NO EASY ANSWERS

One of the hottest issues being debated right now in New England is the proposed creation of a Dedicated Habitat Research Area along the eastern border of Stellwagen Bank Marine Sanctuary, located off Gloucester, Massachusetts.

The proposal to create the research area, one of three such areas currently being contemplated, is contained in the New England Fishery Management Council’s Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2, a massive, five-volume document (not counting its seven appendices) that addresses a number of habitat-related issues.

Although the proposed Stellwagen Bank research area only takes up a few pages in the Amendment’s third volume, it may have generated more controversy, at least within the angling community, than all of the rest of the issues addressed in the Amendment, combined.

To understand why, it’s probably best to start by explaining what the proposed research area is, and what it is not.

The research area will be carved out of an existing area where trawls have long been outlawed, but hook-and-line fishing for cod and other groundfish is still permitted.

The purpose of the research area, as described in the Amendment, is to determine the impacts of various gear types on bottom habitat, how well such habitat can recover from such gear impacts under different scenarios, what natural disturbances impact such habitat and how the productivity of bottom habitat is impacted by various fishing gears.

As part of the research process, scientists would allow commercial fishing, almost certainly including trawling, to take place in places and for periods of time appropriate for various research projects.

The proposed research area is not a no-take marine protected area; fishing for pelagic species such as tuna and shark will not be affected by its creation.  Recreational fishing for cod and other groundfish will not be impacted in most of the area. 

However, in order to create a “control” area where the bottom will remain completely unfished, and provide a baseline that other, fished areas can be compared to, scientists have proposed creating a so-called “northern reference area,” of about 55 square miles, located toward the southern end of the research area, where no bottom fishing at all would be allowed (once again, pelagic fisheries would remain unaffected).

It’s not at all clear how many recreational boats regularly fish in the proposed reference area, nor is it clear what the impacts of closing the area to bottom fishing might be.  

As is all too often the case in fisheries issues, things got polarized pretty quickly.  The comments sent in to the New England Fishery Management Council, for and against creation of the research area, make it pretty clear that the opponents and proponents concentrated on their own concerns, and didn’t spend much time thinking about the other side’s issues.

Opposition to the research area, and particularly to the no-fishing northern reference area, was spearheaded by the local charter boat industry, which focused almost entirely on economic issues.  A form letter sent in by members of the Stellwagen Bank Charter Boat Association was typical, asserting that

“Charter customers and recreational fishermen spend millions of dollars to go fishing, supporting many local businesses.  This proposed closure clearly does not justify the negative socioeconomic impact on the recreational fishing sector…

“By proposing closure of one of the few productive areas remaining for this fishery, this plan targets a sector for business extinction.

By noting that the proposed “northern reference area” was “one of the few productive areas remaining” for the groundfish fishery, the charter sector implicitly acknowledged the dire state of the cod stock—remember that Stellwagen lies in the Gulf of Maine, where cod are believed to have fallen to around 3% of sustainable levels—but the letters coming in from the industry place little or no emphasis on the need for research that will enable managers to help recover the cod population.

Instead, if they mention research at all, it is to argue that the designated habitat research area, and particularly the northern reference area, is not the proper place to conduct habitat studies.  Such an approach can be seen in the comments made by the Stellwagen Bank Charter Boat Association itself, which states

“We’ve also voiced skepticism with the value of the proposed science that would accrue from establishing the DHRA and reference area.  We simply do not believe the research benefits outweigh the loss of jobs and income to the charter fleet and impacted shoreside communities.”

The Association then quotes selected passages from the Amendment which appear to support its position.

On the other hand, various conservation organizations and marine scientists strongly support creation of the research area with an included northern reference area.  Their comments focus on the need to find ways to protect habitat needed to support and hopefully rebuild what remains of the cod stock, as well as to ensure a healthy Gulf of Maine ecosystem in the long term.

However, while focusing on the long term, their comments generally pay little attention to the charter fleet’s short-term survival.

Anglers seem split on the issue.  In terms of sheer numbers, most seemed to go along with a form letter that appears to have been provided by the Recreational Fishing Alliance (or, at least, was sent in by some on RFA letterhead), which stated, in part

“Any additional closed areas for the charter/party and recreational anglers will create an adverse effect on a sector that is already operating under emergency cod closures and rules with strict bag limits, minimum size limits and the present eight month closed season on GOM haddock…

“Recreational anglers have little to no impact on the bottom using weights, cod jigs and hook and line to harvest fish for personal consumption…”

Such sentiment was echoed by at least one charter boat captain, Claude S. Holt of Marshfield, Massachusetts, who wrote

“[M]y biggest complaint is that it has never been proven that rod and reel fishers harm the bottom of the ocean…We all know the damage done by draggers and yet this type of fishing leaves a presence to the ocean floor.  I don’t know how you prove this with a rod and reel fishery.  Almost no one in the charter industry even anchor because we need to stay with the fish.”

Ironically, Capt. Holt, along with the anglers who sent in the form letter, argue that they do no harm, yet oppose the research area and northern reference area, which could be used precisely to prove—or disprove—their assertion.  The Amendment notes that one of the questions to be considered is

“Have we significantly over- or under-estimated the impacts of particular gear types?”

It’s not inconceivable that research would prove that anglers have even less impact on the ecosystem than is currently believed, but we’ll never know until somebody actually conducts a valid investigation.

But even then, answers may not be obvious.  

For, in the end, the question about whether to create the research area, and the no-fishing northern reference area, boils down to one of policy and values.

What should be given priority?

Is it more important to give the charter and private boat fleet every available place to fish in the short term, despite the imperiled state of the cod stock?  If the research area is never created, and the proposed reference area is thus never closed to fishing, will a shortage of cod, and a shortage of needed research, doom the fleet anyway, while pushing the cod population ever closer to some possible point of no return?

Or is it more important to create the research area, along with the closed-to-groundfishing reference area, in order to hopefully gather the data needed to bring the cod back to some semblance of abundance?  But if one takes that course, how many failed charter businesses and lost fishing opportunities will be deemed to be “acceptable losses,” and how many charter and private boats will be left to enjoy the fishery if the research finally yields fruit?

Perhaps the comments made by the Sierra Club’s Massachusetts Chapter sum up the conundrum best.

“The constituents engaged in the [Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2 Draft Environmental Impact Statement] comment process have different world views and goals which make it hard to comment on many of the alternatives discussed in OHA 2 from either a natural or a socioeconomic science perspective.”

Yet just because something is hard doesn’t mean that regulators don’t need to get the job done, and figure out the right alternatives in the shortest possible time.

Charter boats, and private boat owners, too, need to accept the fact that, if scientists can’t figure out how to restore the cod stock to sustainable numbers, their boats may soon be good for very little other than hosting seal-watching tours.

And scientists, as well as regulators and members of the conservation community, need to realize that if they want to be able to gather the data they need to properly rebuild and manage groundfish stocks, they can’t operate in a vacuum.  They must be cognizant of the fishermen’s concerns, and craft the least disruptive alternatives that they prudently can.

In the end, folks may find that there is no way to accommodate both the fishermen’s and the researchers’ needs, and that with respect to 55 square miles of ocean, one group must give way if either is to ultimately succeed.

Where there are no easy answers, as is the case here, the first step is to ask the hard questions.

And that begins when everyone questions themselves, and asks whether they are looking out for the greater public interest, or only looking out for themselves.

COULD RED DRUM MANAGEMENT THREATEN STRIPED BASS?

For many years, possessing and even fishing for red drum and striped bass has been illegal in federal waters.  Such rules were put in place by the National Marine Fisheries Service a number of years ago, when both species had been badly overfished, in order to help rebuild the populations.  

The rules have remained in place since, as anglers and at least some fisheries managers found them to be an effective tool in controlling harvest.

In 2007, President George W. Bush issued an executive order prohibiting the commercial harvest of striped bass and red drum in federal waters.  Such order had no immediate effect, given the NMFS prohibition, but it did at least suggest that, at some time in the future, a recreational fishery for striped bass and/or drum could be permitted out there.

There have been a few efforts to open the offshore striped bass fishery, driven largely by charter boats off Massachusetts and Virginia, which have been unable to access some portion of the striped bass population when those fish feed outside of state waters.

The last serious effort to open federal waters to striped bass fishing occurred in 2003, but strong angler resistance from all along the coast convinced federal regulators to maintain the status quo.  Since then, while there have been sporadic outbursts of discontent with the federal fishing ban, declining striped bass abundance has pretty well put a damper on efforts to reconsider the matter.

Now, it’s the red drum’s turn.

The State of Mississippi is attempting to open up a recreational red drum fishery in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico.  State fisheries regulators have gone so far as to request that NMFS issue an Exempted Fishing Permit to as many as 70 Mississippi charter boats which, under the permit’s proposed terms, would be allowed to land a total of 30,000 pounds of red drum over a two-year period.

The justification for the permit is to provide biological sampling of offshore red drum that could be used in some future stock assessment.  However, it is not difficult to imagine a situation in which, after the two years covered by the permit have expired, the same Mississippi charter boat interests, along with their counterparts in other states, argue that the red drum fishery has been demonstrated to be healthy enough to support a federal-waters fishery on a permanent basis.

A rulemaking to determine whether the permit should be issued is now underway, and NMFS is accepting public comments on the proposal.

If NMFS decides to open the federal waters fishery for red drum, it will be bad news, because that will undoubtedly trigger efforts by charter boats off the East Coast, most particularly Virginia, to seek the same kind of opening for striped bass. 

It could be argued that some of the conditions which caused NMFS to consider opening federal waters to striped bass fishing a dozen years ago—high levels of striped bass abundance, a harvest well below target fishing mortality levels and a recommendation by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to take such action—no longer exist, and that the danger of creating an offshore striped bass fishery is thus not very great.

However, less than one year ago, ASMFC examined the possibility of opening federal waters to striped bass fishing on a strictly catch-and-release basis.  Ultimately, the action was not recommended for a number of reasons.  The Commission’s Law Enforcement Committee found that even a supposedly catch-and-release fishery would make it more difficult to prevent illegal harvest in federal waters, while its Striped Bass Technical Committee pointed out that any expansion of fishable waters would probably also lead to an increased harvest at a time that the striped bass population was declining.

Despite ASMFC’s decision not to seek opening federal waters to striped bass anglers, there is still strong support for such action among sectors of the angling community. 

Just a few years ago, Virginia and, to a lesser extent, North Carolina enjoyed an active winter striped bass fishery that drew large numbers of anglers to the region.  Supposedly, the fishery was prosecuted in state waters, although there were regular reports of anglers, and particularly charter boats, poaching striped bass farther offshore.

After a successful NMFS enforcement action, in which a number of charter boats received stiff penalties, the winter fishery collapsed, with virtually no striped bass being landed in tournaments that once saw many very large striped bass killed and thrown on the docks.  While the decline in the fishery was probably due, in part, to a decrease in overall striped bass abundance, its precipitous collapse was almost certainly caused by a new-found reluctance of both private and charter operators to venture into federal waters boats to fish illegally, and thus risk the penalties that courts have imposed on others convicted of that offence.

There is no question that charter boats in the region, as well as marinas and other tourist-dependent businesses in Virginia and North Carolina, would like to see the winter fishery return, and would support any effort, including an Exempted Fishing Permit based on supposed stock assessment needs, that could make it happen.

Such an effort would probably also be supported by charter boat operators off Massachusetts, who often encounter striped bass in federal waters around Stellwagen Bank and the various shoals off Nantucket and the Elizabeth Islands, as well as boats out of Montauk, New York who formerly prosecuted federal-waters fisheries that are now off limits to them.

Thus, striped bass fishermen must remain vigilant, and must remain willing to act quickly and decisively to snuff out any effort to open federal waters to striper fishing, should anyone choose to propose it.

We can no longer afford to take a purely parochial view of our fisheries.  Instead, we must pay attention to what is going on elsewhere, and be constantly on guard, lest one more bad idea spawned in the Gulf of Mexico spreads north to contaminate the striper coast as well.

For the health of our striped bass stock remains fragile.  Actions recently taken to reduce fishing morality and hopefully begin rebuilding provide reason for hope, but it is far too early to predict that they will be successful.

There has been no recent effort to reopen federal waters to striped bass fishing.  Even so, should federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico be opened to harvesting red drum, we can rest assured that it won’t be long before someone tries to create an offshore fishery for our striped bass as well.

RABBLE-ROUSING VS. REALITY

I was paging through the news feeds that I receive every day, which provide information on everything from Gulf of Maine Cod to Gulf of Mexico snapper, when a piece on black sea bass hit a sensitive nerve.

It came from the Brick Shorebeat, a small media outlet on the New Jersey shore, which declared “Sea Bass Insanity” and went on to say

“The black sea bass fishery—yes, the one that is completely rebuilt, and not overfished—is having its recreational quota cut by one-third.  I’ve opined on numerous occasions…on the gross mismanagement of this species, led by a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration that has been curiously hell-bent on regulating the recreational sea bass fishing out of existence...

“With sea bass, the insanity of modern management schemes raises its ugly head.  The fishery is doing so well that anglers exceed their quota, and then face additional regulations that will cause them to exceed it again the following year.  The actual size of the stock, the fact that it is healthy and thriving, and the common-sense reasoning behind why quotas are being exceeded are (I would argue, purposely) disregarded to provide excuses for some in the federal agency to justify regulating recreational sea bass fishing out of existence.”

What struck me about the article, outside of the obvious errors—for example, the recreational black sea bass “quota” is not being “cut by one-third,” but remains the same as it was in 2014—is the belligerent and accusatory tone that is clearly intended to rile up anglers and make them feel aggrieved, rather than helping them to understand why regulators took the actions that they did, and why black sea bass are such a difficult species to manage.

The plain truth is that there are a lot of black sea bass in the ocean right now.  Warming ocean waters are allowing the fish to move into more northerly regions, in greater numbers than were previously the norm, and to colonize some northern New England areas where they were seldom if ever seen before.

That increased abundance at the northern end of the species’ range is leading to much higher landings, particulary in the area between New Jersey and Massachusetts.

However, it is also true that, while managers suspect that the black sea bass population is healthy, nobody knows that for sure.  There is no black sea bass stock assessment that has been deemed adequate for managing the species; the last stockassessment failed to pass peer review about three years ago.  

Instead, black sea bass abundance is estimated with a very rough proxy, the three-year rolling average of fish caught in the National Marine Fisheries Service’s annual trawl survey, a figure that is affected not only by the number of fish actually available, but also by the fact that black sea bass, which tend to hold close to rocks and other structure, are not too amenable to trawl sampling methods, a fact that affects the accuracy of the proxy figure.

In addition, a fairly recent tagging study conducted by theNortheast Fisheries Science Center suggests that there is not one unified black sea bass stock, but rather three substocks that remain effectively isolated during the summer, but mix, to greater or lesser degrees, during the winter.  There is no data to suggest whether all three substocks are equally healthy and experience equivalent levels of natural and fishing mortality, or whether both health and removal rates differ substantially from stock to stock.

Thus, to say that the black sea bass population is “healthy and thriving” isn’t really correct; managers think that it’s in pretty good shape, but no one knows for sure.  

In fisheries-speak, that’s called “scientific uncertainty.” Managers are required to consider the sources and extent of scientific uncertainty when annual catch limits are set, with greater uncertainty leading to greater precaution. 

If the Shorebeat author had even half-tried, he could have easily explained such facts to his readers, rather than repeating—twice in just two short paragraphs—the unproven and logically unlikely accusation that a federal agency was intent—“hell-bent,” in his words—on “regulating recreational sea bass fishing out of existence.”

But it’s pretty clear that rational exposition was never the author’s intent.  Like far too many writers—local writers, for the most part, but influential nonetheless—the Shorebeat columnist seems more intent on overthrowing the federal fisheries management system, and the rational and successful management that it has brought to every coast in the nation, and replacing it with either the kind of ponderous and generally ineffective management we have seen imposed by the states, working either on their own or through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, or perhaps the sort of freewheeling anarchy that we knew prior to 1996, when the Sustainable Fisheries Act imposed some meaningful discipline on the federal management system.

It’s too bad, because a lot of anglers trust what they read in the papers and magazines, and writers who pander to those anglers’ emotions, and to the short-term interests of their fishing industry friends, do a great disservice to the fish, to the public and to the anglers themselves.

Yet such writing is dismayingly common.

Fisheries management is, in the end, a science, no matter how much politics interferes, and in order to become effective advocates within the fisheries management system, anglers need to receive complete and accurate information.  

Many trust the angling press to provide it.

Writers who omit and distort data, and engage in rabble-rousing rhetoric in order to promote their individual goals, do their readers and followers a great disservice, and show great disrespect. 

It is nothing less than a complete betrayal of trust.

TIME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT FISHERIES BILLS

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which governs fishing in federal waters, is currently up for reauthorization.  That’s a really big deal, and I’ll be writing about it a lot, perhaps beginning this weekend.

However, in between the big Magnuson debates, there are always a host of lesser legislative essays that are rarely signed into law—few bills of any kind make it that far—but are filed by various federal legislators who wish to please, or appease, a particular constituency within their state or Congressional district.

Such bills are intended to address some real or imagined wrong—most often the latter—and with few exceptions would let folks kill more fish than is good for the stock.  It doesn’t always happen that way; the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act was the lynchpin of the successful effort to rebuild that stock after it had collapsed.  However, that happened thirty years ago, and I can’t recall Congress passing another “small” bill with anything close to the same conservation impact, so it’s safe to say that the good bills are pretty rare.

But the bills intended to up fishermen’s kills, well, they’re pretty common--in fact, too common by far.

The grandfather of them all is probably the Flexibility in Rebuilding America’s Fisheries Act, which was sponsored by Frank Pallone, a Democratic Congressman from New Jersey, and Charles Schumer, a Democratic Senator from New York.  That bill has taken a fewdifferent forms over the years, but all employ the guise of “flexibility” to gut the most important conservation provisions of current law.

The “flexibility” bills were darlings of groundfish trawlers up in New England, who were still trying to kill the last cod, and with recreational fishing industry interests in New York and New Jersey—primarily, but not exclusively, the party boat operators—who were doing their best to kill enough summer flounder to stall their eventual recovery.

Such bills never came close to passage.  Unfortunately, a bill that included many of the worst aspects of “flexibility”—and some other bad stuff besides—was introduced in the House last year by Washington Republican Doc Hastings as part of the Magnuson Act reauthorization process.

The bill was so bad that it was quickly dubbed the “Empty Oceans Act,” by the conservation community, who was glad to see it die and maybe equally glad to see Hastings retire.  

Unfortunately, Don Young, a Republican representative from Alaska, has reintroduced his version of “Empty Oceans” this year.

But that is a story for another day.  For now, there are plenty of other bad bills to discuss.

A lot of them are being pushed by malcontent anglers in the Gulf of Mexico, who want to kill more red snapper than either the science or current law would allow.  

The most recent of these is the so-called Red Snapper Management Improvement Act, introduced by David Vitter, a Republican senator from Louisiana who has been a long-time opponent of unpolluted rivers, unmined mountaintops and undrilled wilderness, and who is now apparently adding healthy fisheries to the list of things he's against.  

Vitter would create a “Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority” to replace federal fisheries managers, a thoroughly cynical and senseless idea that I discussed in detail about three blogs ago.

That came on top of a bill called the Gulf of Mexico Red Snapper Conservation Act, which was introduced by Congressman Jeff Miller, Republican of Florida.  The so-called “conservation act” was an earlier and cruder version effort to turn red snapper management over to the states, and appeared to define “conservation” as allowing Gulf red snapper anglers, who were regularly exceeding their quota, to kill even more fish. 

About what you’d expect for these interim bills.

Lately, along with Vitter’s red snapper debacle, we have seen Republican congressman Rob Wittman of Virginia introduce something called the Healthy Fisheries Through Better Science Act, a bill in some ways reminiscent of the Fisheries Science Improvement Act introduced a few years ago by the normally pro-conservation Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, at the behest of—yes, you guessed it—red snapper anglers in his home state who were trying to discredit existing science in an effort to kill a few more fish (although in that instance, they were concerned with tightened regulations in the South Atlantic rather than in the Gulf).

Wittman’s bill, unlike Nelson’s, would require stock assessments every 5 years for all of the 500+ stocks that NMFS currently manages.  

That’s a laudable goal in theory, and I for one would like to see it achieved.  However, that’s not very likely to happen.  Wittman’s bill doesn’t appropriate a penny to get the work done and, as a practical matter, even if the funds were available a shortage of qualified stock assessment scientists would probably be an even greater obstacle to completing all of the assessments on time.

On the surface, it’s not clear why Wittman felt it necessary to introduce such a bill, as his constituents in the Mid-Atlantic region have little problem with unassessed stocks; all are assessed on a regular basis.  But if you consider the fact that Wittman is co-chair of the Congressional Sportsman’s Caucus, along with the fact that such Caucus is heavily lobbied by—once again—the red snapper folks, the likely motivation becomes all too clear.  There’s only one stock assessment that matters to them, and for the record, it’s neither George’s Bank cod nor summer flounder…

Wittman’s bill is likely to meet the same fate as most bills of its kind, but that’s not the real point.

Bills such as the Red Snapper Management Improvement Act, the Gulf of Mexico Red Snapper Conservation Act, the Fisheries Science Improvement Act and the Healthy Fisheries Through Better Science Act—along with all of their infernal spawn and misbegotten lookalikes—don’t actually improve anything, conserve anything or make anything better, nor are they intended to.

Without exception, each such bill is a cynical effort to sidestep conservative, science-based management efforts, and undermine the current federal fisheries management system.

So far, such bills have been shot down in flames, with none coming anywhere close to passage.

But there is no assurance that will continue to happen.

One day, in the case of one bill, the stars may align.  An influential congressman and equally influential senator will manage to get one of these bills through committee and onto the floor, either on its own or, more likely, attached as a rider to another piece of legislation, passed by both houses and signed into law.

Should that day ever happen, be prepared for the deluge. 

The Red Snapper Management Improvement Act will be joined by the Gulf of Maine Cod Management Improvement Act, the New England Winter Flounder Conservation Act, the Better Data for Mid-Atlantic Black Sea Bass Act, the Blueline Tilefish Science Improvement Act and…well, you get the idea.

Any sort of rational management, based on sound scientific principles, will be undermined, and a free-for-all of species-specific bills, giving relief for management measures, will be loosed on the management world, reversing years of progress in rebuilding stocks.

It’s a pretty bleak picture, but it’s not going to change unless and until the leaders of the angling community begin living up to their obligations to actually lead, and to treat America’s anglers as adults capable of understanding and appreciating the need for sound fisheries management rather than as spoiled children who need to be indulged with pointless and potentially harmful legislation.

After what we’ve observed in the past couple of years, it may be that such leaders just aren’t up to the task.  They may lack enough good sense and guts.  But unless they get serious about fisheries bills, and stop supporting dangerous fluff, I fear that they’ll leave future generations with nothing save an empty and desolate sea.

IN PURSUIT OF IGNORANCE

Over the past twenty years, efforts to manage marine fisheries have consistently improved.

Back in 1995, when the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission first declared striped bass to be “recovered,” the virtual population analysis used to support that decision was something very new.  It was probably the first such population model used to assess the health of a major East Coast fish population, and was met with substantial suspicion.

Since then, the striped bass population model has evolved into a much more sophisticated and far more accurate tool for assessing and managing the stock, while the modeling process has been used effectively to rebuild and manage other mid-Atlantic stocks such as summer flounder and scup.

The expansion of the population modeling process, and its resultant role in stock assessment and management, could not have occurred without a similar expansion of knowledge with respect to the natural history of important fish stocks and how such stocks are impacted by fishermen.

Thus, after so much progress has been made, it’s always disconcerting to see a group of fishermen try to limit the amount of information available to fisheries managers, and turn back the clock to the days when even the best fisheries management efforts were beset with real ignorance with respect to the number of fish landed and such landings’ effect on the stocks.

Yet that is exactly what’s happening right now down in North Carolina.

Not long ago, the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission, responding to a law passed by the state legislature, proposed a rule that would require the state’s for-hire boats—party boats and charter boats alike—to maintain logbooks recording their catch and their landings.

Although validating the accuracy of such self-reported information can pose a real problem, such a rule would hopefully provide state regulators with a window into for-hire landings, and perhaps provide a bit of a check-and-balance against the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Marine Recreational Information Program, which is currently used to evaluate recreational catch.

However, the Cape Fear Captains’ Association, a group of charter boat captains who operate along the southern North Carolina coast, apparently doesn’t want the state to know what they are landing.  That Association has started an on-line petition opposing the proposed logbook rule.

According to the Carteret News-Times, a local newspaper, the Cape Fear Captains’ Association opposes a logbook requirement not because it would provide bad information to regulators, but because they deemed the rule “invasive” and feared that

“the data will be used to create more restrictive regulation.”

In other words, they fear that if regulators knew what they were really catching, new rules put in place to conserve fish stocks might require them to catch a bit less.

One charter boat captain, Britt Shackleford, who serves as president of North Carolina Watermen United, told the News-Times that he objects to a logbook requirement because

“faulty data and faulty fishing models derived from it has led to tightened restrictions on a number of species, including tilefish, sharks, grouper, red drum and spotted seatrout.  He said he thinks the [Division of Marine Fisheries] has failed to fulfill their charge of managing fishing resources for all user groups, and sees no reason to ‘help them hurt me.’”

But what Shackleton doesn’t explain is how a logbook with supposedly accurate information recorded by the charter captains themselves could hurt him.  After all, if the problem underlying regulations that are supposedly hurting his business comes from “faulty data,” wouldn’t data that he and his fellow captains supply—data that assumedly wouldn’t be “faulty”—improve the data collection process and thus help avoid “faulty fishing models” that lead to “tightened regulations”?

There seems to be a logical disconnect here…

But such disconnect isn’t unique to North Carolina.

A decade before the Cape Fear Captains’ Association initiated a petition against mandatory logbooks, folks in my part of the world were already trying to obscure landings data from federal regulators.

In 2005, the United Boatmen of New York and New Jersey, an organization which primarily represented the party boat industry, joined with the New York Fishing Tackle Trade Association contemplated organizing a boycott, which would deny information to NMFS’ Marine Recreational Fishing Statistical Survey, the forerunner to the current MRIP program.

Capt. Dennis Kanyuk of United Boatmen tried to justify such boycott by saying

“There is a complete failure in the management of recreational fisheries, from the inaccurate catch and effort information provided at the primary level by MRFSS, to the fisheries managers using these estimates as absolute numbers for quota management when they well know MRFSS estimates are not designed to be used in this manner.  NMFS has shown a complete lack of interest in putting any serious effort into correcting any of these problems or dealing with the recreational sector in general.”

While Kanyuk, along with the organizations considering the boycott, apparently thought about doing so because they didn’t like MRFSS harvest estimates and the resulting regulations, they also didn’t seem to provide viable sources of alternative data that fishery managers could use to determine what anglers were actually landing.

Trade Only Today, the publication which printed Kanyuk’s comments, reported that

“In particular, [United Boatmen and NYFTTA] claim the National Marine Fisheries Service…has failed to investigate the feasibility of slot limits in certain fisheries.  It [sic] also claims the agency has yet to address the problem of ever-increasing size limits in many recreational fisheries; and has failed to use data generated by the for-hire recreational logbook and trip reports.”

The first two points—the lack of slot limits and the fact that size limits were increasing in some fisheries—pretty well sum up the recreational industry’s justification for boycotting NMFS; like their 2105 counterparts in North Carolina, they didn’t want to cooperate with a data collection system that might result in greater restrictions on their landings, and apparently thought that keeping fisheries managers ignorant of what was actually being caught would result in more favorable rules.

However, unlike the folks in North Carolina, for-hire captains in New York and New Jersey seemed willing to embrace a system of logbooks and trip reports filled out not by impartial observers, but by those very captains themselves.

The problem is, while both MRFSS and MRIP estimates may lack precision, the potential magnitude of the error can generally be calculated.  On the other hand, the precision of logbook and trip report data is very difficult to figure out.  

However, some recent numbers from the New York striped bass fishery may provide a clue.

New York’s party and charter boats are required to report every striped bass (and every other fish) caught by their passengers.  The vessel trip reports filed by such vessels state that they harvested exactly 12,309 striped bass in 2013, and about half of that—6,477 fish—last season.

Which sounds pretty good, until you realize that NMFS estimated that the same boats caught 234,650 striped bass in 2013 and 125,558 bass last year.  In both cases, the NMFS estimate was about twenty times higher than what the vessel trip reports show.

One set of estimates has to be wildly wrong.  Maybe both are imprecise.  The measure of precision in the NMFS estimate, called the “Percent Standard Error,” is 16.8% for 2013, and 39.1% for last season; the latter, in particular, is fairly large, but nowhere near large enough to provide an estimate that is twenty times the actual harvest.

So it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that the error came from the logbooks and trip reports, which is what the New York captains wanted NMFS to use.

So we see some differences between the industry folks in New York and New Jersey, and those in North Carolina.  The former disliked NMFS harvest estimates, and would have regulators rely on their logbooks.  The latter was willing to live with NMFS numbers, but didn’t want logbooks at all.

But those differences pale when compared to the one thing that made all of those folks alike—their desire to deny fisheries managers sources of the information required to properly conserve and manage fish stocks.

But ignorance is nobody’s friend, particularly when that ignorance is used as an excuse to perpetuate the mismanagement of our most important fisheries.

It should be stamped out whenever possible. 

HANGING TOGETHER

Last Tuesday, Rhode Island announced that it would permit its salt water anglers to retain one striped bass, at least 28 inches long, each day, regardless of whether such anglers were fishing from shore, from a private boat or from a for-hire vessel.

There was quite a bit of doubt that Rhode Island would come to that decision; the state’s for-hire fleet pushed very hard to convince regulators to make their customers exceptions to the general rule, and allow them to retain two bass per day, each at least 32 inches long.

In rejecting the for-hires’ demands, and adopting the single-fish bag, Rhode Island assured that throughout the northeast, from New York to Maine, the same bag limit will prevail.  Those states may share the same size limit, too, although Maine could instead adopt a very narrow, 24 to 26-inch slot, and require its anglers to release any striped bass above or below that size.

Over all, it was a remarkable showing of unity, made even more impressive by the fact that to our south, anglers fishing the coastal waters of Virginia and North Carolina will also be allowed to retain just one bass no less than 28 inches long.  

Maryland has made no official announcement, but is expected to go the same way.

Pennsylvania will also adopt 1 @ 28” in the Delaware River and, for most of the season, in its small section of Delaware Bay, although during the summer months a special season intended to target resident males will replace 1 @ 28” with a 2-fish bag and a 21 to 25-inch slot.

Of all the major striped bass states, only perpetually recalcitrant and hungry New Jersey will allow its anglers to kill more than one bass, including one fish between 28 and <42 inches long, and the other 43 inches or larger—and that’s before the state’s “bonus fish” program ever comes into play.  Delaware, which harvests relatively few stripers, also seems intent on letting its anglers kill a couple of bass each day, although the size limits have not yet been established.

Still, with the exception of a couple of unfortunate outliers, it’s pretty clear that fisheries managers in most of the states have rallied around a one-fish bag and 28-inch minimum size.  In doing so, member states of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission have come nearly full circle, and acknowledged that regulations work best when they’re adopted by all.

It was that concept that gave ASMFC its original legitimacy as a true fisheries management body, rather than merely a research and debating society.  For back when the striped bass stock crashed forty or so years ago, there was no unity between the states at all.  ASMFC had adopted its first striped bass management plan, and had some ideas about what to do next, but the states competed and bickered among themselves, and not too much got done.

That didn’t change until 1984, when Congress intervened by passing the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act.  That law gave ASMFC the ability to enforce the terms of its striped bass management plan; any state that ASMFC determined was out of compliance with the plan's provisions could be referred to the United States Commerce Department.  

Commerce, in turn, was authorized to confirm ASMFC’s finding of non-compliance and, as a result, shut down the entire striped bass fishery in the waters of the offending state until such state brought its own regulations in line with the plan.

That ability to shut down a state’s entire fishery was the hammer that ASMFC needed to keep state regulators in line, and prevent them from taking any actions that would hurt other states and the striped bass’ recovery.  The approach proved so successful that, in 1993, Congress passed the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act, which extended ASMFC’s ability to close state fisheries to all of the species that it managed.

But then, a funny thing happened.

ASMFC began to abandon the very mechanism that made its striped bass recovery efforts effective.  Instead, it relied more and more on the concept of “conservation equivalency,” which allowed states to deviate from the provisions of a management plan, so long as the regulations adopted by such state were deemed to yield the same conservation benefit as did the Commission’s plan.

The most extreme example of such approach occurred in the summer flounder fishery, where each state was assigned its own share of the harvest and required to adopt regulations that governed only that state’s fishery.  Regulations varied widely between neighboring states, with boats fishing a few hundred feet apart, but on different sides of an interstate boundary, governed by wildly different rules.  

Anglers grew discontent, fisheries managers grew frustrated and, given how often states overfished their allocations, the effort probably didn’t do the summer flounder an awful lot of good, either.

The situation staggered along for more than a decade. 

However, in other fisheries, managers were beginning to see the advantages of a unified management plan.

Scup were the vehicle for the first breakthrough.

Although scup are caught along much of the southern New England and mid-Atlantic coast, in most years well over 90 percent of the recreational harvest is landed by just four states—New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.  The percentage of the catch landed by those states as a group remaine pretty constant from year to year, although each state’s contribution to the overall landings can change quite a bit. 

As a result, under the “conservation equivalency” approach, states were constantly changing their regulations in response to the previous year’s landings; however, because they were constantly looking backwards, at what the previous years landings were, and not into the future, at what landings were likely to be, the effort wasn’t very successful.     

                      

A little over ten years ago, the issue came to a head.

Estimates of angling harvest said that Connecticut had grossly overfished its allocation; at the same time, New York had significantly underfished its share of scup.  Under the conservation equivalency approach, Connecticut faced severe harvest restrictions, while New York would be able to significantly liberalize its rules.  The only problem was that when the next season came, it was as likely as not that the situation would reverse, and New York would be under the gun to reduce its scup landings.

Such constant changes caused equally constant aggravation for anyone involved in the fishery.

So instead of going forward in the usual way, the states broke out of the mold, with New York offering to share its fish with Connecticut.  That way, no one needed to make any changes in its rules, and some stability could be restored to the fishery.  That effort evolved a bit more, and eventually the four major scup states agreed to manage their fish as a unit, with the same size limits, bag limits and season length.

It worked out very well.  The wild annual swings in each state’s regulations disappeared as overages in one state were nullified by underages in another.  Bag limits grew and size limits shrunk for everyone as years of good management rebuilt the stock to some of the highest levels of abundance that anyone can recall.

In 2014, after years of disjointed conservation equivalency efforts, some level of rationality returned to summer flounder management as well, as ASMFC organized the states into “regions.”  Each state in a region was required to have the same size limit, bag limit and season length as all of the others.  Here in New York, the effort was wonderfully successful.

New York was grouped in a region with Connecticut and New Jersey, which allowed New York to reduce its size limit and increase its bag, at the expense of a somewhat shortened season.  New Jersey anglers didn’t like the idea, as they had to endure greater restrictions.  Ironicallly, the arrangement ended up helping New Jersey most, after that state—even with its more restrictive regulations—ended up exceeding what would have been its single-state allocation, while New York with its less restrictive rules underfished by a substantial amount (as did Connecticut).

In the end, as with scup, overages and underages cancelled themselves out, and we’re all going to have the same summer flounder regulations for two years in a row, a modest sign of stability that we last experienced over a decade ago.

Hanging together really does work.

Thus, it’s slightly amusing to see states in other regions, which are considering adopting a state-driven, ASMFC-like model for the first time, ignoring ASMFC’s well-publicized mistakes and setting out to make the very same mistakes for themselves.

The best example of that recently surfaced In the Gulf of Mexico, where the states are hoping to band together in something that’s being called the “Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority,” which would take over responsibility for red snapper management from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The folks proposing such an “Authority” are bright enough to realize that the states won’t always get along, and that one state may well take action that will be detrimental to the interests of the other states’ anglers.  Thus, they tried to create a federal backstop that could intercede in interstate problems, providing that

“The [Authority] could request additional accountability actions through the Secretary of Commerce if a Gulf state or a group of Gulf states adopted management measures that or regulations significantly inconsistent from the red snapper management framework identified in the Plan when such inconsistent measures could negatively impact the interests of other Gulf states with regard to red snapper management

“The procedures established as part of the Striped Bass Act [sic] Section 5153—Monitoring of Implementation and Enforcement by Coastal States would serve as a model for developing procedures for action through the Secretary of Commerce specific to the red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico…”

The only problem was that the same folks decided that

"Federal action to provide accountability and ensure consistency would be limited to the federal waters adjacent to the state(s} that adopted inconsistent management measures or actions.  Under no circumstances would federal authority or action supersede that of an individual state within state waters.”

And thus they prove that they missed the whole point.

The only reason that ASMFC’s striped bass recovery efforts worked was because ASMFC could shut down a non-compliant state’s entire fishery by invoking federal sanctions.  If states had been allowed to manage striped bass as they chose within state waters, the entire process would have failed.

Granted, striped bass are inshore gamefish, and a much larger proportion of red snapper landings are harvested offshore.  Yet even in that fishery, landings from state waters are creating a significant problem and leading to much of the current disruption of the management process.  Allowing the states to do as they please in their own waters, immune from the federal hammer, is purest folly.

Without a federal backstop to enforce compliance with a management plan, do we really believe that Texas will give up its 365-day season, 4-fish bag and 15-inch minimum size, if fisheries managers in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi think that they should in order to help out the stock?

Up here in the north, we know how it works in the real world.  We have to deal with New Jersey…

So yes, striped bass anglers throughout the northeast, and along the rest of the striper coast, should be pleased that most of our fisheries managers have decided that unity does, in fact, produce strength.  

And we can hopefully rest assured that if New Jersey’s excesses don’t achieve the desired reduction, the rest of ASMFC’s Striped Bass Management Board can require that state to do better, and then seek federal intervention in every New Jersey creek, bay and river if they refuse.

A long time ago, Benjamin Franklin reputedly said

“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

But in the arena of fisheries management, that’s not really true.

Sometimes, as in the case of New York’s winter flounder, there’s a compelling biological reason to go it alone.  But that’s an exceptional situation.  Almost all of the time, the states have a very clear choice.

They can hang together, and provide better fishing for all.

Or they can each try to maneuver to best suit themselves, in which case some will surely hang separately, while others gleefully pull on the other end of the rope.

It’s a lesson that Atlantic coast anglers learned through experience, and that’s one experience that anglers elsewhere should not try to repeat.