BAD LEGISLATION THREATENS GOOD FISHERIES MANAGEMENT

Fisheries management is a complicated endeavor.

Before issuing regulations that will prevent overfishing and maintain healthy fish populations, managers need to consider multiple factors.

They must estimate the size of fish populations, and decide whether such populations must be rebuilt. They must determine how many fish are lost to predation and other natural causes each year, and how many new fish, from the most recent spawns, are being recruited into the population. And they must determine how many fish are removed from the population by commercial and recreational fishermen each year.

Other considerations also come into play. Is abundance increasing or decreasing at current levels of harvest? Are environmental conditions, such as warming water temperatures, having an impact on the stock? Is fishing pressure constant, or are fishermen shifting effort away from one species and onto others?

Stock assessments can be extremely complex and based on data obtained from multiple surveys conducted at the state and federal level. Some surveys will be “fishery-dependent,” meaning that they are surveys based on fishermen’s effort and catches, while other will be “fishery-independent,” when conducted solely for research and management purposes.

Managers know from the outset that, even under the best conditions, there will be some uncertainty in their assessments, and therefore in the regulations that result. However, they do their best to identify the sources of possible error, and to make allowances for both “scientific uncertainty” and “management uncertainty” when setting each year’s rules.

For most sources of uncertainty, that works out pretty well. However, there is one sort of uncertainty that fisheries managers can’t control and can’t account for in their assessments no matter how hard they try.

That’s the uncertainty that results when politicians get involved in the management process.

Unlike scientific or management uncertainty, political uncertainty isn’t related to any sort of data at all. It is not subject to quantification, and it is unpredictable. Political uncertainty arises not out of surveys, biology or any sort of fact, but out of some combination of emotion abetted by legislators who are so eager to help their constituents that they sometimes do not stop to think about whether it’s the right thing to do.

Such legislators sponsor bills that replace well-considered, data-driven fisheries management with arbitrary measures that, in just about every case, conflict with biologists’ advice and threaten the long-term health of the fisheries that they address.

Two recent bills introduced into the House of Representatives by congressmen from the mid-Atlantic region illustrate that principle all too well.

The first of those bills is H.R. 1195, the so-called “Local Fishing Access Act,” introduced by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY).

H.R. 1195 would permit the Secretary of Commerce to open certain federal waters north and west of Block Island, Rhode Island to striped bass fishing. The bill is substantially similar to H.R. 3070, legislation, which Rep. Zeldin introduced in 2015. However, while H.R. 3070 addressed only recreational striped bass fishing in federal waters, H.R. 1195 contains no such restriction, and so would presumably allow commercial striped bass fishing in federal waters as well.

That presents a problem because, on October 20, 2007, President George W. Bush issued an executive order that outlawed commercial fishing for striped bass and red drum in federal waters (the exclusive economic zone, or EEZ). Thus, unless H.R. 1195 contained language specifically overriding such executive order, even if the Secretary opened up all or part of the EEZ to striped bass fishing, commercial striped bass fishing in the EEZ would remain illegal.

That’s a clear oversight, but one that provides a good example of why fisheries management should be left up to professionals who are intimately familiar with the details of the process, and not to legislators who, at best, have a more limited knowledge of the issues and can sometimes be too quick to crank out bills merely to please a vocal constituency.

In the end, Rep. Zeldin’s legislation is relatively harmless. The Secretary of Commerce already has power to allow, or to continue to prohibit, recreational striped bass harvest in the EEZ. A bill such as H.R. 1195, which merely provides that “The Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, may issue regulations to permit and regulate Atlantic striped bass fishing” in the EEZ doesn’t change the legal status quo at all.

That’s not the case with another recent proposal.

On February 23, Representatives Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) announced plans to introduce legislation that would prevent the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) from implementing its planned 30% reduction in the annual catch limit for summer flounder.

Such reduction is necessary because summer flounder recruitment—the number of new fish entering the population—has been below average for six consecutive years, causing the biomass to drop to just 58% of the level needed to produce the largest sustainable harvest. The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Science and Statistics Committee has warned that “the stock biomass is dangerously close to being overfished, which could happen as early as next year if increased efforts to curb fishing mortality are not undertaken [emphasis in original].”

Yet Rep. Pallone appears to be focused solely on short-term economic concerns, saying, “These cuts are a body blow to the recreational fishing industry in New Jersey and that is why Congress has to take action. The recreational fishing industry contributes over $1 billion to our state’s economy and directly supports 20,000 jobs…”

Rep. Pallone appears to give no thought to what will happen to the recreational fishing industry in the event that NMFS is right, which appears very likely. In such case the proposed legislation would cause the stock to shrink further, making summer flounder harder to catch, something which would hardly be good for New Jersey’s fishing industry.

He also made the curious statement that “The cuts for New Jersey are greater than what NOAA had required for the region,” which is patently untrue. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) ultimately adopted an option that would reduce 2017 recreational harvest by 28 to 32 percent, when compared to 2016. That is a significantly lesser reduction than the 41 percent regional reduction that NMFS had called for.

Rep. LoBiondo also made a number of questionable statements when he referred to “draconian cuts to New Jersey fishermen which allow neighboring states to freely pillage our waters at more favorable limits,” and complained that “the use of questionable methodologies and outdated science by NOAA bureaucrats will cut our fishing industry off at the knees.”

The option selected by ASMFC will include New Jersey in a region that also includes Connecticut and New York, which has been the case since 2014. All states in the region will have the same 3-fish bag and 19-inch minimum size. All will share the same season length. And the region that includes Delaware, New Jersey’s southern neighbor, will adopt regulations that are less restrictive than New Jersey’s. Thus, Rep. LoBiondo’s statement about “cuts…which allow neighboring states to freely pillage [New Jersey] waters at more favorable limits” is just plain wrong.

His claims of “questionable methodologies” and “outdated science” are equally dubious.

The methodologies that were used to prepare the 2013 benchmark summer flounder stock assessment was peer-reviewed by a panel of internationally-recognized fisheries scientists, none of whom found such methodologies “questionable.” And even though the benchmark assessment was completed in 2013, it has been updated annually, with the last update completed in June 2016. That hardly qualifies as “outdated science.”

Thus, any legislation that the two congressmen might propose to block NMFS’ summer flounder management efforts would be based on a host of false premises and a clear desire to override science-based management measures. While such legislation might bring short-term economic relief, the science indicates that it would do so at the expense of the summer flounder stock and, ultimately, at the expense of businesses which depend on a healthy summer flounder stock for their very survival.

Legislators can be many good things. Sometimes they are lawmakers; at other times they are advisers, who help constituents navigate an often-confusing federal bureaucracy. Over the course of their careers, they may at times be orators, philosophers, dealmakers or even, when at their best, the conscience of the entire nation.

But they are not trained fisheries managers. When they try to be, and replace the scientists’ reasoned analysis with their own political passions, they enter waters that they are not trained to navigate. Mishap is the likely result.

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

TAKING THINGS A LITTLE TOO PERSONALLY

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post for the Marine Fish Conservation Network.  The thrust of the piece was that legislators who introduce bills to circumvent management efforts are doing both fish and fishermen a disservice.

The blog ended up on Facebook.  It drew a comment from one angler who seemed to disagree with the premise of the piece, writing

“We have been pushed around enough by limits for years we get less and less each year when does it stop”.

The commenting angler seemed to take regulations as a personal affront, a matter of a government bureaucracy intentionally “push[ing] around” anglers and arbitrarily reducing catch limits, rather than seeing them for what they really are—an effort by fisheries managers to prevent overharvest, so that anglers will have a better chance of catching something when they venture out into the water.

Such sentiments are nothing new, nor are they limited to the fishermen themselves.  A 2009 article by Karen Wall, published in The Fisherman, is subtitled

“NOAA finally reveals its punitive side with a closure that could cripple a struggling industry [emphasis added]”

suggesting that, in closing the black sea bass fishery after estimates of excessive harvest earlier in the year, the agency was acting to punish anglers and related industries, rather than merely trying to conserve the black sea bass resource.  

The same article quotes Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and the late Congressman Frank Adler (D-NJ) declaring that

“to continue this assault on recreational fisheries…is not acceptable.  [emphasis added]”

Apparently, allowing fishermen to overfish would have been completely acceptable, and would not have constituted an “assault” on the black sea bass resource…

Fisheries regulators aren’t the only people viewed as threats by the paranoid wing of the angling community.  In another article in The Fisherman, this one published last January, the author whines

“that’s pretty much how the law works; NOAA Fisheries holds all the cards, with the environmental non-governmental organizations (they call ‘em ENGO’s) set to legally close down the entire game anytime the fishermen get dealt a kind hand.”

Again, an unreasoning sense of persecution distorted reality almost past recognition.  The only way an ENGO can “legally close down” a fishery is if the fishermen were doing something illegal, which almost always translates into harvesting fish at unsustainable levels. 

What the writer terms “get[ting] dealt a kind hand” the rest of the world sees as “overfishing.”

And then there is the other aspect of taking fisheries regulations personally—the tendency to look at how a particular person or industry might be affected by regulations, and a failure to consider how the fish that such person or industry might depend on will be affected by a lack of regulation.

After news of a pending 30% cutback in the summer flounder catch limit spread through the angling community late last year, CBS News reported fishing industry representatives making comments such as

“A lot of boats have been put out of business already and more to follow if these rules go into effect,”

“Fluke are the bread and butter on Long Island, so we really can’t take anymore [sic] restrictions,”

and

“It can’t happen.  It’ll cripple the industry, and it affects everybody in the industry.  It affects all the tackle shops.  It affects tourism.”

Yet biologists tell us that the summer flounder spawning stock has already decreased to just 58% of the level needed to produce maximum sustainable yield.  

Furthermore, unless restrictions very like those proposed are put in place, they warn that the stock could become overfished as soon as this year, which would require that a rebuilding plan, and even more restrictive regulations, be put in place.

If fluke become more and more difficult to find, will anglers still bother to chase them?  While it can certainly get frustrating when you catch nothing but undersized fish, it’s far worse to catch nothing at all.

And if the summer flounder population continues to decline, nothing is exactly what more and more anglers will be putting in the boat.  Anyone who believes that a dearth of fish won’t cripple the industry as badly—or worse—than increased regulation hasn’t been paying much attention to what has gone on in recent years.

Here on Long Island, we've lost our once-booming winter flounder fishery.  We lost the Coxe's Ledge party boat fishery for summer cod.  We lost the spring pollock run at Block Island and the winter whiting run in New York bight.  

Tautog is a mere shadow of what it once was, weakfish are scarce and the spring mackerel run, which once flooded our waters, now exists only in memory.

Losing all of those fisheries did real harm to anglers and the businesses that serve them, afloat and ashore.

So maybe, instead of worrying about how much short-term inconvenience regulations might cause, fishermen and the fishing industry might be better off worrying about how a lack of regulations affect the fish.

Because without the fish, fishing is not any fun.

Yet, despite that obvious truth, people continue to view regulations needed to conserve and maintain sustainable fish populations as personal attacks on their freedom and their economic well-being.  Perhaps the most rational comment on such attitudes was recently published on the Florida website FlaglerLive.com, which addressed an unpopular decision not to open the South Atlantic red snapper season in 2017.

“Federal regulation isn’t a popularity contest…

“There’s no question that [for-hire] boaters would feel an economic impact [because of the continued red snapper closure].  But that impact is a matter of now or later.  If the red snapper is being overfished, it will crash.  If it does (as other species have), it will hurt [for-hire] boaters’ bottom lines (as many [for-hire] boaters have been bankrupted by other species’ crashes).  Protecting the red snapper isn’t just about protecting the red snapper.  It’s about protecting the future health of the fisheries that depend on the snapper.  [emphasis added]”

Take out the words “red snapper” and replace them with “summer flounder,” “winter flounder,” “gray triggerfish,” “cobia,” “tautog” or any other species, on any section of the coast, which is subject to controversial regulation, and the foregoing paragraph is no less true.

Thus, it is time for fishermen and the fishing industry to stop viewing needed regulations as some sort of personal attack, and to start viewing them as what they really are:  The only chance that their sport and their businesses will still be alive a decade or two from now.

CONFLICT ON THE COUNCILS

I recently read an opinion piece that appeared on the website of Sport Fishing magazine.

It was written by Jeff Angers, who is the President of an organization called the Center for Sportfishing Policy (formerly, the Center for Coastal Conservation), an alliance made up of representatives of the fishing tackle industry, the boatbuilding industry and several “anglers’ rights” organizations.

The Center for Sportfishing Policy has declared that

“Our mission is to maximize opportunity for saltwater recreational anglers by organizing, focusing and engaging recreational fishing stakeholders to speak with one voice to shape federal marine fisheries management policy.”

In other words, the Center for Sportfishing Policy exists solely to protect and further the interests of tackle dealers, boatbuilders and recreational fishermen.

That’s important to remember as you read Mr. Angers’ op-ed, because he is essentially complaining that representatives of the commercial and for-hire fishing communities sit on regional fishery management councils where, according to Mr. Angers, they seek to promote their best interests.

In his op-ed piece, Mr. Angers asks,

“Why are people who profit from the harvest and sale of America’s marine resources allowed to sit on management bodies that make regulations governing those resources?”

To answer Mr. Anger’s question, the first place to turn would be the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which states that one of its purposes is to create and maintain fishery management plans

“which will enable the States, the fishing industry, consumer and environmental organizations, and other interested persons to participate in, and advise on, the establishment and administration of such plans.  [emphasis added]”

Magnuson-Stevens further states that

“The members of each Council required to be appointed by the Secretary [of Commerce] must be individuals who, by reason of their occupational or other experience, scientific expertise, or training, are knowledgeable regarding the conservation and management, or the commercial or recreational harvest, of the fishery resources of the geographical area concerned.  [emphasis added]”

More specifically, with respect to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council,

“The Governor of a State submitting a list of names of individuals for appointment...shall include at least 1 nominee each from the commercial, recreational and charter fishing sectors…  [emphasis added]”

Thus, the easy answer to Mr. Angers’ question is “Because the law not only allows, but requires that people engaged in commercial and for-hire fishing sit on the various regional fishery management councils.”

But that answer, while true, doesn’t really do justice to the question.  

To give the question the sort of attention it truly deserves, one must ask a question in return.  

That question would be, “Who would sit on the management councils, and make the decisions, if those “who profit from the harvest and sale of…marine resources” were not allowed to do so.

For lo and behold, if the commercial and for-hire sectors couldn’t sit on such councils, the only folks left, outside of the state fisheries directors, would be the very same people represented by Mr. Angers’ organization.

Now, isn’t that something to keep in mind when reading the op-ed in Sport Fishing?

There’s no question that conflict of interests is a real problem on the fishery management councils.

When a person is seated on a regional fishery management council, he or she is required to take an oath in which that person swears

“to conserve and manage the living marine resources of the United States of America…for the greatest overall benefit of the Nation…being careful to balance competing private or regional interests, and always aware and protective of the public interest in such resources...”

Magnuson-Stevens also requires Council members to disclose 

“any financial interest held by that individual, the spouse, minor child, or partner of that individual, and any organization (other than the Council) in which that individual is serving as an officer, director trustee, partner, or employee; in any harvesting, processing, lobbying, advocacy, or marketing activity that is being, or will be, undertaken in any fishery over which the Council concerned has jurisdiction, or with respect to an individual or organization with a financial interest in such activity.”

However, once a council member makes such disclosure, nothing prevents such member from fully taking part in all council votes and deliberations.  There are times when the law does require a council member to recuse him- or herself from a vote, but the circumstances under which that must occur are very rare.  Recusal is only required when

“a Council decision..would have a significant and predictable effect on such [Council member’s] financial interest.  A Council decision shall be considered to have a significant and predictable effect on a financial interest if there is a close causal link between the Council decision and an expected and substantially disproportionate benefit to the financial interest of the affected individual relative to the financial interests of other participants in the same gear type or sector of the fishery.”

Taken together, the oath and the disclosure requirements help to assure that members of the council actually work together to find a solution that benefits everyone, and don’t merely try to advance their own interests at the expense of the fish, other sectors and the nation as a whole.

Of course, as Mr. Angers’ op-ed inadvertently points out, things often don’t work out that way.

For Mr. Angers reserves his wrath for council members who are commercial fishermen or operators of for-hire vessels.  

He complains that

“someone who owns red snapper shares can sit on the Gulf Council and vote on every aspect of that fishery,”

and that

“on the Gulf Council, people who own charter businesses and stand to directly benefit from the [catch share] program are never required to recuse themselves from votes on that program.”

But there are plenty of other interests out there.

While some are indirect, and don't involve profit from the harvest of fish, they are nonetheless very real.

For example, the Coastal Conservation Association, an “anglers’ rights” group that was one of the Center’s founders and remains one of its most important constituent organizations, has criticized the current allocation of Gulf of Mexico red snapper between recreational and commercial fishermen.  

In a letter to the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Southeast Regional Office, CCA complained,  after the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council increased the recreational share of such allocation from 49% to 51.5% of all landings, that such change

“is not a reallocation…It is not a change that addresses the vastly higher value found in the recreational sector for harvesting a red snapper…

“It should be clearly understood that the allocation of Gulf red snapper has been static for more than two decades in the face of vast economic and demographic changes, and it remains static today regardless of the outcome of this amendment…

“CCA strongly supports the shift of 2.5 percent of the quota to the recreational sector.  However, there should be no illusion that the process that produced the shift is a true reallocation process or that this flawed result is evidence that an allocation process is working.  On the contrary, this experience demonstrates that the allocation process could not be more flawed.  [It] devolved into a purely political exercise and the results represent an injustice to all participants in the fishery, as well as the coastal economies of the Gulf Coast states.”

That statement is interesting, given that at least two members of the Coastal Conservation Association, and by extension, at least two representatives of a Center for Sportfishing Policy constituent organization, currently sit on the Gulf Council, and will be eligible to vote on any allocation matters that come before that body. 

Although such CCA members/Center representatives don’t directly profit from the harvest of red snapper, they and the organizations that they represent certainly do have a very real interest in shifting more red snapper to the recreational sector, and in preventing the charter fishing sector from being allocated fish that might otherwise have been caught by private-boat anglers.

In fact, when the Gulf Council voted to set aside a portion of the recreational allocation for the federally-permitted for-hire fleet, the CCA members on the Council, who had vehemently opposed the action, issued aminority report urging NMFS to reject the Council’s actions, because

“private anglers will be extremely disappointed next year when they begin planning their trips.  If current projections remain true, they may be faced with a one day fishing season for red snapper in federal waters…

“Amendment 40 [which created the set-aside for the for-hire fleet] disproportionately harms private anglers.  While their 2015 season may shrink to just one day, the for-hire charter boat season will grow by up to 266.7%.  Private recreational anglers who fish from their own vessels will be extremely limited in their fishing opportunities.  As a result, they will be forced to pay for charter services, which will have more than 30 days in fishing from federal waters…  [emphasis added]”

In drafting their report, the CCA members and their fellow dissenters conveniently ignored the fact that while private boat anglers could enjoy long state-waters seasons—seasons that could run for as long as 365 days each year, when private boat anglers land a large proportion of the total red snapper catch, and so force managers to shorten the season in federal waters—federally-permitted charter and party boats were not allowed to fish in state waters when the federal season was closed. 

The minority report never acknowledged that, when both the state and federal seasons were taken into account, for-hire vessels had far fewer days to fish than did private boats, even with the for-hire set aside.

Just as Mr. Angers, in his op-ed, is eager to chastise NMFS for allowing commercial and for-hire operators to vote on issues that impact their businesses, yet fails to point out that, by concentrating on the wants of the private recreational sector while never acknowledging the needs of the for-hire operators, the CCA members on the Gulf Council violated their oath to be “careful to balance competing private…interests.”

The regional fishery management councils are intended to be peopled by stakeholders, who all have some sort of interest in the fisheries that they help to manage.  The plain language of Magnuson-Stevens makes that abundantly clear.

And it is true that far too many council members, on every coast, ignore the words of their oath to manage “for the greatest overall benefit to the Nation,” and instead vote to support themselves and their sector, at the expense of everyone else.

That is unfortunate, but it is impossible to deny that there is conflict of interests on the councils.

However, it is the purest hypocrisy to point out the failings of other sectors’ representatives, while ignoring the failings of the folks whom you favor.  Such is Mr. Angers’ mistake.

“Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother , let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” (Luke 6:42)

That pretty much says it all…  

FISH AS AN ASSET

Most of us spend the bulk of our lives holding down a job, trying to meet our daily expenses and hoping to put enough money aside that we will be able to stop working before we tip headfirst into a grave. 

Different folks find different degrees of success in achieving those goals. 

Some never make enough to get by, and spend all of their lives struggling against crushing poverty.  Others live right at the edge, repeatedly shifting across the thin line that divides need from sufficiency.  And then there are some who make lots of money, but spend even more, and are condemned to debt by their lack of discipline.

Finally, there are those, from all walks of life, who allow numbers to guide their lives, budgeting expenses to match their incomes, while holding cash in reserve for unexpected contingencies and, should they live that long, to let them live comfortably once they retire.

The latter folks tend to live less tumultuous lives.  While they may never know the bacchanalian joys experienced by those inclined to free-spending sprees, they also don’t need to spend much of their time hiding from bill collectors.

Fisheries management is a highly technical, data-dependent discipline, which requires years of training and more years of hands-on experience to practice competently.  Because of that, fishermen often view it as a sort of arcane science that is beyond their understanding, and thus are unfortunately susceptible to those who seek to manipulate their opinions, and claim that management efforts are about as valid as voodoo.

Fishermen thus need a basic understanding of the management system, so that they will be able to tell the difference between real science and disinformation spread by people trying to warp public perceptions of the management process.

Few fishermen will want to delve deep into the scientific literature, and it’s likely that none will ever develop the knowledge and skills needed to create, or even responsibly critique, a stock assessment.  However, the concepts needed to understand the basics of management are no farther away than an angler’s checkbook.

It starts by recognizing fish stocks for what they are, a public asset that needs to be conserved and managed, and not merely a gift from the sea that can be wantonly exploited without restraint or thought for the future.

Most of us have gotten that far.  But to fully realize the potential of the “fish as financial asset” analogy, that’s only the first step.

We next have to appreciate that the everyday needs of recreational and commercial fishermen make demands on our fish stocks, just as the everyday expenses of life—food, clothing, housing—place constant demands on our bank accounts.  If there isn’t enough cash available to meet those everyday demands, people buy lower-quality foods, wear shoddy clothes and perhaps find themselves evicted from their homes; their creditors also suffer, as they may not be paid for goods and services already provided.

Similarly, if there aren’t enough fish around to support the needs of the fishing community, not only are fish stocks likely to be overharvested and driven down to even lower levels, as occurred with Gulf of Maine cod, but the fishermen themselves will suffer.  Anglers soon lose interest if they have nothing to catch, and even though prices often spike higher when fish are scarce, commercial fishermen still need to be able to find enough fish to sell if they are to make a viable living.

Of course, some folks turn to credit cards when short of cash, hoping that they’ll soon have enough income to pay their bills when as they come due, and pay off the credit card companies, too.  Sometimes that works; more often, such folks only end up digging deeper holes for themselves, and end up in bankruptcy court.  Similarly, some folks will argue to keep harvests high when fish stocks decline, trusting that, in its own time, nature will return such stocks to abundance.  That, too, was tried in New England, and that’s when the groundfish stocks crashed.

So the trick, with a business, with personal finances and with fish stocks, is to treat them as going concerns, which must not only supply current income, but which will retain sufficient principal to assure a good income in the future, even if there are some unexpected adverse events.

To do that, you first have to figure out how much money you have, how much money you’ll need in a typical year, and how much you ought to set aside for unexpected contingencies.  If you’re managing a fish stock, you need to know the size of that stock and how much will be harvested each season, padding the latter figure a bit to allow for scientific unknowns and uncertainties.    

Then you have to look at other factors to determine whether the pool of assets—or stock of fish—is large enough to provide for your annual needs.  If you’re dealing with financial assets, you need to know what your likely annual return is, and how much that return will be taxed.  If you’re dealing with fish, you need to figure in average recruitment and natural mortality from predation, disease and other causes.  And you have to remember that returns, recruitment, taxation and natural mortality are all subject to change, and that an after-tax income that merely matches expenses, but doesn’t exceed them, or recruitment rate that barely equals mortality, is an accident waiting to happen as soon as conditions change.

As most of us have learned to our dismay, it’s not unusual for expenses to be greater than income.  At such times, people and businesses who are willing and able to cut expenses and invest in new ways to grow income will overcome the hard times; those who merely proceed blindly, hoping and assuming that the financial cycle will right itself without any effort on their part will usually go broke.  And when businesses go broke, they don’t just bring themselves down.  Employees, customers, suppliers and even the lunch cart that parks outside its doors can be badly hurt as well.

Fish stocks are no different.  When they are too small to meet fishermen’s demands, managers have only two choices.  They can either insist that harvests be reduced enough to prevent a decline in abundance, or they can adopt measures that will grow abundance and, in time, allow higher levels of harvest.  If they fail to take such action, and heed those fishermen who are only concerned with short-term profits or argue that “fish run in cycles” and will soon be abundant again, stock collapse is a virtual certainty.  And when fish stocks collapse, recreational and commercial fishing businesses collapse with them.  Ecosystems can be thrown out of whack, and coastal economies harmed.

I can speak from personal knowledge about both sorts of collapses, because I was a lawyer at Lehman Brothers, Inc. in September 2008, when the markets came tumbling down, and I was a striped bass fishermen in the late 1970s and 1980s, when the bass stock suffered a collapse far worse than anything that the markets experienced a decade ago.

Both could have been avoided with a little less focus on maximizing yield, and a little more precautionary management.

We ought to think of that now, as we look at summer flounder.  Recruitment—the stock’s income—has been down for the past six consecutive years, and spawning stock biomass—the stock’s principal—is down to just 58% of the level needed to maximize yield.

Yet there are some folks out there who want to completely ignore those factors, and are calling for status quo harvest, rather than reducing the amount that the remove from the population each year.

Even in today’s world, and to an administration in Washington that thinks of nothing but business, that should look like a foolish idea.

As I said, I was at Lehman Brothers.  I know how such thinking turns out.

HOPE IN A TIME OF CHANGE

Wilbur J. Ross, Jr. has been confirmed as the new Secretary of Commerce, and so is now the head of the agency that includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its subsidiary, the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Thus, anyone concerned with fisheries management is looking through Secretary Ross’ past comments, to see whether he has said anything that might suggest what his approach to fisheries issues might be.

Yesterday, he introduced himself to the people who work for the Department of Commerce.  His speech was necessarily broad, and included a list of “challenges” that the department must meet, including

“obtaining maximum sustainable yield for our fisheries.”

That was the only time that fish were mentioned in the speech, and it doesn’t tell us too much about how the new Secretary of Commerce views fisheries management. 

Optimists might argue—or at least hope—that the statement implies an intent to build depleted fisheries back to the point where they are capable of producing their maximum sustainable yield.   They may also see good news in Secretary Ross’ comment that

“One of the first steps in supporting these efforts will be securing adequate appropriations from the Congress,”

as inadequate funding has always been one of NMFS’ biggest problems.

Pessimists will see the reference to maximum sustainable yield as evidence of an intent to elevate harvest and immediate economic gain over the sort of precautionary management that better assures the long-term health of fish stocks and the ecosystems which support them.  They will argue that a recent article in Politico, which said that Secretary Ross has

“already singled out a surprising pet project:  Reducing America’s reliance on seafood imports,”

is further evidence that harvest will probably be increased beyond scientifically supportable levels.

Yet, despite people’s inevitable tendency to draw snap conclusions, about the only thing that anyone can be sure of is that the Department of Commerce, and by extension NOAA and NMFS, is going to undergo change.  Exactly what that change will ultimately look like remains to be seen.

Politico quotes Secretary Ross as saying

“Given the enormity of our coastlines, given the enormity of our freshwater, I would like to try to figure out how we can become much more self-sufficient in fishing and perhaps even a net exporter.”

That certainly should cause conservationists some concern.

But what does it really mean?

Secretary Ross is a well-educated man, having earned an undergraduate degree from Yale and an M.B.A. from Harvard.  He earned his billions the hard way, identifying opportunities offered by financially troubled companies that, with hard work and good management, could be made profitable again.  Though he is not a scientist, his success in reviving bankrupt companies  suggests that he appreciates the need for good data and careful analysis.

That could be a good thing.

While he “would like to try” to increase the country’s fish landings, we can hope that once he learns that most fish stocks are already being harvested at or above optimum levels, he will realize that the only way to increase landings in the long term will be to fully rebuild currently depleted populations.  We can hope that a person astute enough to see the long-term potential in bankrupt and supposedly doomed corporations will also see see the long-term benefits of rebuilding depleted fish stocks and keeping healthy stocks from falling into the sort of decline that will impair their economic potential.

Sure, that may be just wishful thinking, but whether Secretary Ross ultimately turns out to be a successful or a failed steward of America’s marine resources may depend, in large part, on whether the advocates for sound fisheries management can gain access to him, and whether they can make a convincing argument that healthy, rebuilt fish stocks ultimately provide greater commercial benefits to the nation than do stocks that are fished on a boom-and-bust basis. 

Representatives from the slash-and-burn side of the ledger are already making their feelings known. 

An article that appeared on The Fisherman Magazine’s website shortly after the Senate confirmed Secretary Ross’ appointment bore the title “A New Fisheries Sheriff Comes to Town”.  Its author observed that

“The ongoing fluke fiasco took a critical turn on Monday night when the U.S. Senate confirmed Wilbur L. Ross as the nation’s new Secretary of Commerce…

“the confirmation of Ross as Commerce Secretary should represent a transition in federal fisheries management under the Trump administration and opens the next chapter in the 2017 fight for summer flounder…

“New Jersey governor Chris Christie has been defiantly hoping to gain Secretary Ross’s support for status quo measures which would leave the 2016 limits in place for another season until new data could be integrated into the NOAA Fisheries decision-making, and thus far refusing to accept the ASMFC vote [to reduce the bag limit from 5 fluke to 3 and increase the minimum size from 18 to 19 inches].”

At this point, no one (or at least no one willing to speak on the record) knows whether Secretary Ross would be inclined to ignore the scientific advice and carry 2016 summer flounder regulations over for the duration of the 2017 season.  If he did so, the action would be patently illegal, and a violation of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act’s mandate to avoid overfishing and use the best scientific information available when managing fisheries. 

Maintaining status quo regulations for 2017 could also drive summer flounder abundance below the threshold that defines an overfished stock, and trigger requirements to initiate a new rebuilding plan, an action that could lead to regulations far more onerous than those proposed for the upcoming season.

However, such prospects don’t daunt the most rabid opponents of science-based fisheries management.   The same Fisherman article quotes Jim Donofrio, Executive Director of the Recreational Fisheries Alliance, who declared that

“A great place to start draining some of that swamp is down in Maryland at Silver Spring [where NMFS’ headquarters is located].  The ideological appointments of our last president, flooding NOAA Fisheries for eight years with anti-fishing policies, it was bad for fishing, and just shows the need for a major housecleaning this spring.”

It’s clear that Donofrio would like to see Secretary Ross replace NMFS employees who believe in science and healthy fish stocks with folks who share more of a rape-and-pillage mentality.

And that may very well happen.

But then again, maybe it won’t.

If Secretary Ross has made anything clear, it’s that he intends to run a Department of Commerce that benefits American business.  And the fishing business, whether recreational or commercial, does a lot better when folks can catch fish.

An empty ocean benefits no one.

While restrictions needed to rebuild some fish stocks can curb income for a few years, in the end, abundant fish stocks put more money in everyone’s pockets, while regulations that allow boom-and-bust fishing end up hurting the industry in the end.

If anyone wants a good example of that, they only need to turn to the recreational winter flounder fishery here in New York.  Until the late 1980s, Great South Bay hosted a vital flounder fishery that supported a large fleets of private and for-hire boats.  Action would begin early in March, and really get going by St. Patrick’s Day, the unofficial start of the season.  When the fishery peaked in late April, the weekend bay would be clogged with boats that lined the channels and spread out over the flats, each one filling up buckets with flounder.

Not too much later, the stocks showed signs of decline, but the recreational fishing industry fought against meaningful restrictions, resulting in regulations that were always too little and too late to reverse the decline and allow the stock to rebuild—the very sort of regulations that some people would now like to see adopted for summer flounder.

Now, fishing can’t legally begin until April 1, and lasts for only 60 days.  During most of that time, anglers consider themselves lucky if they can catch a 2-fish limit of winter flounder.  Waters that were once filled with boats are now nearly empty; April sees only a few scattered anglers seeking the last remnants of the flounder population.  Party boats that once had anglers standing elbow to elbow along their rails now sail with skeleton crowds that often barely cover their expenses.  Many boats have so few customers that they don’t sail at all.

In the end, the customers follow the fish, and when the fish disappear, the customers vanish as well.

That’s the message that Secretary Ross needs to hear.  

The big conservation groups, as well as individual anglers hoping that there will be a few fish left for their kids and their grandkids to catch, need to let him know that healthy fishing businesses, whether recreational or commercial, require healthy fish populations.  He needs to understand that overly large harvests today mean little or no harvest tomorrow.

For Secretary Ross is, in the end, a businessman, who should and hopefully will understand that no business can thrive unless it has something to sell.