Bycatch, which are fish too large to fit through the cage fitted around the end of the suction hose, 2) Chute Bycatch, which are fish that are sucked up into the hose, but are later deflected back into the ocean rather than deposited into the vessel’s fish hold, and 3) Retained Bycatch, which is bycatch that goes into the fish hold along with the menhaden.

As one might expect, survival varies among bycatch types.

Rollover Bycatch has the highest survival rate, which seems reasonable given that all such fish remain in the net until released, and any harm suffered is a result of their limited ability to move in the packed purse seine, or of them being physically compressed by the other fish crowded into the net.

Of the 418 observed sets, 43—a little over 10 percent—had no Rollover Bycatch at all.  The average set resulted in a Rollover Bycatch of 11 individual fish, which might belong to any of 43 different species, although the amount of Rollover Bycatch varied widely by set, and ranged from zero to 128 individuals.  The study’s authors estimated that, for all reduction vessels fishing off Louisiana in 2024, Rollover Bycatch amounted to very slightly more than 145,000 individual fish, having a total weight of a little over 3.25 million pounds.

Five species accounted for two-thirds of the Rollover Bycatch, when measured in numbers of fish, and 52.8 percent when measured by weight:  cownose rays (estimated at 26,847 individuals/538,000 pounds across all sets made in 2024), red drum (26,752 individuals/575,500 pounds), black drum (18,680 individuals/319,000 pounds), gafftopsail catfish (13,809 individuals/40,000 pounds), and crevalle jack (10,525 individuals/260,000 pounds).  Various requiem sharks, of the genus Carcharhinus, accounted for 22.3 percent of the Rollover Bycatch by number, and 44.1 percent by weight.

The likelihood that individuals caught as bycatch would survive is linked to the fishes’ condition.  A fish exhibiting vigorous body movements and no external injuries was deemed to be in “excellent” condition.  Fish with weak body movements and/or with only minor external injuries were deemed to be in “good” or “fair” condition, while those with no body movement, but still moving their gill covers, and/or with serious external injuries were considered to be in “poor” condition.  Mortality was signaled by no body or gill cover movement, major external injuries and/or clear signs of death.

Most of the Rollover Bycatch was released in “excellent” or “good” condition, although that varied from species to species.  Of the important food and sport fish, 95.9 percent of the red drum were released in either “excellent” or “good” condition, with 70.4 percent falling into the “excellent” category.  Black drum reacted similarly, with 95 percent released in either “good” or “excellent” condition, and 80.7 percent rated “excellent.”  However, crevalle jack didn’t fare quite as well, with only 71 percent falling into the top two categories (just 22.1 percent rated “excellent”), while 19.1 percent were returned to the water dead.  Sharks, as a group, fared even worse, with 34.9 percent of spinner sharks and 27.9 percent of blacktip sharks dead when removed from the net.

Chute Bycatch saw far higher mortality rates, and far fewer fish released in either “excellent” or even “good” condition.  It was sampled in 414 of the 418 observed sets, and the good news is that out of those 414 sampled sets, 117—about 28 percent—had no Chute Bycatch at all.  Across all sampled sets, the average Chute Bycatch was 10.6 individuals, with the number in any given set ranging from zero to 220.  The researchers estimated that, across all sets made in Louisiana waters in 2024, Chute Bycatch totalled about 139,470 fish, belonging to 41 different species and weighing a total of 1.6 million pounds.

Five species of fish, four of which dominated the Rollover Bycatch as well, accounted for 80.7 percent of the individual fish in the Chute Bycatch, and 80 percent of the Chute Bycatch weight.  They included gafftopsail catfish (49,780 individuals/142,000 pounds), cownose ray (29,094 individuals/434,000 pounds), red drum (17,841 individuals/332,000 pounds), blacktip shark (8,818 individuals/268,500 pounds), and black drum (6,957 individuals/50,927 pounds).  Another five species—striped mullet, crevalle jack, sand seatrout, hardhead catfish, and finetooth shark accounted for another 13.4 percent of the Chute Bycatch when measured by number, and 10.2 percent when measured by weight.

Likely survival of the Chute Bycatch was not good.  81.9 percent of the blacktip sharks, 60.5 percent of the red drum, and 43.6 percent of the black drum were returned to the water dead.  Only about two percent of the red and black drum, and none of the blacktips, were in “excellent” condition when released.

And, of course, when it came to the Retained Bycatch, no fish survived at all.

415 of the 418 observed sets were sampled for Retained Bycatch.  All had some retained bycatch, with the average set having a Retained Bycatch of 59.8 individuals.  Across all sets made off Louisiana in 2024, Retained Bycatch was estimated to be 145.5 million individuals, belonging to 62 different species, and weighing an estimated aggregate of 23.1 million pounds.  Just four species accounted for 84.3 percent of the Retained Bycatch when gauged by individual animals, and 51 percent when measured by weight:  Atlantic croaker (80,592,690 individuals/5,478,000 pounds), sand seatrout (24,750,238 individuals/4,299,000 pounds), spot (11,685,469 individuals/1,501,000 pounds), and white shrimp (5,699,563 individuals/346,000 pounds).  Gafftopsail catfish accounted for another 16.8 percent of the catch by weight (3,830,000 pounds).

So, from a conservation/fisheries management perspective, what should we make of it all?

The study found that total bycatch, both dead and released alive, equaled about 3.59 percent of the reduction fleet’s catch when measured by weight, and 4.57 percent when measured by number.  Of that, retained bycatch equaled 2.98 percent of the fleet’s overall landings.

The big question is how the most popular sport and food fish were impacted by reduction fleet bycatch.  The study found that out of 44,593 red drum and 25,637 black drum taken as bycatch, 22,805 of the former and 16,551 of the latter survived—survival rates of 51.1 percent and 64.6 percent respectively. 

With respect to red drum and spotted seatrout, arguably Louisiana’s most important inshore sport fish species, the study found that

Ø  “Mortality estimates for Red Drum (in numbers) are not significantly different from those previously estimated by [the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries], however, the…study provided average weights of the Red Drum from the bycatch, which were not previously available.  These weights, physically taken from the bycatch, resulted in a higher total poundage of dead Red Drum, despite the total numbers being very similar to LDWF estimates.”

Ø  “Mortality estimates of Spotted Seatrout are higher than previously estimated by LDWF, as the…study does a more effective job of accounting for retained catch, which was not accounted for well in previous bycatch work upon which previous LDWF estimates were based.”

And, in what is the most significant finding,

Ø  “Despite the larger poundage of both Red Drum and Spotted Seatrout in menhaden bycatch, the stock status and length of time for stocks to approach management targets are likely to remain unchanged; however, the characterization and proportion of removals will change within the assessment.  [emphasis added]”

Are the results of the Louisiana study transferrable to other areas?  The answer is probably yes elsewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, where the fishery is generally prosecuted in shallow waters, with an average depth of just 15 feet of water, and rarely if ever deeper than 55 feet.  It’s not clear whether the answer will be the same on the Atlantic coast where, with the exception of some sets made in the Chesapeake Bay, much of the fishing takes place in the ocean, in federal waters more than three miles from shore, where the species mix is very different from what it is in the Gulf, and the purse seines remain above the bottom.

Yet, regardless of the study’s results, both sides of the reduction fishery debate—the menhaden industry and the broad array of foundation-funded organizations, consultants, public relations firms and others who are being paid to shut the industry down, in whole or in part—are already spinning the study’s findings to support their own arguments.

The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition, a group that includes the two big reduction fleets among its members, has declared that

“The study reaffirms what decades of science have consistently shown:  Louisiana’s Gulf menhaden fishery is sustainable, selective, and not a threat to red drum populations.”

On the other hand, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, a long-time opponent of the reduction fishery, responded to the study’s findings with a press release that shouted,

“Data suggest 22,000 or more mature redfish and a host of other sportfish, forage fish killed annually by pogy boats off Louisiana.”

Ben Landry, speaking on behalf of Ocean Harvesters/Alpha VesselCo, elaborated on the industry’s position by noting,

“The study confirmed much of what we’ve seen firsthand—high survival rates when fish remain in the net and gains from gear improvements.  We didn’t wait to act.  As soon as the science came in, we upgraded our entire fleet’s gear to reflect its findings.  It’s another step forward in our long-standing commitment to responsible, sustainable fishing,”

which may be a little bit of an overstatement with respect to upgrading the “entire fleet’s gear,” as the study noted that there is substantial variation in the cage that prevents larger fish from being sucked up the suction hose; some hoses are affixed with narrow-slatted cages that allow relatively little bycatch to pass through, while others have cages with much wider gaps that are far from state of the art, and lead to higher levels of bycatch mortality.  Most have excluder cages that fit somewhere between those two extremes.

So there’s certainly room for at least a little improvement on the industry’s side.

At the same time, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s Chris Macaluso, the director of its Center for Fisheries and Mississippi River Programs, fretted that

“The results are concerning, especially given the efforts underway for the last year to make Louisiana’s redfish population healthier by ending the recreational harvest of large, breeding-size redfish.”

Yet, while the 22,000 or so red drum killed each year as by bycatch in the reduction fishery aren’t insignificant, they pale beside the nearly 750,000 red drum landed by Louisiana’s recreational fishermen each year.  So if Mr. Macaluso is truly concerned with red drum conservation, it would seem that his time would be better spent asking that additional restrictions—perhaps cutting one fish off the bag limit, or narrowing the current slot size limit by an inch or two—be placed on the recreational fishery, rather than worrying about the menhaden fleet which, when all is said and done, kills less than 3 percent of the fish that are removed from Lousiana’s red drum population each year by its recreational fishermen.

Regardless of how many studies are released, it's unlikely that the menhaden industry and its many antagonists are going to stop taking shots at each other any time soon.

But, thanks to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fish and the study that it commissioned, we finally have some good science that provides an objective look at reduction fleet bycatch, which should allow regulators to cut through the noise and adopt regulations based on fact, and not someone’s fancy.

 

 

 

COASTAL SHARKS: THE SILLY SEASON BEGINS

 

About ten days ago, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation announced that

“On June 25, at approximately 4:15 p.m., a 20-year-old female park visitor was waist deep in the surf at the Central Mall beachfront at Jones Beach State Park when she reported being bitten by unknown marine wildlife.”

The announcement mentioned that the bites resulted in “minor lacerations” to one foot and leg, described her medical care in fair detail, and noted that

“The swimmer did not observe what caused her injuries.”

The announcement went on to reveal that swimming resumed at the beach the following morning, that

“Prior to opening, Park Police and Park staff used drones to actively search for large schools of fish and other marine life,”

and that lifeguards, watching from shore and from surf boats and jet skis, were also patrolling the waters.

Finally, near the bottom of the announcement, the Parks office conceded that

“[The Department of Environmental Conservation] coordinated with experts to assess what species may have caused these injuries.  DEC biologists reviewed situational information provided by subjects at the scene, as well as photos of the injury, and were able to rule out several species.  However, without direct observation of the animal that caused the bites a full expert consensus was not reached.  DEC concludes this incident most likely involved a juvenile sand tiger shark (Carcharias taurus).”

Silly season has returned to Long Island’s South Shore.  It even came a little early this year.

There’s just something about sharks that seems to make it happen.

Not long ago, nobody spent too much time thinking about sharks when they stepped off the sand into the water, at least not unless they were watching a particular movie the night before.  The International Shark Attack Files, which are maintained by the Florida Museum, reported that prior to 2022, there were only a dozen unprovoked shark attacks recorded in all the state’s history, although four of those occurred in the previous decade, with one in 2012, one in 2015, and two in 2018.

But the pace picked up in 2022, when a record eight individuals had  unplanned, toothy encounters, and another five got themselves nipped in 2023.  The sharks and the swimmers managed to keep out of each other’s space last year, with no interactions reported, but recent events at Jones Beach suggest that 2025 might prove to be another interesting year.

In any event, the overreactions have already begun.

The story of the Jones Beach incident was picked up by major media outlets, ranging from the more-or-less local New York Times to CNN.  And because a few minor cuts aren’t really news, they had to spice it up a bit, with the Times ranging all the way down to Hilton Head, South Carolina to report on two more incidents there, and then even farther around the coast to the Gulf side of Florida, where a girl recently suffered some fairly serious shark damage to one of her hands while snorkeling.

CNN didn’t refer to any recent, distant encounters, but instead provided some faint reassurance by quoting a local beachgoer.

“’I been here my whole life and never seen a shark in here,’ Alejandro Aranjo told CNN affiliate ABC.

“Aranjo visits Jone Beach with his family, but following Wednesday’s incident, ‘I don’t even know if I’m going to let them go in to be honest.’”

The plain truth is that whether one sees a shark or not, they currently are, always have been, and hopefully always will be in the waters south of Long Island, some swimming off of popular bathing beaches, and others coming into our sheltered and, in the minds of many unfamiliar with the coast, supposedly shark-free bays.

Great South Bay, the big barrier lagoon that lies behind Fire Island as well as part of the barrier island that hosts Jones Beach, is a known nursery area for sand tiger sharks, the species that supposedly nipped the Jones Beach bather, but it’s surprising how many people have no idea that they’re there, even though there are a small group of individuals who regularly encounter them while fishing in the bay or even inside the breakwalls of some bayside marinas.

Sand tigers are a fearsome looking fish, with snaggletoothed jaws that seem made for causing mayhem.  They’re a standby in coastal aquariums, where a combination of their menacing appearance, impressive size (they can often reach a length of eight feet, with a few large individuals making it to a little over ten), and relatively lethargic lifestyle makes them well-suited to life in the shark tank.  

But despite their appearance, they tend to be a slower-moving animal that usually stays near the bottom of bays, estuaries, and the nearshore ocean, preying on fish, cephalopods, and similar animals.  However, they will sometimes rise higher in the water column, particularly around wrecks and other fixed structures, where they can gulp air to make it easier to “hover” at mid-depths, and sometimes exhibit surprising bursts of speed while ripping through a school of small baitfish.

They often feed in cloudy, phytoplankton-dense water, that conceals them from their target baitfish, but also impairs the vision of both the sharks and anyone who happens to be wading nearby.  Thus, people sometimes unknowingly kick or step on sand tigers while at the beach, leading to a reaction bite, while the sand tigers sometimes nip someone who inadvertently gets between them and a  baitfish.  They can also mistake a flashing hand or foot for a fish that they might want to eat.

So people get bitten, but the bites can hardly be described as “shark attacks.”

Yet the hype tends to ignore the reality.

A July 3 article in the Hudson Valley Post declared that

“Shark attack prompts emergency changes at New York beaches,”

and quoted Governor Kathy Hochul, who assured New York residents that

“We are continuing to strengthen our shark surveillance capabilities and safety tactics at these beaches to help protect these treasured summertime traditions.  I encourage all beachgoers to stay safe, stay alert and always follow direction of lifeguards and park staff.”

The New York Times advised readers,

“Don’t Let Shark Panic Spoil Your Fourth of July,”

and told them that

“Today we’ll look at how concerned about sharks you should be if your plans for the long Fourth of July weekend include going to the beach,”

perhaps never realizing, and very possibly not caring, that if the press—including the Times—didn’t make such a fuss over every minor bather/shark interaction, people almost certainly wouldn’t be concerned at all—in fact, they probably never would have even heard about the incident.  I don’t live all that far from Jones Beach, but never got word of this season’s first nip until I read the Park Department’s announcement.

Although, taken on balance, the Times piece did a good job of putting things in perspective.

It included a very accurate assessment of the situation, provided by John Sparks, a curator in the department of ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History, who said,

“I tell people have fun—the threat is minimal.  You’re always swimming around sharks.  You always have been.  My bottom line:  You shouldn’t be any more worried than you’ve ever been.”

The fact that one person, out of the countless thousands who have visited Long Island’s beaches so far this year, had a shark interaction doesn’t change the fact that the odds against running into a shark’s dentures off Long Island are somewhere around four million to one.

The odds of dying in a car crash on the Meadowbrook or Wantagh Parkways, on your way to or from the beach, are quite a bit more daunting, but beachgoers haven’t stopped driving.  They haven’t even slowed down.

The Times article provided some tips for making an interaction even less likely, such as not swimming around schools of baitfish that sharks might choose to eat, staying out of the water during low-light hours when sharks are more active, and staying out of murky water, noting that the water was, in fact, murky at the Jones Beach bite site.

It also reassured readers that the state has increased its total of shark-search drones from 22 to 28 this year, while increasing the number of trained drone pilots from 40 to 48.  That ought to make beachgoers feel good, although if the water is really clouded with phytoplankton and surf-roiled sand, the odds of those drones spotting a shark making its way along the bottom is not particularly good.

And, as others have noted, there are always sharks making their way along the bottom, top, and middle of the water column.  I used to be an active recreational shark fisherman.  Now, I’ve taken what I’ve learned in a few decades of shark fishing, and am using it to help researchers at Stony Brook University study our inshore shark population.  Fishing not that far offshore, so far this year we've caught blue, common thresher, dusky, sandbar, and shortfin mako sharks; one of the researchers, fishing from another boat and closer to shore, has already caught a couple of spinners.  In other seasons, our catch has included white sharks, tigers, and various species of hammerheads.

The fact that we catch those fish offshore doesn’t mean that they stay there.  The researchers implant each fish with acoustic tags, and those acoustic tags are detected every time one of the sharks passes by one of the receiver arrays located well within sight of Long Island’s beaches.

The arrays detect a lot of tagged sharks passing by.

But the people who really understand about inshore sharks are the surfcasters.  Sometimes they catch them—although targeting so-called “prohibited species” such as sand tigers, sandbars, duskies, and whites is illegal—but even when they aren't catching any sharks, surfcasters are acutely aware that they’re in the sharks’ world.

When chasing striped bass, surfcasters regularly go out in the dark of the night, often wearing wetsuits that make it easier for them to swim out to a rock or distant sandbar, from which they then cast their baits and lures (and, coincidentally, make them closely resemble a struggling seal).

Sometimes, they hook a bass or a bluefish, feel the fish’s struggles intensify for a moment or two, then go quiet, only to reel in the fish’s head and a few scraps of body.

Other times, when they’re thoughtless enough to hang their catch from a stringer attached to their belt, they find themselves suddenly being pulled off a rock or a bar as a shark goes after their fish.

And one time, a friend told me about a trip that he made on a dark, moonless night, somewhere off Montauk.  He was standing on a rock, casting live eels into the surf, when he felt a piece of driftwood bump into his leg.  He pushed it away, but a while later, it hit him again, and he again shoved it into the waves.  The third time it happened, my friend reluctantly snapped on a light, and found a four-foot sandbar shark taking covetous glances at his eel pouch.

Such stories aren’t particularly rare.

Yet, as long as I’ve lived on Long Island—and that’s we’ll over forty years—I’ve never heard of a surfcaster being intentionally gnawed by a shark, even though they’re often handling bait, and are in waters that sharks often frequent.

Because the bottom line is that, even for them, the risk is not high.

It’s hard to say whether the June 25 incident will stand alone, or whether similar episodes will follow; recently, July has been the “hot” month  so they very well may.  But what we can be sure of is that if another such incident occurs, it will be blasted across TV and radio, and hyped all out of proportion in the press.

Maybe Amity’s fictional Mayor Vaughn really did get it right in that movie five decades ago:

“…it’s all psychological.  You yell barracuda, everybody says, ‘Huh?  What?’  You yell shark, we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.”

It’s silly.

But it’s also the summer, and summer is the season for that sort of thing.

 

ADMINISTRATION RENEGES ON NATION'S PROMISE TO RESTORE COLUMBIA/SNAKE RIVER SALMON

 

In September 2023, the Biden administration issued a “Memorandum on Restoring Healthy and Abundant Salmon, Steelhead, and Other Native Fish Populations in the Columbia River Basin.”  The Memorandum acknowledged that

“Actions since 1855, including the Federal Government’s construction and operation of dams in the Basin, have severely depleted fish populations.”

The Memorandum went on to declare a federal policy

“…to carry out the requirement of the Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act (Public Law 96-501) to operate, manage, and regulate the [Columbia River System] to adequately protect, mitigate and enhance fish and wildlife affected by Federal dams in the Basin in a manner that provides equitable treatment for fish and wildlife with the other purposes for which the Federal dams are managed and operated.”

The Biden administration followed up three months later by announcing an agreement that

“when combined with other funding that the Administration is anticipated to deliver to the region, will bring more than $1 billion in new Federal investments to wild fish restoration over the next decade and enable an unprecedented 10-year break from decades-long litigation against the Federal government’s operation of its dams in the Pacific Northwest.”

That agreement, entered into between the United States and other parties to ongoing litigation, was filed in the Federal District Court for the District of Oregon, and was to be implemented through a memorandum of understanding between the United States, the states of Washington and Oregon, four Native American tribes, and various environmental organizations.

However, the Trump administration has recently caused the United States to breach its written agreement with the other parties, and destroy much of the progress that has been made in reaching agreement on how to conserve and, ideally, rebuild native fish stocks in the Columbia River Basin.

A so-called “fact sheet” issued by the White House on June 12 announced that

“President Donald Trump Stops the Green Agenda in the Columbia River Basin.”

The “fact sheet” began:

“STOPPING RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM:  Today, President Donald J. Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum revoking an executive action issued by the prior administration that called for ‘equitable treatment for fish.’”

Bullet points in the “fact sheet” noted, among other things, that

“Today’s Memorandum revokes the Biden Administration’s ‘Restoring Healthy and Abundant Salmon, Steelhead, and Other Native Fish in the Columbia River Basin’ Memorandum, which placed concerns about climate change above the Nation’s interests in reliable energy resources,”

and

“The specified agencies will coordinate with the Council on Environmental Quality to review and revise environmental review processes related to matters in the [Memorandum of Understanding filed with the Federal District Court], save federal funds, and withdraw from the [Memorandum of Understanding].”

And that was the last time that the “fact sheet” even mentioned the words “salmon,” “steelhead,” or “fish,” words that the rest of the document made clear were hardly in the administration’s vocabulary.  Instead, it immediately went on to blare,

“RESTORING AMERICAN ENERGY DOMINANCE AND SECURING AMERICAN PROSPERITY:  President Trump continues to prioritize our Nation’s energy infrastructure and use of natural resources to lower the cost of living for all Americans over speculative climate change concerns.”

The salmon and other depleted fish stocks are given a little lip service, with the statement that

“President Trump recognizes the importance of ensuring the future of wildlife populations in the Columbia River Basin, while also advancing the country’s energy creation to benefit the American public.”

Which may well be true.  Trump might truly recognize “the importance of ensuring the future of wildlife populations in the Columbia River Basin,” but there is a big difference between merely recognizing something, and taking meaningful action, and when it comes to wildlife—in just about any context, not just the Columbia River—it’s pretty clear that Trump has little desire to take any action to preserve its future, particularly if that actions might make corporate interests uneasy.  Thus, the “fact sheet” complains that

“The [Memorandum of Understanding] required the Federal government to spend millions of dollars and comply with 36 pages of onerous commitments to dam operations on the Lower Snake River,”

and that

“Dam breaching would have resulted in reduced water supply to farmers, eliminated several shipping channels, had devastating impacts to agriculture, increased energy costs, and eliminated recreational opportunities throughout the region,”

but never mentions how dishonoring the Memorandum of Understanding, and not breaching the lower Snake River dams, will impact the future of wildlife—and most particularly the runs of anadromous fishes—in the Columbia River Basin. 

Because, if we want to be honest, he doesn’t particularly care.

Instead of even mentioning the future of currently threatened and endangered salmon runs, or of promising some sort of action that might preserve their future, the fact sheet ignores the fish entirely, and instead trumpets that

“President Trump signed an Executive Order reinvigorating America’s beautiful clean coal industry to support grid stability and hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs.”

We are assured that

“President Trump’s commonsense approach to environmental conservation empowers the American people to take full advantage of our nation’s vast and great natural resources.”

At least, so long as those resources last.

Various corporate spokesmen endorsed the administration’s actions.  The Seattle Times reported that Kurt Miller, the CEO of the Northwest Public Power Association, said that

“This withdrawal is a necessary course correction toward energy reliability, affordability, and transparency.  In an era of skyrocketing electricity demand, these dams are essential to maintaining grid reliability and keeping energy bills affordable.”

Similarly, the executive director of Northwest River Partners, the trade association representing those who use and profit from the dammed river, said that

“Now is the time to come together and chart a sustainable path toward effective solutions that protect salmon and maintain affordable and reliable hydropower needed by millions of people in the Pacific Northwest.”

It is probably notable, however, that he didn’t even try to suggest what such solutions might be.

But the various industries with a financial incentive to support the status quo aren’t the only people to speak out on the issue.  Anyone focused on the river’s value to salmon, rather to various corporate uses, probably condemned the current administration’s decision.

The four Native American tribes that had been involved in the long-lived litigation that had was, temporarily, stayed after the Biden-era agreement was filed with the Federal Court—the Yakima, Nez Perce, Warm Springs, and Umatilla—were among the most aggrieved of the parties; such tribes had been guaranteed access to the river and to its salmon in treaties dating back to the 19th century.

Gerald Lewis, chairman of the Yakima Tribal Council, stated that

“The federal government’s historic river management approach is unsustainable and will lead to salmon extinction.  Courtroom battles cannot provide the innovative, holistic solutions we need.  This termination will severely disrupt vital fishery restoration efforts, eliminate certainty for hydro operations, and likely result in increased energy costs and regional instability.”

But perhaps the most succinct, and most appropriate, comment came from the chair of the Yakimas’ Fish and Wildlife Committee, Jeremy Takala, who observed that

“We reserved the right to actually catch fish, not merely the right to dip our nets into barren waters.”

But Native Americans aren’t the only people who expect to get hurt.

Liz Hamilton, the policy director for the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, responded to that action by saying

“It was a big loss for the Northwest’s economy, and a dagger to the heart of our industry.”

More criticism appeared in an article in Outdoor Life magazine.  Although the hook-and-bullet press tends to be a little right-leaning, and often takes a conservative stance, that article had nothing good to say about the White House abandoning the Memorandum of Understanding.  It reported that, in 2021, 68 leading fisheries scientists wrote a letter to policymakers stating that

“The survival problems of various [Endangered Species Act]-listed salmon and steelhead species in the Columbia Basin cannot be solved without removing four dams on the Lower Snake River.”

The letter came to the conclusion that

“These four dams must be removed to not only avoid extinction, but also to restore abundant salmon runs.”

The Outdoor Life piece went on to observe that

“In its June 12 memorandum, however, the Trump Administration chalked up those conclusions to ‘speculative climate change concerns.’  It explained that by pulling the federal government and its funding out of the [agreement], it was ‘stopping radical environmentalism’ and ‘securing American prosperity.’  In addition to fundamentally mischaracterizing the agreement itself, Thursday’s announcement appeared to imply that speaking up for fish and considering alternatives to the status quo is part of a green agenda meant to harm the American public.  [emphasis added]”

 The Outdoor Life piece continued,

“Conservationists and wild fish advocates are deeply disappointed by Trump’s decision to axe the agreement, which also paused a series of ongoing lawsuits that have dragged on for decades, and would have contributed more than a billion dollars in federal funding to solving a big, hairy problem.  They say the move sets back our country’s salmon recovery efforts substantially, returning us to a zero-sum game of endless litigation that pits energy against fish.”

The magazine quotes Chris Wood, the president of Trout Unlimited, who lamented that

“It was one of the first times that we had a collaborative effort where people agreed to come together—nobody’s hand was forced, there wasn’t a judge or a court insisting on this.  Now, we’re back to the beginning—where we had been for the previous 20 years, which is just relying on the Endangered Species Act to keep these most amazing of God’s creatures from blinking out.”

To provide some context to the issue, the magazine article notes that

“The Columbia-Snake River system was once the most productive salmon and steelhead fishery in the world.  Today, these anadromous runs are a shadow of their former selves, with wild fish returning at less than two percent of their historical abundance…

“The main objective of the 2023 agreement, Wood adds, was for stakeholders to work together to increase those returns.  It was not a decision to breach the Lower Four Snake River Dams, nor did it support legislation to authorize dam breaching.  The dams are owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and removing or redesigning them would require an act of Congress…

“In many ways, the agreement reached in 2023 provided a road map for…difficult conversations.  It established a Tribal Energy Program to help the Columbia River Treaty Tribes develop their own renewable energy sources.  It provided federal guidance for replacing and/or redesigning the current irrigation and transportation systems in the Lower Snake region.  And it provided the funds to make those solutions workable.  Perhaps more importantly, though, it paused the Gordian knot of ongoing lawsuits around the Lower Four dams in an effort to bring stakeholders back to the negotiating table.”

Now, it appears that the litigation will continue.  Amanda Goodin, an attorney with Earthjustice who has represented plaintiffs in the legal action, has observed that

“So without the agreement, there is no longer any basis for a stay [of the ongoing litigation]."

The litigation will almost certainly resume.

It’s not a great solution.  But when plaintiffs are forced to deal with a nation willing and seemingly eager to break its word and dishonor its promises, it is the only solution that they have.