FOR THE NEXT GENERATION

When I was down in Washington last week, speaking with legislative staff about fisheries issues, I was privileged to share some meetings with Holly Andreotta, Director of the Florida-based Snook and Gamefish Foundation.

The Foundation has been around for a while.  It has made a very big effort to bring anglers into the fishery management process, encouraging them to self-report their catches, thus providing far more data points than the National Marine Fisheries Service and state agencies would be able to collect on their own. 

The effort has borne real fruit, which takes the form of a smartphone “app” that allows anglers to record their landings in real time.  I’ve always been cynical about self-reporting by anglers, believing that too many fishermen would either report their catches selectively or make bogus reports in an attempt to manipulate the system, but I have to admit that the Foundation’s successes to date have made me rethink my position. 

When anglers’ voluntary reports were compared to NMFS’ figures for some commonly-encountered Florida species, the numbers were pretty close to the same.  A lot of other folks seem impressed, too, as a somewhat amended version of the Foundation’s basic app is now being used by Coastal Conservation Association Florida’s STAR Tournament, and in other tournaments being staged anywhere from the Gulf of Mexico to Chesapeake Bay.

But what really impressed me wasn’t Ms. Andreotta’s app, but the comments she made in a number of meetings with congressional staff, as she repeatedly pointed out that we should manage fisheries for future generations, not merely for those fishing today.

She admitted that the words were not originally hers, but were borrowed from a writer she had recently read.  But that didn’t matter, because her obvious conviction that those words were right—not to mention the fact that they were—overrode all origin questions.  Whoever first put them on paper, it was clear that they're scribed on her heart.

It’s not an original notion.  Here in New York, the statute that sets the state policy for managing salt water fisheries, Section 13-0105 of the Environmental Conservation Law, begins with the statement that

“It is the policy of the state that the primary principle in managing the state’s marine fishery resource is to maintain the long-term health and abundance of marine fisheries resources and their habitats, and to ensure that the resources are sustained in usable abundance and diversity for future generations.”

It sounds good in theory, but in practice, things often work out a lot differently.

It’s very easy to talk about creating a better world for the next generation, but the fact is that they’ll be exceedingly lucky to get a world that is even somewhat as pleasant as the one that our ancestors handed down to us.  Leaving something for future generations requires that folks impose a bit of discipline on themselves today, and self-discipline is something that most members of my “Baby Boom” generation just don’t quite understand. 

Even when they decide to take action, it’s often the wrong one.

Our politicians talk about cutting the deficit, but in the end, few reductions are made.  Money still flows to politicians’ pet projects, creating bills that tomorrow’s children must pay.

As CO₂ rises to prehistoric levels, and worldwide temperatures rise in accord, one governor allegedly fires staffers who dare to speak of climate changing, while North Carolina law prevents coastal managers from basing their policies on the best available science about rising oceans.  Yet temperatures increase despite politicians’ denial, and the Outer Banks keep losing sand.  Mitch McConnell may rail against the “War on Coal,” but coal’s war on the future goes on.

So we shouldn’t be surprised when fisheries issues show the same pattern.

Today’s campaign to roll back federal fisheries measures is just one more example of self-indulgent Baby Boomers—the same folks, now considerably grayer, who coined the phrase “He who dies with the most toys, wins” a few decades ago—taking as much as they can for themselves, while letting their kids and their grandkids pick up the bill.

I suppose that it makes some twisted sense to cut the red snapper recovery off at the knees, when you don’t know if you’ll still be fishing—or even alive—when the stock’s fully recovered in 2032.

On the other hand, some of us older folks get it, and don’t want our legacy to be a mostly empty and overfished sea.  And I’m happy to note that a lot of the younger anglers are a lot more aware of the future than the generations who went before.

My friend John McMurray is a perfect example.  A light-tackle guide on western Long Island, he was rightfully bragging when his twin children—one girl and one boy—decked a pair of summer flounder a few years ago.  They were quality fish; as I recall, one went close to six pounds, and with the other just a bit smaller, the fish were almost certainly older than the four-year-old kids who engineered their demise.

But John did a bit more than just brag; photos of his kids and their fish went with him to Washington where, while testifying before a Senate committee on the need for strong fisheries laws, he held them up to illustrate just what successful fisheries management looked like—and who was getting a chance to reap its benefits.

I don’t understand why others don’t get it.  

There is someone I know—he’s much younger than me—who has a son who’s three or four years old.  The man dotes on the boy; when I see photos he puts up on Facebook of him on his boat with his son, I get flashbacks of how it was with my father and me, fifty and some years ago.

My father and I caught winter flounder; we caught them in the spring, in the summer and fall.  I’d be surprised if the son of the guy I’m describing has yet caught his first flounder, and the way the population’s collapsing, there’s a good chance that he never will.  Yet his father seems oblivious; so far, when flounder issues arise, he’s always opposed conservation.  On other fisheries issues, his position’s no different; he supports the greatest possible kill.

I have to admit that I can’t understand it.  Sure, short-term profits are fine (and the guy is an industry spokesman), but I can’t comprehend how someone who so obviously cherishes his son can so casually condemn him to a depleted and less diverse sea.

Because that’s what the debate’s all about.

Should we take as much as we can for ourselves, maximizing our harvest and profits, but leaving our issue with nothing but dregs?

For Gulf red snapper anglers, New England trawlers and “flexibility” supporters on every coast, the answer would seem to be yes.

And that answer is certainly wrong.

IT MUST LOOK A LOT BETTER WHEN YOU STAND FAR AWAY...

I recently spent a couple of days down in Washington, D.C., where I spoke to legislative staff, and to a few reporters, about the need to preserve the conservation and management provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which are currently being threatened by Alaska Representative Don Young’s H.R. 1335, the so-called “Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act”.

As I spoke with various members of the House and Senate staff, one theme came up a number of times, the notion that, at least for some species, the current scientifically rigorous system of annual catch limits and rebuilding overfished stocks should be replaced with a system built around “soft” catch targets and relaxed rebuilding deadlines, similar to that employed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

The interesting thing about such views were that they were expressed exclusively by the staff of representatives and senators from states bordering the Gulf of Mexico.  There was quite a bit of talk about red snapper being “managed like striped bass”—one representative, Louisiana Republican Garret Graves, has already attempted to introduce legislation that would put such a management approach in place.

After my two days of wandering the halls of the capitol were done, it became pretty clear that some people down in the Gulf, where Atlantic striped bass don’t swim and ASMFC doesn’t manage the fisheries, are pretty impressed with ASMFC’s management of the striped bass.  

It also became pretty clear that when you talked to folks from the Mid-Atlantic and New England states, who hear about striped bass from their constituents on a regular basis, no one was spouting any foolishness about managing federal fisheries the way ASMFC manages stripers.

I suppose that ASMFC’s striped bass management program is a lot like a grainy photograph or a badly done painting.  It looks fine if you stand far enough away, but once you start getting close, it starts looking bad; the flaws just can’t be ignored.

It also doesn’t help that a lot of the Gulf Coast legislators are being sold a bill of goods by representatives of the angling industry and “anglers’ rights” groups who are quick to talk about how the stock recovered between 1984 and 1995, but tend to leave out the part about abundance declining steadily from 2003 right through today.

And they never veer off the topic of striped bass to point out that the same “soft target” management system used by ASMFC hasn’t restored a single stock managed solely by the Commission since 1995, although weakfish, tautog, American shad, alewives, American eel, blueback herring and southern New England lobster have declined pretty badly since then, and northern shrimp have completely collapsed.

But if you live in Louisiana or Texas, or anywhere else along the Gulf, you probably don’t see all of the problems, and the folks who are trying to weaken Magnuson-Stevens are doing their best to keep your vision firmly focused at least twenty years in the past.

Anyone interested in finding out how striped bass management has worked out today would do well to start with the most recent, peer-reviewed benchmark stock assessment, along with its 2013 update, which states

“If the current fully-recruited [fishing mortality] (0.200) is maintained during 2013-2017, the probability of being below the [spawning stock biomass] reference point increases to 0.86 by 2015.  After 2016, the probability is expected to decline slightly.  If the current fully-recruited F increases to F_threshold (0.219), and is maintained during 2013-2017, the probability of being below the SSB reference point reaches 0.93 by 2015 and declines thereafter.  If the fully-recruited F decreases to the current F_target (0.180) and is maintained during 2013-2017, the probability of being below the SSB reference point reaches 0.77 by 2015 and declines thereafter…”

In other words, despite the striped bass stock having been declared rebuilt in 1995, and biomass peaking in 2003, even under the most optimistic scenarios, that stock is likely—between a 77% and 93% chance—to fall to overfished levels again this year.

People saw the problem coming for a number of years.  ASMFC’s Striped Bass Technical Committee began work on an amendment to the management plan that would reduce fishing mortality, and in November 2011 was advised by a member of ASMFC’s Striped Bass Technical Committee that

“Under the current [fishing mortality] of 0.23 the female spawning stock biomass will fall below the threshold by 2017…”

Some members of the Management Board tried to cut off the problem.  Douglas Grout, a fishery manager for the State of New Hampshire, clearly stated that

“That is the line in the sand.  It’s not going below the target, its going below our established threshold here.  Even under average recruitment, which includes the good years, we’re going to be right at that threshold by that time.  The question to me here is do we want to get out ahead of this and prevent this from occurring and help us achieve our vision of healthy and sustainable stocks by 2015 or do we want to wait and react?”

As has been typical of ASMFC for the past decade or two, a majority opted for “wait and react” and action was deferred until after the benchmark assessment was done.

Yet even then, when the peer-reviewed benchmark assessment—the closest thing to a “gold standard” in fisheries management—advised that fishing mortality should be reduced, and that overfishing was likely by 2015, there were a number of Management Board members who wanted to do nothing.

One of the most adamant was Tom Fote, Governor’s Appointee from New Jersey, who essentially dismissed the conclusions of the peer-reviewed assessment, saying in October 2013 that

“We have been looking at some figures for a period of time and then decided we’re going to do a drastic cut.  Two years later they’re finding out that we didn’t need the drastic cuts and had to change the regulations in New Jersey again…

“I see that we’re coming to where we have decided where a threshold will be and then we’re getting close to that line, but we’re not under that line.  It is not overfished and overfishing is not taking place…”

In other words, Fote was opposed to any action that would reduce harvest and perhaps prevent the stock from becoming overfished.  Instead, he would wait until the crisis occurred, and then try to react and correct things, rather than trying to avert the crisis in the first place.

Under Magnuson-Stevens, that can’t occur.  The law requires that

“The Secretary shall report annually to the Congress and the Councils on the status of fisheries within each Council’s geographical area of authority and identify those fisheries that are overfished or are approaching a condition of being overfished.  For those fisheries managed under a fishery management plan or international agreement, the status shall be determined using the criteria for overfishing specified in such plan or agreement.  A fishery shall be classified as approaching a condition of being overfished if, based on trends in fishing effort, fishery resource size, and other appropriate factors, the Secretary estimates that the fishery will become overfished within two years.  [emphasis added]”

Federal law also requires that

“Within one year after [the Secretary determines that a fishery is approaching a condition of being overfished], the appropriate Council…shall prepare a fishery management plan, plan amendment, or proposed regulations for the fishery…to prevent overfishing from occurring in the fishery…”

Approaches such as Fote’s, which would take no action until overfishing actually occurs, are not allowed under federal law.

But then, many things that are prohibited—or required—by the conservation and management provisions of Magnuson-Stevens are not binding on the Striped Bass Management Board, or any other ASMFC management panel.

For example, Magnuson-Stevens requires that the best available science be used in making fishery management decisions, and at the federal level, a peer-reviewed stock assessment would surely qualify.  Yet at the October 2014 Striped Bass Management Board meeting, when the regulations would be set for 2015 and succeeding years, there was actually opposition to accepting the assessment’s conclusions.  John Clark, a proxy for Delaware’s marine fisheries director, discounted the conclusions of the peer-reviewed assessment, saying

“I just think the current peer-reviewed benchmark assessment is an excellent model, but I think, as has been pointed out, the reference points are extremely conservative…I just look at the new reference points in regards to the spawning and stock biomass as tracked over the past few years, and it looks to me that we’re going to have to keep the stock at almost an unsustainably high level.

“…I just don’t see the urgent need for us to adopt such a conservative set of reference points at this time.”

It probably should be noted that Delaware, along with neighboring New Jersey, were the only two states to later adopt “conservation-equivalent” regulations that allowed their anglers to kill two fish, as opposed to the one-fish bag limit adopted everywhere else…

Kyle Schick, legislative proxy from Virginia, took a similar course, arguing

“…I don’t see the high urgency to do such a drastic measure at this time…

“We don’t have to stop it in one year; we don’t have to do such a drastic thing over three years.  We do need to do something, but I don’t think that the economic impact that this is going to catch [sic]—and recreational fishermen, they don’t want to go to one fish.  They don’t want to have this huge catch reduction.  They may talk about it now, but we’ll see what happens.  Right now we have marinas have been going out of business at the highest rate in history; the same thing with tackle shops…”

And thus we have the classic argument for “flexibility,” that there is no hurry to end overfishing or rebuild overfished stocks; yes, they present a problem, but not so much of a problem that managers should elevate healthy fisheries in the future above healthy profits right now…

It’s exactly the sort of argument, justifying continued over-exploitation of already depleted and often collapsed fisheries two decades ago, that led to the passage of the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996.  Its prevalence even today is why federal fisheries law requires that overfishing be promptly halted and overfished stocks promptly rebuilt.

In the case of striped bass, that didn’t exactly happen.  

Yes, the recommendations of the benchmark assessment were ultimately accepted, and new, lower fisheries mortality reference points put in place.  But while Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass requires fishing mortality to be lowered to target levels within one year once the management trigger is tripped, it didn’t work out that way last October.

ASMFC’s Striped Bass Technical Committee had determined that if overall striped bass harvest was reduced by 25%, there would be a 50-50 chance of reducing fishing mortality to the target level by the end of 2015.  

Such 50% chance of success is the bare minimum for a federal fishery management plan; the court decision in Natural Resources Defense Council vs. Daley made that perfectly clear.

However, ASMFC was under no such legal stricture, so some members of the Management Board, led primarily by representatives from Chesapeake Bay, decided to completely ignore the language of the management plan, and moved to stretch out the recovery for three full years.  When  that failed, another motion was made to extend the time from one year to two.  When that failed as well, the Management Board eventually approved a motion that said

“Move that prior to the start of the 2015 fishing season, all jurisdictions implement rules to achieve the new fishing mortality target by implementing a 25 percent harvest reduction in the coastal fisheries and a 20.5 percent reduction in the Chesapeake Bay fisheries.”

Of course, because the rules were eased for Chesapeake Bay, the final Board action didn't have a 50% chance of complying with the management plan’s requirement that harvest be reduced to target within just one year.  When a Technical Committee representative was asked about that, he said

“We didn’t do the math, but I guess a weighted average, it would be some time less than two years, technically, within a year and a half.  It would be less than two years for sure.”

And the likelihood of achieving the mandated reduction within the required one year became even lower after the Management Board decided to reduce the commercial striped bass quota, rather than actual harvest, by 25%, something later calculated to provide a real-world reduction in the 25% range.

Under Magnuson-Stevens, such approach would have been dead on arrival, but when you “manage fish like striped bass,” saying “didn’t do the math” and “I guess” meets the standards just fine.  As does just ignoring the management plan…

So yes, I suppose that the “flexibility” to avoid science-based catch limits and rebuilding mandates might look pretty good from some distance away.

But I live and fish on the striper coast.  I have seen a fish once restored to abundance from the depths of collapse become overfished yet again.

From that close perspective, managing any species “like striped bass” doesn’t look good at all.

THE BEST FISHERIES LAW IN THE WORLD

On January 1, 2014, the European Union’s amended Common Fisheries Policy went into effect. The policy requires that, during the next five years, “catch limits should be set that are sustainable and maintain fish stocks in the long term.”

It appears that European fisheries managers are finally adopting the concept of “maximum sustainable yield.”

As an American fisherman who has been involved with the management process for much of my life, I can only say, “Welcome aboard, folks, and what took you so long? We figured that out two decades ago.”

And that’s true. The United States’ fishermen, and the fish we pursue, live in a far different world than we knew in the days before Congress passed the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996 in response to fish stocks collapsing along every coast.

Magnuson-Stevens, which requires overfished stocks be rebuilt and mandates rebuilding deadlines, changed the fate of American fisheries.

Here in the Mid-Atlantic, the sea bottom was desolate. Summer flounder, which had long been the backbone of our recreational and commercial fisheries, were not abundant. The minimum size was a mere 14 inches, fish so small and thin that it was hard to fillet the less-meaty white side. Black sea bass were mostly sub-10-inch “pins,” while the scup, when you could find them, were scarcely as large as a man’s outstretched hand.

All three stocks needed rebuilding, something that, save for the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, would have never occurred. Magnuson-Stevens, which requires overfished stocks be rebuilt and mandates rebuilding deadlines, changed the fate of American fisheries.

To understand fisheries management in pre-Magnuson days, consider the facts underlying the court decision in Natural Resources Defense Council v. Daley, the case that gave the Magnuson-Stevens Act teeth. There, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council saw nothing wrong with a summer flounder management plan that had a mere 18 percent chance of success; it’s how the council had always managed fish in the past.

But the federal appellate court down in Washington understood the new law, and noted,

“Only in Superman Comics Bizzaro World, where reality is turned upside down, could the [National Marine Fisheries] Service reasonably conclude that a measure that is at least four times as likely to fail as to succeed offers a ‘fairly high level of confidence’ [that it will achieve its management goal].”

With those words, American fisheries management underwent a very profound change.

For the first time, it became effective.

Today, anglers frequently catch summer flounder so large that any one fillet (you get four from each fish) is longer and heavier than entire fish that were deemed to be legal in prior to the court’s decision.

Black sea bass and scup, are doing equally well. Anglers are now seeing unprecedented numbers of them, and the fish are not small. On my first sea bass trip last season, it took me longer to run out to the wreck where I fished than it did to limit out with eight quality sea bass. Scup are even more abundant, with so many available that neither the commercial nor the recreational sector can land their entire quota.

That’s what good fisheries management can achieve.

But the achievements didn’t come easily. As managers worked to rebuild the three Mid-Atlantic stocks, both commercial and recreational fisherman railed about the restrictions and called for the law to be changed. Fortunately, it was not, and those fishermen are now enjoying an abundance of fish that most had never known before in their lifetimes.

In other regions, where managers tried to escape the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s mandates, such struggles are still going on.

In New England, where commercial fishermen on the New England Fishery Management Council embraced the riskiest measures that were conceivably allowed by the law, the Gulf of Maine cod stock has fallen to a true crisis level, while Georges Bank cod, along with a whole host of flounders, are not far behind.

In the south, both the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico fishery management councils are trying to rebuild depleted red snapper stocks and are opposed by “anglers’ rights” organizations which seek to kill more.

Neither northern cod trawlers nor southern anglers have learned what their Mid-Atlantic counterparts know, that conservative, science-based catch limits, coupled with a modicum of patience, are the only sure way to restore stocks to abundance. Managers cannot undo decades of damage without imposing years of restraint.

Instead, such fishermen rally around the shibboleth of “flexibility,” seeking to weaken the legal provisions in the Magnuson-Stevens Act that work. This year, they have found a champion in Congressman Don Young, who has already introduced H.R. 1335, the “Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act.”

Young’s “Flexibility Act” would gut key provisions of Magnuson-Stevens that require managers to end overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks in a timely manner and hold fishermen accountable when they exceed catch limits.

There is much irony here.

Congressman Young is from Alaska. The conservation and management provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which emphasize science-based management, are often described as the “Alaska Model,” after the place where such measures were first successfully used.

And Congressman Young recently noted, in the Alaska Dispatch News, that such an Alaska Model is not only “considered the envy of the world,” but also is “what all regional fisheries management councils should strive to achieve.”

He has also assured his constituents:

“My legislation…will not change the way the [North Pacific Fishery Management Council] manages our fisheries. Alaska fishermen and the communities they support will continue to reap the benefits of our well-managed fishery resources and the NPFMC will continue to use sound scientific data in their management decisions. Regardless of the changes proposed to the MSA, the NPFMC will continue to utilize innovate practices to be leaders in fisheries management.”

That’s fine for Alaskans and the NPFMC.

However, it would push the rest of the regional fishery management councils backward. At a time when Europe, and other nations, are moving closer to a Magnuson-Stevens, Alaska-like model, America’s fisheries managers would lose the incentive to “strive to achieve” the same thing. Instead, they would be provided with too great a temptation to fall back into Bizzaro World, when management plans that were more likely to fail than succeed were the rule.

America’s fish, and America’s fishermen, deserve better than that.

What is good for Alaska is good for the rest of us.

H.R. 1335 is no good at all.

_________________________________________________

NOTE:  This blog post originally appeared on the website of the Marine Fish Conservation Network.  Over the next months, some of my blogs, along with blogs by other anglers and other folks concerned with fisheries conservation, will appear there at regular intervals.  If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll undoubtedly be interested in what folks write over at MFCN.  You can find their thoughts at http://conservefish.org/blog/ .

RUNNING AWAY FROM REALITY

Last week, the New England Fishery Management Council began voting on various proposals to open previously closed areas to groundfish trawlers and other destructive gear types .  So far, news is mixed, with Cashes Ledge still protected and a new closed area in the eastern Gulf of Maine created, but restrictions removed from a large area off the Maine coast.  Other areas have also seen weakened protections.

 A proposed no-fishing research area on Stellwagen Bank was not approved.

Various conservation organizations have argued that the closed areas should remain closed.  However, the most important objection probably came from John Bullard, Regional Director of the Greater Atlantic Region Fisheries Office.  In a 9-page letter written to the New England Fishery Management Council earlier this month, Bullard said

“Looking at the habitat management alternatives collectively, the combination of preferred habitat management areas being recommended…results in meaningful reductions in overall habitat protection and would fail to adequately minimize the adverse effects from fishing on [Essential Fish Habitat] in the region.

“…I find it impossible to rationally understand how, in light of the Framework 53 analyses, the Committee’s recommended spawning alternative meets the objective of improving groundfish spawning protection.

“Given the Council’s conclusions in Framework 53 and the [Draft Environmental Impact Statement] on the impacts to groundfish from the Committee’s preferred alternatives (both spawning and habitat management), it is difficult to see how the goal of ‘improving groundfish spawning protection, including protection of localized spawning contingents or sub-populations of stocks’ would be met with the implementation of those recommendations alone.”

As Regional Administrator, Bullard has the power to veto the Council’s action in opening various areas.  It would probably be good if he did so, given the critical state of cod stocks off New England and the importance of good habitat and successful spawns to the future of the population.

However, some folks still don’t get it.

The New England Fishery Management Council’s perennial opposition to science-based management has continued for decades, and shows no sign of abating.  As a result of such attitudes, and of fishery management measures that strive to produce the highest possible harvests each year, regardless of impacts to once-abundant fish stocks, many groundfish populations have sharply declined.  Some have collapsed, with the Gulf of Maine cod stock now at just 4% of a healthy population level.

Yet there are people calling for more of the same.

A recent editorial in South Coast Today, a New Bedford, Massachusetts-based media outlet, stated

“If one balances what has been gained (and what has been gained?  ‘Crisis’ levels for Gulf of Maine cod?) in the years spent trying to rebuild these stocks against what has been lost in the fishing community because of it, a compelling argument can be made that continuing these restrictions does more harm than  allowing fishermen back in…”

In that one statement, South Coast Today illustrates what’s wrong with New England fisheries management, and explains why cod stocks have collapsed.

There is no patience with management measures that will take time to work.  Short-term benefit—in this case, allowing fishermen into closed areas to cash in on the fish there for as long as they last—is elevated above the long-term health of the fishery.

And perhaps most of all, a refusal to admit that the New England Fishery Management Council—and by extension, a Regional Office that all too often accepted such Council’s decisions, no matter how bad they were—didn’t spend much time at all “trying to rebuild [groundfish] stocks, but rather dedicated most of its efforts to frustrating the intent of federal fisheries laws, and devising management plans that would maintain high harvest levels and eliminate any realistic chance that rebuilding would actually occur.

Instead, the Council inflicted New England fishermen with a never-ending series of half-measures that tried to balance the desires of fishermen with the needs of the fish, and ended up satisfying neither.

But what makes the South Coast Today editorial so typical of New England Fishery Management Council, and the New England fishermen that it represents, is its insistence on denying the truth.

Despite year after year of the Council adopting the most risk-prone management measures that they could get away with under the law, and despite years of fishermen killing more fish than biologists advised was wise—at least until fish grew so scarce that landing the annual catch limits for many species became an impossibility—the author of the editorial was still not embarrassed to say

“The inability of the target stocks to recover over these many years is clearly not the result of overfishing.  This is about large changes in the environment that the fish have reacted to…

“Regulations are trying to protect mere remnants or the edges of a biomass that is supplying North Atlantic groundfishermen copiously.  This management regime is putting fishermen out of work because it’s trying to protect stragglers, drawing conclusions about the whole ocean based on fish in one area…”

Once again, it’s the same old story we’ve heard from fishermen year after year, “It’s not our fault.  It’s the environment.  The fish went somewhere else.”

And yes, the ocean is warming, and the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than most of it.  Stocks are responding to changing conditions.  Nothing in life ever remains the same.

But the fishermen have to take some responsibility, for cod aren’t truly abundant anywhere in the western Atlantic; if one wants to argue that New England fishermen are fishing on “the edges of a biomass,” one should also be able to point out where the bulk of such biomass resides. 

To date, that hasn’t been done.  After a 20-year moratorium, the cod up in Newfoundland are still hard to find.

It is well past time for New England’s fishermen to stop denying reality.

And it is also time for their enablers in politics and the press to stop indulging their tantrums and their fantasies, and start engaging in the sort of tough love needed if New England’s fish, and its fishermen, are to survive and perhaps even thrive in decades to come.

 For fantasies may provide comfort, but they won’t put more fish in the sea.

WHAT'S GOOD FOR RED SNAPPER SHOULD BE GOOD FOR RED DRUM...

Today was the last day that the National Marine Fisheries Service accepted comments on a proposed Exempted Fishing Permit that would allow Mississippi charter and party boats to harvest red drum out in federal waters over the next couple of years.

I mentioned the proposal a couple of weeks ago, and I hope that some folks registered their opposition, because if this idea flies in the Gulf, it won’t be long before someone tries to get the same sort of permit here on the East Coast, in order to target striped bass in our federal waters, where the harvest is currently closed.

Red drum and striped bass are equally treasured by anglers in the waters where each species is found, so I completely understand why folks in the Gulf might want to keep the federal waters shut down.  Even so, I had to scratch my head in a bit of puzzlement when I read something on the Coastal Conservation Association’s website just a few days ago.

The headline was certainly catchy.

“Feds Set Sights on Red Drum”

And if you start reading the meat of the message, they make those “Feds” sound pretty bad.

“Exempted Fishing Permit targeting breeder red drum sets stage for fish grab

“The federal government’s management of Gulf fisheries has created some of the most chaotic, dysfunctional and unsatisfactory fisheries in the country, and now it seems that the agency is set on bringing that same experience to our red drum fishery in the Gulf of Mexico.

“NOAA Fisheries is currently seeking comment on a two-year plan to allow harvest of breeding-sized red drum in federal waters for the first time in decades…”

“Anyone who has watched the manipulation of the red snapper fishery the past few years should be extremely alarmed at the implications of this federal overreach into one of the great state-based marine conservation victories.  The EFP is limited to Mississippi’s for-hire industry today, but it is certain to spread rapidly to other states if it is approved.  [emphasis in the original]”

Reading CCA’s diatribe against NMFS would make anyone believe that federal fisheries managers were out to steal red drum out from under Gulf anglers’ noses by opening a for-hire fishery in waters that are closed to everyone else.

The only problem is, that isn’t not quite true.

The item in the Federal Register which announced the proposed rulemaking, clearly states that

“an application for an exempted fishing permit (EFP) [has been received] from the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources…”

So there’s no doubt that the impetus for letting for-hire boats sample red drum in the Gulf’s federal waters came not from NMFS, but from the State of Mississippi.  Yes, the State of Mississippi.  The STATE FISHERIES MANAGERS of Mississippi…

And CCA actually knows this, because in their comments to NMFS opposing the proposed exempted fishing permits, they start right off saying

“The Coastal Conservation Association is opposed to the exempted fishing permit (EFP) application filed by the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources…  [emphasis added]”

And that makes you wonder about a few things.

First, it makes you wonder why CCA, in their release to the public, went so out of their way to criticize federal managers, in a manner likely to make folks believe that allowing the Mississippi for-hires to kill red drum offshore was the federal managers’ idea.  I’d never be surprised to see a press release worded like that come out of southern New Jersey, but I always believed that the folks down in Houston would try quite a bit harder to avoid misleading language.

But beyond that, it makes you wonder why CCA is so vehemently opposed to the proposal.

After all, throughout the red snapper debate, we have seen them, along with their partners in the Center for Coastal Conservation, repeatedly write such things as

“State-based fishery management has proven to be far more effective, and has engineered some of the greatest marine conservation victories in the country.  We have faith in the states to be philosophically capable of not only conserving and managing robust fisheries, but also providing greater access to those resources for their citizens.“

and

“With their proven track record of managing fishing and recovering stocks such as red drum and speckled trout, and with superior recreational data collection systems, the states have earned the trust and respect of Gulf Coast anglers and conservationists.“

and

“Coordinated management among the states is the only solution to an unaccountable federal system of fisheries management.“

In fact, CCA and the rest of the folks at the Center are so enamored of state fisheries managers that they want to strip all authority for managing red snapper away from NMFS, and give it to state authorities. According to the Center’s President, Jeff Angers,

“The Gulf states are among the nation’s leaders in marine fisheries management, which is why we have continued to look to them as the vehicle for managing Gulf red snapper going forward to get us out of the current mess created by federal mismanagement.“

But now that the fisheries managers of the State of Mississippi want to let their for-hire boats fish for offshore red drum, it seems that CCA might be questioning their wisdom after all.  In fact, CCA seems to be doubting the wisdom of all the states’ fishery managers, as it expresses its fear that “other states” will “rapidly” emulate Mississippi if its exempted fisheries permit is granted.

CCA is effectively asking NMFS for help in keeping the red drum safe from what the states want to do.

Now, this creates a conundrum.  Why do CCA and the rest of their Center colleagues believe that the states are wise enough to manage red snapper better than the feds already do, but fear the states’ gaining some control over red drum in federal waters? 

One would think, given all of the praise that such folks had for state managers during the red snapper debate, that they’d support lifting the federal red drum closure completely, and letting the states have full management authority for red drum, as well as red snapper.

It appears that the folks over at CCA are now trapped by their own rhetoric.  In the case of red snapper, they’re not happy with science-based federal management, because it doesn’t allow them to kill as many fish as they’d like; thus, they rhapsodize over state fisheries managers that would permit a higher, if perhaps unsustainable, harvest.

But when it comes to red drum, perhaps the most revered sport fish along the Gulf Coast, they’re very happy with federal protections that guard the drum brood stock against state harvest excesses.  So they’re trying to blame the feds for taking comments on the exempted fishing permit for red drum, while conveniently ignoring the fact that it was the State of Mississippi that is spearheading the effort.

CCA warns that NMFS must deny Mississippi an exempted fishing permit for red drum in order to

“prevent the red drum fishery from sliding into greed-driven chaos”

at the hands of that state and the others which would “rapidly” follow suit.  However, it offers no explanation as to why the red snapper fishery wouldn’t meet a similar fate if it lost its federal protections.

And that makes no sense, because what is good for red snapper should be good for red drum, and what is bad for red drum isn’t likely to red snapper a lot of good, either.

IF IT AIN'T BROKE...

Last week, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued its annual Status of Stocks report.  Status of Stocks 2014 provided the good news that the number of overfished stocks, as well as the number of stocks experiencing overfishing, both hit all-time lows by the close of last year.

NMFS manages 469 separate stocks of fish.  The status of some of those stocks has not yet been determined.  However, of the 308 stocks for which the mortality status is known, only 26—about 8%--remain subject to overfishing, which is roughly a 50% reduction in the past 15 years.  Six stocks were removed from the overfishing list in 2014, including Gulf of Maine haddock, South Atlantic gag and snowy grouper, the Gulf of Mexico jacks complex, northern Atlantic albacore and western Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Of the 228 stocks for which the biomass status is known, about 16% remain overfished, which is down by about one-third since 2000.  Gulf of Mexico gag grouper and north Atlantic albacore were both declared to be no longer overfished last year.

In addition, three stocks, Gulf of Mexico gag grouper, golden tilefish and Gulf of Maine/Cape Hatteras butterfish, were declared fully rebuilt last year; including those three, a total of 37 once-overfished stocks have now been rebuilt since 2000, the year that a court decision in Natural Resources Defense Council v. Daley put teeth in federal fisheries law and ushered in the modern era of salt water fisheries management.

Given how low the abundance of many fish stocks had fallen prior to the enactment of the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996, which for the first time required United States’ fisheries managers to promptly end overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks, that’s a pretty striking improvement in the health of our fish populations.

Eileen Sobek, the assistant administrator for fisheries at NOAA, gave both her agency and the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act, which governs fishing in U.S. waters, some well-deserved praise, saying

“This report illustrates that the science-based management process under the Magnuson-Stevens Act is working to end overfishing and rebuild stocks…

“Our agency wants to let consumers know that the United States’ global leadership in responsible fisheries and sustainable seafood is paying off.  We are moving forward more than ever with efforts to replicate and export stewardship practices internationally.  As a result of the combined efforts of NOAA Fisheries, the regional fishery management councils, and all of our partners, the number of stocks listed as subject to overfishing or overfished continues to decline and is at an all-time low.”

Ms. Sobek is entitled to crow just a bit about a job well done.

Yet at the same time that NMFS celebrates its latest achievements, there are people on the waterfront and in the United States Congress who are striving to make fundamental changes in the way America’s fish stocks are managed.

Back in 1977, “Bert” Lance, who served as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget early in President Jimmy Carter’s administration, said in an interview

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  That’s the trouble with government.  Fixing things that aren’t broken and not fixing things that are broken.”

Since then, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” has become a cliché, but one that has proved both useful and appropriate when applied to any number of issues.

It certainly applies to the Magnuson-Stevens Act today.

There is no better fisheries law in the world.  The Magnuson-Stevens Act regulates fishing on hundreds of stocks, along thousands of miles of coastline as different and distant from one another as those of Puerto Rico, Alaska and the islands of Saipan and Guam.  It is a law designed to benefit all species and all user groups by placing the focus where it needs to be placed, on the long-term health of fish populations, rather than on a favored industry sector and/or the short-term economic benefits that might accrue from overharvesting already stressed stocks.

Still, there are too many people who are looking for some way around the management process. 

Their motives are perfectly clear.  The harvest restrictions needed to rebuild stocks with any kind of certainty, and within a reasonable time frame, cut into folks’ short-term profits, whether those folks are commercial fishermen, who sell fish to the public, charter and party boat operators, who take people fishing, or boat builders, tackle manufacturers or tackle shop owners, who sell folks the merchandise that they need to catch fish on their own.

Using benevolent-sounding language such as “flexibility” and “strengthening fishing communities,” they are actively working to weaken the very measures that have made Magnuson-Stevens a success.

Right now, most of the impetus for “fixing” the law is coming from the recreational fishing community located on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, who are unhappy with red snapper management.  For years, the red snapper stock was badly overfished, and so long as the Gulf’s anglers could blame the problem on commercial harvest and the bycatch of juvenile red snapper in shrimp trawls, they were all for conservation measures that targeted those sectors.

However, once commercial harvest issues were largely eliminated, and managers began to focus on chronic recreational overharvest, the same recreational interests declared the federal management system to be broken, and are trying to convince federal legislators to introduce bills that would take red snapper management out from under the aegis of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, so that red snapper anglers in the Gulf would no longer be bound by the sort of science-based management system that has successfully ended overfishing and rebuilt stocks on every coast of the United States.

That would be bad enough if it only harmed red snapper, but those “anglers rights” and angling industry organizations have also banded together, under the banner of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s report, A Vision for Managing America’s Saltwater Recreational Fisheries, to take their efforts one step farther, and weaken the conservation and management provisions of Magnuson-Stevens, which would

“allow fish stocks to recover gradually while diminishing socioeconomic impacts.”

In other words, it’s OK if we have fewer fish in our own, so long as they can kill a few more, and make some more money…

Recreational angling groups that have always looked askance at commercial interests and long pretended to cleave to a higher, conservation-oriented standard have pretty well taken the same position as the New England trawlers who have devastated cod populations, and some of the party boat fleet in the mid-Atlantic, which would have halted the recovery of summer flounder, scup and black sea bass if the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the NMFS regional office hadn’t stuck to their guns.

Their idea of “fixing” Magnuson is to change the very provisions that makes the law work.

If your idea of success is a healthy ocean, with abundant fish populations, it’s pretty clear that the Magnuson-Stevens Act is a success, even if all of its work isn't yet done.

Magnuson-Stevens “ain’t broke” at all.

And it’s in no need of “fixing.”