WHY IS STATE MANAGEMENT "BETTER"?

Yesterday, the House Committee on Natural Resources marked up H.R. 3094, Rep. Garret Graves’ (R-Louisiana) so-called Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority Act.  

The approval came on a 24-14 vote, with Republicans from important coastal states such as Idaho, Arizona and Utah enthusiastically supporting the bill, and most Democrats expressing real doubts.

The support of inland Republicans shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to anyone, for the bill, which would strip the National Marine Fisheries Service of all authority to manage red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, and turn such authority over to the states, is very much in line with the landlocked legislators’ philosophy. 

In the same session, the Committee also approved H.R. 3650, sponsored by Don Young (R-Alaska), and H.R. 2316, sponsored by Raul Labrador (R-Idaho). 

H.R. 3650, titled the “State National Forest Management Act of 2015,” it would permit each state to take over up to 2 million acres of National Forest Service land within such state, and included provisions that would assure that both the timber and hard rock mining interests would be able to exploit any such natural resources found on the relevant lands.

H.R. 2316 had somewhat more modest goals.  Titled the “Self-Sufficient Community Lands Act,” it would allow state “Advisory Committees” appointed by each state’s governor to manage parcels of federal land.  Such parcels, designated “community forest demonstration areas,” would be no less than 200,000 acres in size,  and important federal conservation laws, including the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, the Clean  Air Act and the Endangered Species Act, could only be enforced to the degree that they could be imposed on a state or private party, and not as they would normally apply to federal lands.

Taken together, H.R. 3650 and H.R. 2316 are the sort of bills that are usually supported by the sort of folks who drill for oil, strip mine coal, clearcut timber and, in the not so recent past, occupied a federal bird sanctuary in order to demonstrate their patriotism and defend their Constitutional rights.

Now, with H.R. 3094, the anti-government folks in Congress have taken their fight to the coast, in an effort to de-federalize red snapper.

Another Utah Congressman, Chris Stewart, has argued that states should take over land currently owned by the federal government because

“The federal government has been a lousy landlord for western states and we simply think the states can do it better.  If we want healthier forests, better access to public lands, more consistent funding for public education and more reliable energy development, it makes sense to have local control.“

That sounds benign.  However, it’s hard not to suspect that the real motivation of Rep. Stewart’s (and Rep. Bishop’s) Federal Land Action Group is to get out from under federal regulations intended to prevent overgrazing, unsustainable timber harvest and unsound energy extraction practices.

It also sounds a lot like some of the rhetoric being spouted by anglers’ rights groups supporting H.R. 3094, which have said that

“The state approach is simply a better way to manage a fishery as a whole.  State agencies put more stock in what a fish population actually looks like and how it’s responding to management in real time, rather than basing everything on estimates of what is caught…

“The federal government has had decades to get red snapper management right.  It’s time to let the states finally provide the remedy.“

Again, it all sounds good, but federal law is already rebuilding the stock, based on the best scientific information available.  Thus, it's hard not to suspect that the state management proponents just want to kill more red snapper than federal law or good science allows.

Still, the Committee’s approval of H.R. 3094 is the sort of thing that should make the states’ rights folks proud.  It's the sort of thing that might make some of the “patriots” who bailed out of Malheur want to go out to the Flower Garden Banks and drag around some illegal anchors in a show of support…

The myth that state fishery managers do a better job than their federal counterparts persists, despite evidence to the contrary.

The Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority proposed by H.R. 3094 would be peopled by the salt water fisheries directors of each of the five Gulf states, and is modeled upon the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which is responsible for managing a number of inshore stocks that inhabit the waters between Florida and Maine.

Ironically, ASMFC was only given real management authority in 1984, after Congress passed the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act, in order to gain some control over squabbling individual states that were unable to put their parochial concerns aside long enough to begin rebuilding a collapsed striped bass stock.

Once given that authority, ASMFC did manage to recover the striped bass stock, which was declared fully rebuild in 1995.  However, it has failed to rebuild even one other stock since then, while federal managers, acting pursuant to federal law, have fully recovered 39 once-overfished populations since the year 2000.

The success of federal fisheries managers can be attributed directly to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which requires that overfished be promptly halted, that overfished stocks be rebuild within a time certain that, in typical circumstances, should not exceed ten years, and that fishery management plans be based on the best available science.

ASMFC’s failure to rebuild a single stock in the past 20 years can be attributed to the fact that it is not subject to Magnuson-Stevens, leading its various management boards to perpetuate overfishing, delay rebuilding overfished stocks and ignore scientific advice when there is a short-term economic benefit in doing so. 

And if one looks hard enough, such short-term benefits can almost always be found…

One of the most striking examples of the failure of state fisheries managers can be found in North Carolina.  In a recent op-ed piece published in the News-Observer, Chris Elkins, President of the North Carolina chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, notes that

“At best, North Carolina has a sordid history of fisheries management, with only four of 16 managed finfish stocks listed as viable.  In large part, that is because North Carolina has the most relaxed commercial fishing regulations in the country.  The decline of the commercial fishing industry in N.C. is not due to regulations, but to the lack of regulations that have depleted state-managed stocks…”

To explain why state fisheries management in North Carolina is so weak, Mr. Elkins describes the state’s failure to enter into a “joint enforcement agreement” with the National Marine Fisheries Service, which would give North Carolina the right to enforce federal fisheries regulations, and in return, would see federal money flow into the state to aid fisheries enforcement efforts.  

Every coastal state except for North Carolina has entered into such agreements, but as Mr. Elkins explains

“the [Joint Enforcement Agreement] committee composition was predetermined by the legislature and thus the outcome was predetermined.  The committee voted not to recommend entering into a JEA.  Only commercial fishermen or charter fishermen were allowed to sit on this committee; all recreational fishermen were excluded.  Of the one million or so total saltwater N.C. fishermen, about 99 percent are recreational fishermen.  Nonfishing North Carolinians,  (about 9 million) were also not represented.

“So only 1 percent of the stakeholders, those who have a financial interest, will provide input as to whether federal regulations are enforced properly and whether our nation’s marine resources in territorial waters off the N.C. coast are protected.  The majority of us, who truly own the resource, are denied a voice in improving law enforcement…”

In other words, the reason that North Carolina’s fisheries are badly managed is purely political.

So is H.R. 3094.

Loggers, miners and ranchers perpetuate the myth that state land managers can do a better job than their federal counterparts, in an effort to exploit natural resources to a degree, or in a manner, that federal law would not allow.

Similarly, H.R. 3094 argue that state fisheries management provides a “better way” to manage red snapper because it would allow them to harvest more fish than the current science-based federal rules permit.

Whether we’re talking about red cedar or red snapper, state management is only “better” because it allows more such resources to be harvested now.  It is worse if we look to the future.

Yet, if we take the long view, it’s only the future that matters.

SO HOW DO WE "FIX" GULF RED SNAPPER

Today, at 12:01 am, another federal recreational red snapper season drew to a close in the Gulf of Mexico.  From some reports, it has been one of the most unsatisfying seasons so far, not only for its length, but for a host of problems ranging from a dearth of willing fish off Florida to the weather system that eventually became Tropical Storm Colin creating hostile sea conditions in much of the Gulf, which led the National Marine Fisheries Service to add an extra two days to the season.

So what happens next?

Maybe a month ago, in a Manhattan restaurant, I chanced into a couple of old friends, who I once worked with on fisheries matters.  We’re on different sides of the red snapper debate these days, but we enjoyed a good meal and a good discussion.  At the end, one of them asked me the question:  “How would you fix red snapper?”

I couldn’t provide an immediate answer.  But I did note that folks needed to admit one simple truth:  There will never be enough red snapper to make everyone happy; demand will always exceed supply.

Anglers need to face up to some other things, too. 

They need to accept the true impacts that recreational fishermen have on the stock.  For example, I once received a comment to another red snapper essay that asked

“[M]e as a recreational angler will probably get out fishing offshore dependent on the weather and finances 20 times a year, and will only fish red snapper certain times of the year.  How am I responsible for the decimation of this stock?”

The person asking that question, he forgot is that he is not alone, but instead is is just one of many other anglers, all having an impact on the red snapper stock.  

According to a report issued by the American Sportfishing Association in 2013, in just one year salt water fishermen spent 1,480,312 angler/days fishing in Alabama, 1,532,519 angler/days in Louisiana, 2,293,475 angler/days in Mississippi and 8,157,241 angler/days in Texas.  They also spent 36,347,825 angler/days fishing in Florida, although that wasn’t broken down between the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.  Even if the Florida number was cut in half, the figures show that, in the aggregate, anglers made more than 30 million fishing trips in a single year in the Gulf of Mexico.  While only a minority of those trips targeted red snapper, the overall effort was still clearly large enough to have an impact on the stock, even if each angler’s individual impact was very small.

Then there’s angler behavior.  The fishing mortality attributed to the recreational red snapper fishery is a combined estimate of the number of fish landed and an estimate of the number of released fish that die, as determined by the Marine Recreational Information Program and various studies on released fish’s survival.  What isn’t accurately reflected in those numbers is the practice of “highgrading” or “culling,” in which an angler keeps a limit of fish, but keeps on fishing; when a larger red snapper is caught, the smallest fish is discarded, dead, into the ocean and replaced by the larger one.  It’s impossible to know how serious such problem is, but I have spoken with Gulf Coast charter boat captains with many years’ experience in the red snapper fishery, and they tell me that such activities take place on far too many trips.

Finally, anglers need to take full ownership of the fact that, even without highgrading being taken into consideration, current regulations are the result of anglers consistently overfishing the red snapper stock for many years—although that was not the case in 2014, when anglers stayed within their annual catch target, nor was it the case last season, when recreational anglers substantially exceeded the annual catch target, but did not exceed the annual catch limit, thus proving the worth of the 20% buffer between the target and ACL, adopted at the behest of a federal judge to impose accountability on the fishery.

That 20% buffer, and the fact that it has apparently prevented recreational overharvest in recent years, demonstrates that the fishery can, in fact, be “fixed,” even if progress is made in very small steps.

The fact that recreational overfishing has apparently been halted, at least for now, also raises the question of whether the fishery needs any “fixing” at all and, if it does, what, exactly, needs to be “fixed.”

If you ask the folks who condemn the system, the biggest problem is the short federal season, which limits anglers’ ability to access the red snapper.  In some ways, complaints that

“recreational fishermen will have only nine days to catch red snapper in 2016”

are both disingenuous and dishonest, as they completely ignore much longer state seasons (as long as 365 days in Texas), that both allow anglers to harvest fish in state waters and give them cover to run farther offshore and illegally harvest red snapper in federal waters, an opportunity that far too many anglers are willing to exploit.

There are only two ways to lengthen the federal season—either find a way to provide more fish to anglers, or find a way to limit the number of anglers catching the fish that are currently available.

So far, all of the effort has been spent on ways to provide more red snapper to anglers.  That has proven a difficult and generally unproductive process; the only successful effort has been a recent increase in anglers’ share of the harvest, from 49% to 51.5%, a change so small that it was hardly worth the effort involved.

Otherwise, the angling community’s efforts have been aimed at weakening the conservation and stock rebuilding requirements of federal law, or by evading those requirements completely by taking management authority for red snapper away from federal managers and handing it over to the states.  Both efforts, if successful, would provide anglers with higher red snapper landings in the short term, but over a longer period of time would likely cause real harm to the stock, and leave anglers worse off than they are today.

Fortunately, for the moment, such efforts have stalled.

The only other way to get anglers more fish is to give them access to the commercial quota.

The recent allocation change will probably be the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council’s last word on the subject for now.  Given that the commercial red snapper fishery is well-managed and completely sustainable, and supplies the non-fishing public’s desires to dine on red snapper, there is little or no objective reason for shifting fish from the commercial to the recreational sector.

On the other hand, there is also little or no objective justification for preventing commercial fishermen from selling some or all of their quota to anglers on a willing buyer/willing seller basis—that is, for selling or leasing such quota if the commercial fishermen found it economically advantageous to do so, and voluntarily decided to transfer quota to recreational fishermen, just as they might lease it to other commercial fishermen, in any particular year.

Doug Olander, the Editor-In-Chief of Sport Fishing Magazine, took a look at the question a couple of weeks ago.  He notes that the North Pacific Fishery Management Council allows such inter-sector quota transfers in the Pacific halibut fishery, and laments that the Gulf Council isn’t willing to do the same.  Mr. Olander then suggests that the only way to get it done is to shift responsibility for red snapper management to the Gulf states.

Although I agree with his basic premise, that inter-sector quota sales would be a good thing, the downside of stripping NMFS of its authority to manage red snapper would be greater than any advantage gained, primarily because doing so would strip the red snapper of the protections granted by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.  Without those protections, authority to manage red snapper would be shifted from a science-based federal management system to a state system where politics and short-term economic considerations would be the primary drivers.

As an alternative, I suggest that angling interests should sit down with representatives of the for-hire, commercial and conservation communities, and work in good faith to find a solution.

That would require them—and everyone else—to leave their egos at the door.  Organizations would have to be willing to forgo tub-thumping press releases that impugn others’ interests while throwing red meat to such organizations’ members.  Each side would have to forthrightly confront its own faults and flaws, as well as others’ legitimate concerns, and try to craft a compromise that takes all such things into account.

The biggest obstacle to inter-sector transfer is probably accountability.  The current commercial fishery is fully accountable, with vessels calling in to regulators before making a trip, monitored by a vessel monitoring system throughout the voyage, and calling in again to provide regulators with the time and place that a catch will be landed.  Anglers are currently subject to few such strictures, although in some states, they may be required to report red snapper landings after their return.

The problem is, anglers often forego such reporting.  New York charter boat captain John McMurray, writing in Salt Water Sportsman, noted that bluefin tuna anglers are required by law to report their landings within 24 hours, but

“NOAA estimates that compliance with recreational bluefin reporting requirements is a mere 20 percent.  I’d suggest it’s even lower.”

As an active member of New York’s tuna fishing community, I’d agree.  Reporting is particularly problematic when a boat brings in 2 or 3—or 8 or 10—bluefin above the legal bag limit, and/or illegally sells its catch through the back door of a restaurant or fish store, which are, unfortunately, common practices here on Long Island.

It’s hard to believe that similar issues wouldn’t arise with Gulf red snapper.

Another suggestion that’s making the rounds is to limit the number of anglers able to access the red snapper resource, probably by issuing a limited number of tags that would each allow an angler to harvest a single fish. 

One proposal that has recently been making the rounds would have the recreational fishery more closely resemble the for-hire and commercial fisheries, in that each fish would have to be tagged, and fishermen couldn’t pursue red snapper without having an unused tag on board.  

Supposedly, such a program would benefit the fish, because it would make anglers more accountable, and it would benefit the anglers as well, because it would do away with the need for closed seasons and, except as limited by the number of tags on hand, bag limits.  Fishermen with excess tags would be able to transfer them to those needing more.

It sounds like a great idea, except for one thing.

There are millions of recreational fishermen operating in the Gulf of Mexico.  If every one of them killed just one red snapper, they would blow right through the recreational quota.

Thus, tags would have to be limited to accord with the size of the recreational quota.

The easiest way to do that would be by some sort of lottery.  Here in New York, when hunters applies for a license, they have the opportunity to try for a “deer management permit” which allows them to take a doe, in addition to any buck that they might take pursuant to their general license.  The number of management permits is limited; for a fee of $10, the hunter gets to enter a lottery and perhaps win a the right to kill a doe.

The same sort of approach could be used for red snapper, with each state assigned a limited number of tags to offer, provided in lots of 5, 10 or some other number.  Unsuccessful anglers would receive a “preference point” that would give them a better chance in the following year’s lottery.  Federal managers would make possession of such state permit a prerequisite to possessing snapper in federal waters. 

It would require a voluntary/state federal agreement to implement, and otherwise sounds as if it would work, but…

Last year, only 46% of successful New York deer hunters reported their kills, as required by law.  That’s less than half.  While better than the reporting rate for bluefin tuna, it’s still pretty dismal, and that’s even after the check stations and enforcement roadblocks aimed at ensuring compliance come into play.

There’s no reason to believe that Gulf red snapper anglers would report at higher rates.

The issue remains one of accountability.  And that is an issue uniquely within anglers’ control.

Putting together something that works would be neither easy nor impossible.  So to the question “How would you fix red snapper,” I’d now give the following response:

In many ways, the system is not broken.  The commercial and for-hire fisheries seem to be staying within their annual catch targets, and in the past couple of years, overfishing by private boat recreational anglers appears to have finally been constrained.  The stock is being successfully rebuilt, with more fish and more and older age classes appearing in the population.  Those are all good things.

However, the length of the recreational season in federal waters remains a sticking point.  In order to extend that federal season, I would do the following things.

1.       Bring states into compliance with the federal season and regulations.  Since red snapper landings, wherever they occur, affect the length of the federal season, shortening state seasons would result in a longer federal season, not coincidentally because it would make it far more difficult for anglers to poach red snapper in closed federal waters, where the bulk of the population is found.  With poaching brought under control, the number of fish reported as caught in state waters is likely to plummet, allowing the federal season to expand.

2.       Allow the inter-sector transfer of commercial quota on a willing buyer/willing seller basis.  No commercial fisherman should be forced to give up any part of his or her quota.  However, if such fisherman chose to sell or lease quota to a recreational fisherman or other clearly identifiable and responsible party, such transfers should be permitted.

3.       Implement a tag system covering the entire recreational quota.  No angler would be allowed to land, or possess, a red snapper unless that fish was marked with the proper tag (anglers purchasing/leasing commercial quota would have alternate reporting requirements).  All such tags would have to be of a construction that only permits one-time use (such tags are common in the commercial fishery) and would have to be attached immediately upon landing the fish.  Reporting would be required within 24 hours, and a failure to report or return unused tags would render a fisherman ineligible to apply for tags in future years.

4.       Implement meaningful accountability measures.  A red snapper fisherman would have to call in to an established number before leaving the dock, providing regulators with the name of the boat, port and expected time of return.  Upon return, the fisherman would have to call in before reaching the dock, providing regulators with the number of fish on board and the tag numbers used, thus helping to prevent re-use or the non-attachment of tags.  Anglers buying/leasing commercial quota would have to comply with commercial regulations re reporting harvest, but not vessel monitoring.

5.       Implement penalties strong enough to deter violators.  This one is self-explanatory.  However, the regulations must be zero-tolerance, with no allowance for “accidental” failures to call in on departure or return,  failure to tag fish, etc.  Fines must be substantial, sanctions on future ability to obtain tags imposed, and forfeiture of vessel and gear a possibility in the case of repeat offenders.

Yes, I know much of that is pie-in-the-sky.  But I also know that if I can come up with some sort of workable framework, folks intimately involved with the fishery can too, and probably devise something far better.

That is, they can if they are willing to embrace cooperation instead of confrontation, are willing to reach a compromise that meets the dictates of science and federal law, and are willing to consider the wants and needs of sectors along with than their own.

Would the result be perfect and make everyone happy?

Absolutely not.

But it would still be a lot better than what they have now.

POACHING IS NEVER OK

It was maybe 10 years ago, back when New York was still considering a recreational salt water fishing license.  I was attending a meeting with a host of other folks, where the issue was, once again, being debated.

During one of the breaks, I ended up talking to an angler from Staten Island, who was not at all convinced that a license would be a good thing.

I made the usual pitch to convince him, explaining how a license would result in New York having more money for managing its fisheries, surveying recreational catch, building artificial reefs and the like.  So far, the guy was willing to listen.

Then I said that we’d also have more money for law enforcement, and at that point our conversation chilled.

He told me

“We don’t need no more enforcement.”

I objected, pointing out the striped bass poaching going on in New York Bight, right in the waters he fished.  And then I mentioned all of the anglers that were ignoring the fluke regulations, and taking summer flounder that were clearly undersized.  At that point, the guy took offense.

“Ya know,” he said, “Da size limit for fluke is too high.  A lotta times, ya don’t catch nothin’ but shorts.  Ya pay all dat money for bait and gas, and ya put in alla dat time, ya wanna bring somet’in home.  Ya do watcha gotta do…”

He apparently felt that, just because he spent a few bucks for bait and fuel, and put in a couple of hours on the water, he was absolutely entitled to bring some fluke home.  And if undersized fish were all that he could find, he’d was entitled to keep some of those, regulations be damned.

It’s an all too common way of thinking. 

Far too many people view recreational fishing not as pure recreation, but rather as something akin to going out to a grocery store, where you put up some money and take something home for the table.  They feel that poaching is fine if it’s the only way to put fish in the box.

Here in New York, that sort of thinking became endemic in the summer flounder fishery, after the size limit soared from 14 inches all the way up to 21, before settling back to its current 18.  The bag limit saw similar swings, dropping from 6 down to 2 before finally increasing to 5.  A lot of folks used to the old days of a 14-inch minimum size and no bag limit at all just haven’t been willing to accept more recent regulations, and flout the laws at will.

Contempt for the law seems to be particularly prevalent on party boats, where many of the passengers pay their fare with full expectation of bringing fish home to eat, and get pretty upset when regulations make them unable to do so.

That sort of thinking probably reached its natural conclusion a few years ago, when a few Long Island party boats started taking their passengers out on “sushi cruises,” where undersized fish were filleted and eaten as soon as they were caught.  Such cruises came to an end after agents from the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Law Enforcement Division put an end to the practice by handing out summonses accompanied by hefty fines.

Captains cited for their misconduct justified their actions by blaming the laws; one reportedly

“said that he grew so tired of telling disappointed customers to throw their undersized fish back that that he just snapped.

“’I didn’t break the law, the law broke me…It’s killing all the business on Long Island.’”

Summer flounder regulations have since relaxed, and elicit little controversy.  Now, it’s the black sea bass fishery that spawns much of the lawlessness. 

It’s a difficult fishery to manage, due to a lack of accurate data, the species’ stock structure and its unique life history.  The last stock assessment failed to pass peer review, so managers are, in many ways, flying blind.

That causes some problems, because the fish bunch up over wrecks and hard bottom, and appear to be very abundant.  At the same time, the regulations are probably more restrictive than necessary, because of all of the scientific uncertainty surrounding the species.  Here in New York, the season doesn’t start until early summer, the bag limit is low and the size limit is high.

Such restrictive regulations have led to a lot of poaching, particularly among the for-hire fleet.  NMFS data indicates that about 62% of the black sea bass harvested by party boat patrons in July and August of 2015 were undersized; charter boat passengers did little better, with undersized fish comprising 57% of their landings.  Undersized fish also made up a smaller, but still dismal, 16% of private boat landings.

The high rate of illegal harvest seemingly stems from anglers substituting their notions of what is “right,” given their perception that the stock is abundant and regulations too restrictive, for what is legal, and justifying their poaching by saying something to the effect that “there are plenty of fish out there.”

That sort of thing is never excusable, although it’s easy to understand how an unsophisticated angler, unfamiliar with the fishery management process, could be seduced into illegal ways by the frequent attacks on black sea bass management that he reads in the angling press.

However, it is completely unacceptable when a player in the fishery management process condones the same sort of lawlessness.  Yet that’s just what I heard not too long ago.

To be fair, it occurred in a private setting, not in the public media.  I was having a friendly conversation with someone I know, who is neck-deep in the debate over Gulf of Mexico red snapper.  I mentioned that the long state red snapper seasons create problems that go beyond just shortening the season in federal waters, pointing out that a lot of anglers use the state seasons as cover to poach fish in federal waters, when the federal season is closed.

The guy I was speaking with never blinked an eye, and to his credit, never tried to deny that such poaching takes place.  Instead, he casually dismissed it with the simple comment that “The stock is healthy,” as if illegal fishing didn’t matter at all.

And that is just plain wrong.

Once anglers decide that it’s OK to kill a few undersized sea bass or out-of-season red snapper, where do they draw the next line?

Is it OK for striped bass fishermen to take home some undersized fish, because the 2011 year class looks pretty good and anyway, they’ll be legal next year?

Or, if they’re particularly daring, should they kill the next goliath grouper that they manage to winch up off a wreck, because the big fish seem to be everywhere, and besides, it ate the cobia that would have been dinner?

And once they cross those lines, what comes next?  Short summer flounder?  Out-of-season AJs?

The slippery slope beckons…

Leaders of the angling community have a moral obligation to take a stand against illegal conduct, and not give a wink and a nod to poaching when they believe that it’s doing no harm.  For bad behavior will always generate more of the same.

Sportsman are defined by the ethics that they hold.  And those ethics must include one simple rule.

Poaching is never OK.

FISHERIES POLITICS, WITH AN ASSIST FROM GEORGE ORWELL

You remember George Orwell.

He was a mid-20^th Century Englishman, with a penchant for writing dystopian novels.

It’s a pretty good bet that at some point in your life, probably when you were in your early teens, some teacher, in some classroom, told you to read his best-known work, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

That novel, as you likely recall, was set in a reimagined England, renamed “Airstrip One,” which had become a part of the totalitarian super-state of Oceania, an entity that existed for no other purpose than to perpetuate itself and maintain its power.  The leaders of Oceania were in perpetual fear of independent thought that might threaten their construct.  They insisted that the citizens not only do what they are told, but speak only politically correct slogans and think only politically correct thoughts.

In order to accomplish that goal, they created “Newspeak,” an idiom that not only sought to limit vocabulary in order to avoid subversive words and ideas, but to actually make it impossible to construct a sentence that criticized or threatened Oceania’s leadership.

As a subset of Newspeak, government ministries were named in a manner that was contradictory to their actual purpose.  Thus, propaganda was created by the Ministry of Truth, interrogations and torture conducted by the Ministry of Love, a perpetual war managed by the Ministry of Peace, etc.

I was reminded of that the other day when I say a news item in the boating industry publication, Trade Only Today, which was entitled “Conservation group honors Utah congressman”.

The article begins by announcing

“The Center for Coastal Conservation said it named U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) conservationist of the year for championing policies promoting healthy fish and wildlife populations and access to the country’s land and waters.”

So what, exactly, did Rep. Bishop do to earn such an award?

Well, for one thing, he cosponsored and actively supported H.R. 1335, the so-called “Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act”, which would weaken the conservation and stock rebuilding provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

He also gave strong support to Rep. Lee Zeldin’s (R-New York) H.R. 3070, the “EEZ Transit Zone Clarification and Access Act,” which is intended to remove some federal protections that currently prohibiting the recreational harvest of striped bass in the EEZ off eastern New York and Rhode Island.  Except for a handful of party and charter boat operators who believe that they can profit from such a move.  Striped bass fishermen in Massachusetts,  Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and elsewhere are generally opposed to such legislation, believing that it will cause harm to the striped bass stock and upset the current striped bass management program.

On shore, he has introduced H.R. 4739, the “Greater Sage Grouse Protection and Recovery Act of 2016”, which would effectively prevent the federal government from devising management plans to reverse the sharp decline in greater sage grouse populations, and prevent any listing of the species under the Endangered Species Act until at least 2026.

He opposes Administration efforts to slow the pace of climate change, in part because such efforts would “change the course of energy production in this country,” supports giving the states, and not the federal government, should control the extraction and development of “all forms of energy on federal lands located within their borders,” and believes, more broadly that “The federal government was never meant to own and control the vast amount of land that it does today,” and so is actively working to oppose additional federal land acquisitions and to transfer current federally owned-land—land that gives many Americans their only opportunity to experience quality hunting and fishing—over to the states.

So how, exactly, does that sort of record qualify Rep. Bishop to be “Conservationist of the Year”?

To understand that, you probably need to take a good look at the Center for Coastal Conservation.

It is an organization that describes itself as

“a coalition of the leading advocates for marine recreational fishing and boating.  It is dedicated to promoting sound conservation and use of ocean resources by supporting federal legislators who support its goals.”

Those “leading advocates” include the National Marine Manufacturers’ Association, the American Sportfishing Association (the trade association for the fishing tackle industry) and some other recreational fishing and anglers’ rights groups. 

It declares that

“The Center for Coastal Conservation’s goal is to affect public policy related to the conservation of marine resources with broad ability to pursue political solutions.  The organization is non-partisan and focuses on having an impact in the national political arena, principally Congress and national regulatory agencies.”

Just like Rep. Bishop, the Center desires to weaken current federal law mandating the conservation and rebuilding of marine fish stocks, so is also a supporter of H.R. 1335.  

Then, in a position reminiscent of Rep. Bishop’s views on energy development, the Center supports taking away federal authority to manage Gulf of Mexico red snapper and hand such authority over to the states, in part because state managers allegedly “are more aware of a fishery’s importance to recreational anglers and their state’s economy” and not because such state managers are better at or more inclined to support conserving and promptly rebuilding red snapper stocks.

And like Rep. Bishop’s support of legislation providing that states, not the federal government, should regulate energy development on federal land, the Center supports legislation that would allow the states, rather than federal agencies, to regulate salt water fishing even in national parks, a move calculated to prevent the National Parks Service from closing areas to angling in order to protect critical habitat, such as fragile coral reefs.

You can look through pages of the Center’s so-called “Media Room,” and not find one press release about efforts to rebuild fish stocks through the implementation of, well, conservation, and they seem downright hostile to such concept if it's anglers who might have to conserve.

Which makes you wonder how they can call themselves a center for “coastal conservation.”

But then again, the last paragraph in the Trade Only Today piece probably explains the whole thing.  Jeff Angers, the Center’s President, observes

“Congressman Bishop fully appreciates that saltwater recreational fishing generates over $61 billion in annual sales and has a major economic impact that expands beyond our nation’s coastal communities.  Almost 500,000 jobs across America—particularly in the manufacturing and retail sectors—are tied to our industry.  These jobs are in jeopardy unless we fix our nation’s broken federal marine fisheries management system.”

So really, as so often is the case, it’s all about the money, despite the Center's lip service to conservation.  And if it’s necessary to dismantle a good, pro-conservation law to get the money flowing, that’s the way it will have to be.

Orwell called that sort of thing “blackwhite,”

“a loyal willingness to say that black is white if when [industry] discipline demands.”

It is a form of “doublethink,” the ability to hold two mutually contradictory beliefs at the same time,

“the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed to the contrary.[emphasis added]”

Tragically, this seems to be a characteristic of those trying to influence federal fishery policy today.

It dates back at least to the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s report (which, not as a coincidence, was largely based on information contributed by the Center for Coastal Conservation and its component organizations), A Vision for Managing America’s Salt Water Recreational Fisheries, that on one hand uses the word “conservation” fourteen times in its first four pages, and states that

“we know that future of recreational fishing directly depends on the health of fish populations and their habitat,”

but later on recommends that federal law be changed to abolish current deadlines “for ending overfishing and rebuilding fisheries” with some sort of ambiguous measures

“that would allow fish stocks to recover gradually while reducing socioeconomic impacts.”

“Doublethink,” indeed.

In fact, if anyone ever undertook to update and rewrite Orwell’s opus, and give it a marine twist, the Center for Coastal Conservation could easily take its place right beside the Ministry of Truth…

Fortunately, we still have an “ownlife,” and speak the marvelously expressive and nuanced English language.  We are still very well able to think for ourselves.

And so it becomes pretty obvious that Rep. Bishop isn’t, in any real-world sense, the Conservationist of the Year—or of the month, the day or the last quarter-hour.

It is also abundantly clear that anyone who would give him such an award is promoting an agenda completely divorced from true conservation.

FISHERIES REGULATION: A FOOLISH INCONSISTENCY

Last October, I was trolling east off New York’s Fire Island when I happened to glance out to sea. Off in the distance, perhaps two or three miles south of where I was fishing, I noticed a party boat anchored up over an inshore wreck.

Normally, that wouldn’t be particularly remarkable. Party boats take anglers out on wreck trips throughout the season, seeking fish such as cod, red hake (more often called “ling”), black sea bass and scup. In early October, black sea bass and scup would be the most likely targets. The only problem was that the wreck was in federal waters, more than three miles from shore, and in early October, the federal black sea bass season was closed, although the season in state waters remained open.

I can’t say for certain that the boat had black sea bass on board. I didn’t run out to see what it was catching, and I didn’t run back to its home port at Captree State Park to see what the anglers took home. Given the time of year and where it was fishing, there’s no doubt that black sea bass were caught. Human nature being what it is, it’s almost as certain that some of those black sea bass were retained, in complete disregard of the law.

The unfortunate fact is that any anglers who did keep black sea bass that day could be very confident that they would get away with breaking the law.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has exactly one law enforcement agent on all of Long Island, and though he does an exemplary job, he just can’t be everywhere at once. At-sea enforcement is largely the domain of the Coast Guard, which is far too busy to stop and board party boats on a regular basis, and the Enforcement Division of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which is shorthanded and overworked at the best of times. It rarely, if ever, has the time to patrol off the coast just in case a violation may be taking place.

And once the party boat pulled anchor and came within three miles of shore, it would be virtually impossible to prove that any black sea bass on board were not caught legally, within state waters.

We can only speculate about how many party boats, charter boats and privately-owned vessels figured that the odds were on their side, and took black sea bass from federal waters when the federal fishing season was open, but the state season was closed. However, the smart money says that that it was more than a few. The state’s failure to conform its season to that in effect in federal waters undoubtedly created too much temptation for some people to resist.

Of course, it isn’t always the state’s regulations that create the problem. Throughout the mid-Atlantic and southern New England, the illegal harvest of tautog, also known as “blackfish,” has helped to deplete the stock and made it very difficult to manage successfully. In New York, both recreational and commercial tautog fishermen are strictly regulated; the number of commercial food fish licenses is strictly limited to better protect fish stocks.

However, there are no federal regulations for tautog at all, and New York offers a commercial fish landing license to anyone who owns a boat and is willing to pay the $500 annual fee.

The fish landing license doesn’t permit its holders to fish commercially within New York’s waters; they would need a food fish license for that. It merely permits a fisherman to catch fish in federal waters or the waters of another state and land them at a New York port.

In reality, fishermen unable to obtain a food fish license are purchasing the landing license instead and using it as cover to land tautog caught illegally within state waters, while claiming that the fish came from federal waters farther offshore. Once again, a vast ocean and a dearth of enforcement personnel makes it very unlikely that such illegality will be detected.

Legislation has been introduced in both the state Senate and state Assembly to ban selling tautog pursuant to the landing license, but its passage remains up in the air.

In the Gulf of Mexico, state regulations that are far more generous than those imposed by federal managers have created real difficulties in the red snapper fishery. In Texas, for example, the season is open all year, and anglers may keep four red snapper, with a minimum size of 15 inches, each day. The federal season, on the other hand, is only 9 days long this year, with a two-fish bag limit and a minimum size of 16 inches.

The other Gulf states have regulations that are more restrictive than those of Texas, but less restrictive than those imposed on anglers in federal waters. Because red snapper are managed as a single stock throughout the Gulf of Mexico, and because fish landed anywhere in the Gulf are counted against the federal catch limit, the more liberal state regulations force federal managers to impose more restrictive regulations than would be required if the state and federal rules were the same.

In addition, keeping state waters open while federal waters are closed creates an irresistible temptation for many anglers to cross over the boundary and illegally harvest red snapper in the closed area.

A few years ago, the State of Louisiana actually encouraged such misconduct by unilaterally declaring its state waters to extend more than ten miles from shore, instead of the three miles recognized by federal law. The U.S. Coast Guard eventually addressed the situation by issuing citations to any anglers caught possessing red snapper more than three miles from shore during the federal closure.

That argument was rendered moot for this season, as Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) inserted a rider into the Omnibus Budget Bill that extended state fishery management jurisdiction in the Gulf of Mexico out to nine miles from shore. However, the temptation for anglers to venture out more than nine miles, to fish in closed federal waters, remains.

While states have little recourse when more liberal federal regulations tempt fishermen to go out of compliance with state rules, NMFS has a powerful tool available to address the problems that arise when lax state regulations threaten federal fisheries management programs.

It is found in Section 306 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens), and provides that

“If the Secretary [of Commerce] finds…that

A) the fishing in a fishery, which is covered by a fishery management plan implemented under this Act, is engaged in predominantly within the exclusive economic zone and beyond such zone; and

B) any State has taken any action, or omitted to take any action, the results of which will substantially and adversely affect the carrying out of such fishery management plan; the Secretary shall promptly notify such State and the appropriate Council of such finding and of his intention to regulate the applicable fishery within the boundaries of such State (other than its internal waters), pursuant to such fishery management plan and the regulations promulgated to implement such plan”

Such provision would seem tailor-made to address the current problems in the Gulf red snapper fishery. Unfortunately, in the real world of politics, any effort to do so, particularly when Congress is in the midst of reauthorizing Magnuson-Stevens, would almost certainly result in the provision being deleted shortly after it was first used, leaving federal managers with no means to convince or coerce balky state managers into compliance with federal fishery management plans.

It is an unfortunate situation, for in a world where some fishermen will seek to take advantage of any inconsistency between state and federal fishery management programs, the long-term health of America’s marine resources is far better assured when state regulations conform to those imposed by federal fisheries managers.

_____

This essay first appeared in "From the Waterfront," a blog of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which may be found at http://www.conservefish.org/blog/