Very good article by John, he is right on target
Misleading terms cloud the truth about fluke
BY JOHN GEISER • January 26, 2008
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The Recreational Fishing Alliance and Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund got confirmation this week that they are on the right track.
Some subtle attempts have been made recently to undermine the credibility of the Fund, weaken its message and divert its purpose. RFA has been getting the same pressure for several years. This week the volume was turned up.
This is a sure indication that the antis are concerned, and well they should be.
The message is getting out. The quest for flexibility in fisheries management is on such solid ground that the non-fishing public, when they are informed of the issues, invariably support fishermen.
It is only when misleading words such as "overfishing" or "overfished" are used to describe stocks that are at record levels is the public or Congress confused.
This is understandable. The first impulse of a lawmaker told that the stocks are overfished or overfishing is occurring is to reply, "We can't have this." Legislators think of endangered species not stocks at all-time highs.
The Save the Summer Flounder Fund and the Recreational Fishing Alliance are carefully, methodically educating legislators in coastal states and in Washington. Logic, common sense and truth are powerful messages.
The most difficult question for management is: How can we be overfishing when there are more fish this year than there were the previous year?
Even the most stubborn biologist will admit that the summer flounder stocks are healthy, robust and plentiful. However, some quickly add "but," and follow with a lengthy lecture on targets and time lines, interspersed with acronyms and scientific terms.
The lengthy explanations, however, seldom point out that "overfishing" is an in-house word, a term spawned and supported by a system that needs this mechanism in an attempt to achieve an artificial target in a fixed time frame.
The SSFFF and the RFA want to see flexibility written into the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. They want fishery management officials to have the ability to adjust the speed and direction of management for the benefit of the stock and those who depend on it for food, recreation and livelihoods.
Elitists and extreme environmentalists were behind the insertion of rigidity in the Magnuson-Stevens Act to achieve an arbitrary biomass of 214 million pounds of summer flounder by the end of 2012.
Since that victory, the same groups are reminding persons suffering from loss of food, recreation and income that the law must be followed regardless of the damage. If the law results in the summer flounder fishery being shut down in 2009, and for years thereafter, so be it, they say.
Summer flounder stocks are often characterized as undergoing "rebuilding." This is as misleading as the term "overfishing."
Most persons regard rebuilding as the act of restoring something to its original condition. Rebuilding a modest two-bedroom home on the banks of a Louisiana bayou after Katrina wreaked havoc on the original home of the same size is not generally thought to be erecting a 20-story apartment building on the site.
When the home is constructed, when the last shingle is nailed on the roof, and the rain no longer beats into the living room, the home is considered rebuilt. It is time to move in and enjoy life, not live in a tent while you add three more layers of roofing.
There was much talk a year ago about the National Marine Fisheries Service trying to rebuild summer flounder numbers to what they were in the 1930s.
The service denies that this was its aim. Biologists can only guess at the number of summer flounders there were in the 1930s, anyway.
As one who fished for fluke in the 1930s, let me, anecdotally, of course, assure those who did not: there were not as many summer flounders then as there are now.
A little flexibility in the Magnuson Act would enable fisheries officials to manage this abundance wisely.
