RETHINKING MARINE PROTECTED AREAS

When various conservation organizations began pushing the concept of marine protected areas (MPAs) back in the late 1990s, I didn’t like the idea at all.

Back then, the MPAs being proposed were, with few if any exceptions, so-called “ocean wilderness areas” where no consumptive activities, including catch-and-release fishing, would be allowed. Advocates of such MPAs often said that they wanted to lock up 20% of our coastal waters, without much thought as to why or whether any particular place should be placed off-limits to fishing of any kind.

I still believe that the arbitrary creation of ocean wilderness areas is a bad idea.

It has become a cliché in the conservation community that “You only conserve what you love, you only love what you know, and you only know what you are taught.” Yet however clichéd that statement may be, I believe that it applies to marine conservation. I also believe that the best way to get large numbers of people to know, and ultimately to love, the marine environment is to take them fishing.

I believe that no-take marine reserves, which by their nature deny people a hands-on familiarity with marine resources, are, in the long run, counterproductive.

Yet I still support MPAs, because the term “marine protected area” encompasses a lot more than no-fishing zones. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has embraced a broad definition of “any area of the marine environment that has been reserved by federal, state, territorial, tribal, or local laws or regulations to provide lasting protection for part or all of the natural or cultural resources therein” as an MPA.

Thus, the gear restricted areas (GRAs) established by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which prohibit small-mesh trawls that threaten the survival of juvenile scup, can be considered a sort of MPA. So can the groundfish closed areas up in New England, where cod, haddock and other species may be caught on hook and line, but not by non-selective otter trawls.

Yet too many times, anglers who are quick to support such restrictions are also quick to say that they oppose MPAs. It is time for them to rethink that opposition.

While MPAs that arbitrarily close sections of ocean to all fishing activities are usually a bad idea, those that are tailored to address a specific problem or protect a particular resource can be extremely beneficial to anglers.

Nothing is more important to anglers than an abundance of mature fish. That being the case, MPAs that protect important spawning and nursery areas are a clear benefit to recreational fishermen.

Thanks to the GRAs established in the mid-Atlantic, anglers fishing between New Jersey and Massachusetts are enjoying a spectacularly good scup fishery. Abundance is more than 200% of the target level; and many of the scup being caught are the sort of large, mature fish that are characteristic of a healthy population.

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council recently asked the National Marine Fisheries Service to designate five areas between North Carolina and the Florida Keys as “Spawning Special Management Zones”(SMZs). Within the SMZs, which range from 3 to 5.1 square miles in size, bottom fishing and anchoring would be prohibited. However, nothing would prohibit anglers from trolling for billfish, tuna, dolphin or other pelagic species in the upper portion of the water column.

The SMZs are intended to protect fish belonging to the snapper/grouper management complex, and so increase recruitment. Such increased recruitment should result in more fish being available to anglers outside of the SMZs, and better assure that such fish will remain abundant well into the future.

MPAs can also be used to protect unique habitats. Off the coast of New England, fragile deep-water corals remain vulnerable to the effects of trawls and other bottom-tending fishing gear. Additional perils are posed by the possibility of energy exploration and development efforts. To prevent damage to the corals, a number of conservation groups are urging the President of the United States to declare certain seamounts and submarine canyons as a National Monument.

Although such corals are located more than 150 miles from shore, where little fishing takes place, fishermen are expressing concern that they will be excluded from any monument that may be created.

The American Sportfishing Association, which represents the recreational fishing industry, claims that conservation groups are trying to turn the proposed national monument into a no-fishing zone, and argues that recreational fishing should not be banned in the event that such monument is created. Unless some connection can be drawn between angling and potential damage to corals, that’s not an unreasonable position.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (Commission) also believes that fishing should be permitted, so long as it doesn’t threaten the corals. However, at the request of its American Lobster Management Board, it has also sent a letter to the White House.The Commission noted

“If the President chooses to use the Antiquities Act to protect deep sea corals, the Commission requested that the designated area be limited to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected. Additionally, the Commission requested the area be limited to depths greater than 900 meters and encompass any or all of the region seaward of this line out to the outer limit of the exclusive economic zone.”

The speed with which the Commission jumped on the issue, in an apparent attempt to protect the incomes of a handful of lobstermen who fish near the edge of the continental shelf, was a marked contrast to the glacial progress that it has made in adopting regulations to address the collapse of the southern New England lobster stock. Although in 2010 biologists advised the Commission that the stock was experiencing recruitment failure, and that harvest should be sharply curtailed if not suspended, measures to effect such recommendation have not yet been adopted.

Such indifference to scientists’ advice has also hindered the use of MPAs for research purposes.

Two or three years ago, biologists proposed the creation of a habitat research “reference” area on New England’s Stellwagen Bank, where all fishing for groundfish would have been prohibited, although fishing for tuna and other pelagic species would still have been allowed.

The depletion of many species of New England groundfish has been a persistent problem for fisheries managers. The proposed reference area, planned to encompass 55 miles of ocean bottom, would have given biologists the opportunity to separate the impacts of fishing from other factors affecting groundfish populations, and so provide fisheries managers the insight needed to craft more effective regulations.

Recreational fishermen and the charter boat fleet mounted a fierce opposition to the groundfish closure, although a lot of their objections didn’t seem to make sense.

One charterboat captain who, according to the news website South Coast Today, “makes a living chasing tuna,” complained that, “I can’t go feed my family—that’s what you’re telling me. You’re cutting me off from the only thing that I know how to do.” Yet the proposed closure wouldn’t have affected tuna at all.

Another fishermen called the proposed reference area “a playground for scientists,” and said that, “We have a plethora of regulations and no way down the line to tell whether it worked or not.” He also opposed the closed area, even though it would have provided a way for managers to better determine whether fishing needed more — or perhaps could be allowed to have less — regulation.

In the end, such opposition convinced the New England Fishery Management Council not to move forward with the proposal.

Fishermen often have that sort of reaction to proposed MPAs: a knee-jerk belief that MPAs are all bad. When talking about no-fishing zones, they may be right. But when talking about targeted MPAs, designed for a particular purpose that will, in the end, lead to better angling, fishermen should rethink their position.

Properly-designed MPAs can provide more fish, and better fishing, for everyone, without shutting down any part of the sea. When fishermen oppose MPAs of that kind, the question isn’t whether they’re willing to rethink their position, but rather whether they’re thinking at all.

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

LOUISIANA SNAPPER DEBATE HIGHLIGHTS FLAWS IN STATE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Thanks to events that have unfolded in Louisiana over the past couple of weeks, the wheels may be coming off the much-ballyhooed effort to turn red snapper management over to the states that border the Gulf of Mexico.

I’ve written about the effort to strip federal fisheries managers of their authority to manage red snapper on a number of occasions.  Each time, I’ve made an effort to poke a few more holes in the popular narrative that state officials can manage red snapper better than the feds.  Whether or not I succeeded in doing so is something for you to decide.

However, whether or not my words were convincing, nothing I can say could ever equal the words coming out of the mouths of the managers themselves, or more precisely, out of the mouth of Charlie Melancon, Louisiana’s top fisheries manager.

I wrote about Mr. Melancon not too long ago, after he expressed his opposition to H.R. 3094, Rep. Garret Graves’ (R-Louisiana) so-called Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority Act, which is intended to give the states exclusive jurisdiction over all red snapper swimming in the U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Angling industry groups, along with the biggest names in the anglers’ rights community, unhappy with the strict regulations imposed by the science-based federal management system, have made H.R. 3094 a cause célèbre, and a key part of their national legislative strategy.  

The five Gulf states, in adopting regulations that apply only in those states’ waters, have already shown a willingness to impose rules far less restrictive than those imposed by the feds.  The militant angling groups expect that, if H.R. 3094 became law, similar rules would apply in federal waters, too, giving recreational fishermen a much longer season and a far larger kill.

However, as I noted in the earlier essay, Mr. Melancon opposes the bill, for the simple reason that the State of Louisiana lacks the money to pay for the work needed to manage red snapper in anything like a competent manner.

Chris Macaluso, who heads the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s Center for Marine Fisheries, and has been one of the more rabid supporters of H.R. 3094, howled in dismay when he heard about Melancon’s opposition, complaining that

“At this point, with the state of Louisiana using money from anglers to pay for a data-collection system in LA Creel that is beginning to be viewed universally as better than what the federal government is offering, the optics of the state not being supportive of state fisheries management are pretty bad.”

Macaluso’s comments were echoed by David Cresson, Executive Director of Coastal Conservation Association Louisiana, who said

“When fishermen in Louisiana asked for the license-fee increase, they did so with the expectation that a portion of that would go toward managing red snapper.  The department has been doing a great job of collecting data with that new money, and now all of a sudden, it can’t?  It makes me wonder.”

Well, David Cresson (along with Chirs Macaluso and everyone else who challenged Mr. Melancon’s statements on the cost of red snapper management) can now stop wondering, because Patrick Banks, Assistant Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ Office of Fisheries, has laid it out in terms that they can hopefully understand—at least if they want to.

“LA Creel collects fisheries-dependent data.  What fish are caught, what types of fish are caught—stuff like that.”

But as the Louisiana Sportsman reporter interviewing Mr. Banks pointed out

“LA Creel doesn’t capture any commercial landings, fisheries-independent data (think scientific sampling) or enforcement between state waters and the boundary of federal waters at 200 nautical miles.”

Mr. Banks added that

“We would have to replace all of that offshore sampling (currently done as part of the federal management program) and enhance that sampling so we could have a complete Louisiana stock assessment.”

That’s the plain fiscal reality.  But if you think that the lack of adequate funding is the biggest problem with state management of red snapper, or any other species, you’re wrong.

The biggest problem is politics.

David Cresson was probably surprised by Mr. Melancon’s revelation because he thought that the state-management advocates already had Louisiana’s support in the bag.  As reported by Louisiana Sportsman,

“For years under then-Gov. Bobby Jindal, the [Louisiana Fish and Wildlife] department and Coastal Conservation Association Louisiana worked together to try to strip Gulf red snapper management from the feds because of brief federal seasons and two-fish daily limits.

“…Graves, a Republican, said the bill was amended this month and federal funding was removed because then-LDFW Secretary Robert Barham and other state wildlife department leaders addressed the [House] Natural Resources Committee last October in Washington, D.C., and they said they didn’t need federal money for the regional management program.”

However, Robert Barham and those other leaders worked for Republican Governor Jindal, who has since been replaced by John Bel Edwards, a Democrat.  And that’s when people started wondering just how Louisiana was going to pay for Rep. Graves’ bill.  According to the current LDFW Assistant Secretary, Mr. Banks,

“I’ve done my best to find what kind of proof (former LDWF Secretary Robert) Barham and Randy (Pausina, the former head of LDFW’s fisheries division) had to go to Congress and make those statements.

“There was no cost estimate done.”

Apparently, there was just a Republican Governor sending a few staffers to testify in favor of a Republican Congressman’s bill, at the urging of a few of his constituents.

And then Rep. Graves had the cojones to complain that Mr. Melancon’s statement was “Political crap,” and question where his numbers came from…

Now, things are threatening to come full circle.  The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, a policy-making body separate from the Louisiana Department of Fish and Wildlife, will be examining the costs of state management of red snapper at its next meeting. 

That Commission is made up of seven members, three of which must come from a coastal parish (county) and represent the commercial fishing or fur industries; the other four must merely be Louisiana citizens who do not represent such industries.  It just so happens that at least two of the seven Commission members are also members of Coastal Conservation Association Louisiana, which makes it very likely that politics will raise its hoary head once again.

And that, in the end, is why state management of red snapper, or any other fish, will never be as effective as federal management of the same species.

Federal managers must comply with the provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.  They must promptly end overfishing.  They must rebuild overfished stocks within a pre-established time.  And all of their management measures must be based on the best available science.

But state mangers must do none of those things.

Instead, as the Louisiana red snapper saga illustrates so very well, state management efforts are, more often than not, politically driven, and just a few individuals, or representatives of just a  few organizations, can have a disproportionate impact on how a fish belonging to every citizen of the state is managed.

And when an administration changes, fisheries policy can often change as well.

That’s not the way to manage anything, much less a public resource.  Management must be consistent over the long haul, and guarantee abundance well into the future.

And when it comes to that sort of management, the states just can’t do the job half as well as the feds.

ASMFC: WHAT GOES UP WILL QUICKLY COME DOWN

Menhaden management is in a state of flux.

A benchmark stock assessment completed in 2010 and revised in 2011 determined that the stock was neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing, but noted that

“The use of F_MED based reference points is of concern.  It appears that the stock has been at low levels of population fecundity for many years and yet the current reference points (and the F^MED reference points of previous years) provide a determination of ‘not overfishing’ and ‘not overfished’…”

A 2012 update to that assessment advised that

“Generally low recruitment has occurred since the early 1990s.  The most recent estimate for 2011 (4.03 billion) is the second lowest recruitment value for the entire time series, but is likely to be modified in the future as more data from the cohort are added to the analysis.”

In contrast to the assessment itself, the update found that overfishing was taking place.  It confirmed that, according to the reference points used at that time, the stock was not overfished, but warned that

“there is a technical mismatch between the current overfishing and overfished reference points.  The [Technical Committee] recommends that, given the [Atlantic Menhaden Management] Board has adopted an F_15% overfishing definition, a matching overfished definition of SSB_15% should be adopted as well.”

Such warning cast significant doubt on the “not overfished” finding.

Late in 2012, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission adopted Amendment 2 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden, which adopted the recommended SSB_15% overfishing threshold, as well as an SSB_30% target, and also established means to reduce fishing mortality and thus end overfishing.  The Amendment stated that

“The Atlantic Menhaden Management Board adopted new fishing mortality and spawning stock biomass reference points in response to the 2010 Peer Review Panel’s recommendation to provide greater protection for spawning stock biomass or population fecundity relative to the unfished levels.  The new reference points are intended to be interim benchmarks while the Commission’s Multispecies Technical Committee develops ecological based reference points.  [emphasis added]”

The general expectation was that such ecological based reference points would be substantially more conservative than the new, interim reference points, as the interim reference points were only intended to guarantee the sustainability of the menhaden stock, while the ecological reference points would be designed to keep enough menhaden in the water to not only sustain the stock, but perform the species’ ecological role as forage for a wide variety of species.

In 2015, the management terrain changed again, as a new benchmark stock assessment threw out the reference points just established three years before.  Based on the concept of “domed selectivity,” that is, that the biological sampling that took place captured a higher percentage of some year classes than others, and thus skewed the 2012 reference point calculation, the new reference points were slightly more conservative.  Based on such reference points, the stock appeared to be neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing; not even the target reference points had been breached.

Yet there was still uncertainty, with the new assessment containing the statement that

“The [Technical Committee] noted…that the stock-recruitment relationship observed to date is weak at best; therefore, the current fecundity-based reference points used to identify overfished conditions may not be useful for management of menhaden in general.”

Thus, the best available science leaves managers with a lot that they still need to wonder about.  In such circumstances, and with the concept of ecological based reference points still on the table, that would suggest a reason to move forward with caution, and wait until additional information made the wisest path a bit more apparent.

However, Omega Proteinm by far the largest harvester of Atlantic menhaden, feels differently.  At the February meeting of ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, Shaun Gehan, an Omega representative, asked the Board to consider increasing the kill. 

“What I would like to raise or have the board consider at this time at this meeting, would be putting on the agenda for May, 2016 meeting reconsideration of the current year quota.

“As you recall last year at the May meeting this board decided to raise quota 10 percent last year and keep that steady for this year.  Subsequent to that time however, we’ve seen an explosion in recruitment, numbers of menhaden up and down the coast in numbers that people can rarely remember…

“By the May meeting you should have projections.  There’s not much new biological information, maybe the recruitment indices could be updated, but until we have a new stock assessment the projections are going to be very similar to what you saw last year and even with another 10 percent or higher increase this year there is a 0 percent chance of overfishing this stock…  [emphasis added]”

In the end, Omega didn’t get the 2016 harvest increase that it was hoping for.  However, as the time draws near for debate on 2017 harvest levels, there is significant concern that menhaden landings are going to be increased.

It would be unfortunate if that occurred before ASMFC could consider ecosystem-based reference points which, if adopted, might well require that harvest be reduced from current levels.  

At least in the case of menhaden, the target reference points have not been exceeded.  That is not the case with striped bass, where another effort to increase harvest is already going on.

Anglers had observed a sharp decline in striped bass abundance beginning around 2006.  By the fall of 2013, ASMFC’s Striped Bass Management Board had a new stock assessmentthat contained much more conservative reference points, and suggested that, without management changes, the striped bass stock could become overfished as early as 2015. 

At the October 2013 Management Board meeting, a few of the members tried to adopt an immediate reduction in striped bass harvest.  However, it was a losing effort, which met strong opposition from people such as New Jersey’s Tom Fote, who said

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

In other words, the Management Board shouldn’t take steps to avert a crisis, but should only act to reduce harvest after the stock fell to critical levels.

However, such reluctance to adjust harvest levels was nowhere apparent at the December 2105 Management Board meeting.  Charlton Godwin, the Chair of the Striped Bass Technical Committee, summarized the 2015 update of the stock assessment, saying

“If constant catch is maintained from 2015 through 2017, the probability of being below the spawning stock biomass threshold increases to about 0.49 in 2015 and declines slightly thereafter to about 0.40 in 2017.  F is expected to decrease to an average of 0.18 during 2015 and2017; and there is less than a 0.12 probability of exceeding the threshold.”

In other words, there was about a 50-50 chance that the stock would become overfished last year, while fishing mortality would just barely fall to the target level.  The stock had a long way to go before being rebuilt, with spawning stock biomass, at best, just a little above the threshold, and fishing mortality hovering between threshold and target.

But that didn’t stop some Board members from already trying to increase the kill.  Mike Luisi, of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, stating that

“I can’t sit back and explain to people in my state that we’re just going to hold the line and we’re going to wait until 2019 before any consideration would be given to making corrections given that there was no socioeconomic evaluation of these reductions, fishing mortality was at the target, looking at the latest best available science.

“The spawning stock biomass, while still in some decline, is now between the target and threshold.  It is unacceptable and I would like to make a motion.  [emphasis added]”

His motion was

“to initiate an addendum to reconsider the reduction options in Addendum IV for the 2016 fishing season in the Chesapeake Bay based on the results of the 2015 assessment update and the retrospective projections.”

In other words, he wanted to kill more striped bass.

Tom Fote, who will fight as fiercely as a cornered grizzly when it comes to opposing efforts to adopt harvest reductions, leaps into the fight like a starving wolf when given an opportunity to kill more striped bass.  He endorsed Luisi’s comments, saying

“If we had just really looked at the science, we shouldn’t have done this amendment to this plan.”

However, he fell short of endorsing the motion, because it didn’t include states outside the Chesapeake region; that objection went away soon after, when a Delaware Board member moved to amend the original motion to delete “in the Chesapeake Bay”.

Ultimately, the motion was set aside, but the possibility of a harvest increase hangs above the striped bass stock like the Sword of Damocles, perhaps fated to fall when another update to the stock assessment is released in October.

And that’s the problem with ASMFC; the slightest improvement in the health of a stock is immediately followed by efforts to increase the kill, rather than waiting for the entire recovery to run its course.  That tendency is made far worse by ASMFC’s typical reluctance to adopt meaningful and effective harvest reductions when the scientists say that a stock is in trouble.

Tautog may provide the worst example.  In April 1996, ASMFC released its first tautog management plan, which acknowledged that the species was

“overexploited, and at a low biomass level”

and noted that

“The [Stock Assessment Review Committee] recommended an immediate reduction in fishing mortality (F) to avoid the collapse of the stock.”

Biologists recommended that fishing mortality would have to be reduced to 0.15, which would require states to implement regulations that would reduce landings by an average of 55%.  However, to avoid the socioeconomic impacts of taking such a large reduction in a single year, ASMFC allowed the states to phase in the cuts over a two year period, and only get fishing mortality down to 0.15 by 1999, three years after the plan was adopted.

That permitted delay engendered more delay, as Management Board members found new and creative ways to avoid reducing F to 0.15.  They have been very successful; a stock assessment released in 2015 indicates that tautog remain overfished everywhere, although they may not quite be experiencing overfishing along some sections of coast.

Recently, the southern New England stock of American lobster has threatened to dethrone tautog as the leading example of ASMFC’s ineffectual, precaution-averse style of management.

In 2010, a peer review by independent scientists, in response to the American Lobster Technical Committee’s recommendation that a five-year moratorium be put in place to prevent a collapse of the stock, made it clear that harvest had to be substantially reduced, if not by a moratorium, then by at least a 50 to 75 percent cut in landings.  

That led to many months of delay and debate.  Finally, Bill McElroy of Rhode Island, while supporting a mere and meaningless 10% reduction, explained the position of the majority of the Board, saying

“I really think that we need to start somewhere and the 50 and 75 percent, while it might be laudable in terms of saving the resource, it doesn’t leave any industry to have a saved resource to harvest.  I think we have to be practical…

“I know in my state I’m the governor’s representative.  He has already called me and says, oh, you’ve got to find something a little less harsh that doesn’t automatically put everybody in the State of Rhode Island out of the lobster business.  We have a terrible economy.  We’re losing jobs like crazy.  I think my role here as a governor’s appointee is to think about social, economic and biological and try to find a blend of the three…”

Last August, a new stock assessment made it clear that, at the current rate of exploitation, and perhaps without much exploitation at all, the stock is going to collapse, and do so fairly soon.  The Management Board tried to address the issue at its May 2016 meeting, with a motion that said

“the Board shall initiate an Addendum to minimize stock decline by lowering fishing mortality and increasing egg production by a combination of changes to the minimum size, maximum size, closed seasons, closed areas, trap caps and cuts, standardizing regulations throughout the area, and or combination of the above.  Target egg production increase shall not be less than 40% above the level that would otherwise be produced with no additional management.  Final regulations for this step shall be fully phased in within 3 years no later than June 1, 2019.”

That motion was watered down, changing the egg production target from “not less than 40%” to a 20% to 60% range.  It’s not immediately clear why an increase in egg production that exceeds 60% would be a bad thing, but we can suspect that the explanation is the same as the one which deems a 20% increase sufficient:

No one want to cause the lobstermen too much immediate economic distress.

Because that’s how things always work at ASMFC.  Needed conservation measures, which would result in harvest reductions and perhaps rebuild distressed stocks, are discussed at length, and face heated opposition.  There are very few that, in the end, are not watered down.

On the other hand, at the first sign of a stock rebound, harvest increases are immediately proposed, and far too often adopted, even if such increase puts a stock’s recovery at risk.

Which may explain why, since the year 2000, ASMFC has failed to rebuild a single overfished stock, while federal fisheries managers, working pursuant to a Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act that elevates the long-term health of the fish stocks above the short-term economic concerns of fishermen, has restored more than three dozen within the same time.

That demonstrates why those who say that “state managers do a better job than their federal counterparts” are so completely, and irredeemably, wrong.

Because at ASMFC, any stock that goes up in abundance is likely to be fished right back down before too much time passes.  On the other hand, stocks in decline will likely continue to fall.

WHAT PRICE GLORY?

For as long as I can remember, and for many years before, “50” was a meaningful number for striped bass fishermen.  A 45-pound bass was just a “good fish,” but a fish over 50 was something else, a desired trophy that was held in special regard.

I did a lot of striped bass fishing when I was young, spending part of most days on the water.  Sometime during my 19^th year, I decided that I had to put my own 50 on the scales before I turned twenty. 

My chance came on July 10, 1974, 26 days short of my self-imposed deadline, when I found bass pushing bunker along a familiar section of Connecticut shore.  Things all came together, and before 8:00 a.m. I hung a 51-pounder on the tackle shop scales.

Let’s be honest—I was elated.  The only thing that I cared about was getting the fish to a taxidermist as soon as the rush-hour traffic would allow.

But time has a way of cooling folks down.

Not long after I killed the big fish, it became all too clear that the striped bass were having real problems.  Recruitment was down; few small fish were entering the population.

By the time that I hung my bass on the wall, it was as much an object of guilt as of pride.  As the population slid toward collapse, I started asking myself just why it had to die, realizing a bit too late that protecting the big, older fish mattered.  As my ethics developed, the mounted striped bass served as a rebuke and reminder of something that I should not have done.

Today it remains, a sort of personal albatross that doesn’t hang ‘round my neck, but instead lies on a basement table.  The taxidermist I used was not very good; skilled only in small fish, he botched the big job, producing something to ugly to hang on a wall.  Yet as my first 50, I can’t throw it away.

So yes, I understand the impulse to kill that first, really big fish, and under most circumstances, I’m not inclined to criticize someone who does it.

Still, there are boundaries.

Down in Louisiana, they grow some big tarpon, fish that can weigh over 200 pounds.  Tarpon are an esteemed gamefish, strong and prone to making spectacular leaps.  However, their sporting qualities don’t carry over to the table; although they are technically edible, they’re not generally killed for food, except in the sort of primitive, backwater places where anything that might contain protein is valued.

At the same time, the tarpon population certainly isn’t getting any bigger.  While there is no formal assessment that reveals the health of the stock in the Gulf of Mexico, there is plenty of evidence that suggests it is shrinking.

Thus, killing a tarpon just to show it off doesn’t make too much sense.

Even so, last fall, a Louisiana angler killed a 246.1 pound tarpon for no better reason than celebrity—to claim a “state record.”  While an angler might be excused for killing one such fish in a lifetime, reports indicate that he killed at least two more of the magnificent animals, tarpon of 228.81 and 219.5 pounds.  That’s a lot of fish wasted for no better reason than claiming 15 minutes of fame.

In the same neighborhood, the Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo is billed as “the oldest fishing tournament in the United States.”  In a world where catch and release tarpon fishing is the norm, the Grand Isle tournament is probably the largest, and one of the very few, kill tournaments for tarpon remaining in the United States.

A quick review of the standings for the last few years tells its dismal story.  In 2015, tarpon of 165.875, 154.5, 129.375, 96.875 and 93.625 pounds qualified for prizes, along with another prize for the first tarpon killed and weighed in, with no indication of how many other fish were dragged dead to the scales but failed to earn a place on the leader board.  In 2014, prizes went to dead tarpon weighing 175.25, 168, 138.25, 119.75 and 99.375 pounds.  In 2013…  Well, you get the idea.

That sort of mindless killing, for nothing more than a dead fish photo and a prize, was common during the early days of sport fishing, when people believed that the ocean’s bounty was limitless, and that recreational fishing would never harm the stock.  We should know better by now.

Except, of course, we don’t.

I’m an active offshore fisherman, who chases shark and tuna, and occasionally marlin, almost always from my own boat in my home waters off the South Shore of Long Island.  When I think of some of the things that go on in the offshore arena, the Louisiana tarpon fishermen don’t look all that bad.

While we’ve grown past the days when giant bluefin were trucked off to landfills (because now fishermen kill them to sell), and sharks were regularly hung up for photos then dumped into the sea (in part, because many “inedible” sharks such as duskies have grown so scarce that regulations prohibit killing any at all), a lot of abuse still goes on. 

These days, it mostly happens in the tournament context.  In far too many cases, part of the planning for an offshore event involves reserving a garbage truck or dumpster that can be parked, discreetly, not too far from the scales, to receive whatever sharks and billfish might be weighed in.  

The somewhat responsible tournaments try to minimize the waste by setting high minimum weights for sharks and billfish, and/or limiting the species of sharks that may be weighed in.  But with substantial cash prizes on the line, along with side bets called “calcuttas” that frequently range well into six figures, the incentive to kill fish remains high.

At a time when most pelagic species are facing threats on multiple fronts, it seems an irresponsible waste, particularly when release tournaments have been conducted for sailfish and marlin for quite a few years.  They have proven very successful, making it reasonable to ask how anyone can continue to justify running an event where fish such as blue marlin are killed and carted off to the dump.

To be fair, it’s not only the big-fish crowd that gets out of hand.  In my part of the world, there are striped bass fishermen who kill far more big fish than they can possibly consume, and spend a lot of time running to tackle shops to weigh in their fish and get their photos hung up on the wall.  The smart money says that a lot of those fish are being illegally sold; some are also given away, and some find an ignominious, freezer-burnt end in a trash pail some months after capture.

At ports such as Montauk, that cater to vacationers as much as to serious fishermen, it’s far from uncommon to see tourists get off a charter boat,  get their grip-and-grin photos with big striped bass, then leave the fish behind because they’re staying at a hotel and have no way to take them home.  

When such tourists are thick, some charter boat captains will leave a big female striped bass hanging in the sun all day, hoping that, along with the flies, it will attract another bunch of tourists who will re-enact the same sort of waste on the following day.

Whether we talk about tourists or tournaments, about state or world records or mere bragging rights, there is something elementally offensive about killing fish just for some fleeting glory, and not for food.  Folks do it thinking that it validates their standing as anglers, but in the end, it only casts doubt on their status as sportsmen, who have a responsibility to think of the future as well as themselves.

It’s not that tournaments, or record quests, are essentially bad.  I’ve fished in my share of events over the years, but always in contests where the bigeye, mako or anything else I might catch would be destined for the table rather than the local landfill.  I’d nave no problem fishing in a fluke contest today, knowing that even if I stayed off the leader board, I’d still still have the prize of fillets.

In 1 Corinthians 13:11, St. Paul reportedly wrote

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Although it would not have been the saint’s intent, those words carry a lesson for anglers.

Killing fish merely to win a tournament, set a record or get your photo in a newspaper or on a tackle shop wall is something that was done in a different time, when salt water sport fishing was in its childhood, fish were abundant and anglers believed that the ocean’s bounty was limitless.  

Once a symbol of innocent excess, such actions now demonstrate nothing more than an immature impulse to find validation in the eyes of the crowd.

The sport has grown up since then.  It is time for anglers to grow up as well, and leave the kill tourneys—the records, the transient glory--behind.  For the cost of such glories may be our fisheries’ future, and that is too much to pay.

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STATES CAN'T AFFORD TO MANAGE RED SNAPPER

On June 14, advocates of rational fisheries management lost a round, as the House Natural Resources Committee approved H.R. 3094, Rep. Garret Graves’ (R-Louisiana) Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority Act, which would strip the National Marine Fisheries Service of all management responsibility for Gulf red snapper, and hand that responsibility over to the states.

Last week, the opponents of rational fisheries management were very surprised and upset to learn that the top fisheries manager in at least one of those states, Louisiana, has no desire to accept such management responsibility, and urges the defeat of Rep. Graves’ bill.

Charlie Melancon, secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries issued a statement in opposition to H.R. 3094, which raised a point that the anti-NMFS elements in the angling community never mention as they race blindly down the dead-end path that leads toward H.R. 3094:  Fisheries management costs money.  And states don’t have too much of that.

Secretary Melancon made it quite clear.

“Without federal funding, Louisiana could potentially lack the proper resources to manage the red snapper fishery.  H.R. 3094 would not be a viable option for Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.  It would be fiscally irresponsible for the Department to support any mandate that would result in an unknown amount of fiscal burden placed on the State of Louisiana for the management of a single species of fish.”

The statement was reportedly written on state letterhead, which included the name of Louisiana’s governor along with that of Mr. Melancon, so the anti-H.R. 3094 sentiment may be shared by folks higher up in the state’s administration as well.

Louisiana regulators probably would have felt better about H.R. 3094 if there was some chance that the expenses related to red snapper management, currently included in the NMFS budget, would continue to be paid by the feds even after the states took over all responsibility for the species.

However, such federal funding is not in the cards.  Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob  Bishop (R-Utah), very much in tune with a House and Committee majority that appears to believe that natural resources are to be exploited for quick profit rather than managed and conserved, amended Graves’ bill during the Committee markup, to assure that no federal funds would be paid to state red snapper managers.

That amendment soured Mr. Melancon on the bill, because yes, fisheries management costs money.  As he stated

“I am opposed to having a bill passed that comes in and causes people in the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the people of the state of Louisiana heartburn over however many millions that we’re going to have to fork up.  And it’s going to be in the millions—I just don’t know if it’s in the low millions or the high millions.  So then are we going to be able to do a Cadillac job or a Yugo?  My best bet is that if we have to fund it on what I think we have available, it’s going to be a Yugo—if not a horse and carriage.  And that’s not good science.”

That statement, coming directly from a top fisheries manager, pretty well debunks claims coming from the militant angling industry and anglers’ rights groups that

“It’s abundantly clear that the states are best equipped to manage this valuable fishery.”

Federal management of red snapper may not be perfect, but at worst, it’s somewhere around the Ford/Chevrolet level.  Maybe not a Cadillac, but far better than the Yugo—or non-mechanized transport—that, by their own admission, is the best that the states can provide.

And even though Louisiana’s Melancon was the only state fisheries director who has so far spoken out against the unfunded mandate of H.R. 3094, the smart money says that he isn’t alone.  In fact, he notes that, at the last Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council meeting

“other state directors he spoke with…were also concerned about the lack of federal funding.”

Of course, little things like a lack of funds don’t mean too much to the folks trying to overthrow the federal fisheries management system.  They are still attempting to deny reality, despite Mr. Melancon’s comments, and perpetuate their delusion that the states can manage red snapper more effectively than the feds.

David Cresson is Executive Director of Coastal Conservation Association Louisiana, one of the anglers’ rights groups that is aggressively supporting H.R. 3094.  Despite speaking to Mr. Melancon twice after he announced his opposition to Congressman Graves’ bill, Mr. Cresson continued to insist that

“The states have the best science, and that’s been proven, and the Graves bill would give the authority to the states to implement that science.”

Note to Mr. Cresson:  Science that the Secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries likens to a Yugo, if not a horse and buggy, is not the best available science.  If it is, the red snapper is in a lot more trouble than anyone thought…

It is always possible that people like Mr. Cresson just don’t understand how much is involved in managing a fish such as red snapper.  While expressing his dissatisfaction with Mr. Melancon’s prudent approach to H.R. 3094, he noted that his organization supported an increase in the cost of Louisiana’s salt water fishing license, which increase was supposedly earmarked to support fisheries research through the state’s new creel survey program.   

Mr. Cresson observed that

“When fishermen in Louisiana asked for the license fee increase, they did so with the expectation that a portion of that would go toward managing red snapper.  The department has been doing a great job of collecting data with that new money, and all of a sudden, we can’t?  It just makes me wonder.”

Such comments just ignore the fact that management of red snapper, or any other fish, involves a lot more than just counting and measuring what anglers bring back to the dock.

Creel surveys tell managers nothing about current recruitment, or the amount of red snapper left in the water once the fishing is done.  They tell little about the size and age structure of the remaining spawning stock, about the impact of illegal (and thus largely uncounted) harvest or about the survival rates of snapper tossed back over the side by anglers.

As Mr. Melancon pointed out, managing red snapper properly is an involved an expensive process, and the states are either unable or unwilling to spend the money required just to manage that one species of fish.

Thus, this recent twist to the red snapper story just reinforces what most folks observing the issue realized a long time ago.

The aggressively anti-NMFS, anti-Magnuson Act, pro-state management organizations aren’t really looking for better management at all.

They’re just looking for ways to kill more fish.

And if handing over management responsibilities to underfunded state management agencies, which are unable to properly assess the state of the stock, is what it’s going to take to do that, well, that’s just fine with them.