Fishing for Irony - What's your opinion?

[Tacklebox Joe]

**interesting article I just read. What's your opinion?**

Written by Ted Venker on 07 February 2011

By Ted Venker
Conservation Director
Coastal Conservation Association

They say that fishing is the world’s second oldest occupation, so it is likely there have been more ironic events in its long, storied history, but the recent letter from Massachusetts’s Governor Deval Patrick to President Obama must rank near the top of the list.

For those of you who missed it, Gov. Patrick expressed his “extraordinary frustration” with the lack of responsiveness the Commonwealth has experienced with the U.S. Department of Commerce and its agencies on the challenges facing commercial fishermen in Massachusetts. The Governor is upset with the severe regulations that have been placed on his hard-working commercial fishing community and the effect it is having on the state’s economy.

To back up his arguments, Gov. Patrick cited economic statistics to demonstrate commercial fishing’s vital role in Massachusetts’s history and economy. The industry, he said, employs approximately 80,000 people in fisheries and related shore side businesses, and generates $4.4 billion in sales. Those figures are slightly suspect – using the federal economic impact model puts the commercial fishery economic impact of Massachusetts at $416.9 million in landed value, producing $1.9 billion in total sales and 35,609 jobs. The additional jobs and dollars come from the retail sector involved with importing seafood that is not even from the State of Massachusetts. But let’s play along.

There is no doubt that commercial fishing is a huge part of Massachusetts’s culture. Anyone who has read “Cod” by Mark Kurlansky will appreciate how fishermen essentially built the state. There is a reason a wooden replica of a cod has hung in the Massachusetts’s statehouse.
Conversely, anyone who has read “Cod” will also be familiar with the ironic part of this story. In “building” the state of Massachusetts, commercial fishing also proceeded to essentially destroy what was once some of the most prolific, profitable fishing grounds in the world. Serial, rampant commercial overfishing reduced stocks to mere shadows of their former productivity, and there are doubts whether cod will ever return to its former abundance. Among other hurdles, many of the nooks and crannies in the rocks of the ocean bottom that served as cod habitat have been smashed flat by decades of rock-hopper trawls, creating the possibility that cod simply can’t come back.

The signs that groundfish stocks were in serious trouble have been apparent for decades, but every time anyone attempted to rein in commercial fishing, the howl and cry from the fishing industry was enough to beat it back. Management plans that had no real chance of success were adopted again and again in response to enormous political pressure. Pressure not unlike the current letter from Gov. Patrick to President Obama.

It became apparent to powerful groups in the environmental community that managers were in an impossible situation when it came to Northeast fisheries. There was no way to effectively manage those stocks if it meant impinging on such a vital and revered cog in the region’s economy. So in 2006, those groups acted. In an effort to directly address the chronic problems in the Northeast, certain provisions were incorporated into the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the overarching federal law that manages the nation’s fisheries.

Those provisions required Annual Catch Limits (ACLs), Accountability Measures (AMs), and an end to all overfishing by a date certain (2010). They were heavily promoted by environmental groups, some of which are expending enormous amounts of time and resources on oceans programs. Those provisions were directly aimed at installing some backbone to manage New England’s disastrous commercial groundfish fisheries.

Any attempt to end overfishing is generally appealing to a conservationist, but the ramifications of those provisions on the recreational sector were not truly appreciated or even understood at the time. Over the past few years, it has become painfully apparent to anyone associated with marine recreational fisheries that the federal agency in charge of managing those fisheries – NOAA Fisheries (formerly the National Marine Fisheries Service, formerly the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries) – has not the science or data or even the interest to properly manage recreational fisheries to the requirements of those provisions. The terrestrial model of wildlife management that has been applied so successfully to ducks, geese, turkey, deer, elk, bass, etc, is nowhere to be found in the nation’s oceans.

Because NOAA Fisheries has failed to collect the required data and science, it has a very limited ability to properly manage recreational fisheries. Nonetheless, the provisions that were aimed directly at New England’s commercial groundfish disaster are now being applied to ALL fisheries in ALL other regions, including highly valuable recreational fisheries. The most dramatic examples can be found in the South Atlantic where fishery after fishery is being impacted to comply with the letter of the law. In one case, black sea bass, which hasn’t had a full assessment in 10 years, is being closed down. Dolphin, wahoo and cobia have never even had an assessment and there are no indications of trouble, but dramatic reductions are on the table as an ultra-conservative way to comply with the provision to end overfishing.

The painfully ironic part to this whole sordid tale is that while Gov. Patrick tries to roll back the New England provisions to preserve New England commercial fishermen, those same provisions are wreaking havoc in Florida, for example, where recreational fishing expenditures dwarf the vaunted economic might of the Massachusetts commercial sector. In Florida, recreational expenditures are calculated at $17.6 billion and support $15.1 billion in sales and 138,754 jobs. Even in Massachusetts, recreational anglers are not an insignificant part of the economic picture, spending $817.6 million dollars on trip and annual expenditures, supporting $850.5 million in sales and supporting 6,446 jobs.

There is a chance that Gov. Patrick, in order to preserve the commercial sector that decimated the stocks in the first place, will find some success. Like so many before him, he may actually be able to apply the same political pressure that provoked those provisions in Magnuson so that his fishing industry can keep fishing. That would be truly ironic, since recreational fisheries that are far more valuable to the country are being penalized and discouraged by the laws that were created to correct the sins of the commercial sector.

Sadly, there are not many indications that anyone in federal fisheries management is serious about changing the way this country elects to manage its marine resources either.

Gov. Patrick is right to express his “extraordinary frustration” with federal fisheries management. Ironically enough, I’m frustrated, too.

[Capt Buddy]

I am a captain from Florida that has been readings this forum for a while now but this is my first post. I have not seen CCA do anything to help the fishermen in Florida. They say one thing then do something else. Venker has wrote one article after another that tries to cover up what is really going on. I just wish we had the backing from our Governor like Massachusetts has with Gov.Patrick. We are all in a battle together around this country trying to save a fishery that we all love.We all have got to take a stand together to be heard. We have the FRA in Florida fighting our battle the same as the RFA is fighting in your area. If you don't belong to one of these groups please join they do a lot more for the fishermen than CCA ever will. We have more and more regulations made with no science to back it up. We need to stop NOAA  and Jellyfish Jane before we lose it all.

[Tacklebox Joe]

I posted this almost a month back and finally got a reply.

Capt. Buddy, thanks for your informative insight. 

Welcome aboard.

[IrishAyes]

Because NOAA Fisheries has failed to collect the required data and science, it has a very limited ability to properly manage recreational fisheries.

The above quote says it all.

Sorry Joe, I must have missed this post when you put it up. 

[Tacklebox Joe]

no prob Joe, you know i still luv ya bro! 

[Bucktail]

 

[Hotrod]

Too Much reading for me . I usually wait to see someones reply

[CaptTB]

More anti-commercial rhetoric from CCA. The same people who WOULD NOT SUPPORT SSFFF an actively LOBBIED AGAINST our attempts to prove that fishermen were right and NMFS/NOAA were wrong about the fluke stocks. Of course, we were in the end proven 100% right and they 100% wrong.

CCA, the group that REFUSED TO FIGHT the Sea Bass closure, yet now have the nerve to talk about the issues in Florida (which include a Sea Bass closure)

This from CCA, who REFUSED TO SUPPORT the efforts of RFA and United Boatmen over the past 5-6 years when dealing with the Scup (Porgy) stock issues, and ACTIVELY LOBBIED AGAINST US when we tried to prove that Porgies were not only rebuilt, but WAAAAAAYYYYYY past that point. Of course, in the end, the Data Poor Workshop proved we were 100% right (actually 205% right) and they were 205% wrong.

This from CCA, who does not even exist in NJ and who's bulk of their leadership in NY left CCA and formed the FCA because they were unhappy with CCA's direction on many Northeast fisheries. CCA whose NY chapter that has existed for years has dwindled in size as the mass defections to the only recently formed RFA NY chapter continue (RFA is already larger than CCA in NY)

But sure, there are a couple obvious points that are not really relevant to the anti-commercial BS that you can (and the writer did) pull out, inflate their importance and base a whole article on them

[Tacklebox Joe]

This from CCA, who does not even exist in NJ and who's bulk of their leadership in NY left CCA and formed the FCA because they were unhappy with CCA's direction on many Northeast fisheries. CCA whose NY chapter that has existed for years has dwindled in size as the mass defections to the only recently formed RFA NY chapter continue (RFA is already larger than CCA in NY)

No they don't have a NJ Chapter...thanks for your insight Capt