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Nils Stolpe is our Honored Guest. Click on the fishnetUSA icon to open the window to his website.

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Towards rationalit​y in fisheries management​/FishNet USA

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Bearing in mind that each edition of The Economist has a print circulation of about 1.5 million, its website attracts about 8 million visitors each month, and that the people who read it are among the world’s most influential, consider the “take home” message that anyone with little or no knowledge of fisheries – maybe 99% of the readers – is being given; that stability of production in a fishery is an indication  of overfishing, and even more importantly, that overfishing is unacceptable because it limits  production.
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Now we all know that sustainability is the managers’ goal in our fisheries. In fact, this goal is part of the legal underpinnings of each of the fisheries management plans in effect in – and sometimes beyond – the US Exclusive Economic Zone.
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According to the legislation controlling fisheries management in US federal waters, the first National Standard for Fishery Conservation and Management is that “conservation and management measures shall prevent overfishing while achieving, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield from each fishery for the United States fishing industry.”  This is fine up to a point. The optimum yield from a fishery is defined in the Act as “(A) the amount of fish which will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and recreational opportunities, and taking into account the protection of marine ecosystems; (B) is prescribed as such on the basis of the maximum sustainable yield from the fishery, as reduced by any relevant economic, social, or ecological factor.” No problems so far, the law recognizes that the optimum harvest from a fishery is not necessarily the maximum sustainable harvest.But then we have “(C) in the case of an overfished fishery, provides for rebuilding to a level consistent with producing the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) in such fishery.”
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Adding their interpretation to this, the people at NOAA/NMFS, with the enthusiastic support of the various and sundry anti-fishing activists who pull way too many of the strings in Washington, have added as an administrative guideline that “the most important limitation on the specification of OY (optimum yield) is that the choice of OY and the conservation and  management measures proposed to achieve it must  prevent overfishing.”

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So while OY from each fishery, determined with consideration given to relevant economic, social, or ecological factors, seems to be the goal of federal fisheries management, that is just window dressing. The real requirement is for each and every fishery to be at MSY.

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From an administrative perspective, a perspective that has far more to do with the influence that the aforementioned activists had and continue to have than on the real-world needs of commercial and recreational fishermen and the communities and businesses that they support, this probably makes a certain amount of sense. After all, who could possibly argue about every fishery faithfully producing at maximum levels year after year? As the people at The Economist, at the ENGOs whose bank accounts are bloated with mega-foundation cash, and in the offices of Members of Congress who don’t have – or who don’t value – working fishermen as constituents want to convince us all, overfishing is something akin to the eighth deadly sin.

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But is it?

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From a real world perspective, a perspective that is shared by an increasing number of people who are knowledgeable about the oceans and their fisheries and who value the traditions and the communities that have grown up around them as well as the economic activity that fisheries are capable of producing, this proscription against “overfishing” is an ongoing train wreck.

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And at this point, because it’s The Law, nothing can be done about it.

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A hypothetical situation:

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Suppose there was an important fishery that was the basis of a large part of the coastal economy as well as the cultural cement that held coastal communities together. Then suppose that fishery started to decline. If you were a fishery manager and you were in charge, what would you do? Though not in what should be the real world, that’s a simple question with an even more simple answer in today’s world of federal fisheries management. Regardless of any other factors you would cut back on fishing effort.

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Suppose that didn’t work, suppose that the fishery continued to decline. What would you do then? Because you have no other realistic options you’d cut back on fishing effort even more.

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And suppose even that didn’t work. If there were still any fishermen fishing, you’d cut back their fishing effort yet again. And again and again and again until you had gotten rid of them all, in spite of whether the cutbacks had any noticeable effects of the fish or not.

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As we saw above, this would all be based on a so-called fishery management “plan” that was created under the strict requirements of a surprisingly short and what has become an even more surprisingly short sighted bit of federal legislation and the administrative interpretation of that legislation. The Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA) – which was written initially with good intentions towards US fishermen and signed into law in 1976 – has been purposefully distorted by outside groups and individuals with no legitimate ties to or empathy with the businesses and people dependent on fishing but with huge budgets provided by mega-foundations which themselves are provided with a convenient government-supplied coordinating mechanism (See http://www.fishnet-usa.com/All%20Stolpe%20Columns.htm#CGBD).

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Why is it a “so-called” management plan? Back a few more years than I’d like to acknowledge I spent some time in the graduate planning department at Rutgers University, concentrating on environmental planning. Not too surprisingly, one of the topics that came up repeatedly was rational planning; what it is and how to do it. Putting together a bunch of definitions and some foggy recollections, in creating a rational plan you 1) define a problem or a goal, 2) design                  alternative actions to solve the problem/achieve the goal, 3) evaluate each alternative action, 4) chose and implement the “best” alternative action, and 5) monitor/evaluate the outcome and adjust if necessary.

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This seems pretty simple and straightforward. How does it apply to fisheries management plans? If the problem with the New England groundfish fishery is that there are people making a living based on harvesting groundfish and if the goal is to stop them from doing that, then the managers and the management plan are right on target. But I suspect that most involved individuals/organizations aren’t purposely planning to solve that problem/achieve that goal.

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So why, after a seemingly endless series of less groundfish can only be fixed by less groundfish fishing iterations, are the groundfish fishermen – those who are still working – and the communities that depend on them just barely hanging on with fewer fish to catch following each cutback in fishing effort?

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While this idea is going to be ridiculed by all of  those anti-fishing activists whose careers are predicated on blaming just about every ocean ill on overfishing, perhaps it’s because overfishing isn’t the problem that they’ve built multimillion dollar empires on by convincing the world – and the U.S. Congress – that it is.

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But for the moment let’s pretend that we don’t have a fisheries management system that has been torqued into something worse than ineffectuality by their lobbying clout. Let’s pretend that the people responsible for creating fisheries management plans in general and the groundfish plan – actually the multispecies plan – in particular were trying to do some rational planning. Where would they go from here?

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What about competition between species?

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Obviously, having lived with the effectiveness – or  the lack thereof – of continuously cutting back on groundfish fishing, they’d look for an alternative or two (and no, opening parts of several previously closed areas of the EEZ while demanding full-time, industry paid observer on every vessel that fishes in them isn’t anything approaching a reasonable alternative). It’s hard to imagine that early on they wouldn’t consider the idea that other, competing species might be in part responsible for declining stocks. That’s the way the natural world has worked,  is working and will continue to work.

1953 – Spiny dogfish biomass unknown – “Voracious almost beyond belief, the dogfish entirely deserves its bad reputation. Not only does it harry and drive off mackerel, herring, and even fish as large as cod and haddock, but it destroys vast numbers of them. Again and again fishermen have described packs of dogs dashing among schools of mackerel, and even attacking them within the seines, biting through the net, and releasing such of the catch as escapes them. At one time or another they prey on practically all species of Gulf of Maine fish smaller than themselves, and squid are also a regular article of diet whenever they are found.” (Fishes of the                      Gulf of Maine, Bigelow, H.B. and W.C. Schroeder)

About ten years ago fishermen started complaining about the impact that the huge numbers of spiny dogfish off our coast were having on other much more valuable fisheries. As a result I organized a workshop on spiny dogfish/fisheries interactions in September of 2008 (see A Plague of Dogfish at http://www.fishnet-usa.com/dogforum1.htm) and have attempted to keep informed of spiny dogfish biology since then. One of the ways that I do this is by keeping an eye on things like landings and survey data, which NOAA/NMFS makes readily available via various web pages.

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Among the most interesting data sets I have found are the reports of the bottom trawl surveys which have been carried out by Northeast Fisheries Science Center vessels every year for over half a century (to access the recent reports go to http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/femad/ecosurvey/mainpage/  and click on “Cruise Results” in the menu on the left). The assumed reliability and reproducibility of these surveys is such that they are one of the primary data sources in the stock assessments for many of our important fisheries. In recent years spiny dogfish at times have comprised upwards of 50% by weight of all of the fish taken in these surveys.

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Looking for another way of addressing the spiny dogfish situation, I put together a spreadsheet of the percentage (by weight) of spiny dogfish and Atlantic cod caught in the Spring and Autumn bottom trawl surveys for the last ten years and graphed the results (because the annual Winter survey was discontinued half way through this time period, I omitted it).

I was surprised to see how well the high abundance levels of spiny dogfish coincided with the low abundance levels of Atlantic cod – the primary groundfish species – and vice versa. (Note that this relationship wasn’t apparent in prior years.)
It seems in-your-face obvious that in recent years there been something going on between spiny dogfish and Atlantic cod abundance (I looked at the trawl survey results for a number of other species relative to spiny dogfish and none of them exhibited such a dramatic apparent relationship).

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Of course this could be an example of post hoc ergo propter hoc (basically correlation doesn’t equal causation). But then again, it could not as well.

1992 – Spiny dogfish biomass estimated at 735 thousand metric tons: “given the current high abundance of skates and dogfish, it may not be possible to increase gadoid (cod and haddock) and flounder abundance without `extracting’ some of the current standing stock.” (Murawski and Idoine, Multi species size composition: A conservative property of exploited fishery systems in Journal of Northwest Atlantic Fishery Science, Volume 14: 79-85)

James Sulikowski at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine has been intensively involved in shark and ray research for twenty years. He is currently focusing on spiny dogfish and along with population and distribution work has begun to look at prey and predation. According to Dr. Sulikowski “preliminary analysis of stomach content data suggest  a high degree of dietary overlap between dogfish and Atlantic cod as Atlantic herring, Cluepea harengus, was found to be the primary prey item of both species. In addition, preliminary stable isotope data suggests evidence of niche overlap between cod and dogfish, although the extent of overlap may change seasonally. Collectively, the stomach content and stable isotope data suggests dogfish and cod are in competition for resources within this ecosystem.”

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How does this apply to the current Northeast Multispecies (groundfish) Fisheries Management Plan?

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In fact, it doesn’t apply at all. The multispecies plan is based on the assumption that fishing is the only thing influencing the groundfish stocks – including Atlantic cod. Considering that fishing is the only thing that federal legislation permits the New England Fishery Management Council to manage, its members have become quite adept at managing it. The fact that an extensive and still ongoing series of fishing cutbacks hasn’t stopped the decline of the primary groundfish species – led by Atlantic cod – seems to be irrelevant to them doing that.

1994 – Spiny dogfish biomass estimated as 514 thousand metric tons: “…preliminary calculations indicated that the biomass of commercially important species consumed by spiny dogfish was comparable to the amount harvested by man. Accordingly, the impact of spiny dogfish consumption on other species should be considered in establishing harvesting policies for this species.” (18th Stock Assessment Workshop, Northeast Fisheries Science Center).

The graph below shows the spiny dogfish total biomass estimates from the Northeastern Fisheries Science Center’s spring bottom trawl surveys. The highest estimated biomass, 1.131 million metric tons (or about 2.5 billion pounds), was in 2012 (from data in in Table 7 of Update on the Status of Spiny Dogfish in  2012 and Initial Evaluation of Harvest at the Fmsy  Proxy by Rago and Southesby and MAFMC staff and identified as not representing “any final agency                  determination or policy”). For reference, the total allowed catch (TAC) of spiny dogfish will be under 20,000 metric tons (the solid red line) a year for the next three years.

2008 – Spiny dogfish biomass estimated at 657 thousand metric tons: “All told, 87% of the stomach contentsfrom these particular Gulf of Maine caught dogfish (401 adult dogfish collected by University of New England researcher James Sulikowski and his students)  consisted of bony fish – with cod, herring, and sand lance being the top three species.” (J. Plante, Dogfish in the Gulf of Maine eat cod, herring, Commercial Fisheries News, May 2008).

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The two graphs below – from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s web page Status of Fishery Resource off the Northeastern US – Atlantic cod (http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/sos/spsyn/pg/cod/) show the decline of cod abundance calculated from both the Spring and Autumn bottom trawl surveys in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank. Note that as the calculated spiny dogfish biomass (above) is increasing the biomass indices for Atlantic cod in both the Gulf  of Maine and on Georges Bank are decreasing correspondingly.

It has been reported that spiny dogfish consume 1.5% of their weight per day. That translates to them eating about 17000 metric tons of anything slower/smaller/less voracious than they are every day.

2009 – Spiny dogfish biomass estimated at 557 thousand metric tons: “our reason for ontacting you is to draw your attention to a severe and growing problem that we are all facing because of the supposed constraints imposed on the federal fisheries management system by the most recent amendments to the Magnuson Act. Because of the supposed necessity of having all stocks being managed at OY/MSY, all of our fisheries are and have been suffering from a plague of spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias).” (Fishermen Organized for Rational Dogfish Management letter to NOAA head Jane Lubchenco).

Since 1950 the annual Atlantic cod landings in all US ports exceeded 50,000 metric tons only in 1980, ‘82 and ‘83. In 2011 they were 7,900 mt.

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If there was one rational step that could be taken to try to return the Atlantic cod stocks off our Northeastern coast to former levels, it’s hard to imagine anything with more of a likelihood of success than significantly cutting back the population of spiny dogfish. But this isn’t possible because if the spiny dogfish stock is not at a level that could produce the maximum sustainable yield it would be overfished – and thanks to the successful lobbying of the anti-fishing claque managed fish stocks can’t be overfished.

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In the face of all of this it’s kind of hard to think that the federal fisheries management system has as a goal anything but the elimination of New England’s codfish fishermen. Otherwise, how could an alternative to further futile decreases in fishing for cod not be an increase in fishing for spiny dogfish? That would seem to be a rational action, wouldn’t it (and rest assured that spiny dogfish impact many more species than Atlantic cod).
But it’s not, and with the MSFCMA written and interpreted the way it is it can’t be.

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But the spiny dogfish plague isn’t the only fly in the “blame it all on overfishing” ointment. There’s an explosion in the population of seals in New England coastal waters as well. With the ability – or more  accurately, with the need – to consume 6% of their body weight per day, the almost 16,000 gray seals off Cape Cod are consuming far more fish than Cape Cod’s recreational and commercial fishermen could ever hope to catch. If they aren’t competing directly with the fishermen for cod and striped bass and flounder they are competing indirectly by eating the prey species that the fishermen’s targeted species eat. For a succinct and fairly balanced examination of the developing Cape Cod seal crisis see Thriving in Cape Cod’s Waters, Gray Seals Draw Fans and Foes by Bess Bidgood in the NY Times on August 17th. And there are burgeoning populations of other marine mammals as well as cormorants, birds that are protected by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. They are all highly efficient predators on smaller fish.

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The Act will be reauthorized this year. In the reauthorization, unless the managers are once again given the ability to use their judgment we won’t be able to most effectively manage our federal fisheries  to maximize the benefit we can derive from them. The Magnuson management process was designed to benefit from the knowledge that people in the fishing industry and marine scientists have gained through uncounted years of on-the-water experience in dealing with an environment that is as strange to the rest of us as outer space and a lot more complex. The benefits of  that knowledge have been lost to the process because of legislated changes by people who and organizations  that are sorely lacking in that hands-on experience and think that there is one answer to every fishery-related problem – to cut back on fishing. Without that changing, without discretion being returned to the managers, our fisheries will increasingly follow the trajectory that the New England groundfish fishery is on. None of us – except perhaps for the ENGOs and the foundations that support them – either want or can afford that. Magnuson must be amended. Flexibility, with adequate safeguards, to deal with situations like the current dogfish plague must be restored to the management process. Rationality demands it.

Comment Here

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Seafood certificat​ion – who’s really on first?

“Sustainability certification” has become a watchword of people in the so-called marine conservation community in recent years. However, their interest seems to transcend the determination of the actual sustainability of the methods employed to harvest particular species of finfish and shellfish and to use the certification process and the certifiers to advance either their own particular agendas or perhaps the agendas of those foundations that support them financially.
It doesn’t take an awful lot of sophisticated insight to recognize that a “sustainable” fishery is one that has been in operation in the past, is in operation presently, and will be in operation in the future. That’s what sustainability is all about – for lobsters, for fluke, for surfclams, for guavas, for hemp, for alpacas, in fact for anything that can be grown and/or harvested.

(Of course “marine conservationists” would have us believe that  a fishery that has a noticeable impact on the marine environment isn’t really sustainable. Imagine, if you can, a farm that has no environmental impact; in essence producing crops without interfering with the natural flora and fauna that “belong” there. That would get beef, cotton, soybeans, corn, mohair and what have you off the tables or out of the closets of perhaps 6 billion of the people who we share the world with, but if you are a committed marine conservationist, so what? The marine conservation community, and the foundations that support it, has been frighteningly successful in convincing people that  “sustainable fishing” is actually “no impact fishing,” but as we learned quite a few years ago, even hook and line fishermen catching one fish at a time can have a far from negligible environmental impact.)

Several recent events have increased the focus on sustainability and its use – or misuse – in attempts at influencing the buying  habits of the seafood consumers.

In the first of these, Walmart (the world’s largest retailer) now requires its fresh and frozen fish/seafood suppliers to “become third-party certified as sustainable using Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) or equivalent standards. By June 2012, all uncertified fisheries and aquaculture suppliers must be actively working toward certification.”

In the second, the National Park Service in the US Department of the Interior announced that all of its culinary operations “where seafood options are offered, provide only those that are ‘Best Choices’ or ‘Good Alternatives’ on the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch list, certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council, or identified by an equivalent program that has been approved by the NPS.” Senator Lisa Murkowski questioned Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis about this “recommendation” (the term he used) at an Energy and Natural Resources Committee. She asked whether NOAA (the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) was involved in formulating this recommendation. He responded that he didn’t know. Senator Murkowski responded “NOAA is the agency that makes the determination in terms of what’s sustainable (as far as fisheries are concerned) within this country”

When considered in a vacuum these are both interesting comments on the importance that is being put on “sustainability” by fish/seafood providers, and is indicative of a positive trend by consumers who are increasingly demanding that the products they  buy are produced in an environmentally acceptable manner.

And the fact that a federal agency, the National Park Service, would demand – or as Director Jarvis waffled – would recommend  that its vendors provide only seafood certified sustainable by two non-governmental organizations while ignoring the de facto certification that is implicit in federally managed fisheries is not likely to surprise anyone with any familiarity with the morass that the federal bureaucracy has become. However, neither Walmart nor the US Department of the Interior exists or operates in a vacuum, and it seems as if there is a bit more at work here than is obvious.

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is the largest international organization – headquartered in London – providing fish and seafood sustainability certification. It was started in 1996 as a joint effort of the World Wildlife Fund, a transnational ENGO, and Unilever a transnational provider of consumer goods.

The chart below lists recent grants to the MSC by the Walton Family Foundation and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation in recent years.

Grants to MSC from Walton Family Foundation
2007    $1,640,000
2007    $820,000
2008    $1,675,000
2009    $1,700,000
2009    $1,700,000
2010    $4,622,500
2011    $3,122,500
2012    $1,250,000
Total    $16,530,000
http://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/about/2009-grants            

Grants to MSC from David and Lucille Packard Foundation
2005    $1,750,000
2006    $1,500,000
2006    $100,000
2006    $87,900
2007    $1,500,000
2008    $1,506,000
2008    $250,000
2009    $4,050,000
2010    $125,000
2011    $1,900,000
2012    $250,000
2012    $550,000
2013    $250,000
Total    $13,818,900
http://www.packard.org/grants/grants-database/            

The Monterey Bay Aquarium was established with an initial grant of $55 million from David and Lucille Packard. Their daughter Julie is Vice Chairman of the Packard Foundation. She is also Executive Director and Vice Chair of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Board of Trustees.

The MSC also lists the Resources Legacy Foundation as one of its supporters. The Resources Legacy Foundation has received $99 million from the Packard Foundation. One of its programs is the Sustainable Fisheries Fund, which along with its other activities provides funding ”reducing the financial hurdles confronting fishing interests that wish to adopt sustainable practices and potentially benefit from certification under MSC standards.”
According to CampaignMoney.com Ms. Packard donated $75,000 to the 2012 Obama Victory Fund.

In both of these initiatives NOAA/NMFS, the organization that provides virtually all of the data and other information that sustainability determinations are based on, that is required by  federal law to stop unsustainable fishing in federal waters, and that performs its own sustainability analyses on those fisheries, has been completely left out of the picture.

All things being equal, this could just be passed off as business – and government ineptitude – as usual. However, when tens of millions of dollars in donations by mega-foundations with “marine conservation” agendas that are looked at skeptically by so many in the fishing industry are thrown into the mix, should this be considered as just more business as usual or does it warrant a much closer look?

Comment here

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Fisheries Management​–More Than Meets The Eye

Last year I wrote After 35 years of NOAA/NMFS fisheries management, how are they doing? How are we doing because of their efforts? (http://www.fishnet-usa.com/After        35 years of NOAA.pdf) I concluded with:

Our collective fisheries were never as badly off as grandstanding ENGOs convinced the public and our lawmakers that they were. Regardless of that, they are unquestionably in great shape now. Are the fishermen – the only people who have paid a price for that recovery – going to profit from it? At this point there aren’t a lot of indications that they are going to. Ill-conceived amendments to the Magnuson Act, the ongoing foundation-funded campaign to marginalize fishermen and to hold them victims of inadequate science, and a management regime that is focused solely on the health of the fish stocks and is indifferent to the plight of the fishermen effectively prevent that.

That having been a year ago, and statistics measuring the performance of our commercial fisheries for 2011 being available (http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st1/commercial/landings/annual_landings.html), I thought I’d check back to see what, if anything, had changed.

Nationally, the total adjusted (to 2010 dollars) value of landings continued a gradual upswing that’s gone on intermittently since 2002/03. The post Magnuson (1976) low point in 2002 was under $4 billion, and by 2011 it had risen to over $5 billion, an increase of 35%. The adjusted value of the 2011 catch, $5.176 billion, was 76% of the highest total catch (in 1979) of $6.83 billion and 22%  above the average landings (from 1950 to 2011) of $4.25 billion.

All in all, the big picture is mostly positive. Unfortunately, the big picture is made up of a lot of smaller pictures, and some of them aren’t so good.

In the following chart I separated the value of the total landings in Alaska and the separate values of landings in American lobster, sea scallops and Southern shrimp (all species combined) from all other species.

For total value of landings in 2011 Alaska is at about 70% of where it was at its post Magnuson high ($1.84 billion vs $2.58 billion). Atlantic sea scallops were at their all-time record value ($485 million) and American lobster were at 89% of their all-time high ($405 million vs $456 million in 2005). Unfortunately the 2011 (Southern) shrimp landings were valued at only 34% of what they were at their highest ($472 million vs $1.333 billion in 1979).

In 1950 the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries reported landings of 223 distinct species or species groups (i.e. Shrimp, Dendrobranchiata  ). In 2011 the National Marine Fisheries Service reported landings of 460 species or species groups.
The 20 most valuable fisheries in 1950 and in 2011 and the percentage of their value to the total value of landings for that year are listed below:

In the Mid-Atlantic in 2011 the total value of landings, $220 million, were 79% of the highest landings value reported ($279 million in 1979). However, sea scallops made up more than half of the total landings value (56%, $143 million v. $114 million). While the overall picture looks positive, the value of the landings in the Mid-Atlantic minus the sea scallop production have been in a steady decline since the late 90s and are at the lowest point ever.

In New England the situation is comparable, but both American lobster and sea scallop production are responsible for the overall “healthy” appearance. There was a slight upswing in the value of the other fisheries in recent years but it appears that with the planned – and in part implemented – reductions in the groundfish TAC, it seems as if this slight upswing won’t carry over.

 

Conservation and management measures shall, consistent with the conservation requirements of this Act (including the prevention of overfishing and rebuilding of overfished stocks), take into account the importance of fishery resources to fishing communities in order to (A) provide for the sustained participation of such communities, and (B) to the extent practicable, minimize adverse economic impacts on such communities. National Standard #8, Magnuson-Steven Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (As amended through October 11, 1996).

A looming problem in both the Mid-Atlantic and New England is a pending cutback in the sea scallop quota for the next fishing year that at this point is expected to approach 40%. While the effects of a cut of this magnitude will obviously be significant to the scallop fleet, there will be not so obvious but potentially devastating effects on the other fisheries and on fishing communities as well.

A complex of ancillary businesses is required to operate a commercial fishing dock. These include vessel/equipment maintenance and repair facilities, ice plants, chandleries and shippers/truckers. Obviously it requires a certain level of business – a minimum amount of revenue coming “across the dock” –  for them to stay open. In the Mid-Atlantic a 40% cut in scallop revenues will be more than a 20% cut in commercial fishing revenues in a single year. In New England it will be somewhat less than that, but it will be combined with whatever additional cuts result from the proposed groundfish cuts.

I’m not that familiar with all of the fishing ports in the Mid-Atlantic and New England but have a fairly good understanding of those in New Jersey, and in New Jersey there isn’t one commercial port that lands fish from the ocean-going fleet that is mostly – or even largely – focused on scallops. They all handle a mix of fish and shellfish. A large part of their longevity is due to the fact that they have maintained a reasonable amount of flexibility thanks to their diverse fleets. But a drastic cutback in scallop revenues, particularly if it is coupled with the continuing decline in the revenues from other fisheries, will threaten that longevity.

The proposed scallop cutback has been presented as a temporary  measure, and the Fisheries Survival Fund – representing the majority of limited access scallop fishermen in New England and the Mid-Atlantic and other industry groups are working to ameliorate the proposed cuts, but when it comes to businesses that are waterfront dependent a two year temporary reduction could easily become permanent before the cutbacks are restored. Except for the lull over the past several years there have been intense development pressures at the Jersey Shore and on most of the waterfront areas from Cape Hatteras North. It’s just about assured that they will be back to their customary levels very shortly.

Originally the Magnuson Act placed much more emphasis on business- and community-supportive aspects of federal fisheries management. Those aspects have been eroded by the lobbying activities of the handful of ENGOs that have come to dominate the world of fisheries/oceans activism. They, and for the most part NOAA/NMFS  as well, address fish issues on a case by case, species by species basis. More importantly, the people at NOAA/NMFS tend to shy away from cumulative economic impacts when they have analyses done, and cumulative impacts are what most of the commercial fishermen, the people who depend on them and the businesses they support have to deal with – and in New England and the Mid-Atlantic (at least, and this isn’t to slight the industry elsewhere, because I doubt that it’s different in many other ports) in spite of increasing total landings value, it could be getting a lot worse really soon.

Comment here

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A staggering loss to U.S. fishermen and U.S. seafood consumers.

Nils E.Stolpe  FishNet USA/June 26, 2013

 It was back in June of 2008 that I first became aware of Richard Gaines’ work in the Gloucester Times in a three part series exploring the interplay between fishermen, feds, ENGOs and the mega-foundations that funded them in a controversial move to close Stellwagen Bank to fishing (see http://tinyurl.com/n8m3voh for the first installment). A letter about the series I wrote to Times Editor Ray Lamont started “kudos to Richard Gaines for reporting what is going on behind the smoke and mirrors obscuring the struggle to maintain the historical fisheries that have thrived on Stellwagan Bank for generations. He couldn’t be more on-target when writing ‘Pew is associated with public information campaigns against fishing and fish consumption.’”

This started a friendship between Richard and me that, I was amazed to discover, had lasted for less than five years. I know it enriched my life. I can only hope it enriched my writing as well.

Returning from a business trip on Sunday, June 9, Nancy Gaines found her husband Richard dead of an apparent heart attack at their home just outside of Gloucester.

Richard was a journalist’s journalist. Unlike the average “reporter” covering fisheries/ocean issues today, he gave press releases – and the contacts they provide – the minimal initial credence that they generally deserve. He was always looking for the story behind the press release and with a combination of integrity, skill and tenacity he usually found it. In five years he developed a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of what has become a cumbersomely complex federal fisheries management process – and of the political machinations behind it. Whether it was about the multi-billion dollar foundations behind the environmental activist organizations that have become so adept at making life miserable for fishermen, or a federal fisheries enforcement establishment that was allowed to enrich itself with tens of millions of dollars coerced from the fishing industry, Richard was covering it, covering it thoroughly and covering it well.

It’s going to be harder on all of us because he’s no longer there to do it.

Richard was memorialized fittingly by Ray Lamont in Community, industry mourn loss of a champion at http://preview.tinyurl.com/mmjbuae, North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones honored him with a statement to the U.S. House of Representatives available in the Congressional Record (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r113:E12JN3-0009:/ and I can’t add much to what they and dozens of other folks have written in the last week other than offering his wife Nancy, his family and coworkers my deepest sympathy. And I’d suggest that after reading this you spend a few minutes watching an interview of Richard done by Good Morning Gloucester at http://preview.tinyurl.com/lg8ohll. If you weren’t lucky enough to know him this will tell you much of what you should know about him and his work.

And while on the subject of press releases….

“The Attorney General is wrong on the law and she is wrong on the facts,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel with CLF, who has been actively engaged in fisheries management for more than 20 years. “Political interference like this action by Attorney General Coakley has been a leading cause of the destruction of these fisheries over the past twenty years, harassing fishery managers to ignore the best science available….We need responsible management which includes habitat protection and a suspension of directed commercial and recreational fishing for cod. We also need some serious leadership from our elected officials. Going to court or getting up on a political soapbox will not magically create more fish.” (from a Conservation Law Foundation press release on May 31.”

It’s kind of hard to believe that just about immediately after this press release went out the  Conservation Law Foundation – along with the Pew spawned Earthjustice (recipient of some $20 million from the Pew Charitable Trusts) – filed suit in federal court to prevent NOAA from cutting the groundfish fishermen the tiniest bit of slack, perhaps allowing more of them to survive a largely management manufactured slump. It seems that in the release Mr. Shelley must have meant “other people going to court or getting up on a political soapbox will not magically create more fish. However if  it’s me or my foundation funded buds going to court, watch out ‘cause those fish will shortly be on the way.”

I usually stay away from New England issues because my colleagues up there are more than capable – in spite of the gross inequities resulting from the mega-foundation mega-buck funding of organizations like the Conservation Law Foundation and Earthjustice – of representing their own interests. However I couldn’t sit back and not comment on the CLF position voiced by Peter Shelley in an article, Conservation group sues NOAA to block openings, byRichard Gaines on June 6.

Explaining how the CLF/Earthjustice position wasn’t hypocritical, Mr. Shelley explained “the distinction for me is that I have seen time and time again when politicians — in this case the attorney general — hasn’t participated in the (fisheries management) process, and then comes in to try to influence the process in litigation. They’re not taking a legal position, there’s not much there except politics.”(http://preview.tinyurl.com/mnzgsnu).

To suggest that this is a more than slightly puzzling statement for an attorney to make would be an understatement. Mr. Shelley must believe – or must want other people to believe – that Attorney General Coakley was acting on her own when filing the suit. Apparently he believes – or wants us to believe – that because she has never personally participated in the fishery management process her suit has no merit. He is and has been, it would seem, in attendance at many meetings in New England at which fish are discussed and it appears as if in his view this makes his suit de facto righteous and hers nothing more than political posturing.

Massachusetts  Attorney General hasn’t participated in fisheries management?

Let’s examine his contention that the Massachusetts Attorney General hasn’t participated in the (fisheries management) process in a little more depth. First off, I doubt very much that Attorney General Coakley  brought the suit on her own behalf. In fact, I’d bet dollars to donuts that she brought it on behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Even Mr. Shelley must know that the Commonwealth, via a succession of capable and effective representatives, has for at least the last forty or so years participated heavily in federal fisheries management via the Magnuson Fisheries Conservation and Management Act. Either Paul Diodati, Director of the Commonwealth’s Division of Marine Fisheries, or David Pierce, the Deputy Director, are at every meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council and Dr. Pierce is a member of that Council’s Groundfish Committee (as well as its Herring, Sea Scallop and ad hoc Sturgeon Committees and the Mid-Atlantic council’s Dogfish and Herring Committees). Mr. Diodati is also the Chairman of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Co-Director of the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute. They aren’t on these bodies on their own behalf either. They are there representing the Commonwealth as well. And before they were there, their predecessors were, and they were just as deeply involved.

This commitment to and participation in the fisheries management process by the various representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts began long before Mr. Shelley, the CLF and the Pew Trusts discovered each other. The Commonwealth, as represented in the current suit by the Attorney General whose participation Mr. Shelley seems so intent in marginalizing, established its bona fides in fisheries management at least a century ago (and will hopefully remain involved far beyond the point when Mr. Shelley, the CLF and Pew move on to “greener” pastures).

In fact the groundfish management measures that Mr.Shelley’s justifiable (in his estimation) suit is aimed at were a work product of the New England Fisheries Management Council, an institution which was established by the Magnuson Act in 1976 that has been in continuous operation – with overlapping changes in membership and administration –  since then. And in spite of Mr. Shelley’s so apparent disagreement with this fact, the Council is mandated by the Act to manage for the benefit of the fish, the fishermen and the fishing communities. The Council members voted by an over 75% majority (13 to 3) to support the measures that Mr. Shelley et al are now going to court – of course in a non-political fashion – to prevent. As opposed to Mr. Shelley’s “more than twenty years” trumpeted in the CLF press release,how many hundreds of years of collective fisheries science and management experience do the Council members and staff possess? How many collective years of management experience do the Council members whose votes Mr. Shelley and his pals are going to court to nullify have.

Evidently it isn’t fisheries management experience that Mr. Shelley finds so valuable. It’s whose management experience that matters.

These are the people, the agencies, the institutions, the experience and the actions behind the Commonwealth’s lawsuit – the one that Mr. Shelley wants us to believe is based on nothing more than “political posturing.”

And what of the constituencies being represented? Attorney General Coakley’s constituency is made up in large part of Massachusetts fishermen, all of those people, families and businesses that depend on them, all of the Commonwealth’s consumers who, apparently unlike Mr. Shelley et al, realize that a seafood dinner should involve something more satisfying and wholesome than a several-times-frozen lump of imported shrimp, tilapia or swai, and all of them, and us, who seriously appreciate fishing traditions going back to colonial times.

On the other hand, from what I’ve been able to discover (see http://www.fishtruth.net), Mr. Shelley’s, CLF’s and Earthjustice’s “constituents” are a handful of mega-foundations and well-to-do-donors, and I’d imagine a lot of internet “click here if you don’t like fishermen or fishing” residents of anywhere (but I’ll again bet those same dollars to those same donuts that very few of them are in coastal Massachusetts).

So few groundfish?

Then Mr.Shelley brings up what he wants us to consider the “fact” that there are so few groundfish available to the fishermen that they are no longer filling their annual quotas. To the uninformed (those “click here” constituents, for example) this probably seems a compelling argument for shutting down the fisheries, Mr. Shelley’s often stated goal. It must make sense to many people who are unfamiliar with our modern fisheries “management” regime as it has been distorted by lobbying by environmental activist organizations like CLF. In fact, however, there are other and much more believable causes of uncaught quota than not enough fish.

The first of these would be the existence of so-called “choke” species. Much more valuable fisheries can be shut down because of unavoidable bycatch of other species with much lower quotas. Take the situation in which two species – the targeted species and the “choke” species – are inextricably mixed during part of the fishing year. Fishermen, tending to be rational even when dealing with an irrational system such as the one that Mr. Shelley and his cronies have built, will avoid the target species in spite of its abundance because they know full well that when the catch limit for the “choke” species is reached both  fisheries will be shut down. In essence they are leaving the uncaught quota “in the bank” for later harvest. Needless to say, that later harvest isn’t guaranteed and it’s easy to imagine that in many instances it remains uncaught.

Then there are the meager trip limits for some stocks. Catch shares or not, in instances it just isn’t worth it for some fishermen to run their boats offshore for a few hundreds of pounds – or less – of fish. They’ll remain tied to the dock or will target other species with quotas that will allow them more income.

And we can’t forget low prices at the dock. Fish markets have adjusted to the recent vast swings in supply of some of the traditional species (a testament to the lack of effectiveness of our fisheries management system) by switching to alternative products. With the most productive fishing grounds in the world in our EEZ it’s hard to imagine that tilapia is the most heavily consumed finfish in the U.S., but it is. Compensating for these often low prices is a large part of the reason for the development of alternative markets for our domestic fisheries, but it’s somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible to move large quantities of fish in small lots.

Then there’s the impact of changing environmental conditions on the traditional availability of species, Said most simply, fish aren’t necessarily where they have been found by fishermen for generations. Though Mr. Shelley apparently want you to think that means they’re not there at all, that’s not necessarily so. Fish stocks are dependent on water temperatures, as are the critters they feed on, and water temperatures have been changing significantly in recent years. Some areas that used to reliably produce a particular species of fish at a particular time of the year no longer do so. With the meager quotas and the continually increasing costs of running a boat a fisherman isn’t as likely to search for where the water temperature changes have driven the fish. Economics won’t allow it.

Additionally, fish surveys are operated as if our U.S. coastal waters exist in a steady state; that conditions today  are as they were when the survey was started. The same spots are sampled at the same time every year, and when a particular species is no longer  taken in the sample or is taken in reduced numbers, the automatic assumption is that fishing is the cause of “the problem” and that reducing or curtailing (ala Mr. Shelley) fishing is the solution. Compounding the real problem, the reduced availability of research funds, the probability of extending the scope of the surveys is pretty low.

In a follow-up article on June 10, Shelley elaborated that the suit filed by Attorney General Coakley was “political ‘soapbox’ posturing” while“our suits are not political… they’re strictly based on the facts, and we do it as a last resort”(http://preview.tinyurl.com/mysrlbz).

Attorney General Coakley, Governor Patrick et al, please keep on keeping on. Effective fisheries management should involve much more than happy fish and happy ENGOs. When Congress passed the Magnuson Act in 1976 the Members realized this and it’s about time that the pendulum gets pushed back in the direction that it was intended to swing in. Fish count, but so do fishermen, fishing communities and seafood consumers. If the U.S. fishing industry is to survive, the initial balance that was amended out of the Act by intensive lobbying by foundation funded activists claiming to represent the public must be restored.

For more information on Shelley’s/the Conservation Law Foundation/Earthjustice lawsuit see Conservation Law Foundation & Earthjustice Make Unfounded Claims in Lawsuit Filing   at http://preview.tinyurl.com/pwaaabu.

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For those of you who were interested in the FishNet piece (available at http://www.fishnet-usa.com/Bluefin tuna and Pew.pdf ) on the ongoing attempts by the Pew Trusts, one of Mr. Shelley’s benefactors, to steer the Bluefin tuna management meeting this week in Montreal, the critique of the claims of the Pew people attempting the steering are available on the Saving Seafood website at http://preview.tinyurl.com/nc59z3q. I’d suggest that you take the time to read it and the Saving Seafood special report on Bluefin tuna at http://preview.tinyurl.com/ojo5jne.

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FishNet – USA/June 24, 2013         Nils E. Stolpe

On August 13, 1997 Josh Reichert, then Director of the Pew Trusts Environment Program and now Executive Vice President of the Trusts, in an op-ed column in the Philadelphia Inquirer titled Swordfish technique depletes the swordfish population wrote “the root problem is not only the size of the (swordfish) quota, the length of the season, or the  number of vessels involved. It is how the fish are caught…. Use of longlines must be barred…. the fishery should be open to all – provided that swordfish are caught with hand gear, including harpoons and rod and reel. No swordfish should be taken until it has a chance to breed at least once, meaning that the minimum allowable catch size should be no less than 100 pounds. Such measures…. would put the  Atlantic swordfish population back on the road to recovery.

” http://articles.philly.com/1997-08-13/news/25567968_1_swordfish-big-fish-commercial-long-liners

In what has become typical Pew style, Mr. Reichert’s article was just a small piece of a frightfully well-funded campaign to “save the swordfish” from the depredations of the U.S. pelagic longline  fleet. Involving scientists who had been willing riders on the  Pew funding gravy train, enlisting restaurateurs into the campaign who hadn’t the foggiest idea what swordfishing or pelagic longlining was all about, and using the formidable Pew media machine which had earned its legitimacy with tens of millions of dollars in grants to journalism schools and broadcast outlets, Mr. Reichert and his minions set out to destroy an entire fishery and the lives of the thousands of hard working Americans who depended on it.

This could have dealt a devastating blow to the U.S. longline fleet. Exacerbating a bad situation, it would have also resulted in the transfer of the uncaught quota from the strictly regulated U.S. boats to other vessels whose regulation was much less rigorous. Without question removal of the U.S. longline fleet would have had a negative impact on swordfish conservation.

Fortunately a swordfish management program to reduce fishing effort to where it was in balance with the resource had been put in place by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) years before Mr. Reichert and Pew “discovered” swordfish. By the time the Pew people and the Pew dollars entered the fray this program was already paying obvious conservation dividends. Then a closure of swordfish nursery areas off Florida, a closure which was supported by the U.S. longline fleet, was also put in place. This assured the recovery of the swordfish stock in the Western North Atlantic.

This was a testament to fisheries management based on sound science, not on media hype only affordable by multi-billion dollar corporations and foundations.  In spite of self-serving claims to the contrary, the Pew peoples’ prodigious yet misguided efforts to scuttle the pelagic longline fleet – and their obvious lack of understanding of swordfish management – changed virtually nothing about the fishery or about how it was being managed.

But what has changed in the intervening years is the way in which the rest of the (non-Pew) world looks at pelagic longlining in general and the U.S. pelagic longline fleet in particular. Thanks to significant efforts by the U.S. participants  in this fishery, they have become the undisputed world leaders in developing and implementing fishing gear and fishing techniques to drastically reduce or eliminate the incidence of bycatch in their fishery. And despite Mr. Reichert’s dire predictions and those of Pew’s stable of scientists, the doom and gloom predicted for swordfish if longlining was allowed to continue never developed. Today, as the pelagic longline fishery continues, the swordfish stock is fully rebuilt. In fact, the fishery is in such good shape that it was recently certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.

So now Bluefin tuna     

To quote the inimitable Yogi Berra, “it’s déjà vu all over again.” Fifteen years later the same cast of characters and the same organizations are using the same tired and ineffective strategy funded by the same sources to derail the management of another highly migratory fish species, the Atlantic bluefin tuna (ABT).

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the same body that is responsible  for swordfish management in the Atlantic, is holding a meeting of fisheries scientists and managers in Montreal at the end of this month to review the ABT stock assessment. The outcome of this review will have much to do with determining what the total allowable catch (TAC) of these valuable fish will be in the coming years. The TAC is divided between rereational fishermen, rod and reel commercial fishermen, harpooners, purse seiners (currently none are in the U.S. fishery) and pelagic longliners (who don’t target ABT but do take some incidentally).

While the public’s view of the value of these fish has been purposely distorted – each year one fish, supposedly the first and the best of the year, is sold at a Japanese auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars as a marketing ploy – they      are valuable, with a prime fish bringing thousands of dollars (the National Geographic Channel offers a largely accurate portrayal of the rod and reel ABT fishery in its series Wicked Tuna).

In what is no surprise to anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with fisheries management issues, the folks at Pew have mounted yet another well-funded campaign to influence the outcome of this ICCAT assessment review. They are using the same flashy and expensive techniques and have enlisted a similar claque of experts to “save the tuna” as they used in the late 90’s to save the swordfish.

As was so convincingly  demonstrated by the complete recovery of the swordfish stocks in spite of continued harvesting by the longline fleet, Pew science as voiced by Pew scientists was then far from the last word in the world of  fisheries      management. That hasn’t changed. Nor has their strategy. The same hackneyed messages of doom and gloom by the same overwrought scientists are presented as if they represent the main stream of fisheries research.

Rather than being swayed by their efforts to make the playing field at the upcoming meeting in Montreal as uneven  as the billions of dollars backing them up will allow, it’s crucial that the independent science as espoused by the independent scientists speak for itself.

As with swordfish almost a generation ago, we trust that the scientists and managers in Montreal this week will not be swayed by all of the hyperbole that they will find aimed directly at them, will evaluate the existing science for what it is, not for what the Pew people will try to tell them it is, and make decisions that are right for the fish and right for the fishermen.

We should note here that there seems to be no limit to what the people at the Pew Trusts will spend in their attempts to convince anyone who will listen to reduce or eliminate fishing but when it comes to investing even negligible resources into efforts to more accurately and extensively sample the fish stocks they seem so intent on saving, something that everyone agrees is necessary for more effective management, they seem singularly uninterested.

Comment here

FishNet-USA/04/01/06 – The entire focus of what is considered fisheries management today is on first blaming (generally commercial) fishing for any situation involving the perception that there are not enough fish, and then controlling (generally commercial) fishing to return a population of fish to what is presumed to be some optimum level. And most recently this has even been extended to restoring once healthy habitat that has been supposedly compromised by (generally commercial) fishing.

Why this focus on fishing? The logical answer would seem to involve an old adage dealing with smoke and fire. Is that necessarily so, or are there other factors at work instead?

A very brief history of wildlife management in general

Even before we in the colonies were attempting to hunt bison and passenger pigeons and anything else that was fit to eat or wear or shoot into extinction, the folks in Europe were realizing that such a strategy didn’t bode well for the future of small furry and finny creatures. Accordingly, the creatures were all claimed by members of the aristocracy, who proceeded to manage them (or more correctly, to have them managed) on their estates and on public lands. Needless to say, this was a fairly simple undertaking, aimed at controlling fairly simple and fairly artificial systems to “sustainably” produce a handful of desirable critters for the lords and ladies of the manor and their guests to eat or catch or shoot. Apply a few simple rules – don’t shoot too much, don’t catch too much and keep the peasants out – and you’d be in business for decades. This was because there were few factors affecting the highly controlled forests or lakes or rivers other than harvesting.

Moving forward – or perhaps not, at least as far as effectively managing fisheries was concerned – a few hundred years, in a lecture given at the Fisheries Centennial Celebration in 1985 (The Historical Development of Fisheries Science and Management, http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/history/stories/fsh_sci_history1.html), William F. Royce quoted Milton C. James, who wrote in 1951 “The fishery administrator starts his functioning with a background of a vast, unorganized ignorance, illuminated by occasional flashes of traditional legend, hearsay, inference, assumption, guesswork, and praise be, an increasing backlog of scientific theory and fact coupled with the experience gained from trial and error. The administrator, having no firmly fixed starting point of fact, must then chart some sort of course in the hope of arriving at the only definite landmark in his harassed existence — that represented by a stable, sound, productive fishery. This part of the job, nevertheless, might be considered relatively simple, calling for nothing more than a system of Spartan, conservative restraints and restrictions upon the taking of fish. By always leaning over backward in regulating, giving the resource the benefit of the doubt, he might come up with reasonable assurance of protecting the resource, except that the economic survival of thousands of individuals, hundreds of communities, and dozens of counties, may be affected by the administrative action taken.”

Royce followed this with “the dry wit of Milton C. James, who for many years was the Assistant Director for Fisheries of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is as pertinent today as it was in 1950 when he made that statement at the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Conference.” We agree with Royce completely here, but probably not for the same reasoning. What James wrote wasn’t pertinent in 1951, it wasn’t pertinent in 1985 and it isn’t pertinent today. At least back in 1951 we didn’t know any better, but by 1985 it should have been obvious that there were many other factors, both man-caused and natural, that affected our fish stocks.

 Have we grown out of it?

A rational and well-informed person, one who was familiar with the advances that have been made in the last half a century in understanding ecosystems, how they function and what our effects on them are, would assume that fisheries management had gotten beyond the simplistic view that (mostly commercial) fishing was invariably the major determinant of the health of fish stocks. With increasing knowledge of the downstream impacts of what goes on upstream, with the detection of various chemical pollutants in marine organisms far removed from any identifiable source, with the identification of weather/climate cycles and the attendant regime shifts that they bring about, and with a realistic grasp of the importance of wetlands and estuaries to inshore and near shore fisheries, it’s hard to imagine that we haven’t moved beyond the “blame it all on fishing” paradigm.

Unfortunately, the belief that if you can limit fishing you’ll be able to protect the fish is still at play in marine fisheries management today. In spite of the fact that estuaries and oceans are tremendously complex systems affected by myriad natural and anthropogenic activities, our fisheries management system is still based on controlling the fishery by controlling the harvest.

This is most convincingly demonstrated by the fact that in fisheries management only two sources of mortality are recognized. One of these is – you guessed it! – fishing mortality. The other is termed natural mortality, though it is defined as “that component of total mortality not caused by fishing, but by natural causes such as predation, diseases, senility, pollution, etc.¹”

“Refining” this definition of natural mortality, we have from NMFS “that part of total mortality applying to a fish population that is caused by factors other than fishing. It is common practice to consider all sources together since they usually account for much less than fishing mortality.²” While it’s kind of hard to imagine that fishing is “usually” the major cause of mortality in a fish population (of all of the hundreds or thousands or millions of eggs that a fish produces each year, a very, very small proportion survive to be caught by fishermen), and while it’s guaranteed to skew every discussion of mortality in fisheries against fishing, that’s the official government position.

Note that pollution is considered a part of natural mortality, as are any other anthropogenic effects other than fishing. We’ll get back to that later, but for now, consider the ramifications of recognizing only two sources of mortality, one “natural” and the other caused by fishing, when dealing with a fish population.

It’s been ingrained in modern society that anything that is “natural” is considered to be good and desirable, and woe to anyone who would dare to trifle with the natural order of things. Who could forget the “it’s not good to fool Mother Nature” margarine commercials of a few years back? Of course, the average person doesn’t have any idea that when it comes to fisheries management, mortality brought about by pollution, in fact mortality brought about by anything other than fishing, is considered “natural,” and is automatically considered “good,” leaving fishing as the only “unnatural” factor affecting fish stocks.

Is this the wrong way to manage?

If commercial fishing were the only, or even the predominant, source of mortality impacting a fish stock, then no one could argue that focusing on managing commercial fishing wouldn’t be the most effective way of managing it. On the other hand, it seems equally inarguable that if commercial fishing weren’t the only or the predominant source of mortality, then to focus solely on commercial fishing wouldn’t be effective. Rather, such a focus would be a virtual guarantee that commercial fishing on that stock would be “managed” into oblivion.

As evidenced by commercial fishery after commercial fishery enduring ever-increasing restrictions for year after year with no relief in sight, managing fish stocks by relentlessly cutting back on commercial fishing effort isn’t working the way it’s supposed to be. The anti-fishing activists blame this on a fishery management system that is compromised by conflicts of interest and is therefore unwilling or unable to impose the strong medicine that, in their estimation, curing our fisheries requires. Accordingly, they are in the midst of a campaign to amend the Magnuson Fisheries Conservation and Management Act to remove the slight bit of flexibility from the management process that at this point is the only thing allowing a number of commercial fisheries to survive.

But what if there are factors at work on particular fish stocks, factors that would be considered “natural” by the fisheries managers and thus unworthy of their attention, that are significantly influencing the health of those stocks?

A major “natural” source of mortality

We’ll start with the easiest and most understandable factor with the potential to significantly affect our fisheries, human population growth on the coasts, or more precisely, the impact of that growth on the productivity of inshore and near shore waters. If you’ve bought into the fisheries managers’ vocabulary, this is a “natural” source of fish mortality that is insignificant when compared to fishing mortality. But is it?

In the U.S. the population on the coasts has been and continues to increase at a greater rate than the general population. This is a worldwide trend. Every year there are more people, and every year more of them are living on the coasts.

Crossett, Culliton, Wiley and Goodspeed (2004, Population Trends Along the Coastal United States: 1980-2008, US Dept. Of Commerce/National Ocean Service) document the dramatic increase in population in coastal counties in the U.S. from 1980 to 2000. The only state that didn’t experience a significant increase in its coastal population density during this period was Alaska. Regionally, the coastal population density increased 18% in the Northeast, 58% in the Southeast, 45% along the Gulf coast and 45% for the Pacific states (including Alaska and Hawaii).

This coastal population explosion is unquestionably accompanied by increases in non-point source pollution, in recreational boating, in harmful algal blooms and so-called dead zones³, in the loss of productive wetlands, in the amount of household chemicals and pharmaceutical “residues” making their ways into coastal waters, in the amount of impervious ground cover and the corresponding increase in water borne sediments, with a host of side effects with the demonstrated potential to directly or indirectly impact the health of fish stocks.

In the U.S. “five of the 10 most populated watersheds are located from southern Virginia to New England. The Hudson River/Raritan Bay and Chesapeake Bay watersheds were the most populated overall, with over 13 million and 10 million people, respectively.” (from Crossett, Culliton, Wiley and Goodspeed). We’re not making much of a leap when we assume that this coastal population increase has had negative impacts on inshore and near shore water, nor that there would be an accompanying effect on the resident and migratory fish stocks.

 How does this apply to New England Groundfish?

With cut after cut being inflicted on the groundfish fleet, there still aren’t enough fish – at this point cod and yellowtail flounder in particular – to meet the rigid “rebuilding schedules” imposed after the passage of the Sustainable Fisheries Act. Under the latest management proposal, boats are to be allowed on the order of twenty days a year to fish for groundfish. The fleet average in the ‘70s and early ‘80s was perhaps 200 to 250 days. The proposed cuts represent a reduction of perhaps 90% in fishing time per vessel over several decades (without even taking into consideration what have been significant reductions in the fleet size). As Chart #1 indicates, since the passage of the Magnuson Act in 1976, the landings of these two species have declined dramatically in spite of the drastic and ongoing reductions in fishing effort.

This isn’t just characteristic of the cod and yellowtail flounder fisheries. In Chart #2, landings of the various species that make up the groundfish complex are depicted. In all of them fishing effort has being ratcheted downwards continuously (the increase starting in the late 1970s was an artifact of the passage of the Magnuson Act in 1976). Looking at this chart, it’s awfully difficult to believe that, along with fishing, there aren’t other factors influencing the stocks. If not, with such drastic reductions in fishing effort as the landings data indicate, why haven’t a greater proportion of the stocks recovered? At the same time, the coastal population in the Northeast continues to increase – as does the loss of wetlands, the amount of non-point source pollution, the recreational use of our waterways, etc. The attendant and undoubtedly increasing impacts on the fisheries, because they are considered to be part of the “natural” mortality and because the focus of fisheries management has always been on fishing, escape the managers’ scrutiny and the public’s attention while the groundfish industry faces cutback after cutback with no sign that relief is on the way. (For another example of this total focus on fishing, see “Brief history of the groundfishing industry of New England” on the Northeastern Fisheries Science Center website at http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/history/stories/groundfish/grndfsh2.html).

If we assume that there are other factors that are negatively impacting the groundfish stocks, and if the fisheries managers continue to reduce fishing effort in a futile attempt to counteract them, what lies ahead for the New England groundfish industry?

The Chesapeake Bay

In spite of this, there has been a recent movement to blame the ills of the Chesapeake on the overharvest of two filter-feeding commercial species, oysters and menhaden. Landings in both of these fisheries have declined significantly in the Chesapeake in recent decades. As shown in Chart #3 below, menhaden landings have been declining for well over a decade and oyster landings since the 1950s. The menhaden fishery is not being overfished, though there are recognized problems with recruitment (the addition of young fish to the stock). The view being pushed by anti-fishing groups is that decline in the productivity of the Chesapeake isn’t responsible for the decline in these fisheries but vice versa. Understandably, some of the most vehement critics of the Virginia and Maryland commercial fisheries are among those 16 million people who live around, play on and flush into the Bay. Their endeavors on behalf of the Chesapeake would be far more effective if each of them, in company with a dozen or so neighbors, packed up and moved to North Dakota.

The one fisheries “success story” in the Chesapeake – the resurgence of the striped bass population – has been tarnished by recent reports that a large part of the population has been afflicted with mycobacteriosis a lethal bacterial disease that has been increasing in the Bay’s striped bass for at least a decade.⁵ Mycobacteriosis is linked to degraded water quality.

The situation regarding coastal development in Alaska is unique. With such a sparsely populated coastline, it’s hard to imagine that there are any impacts from coastal development, and though the coastal population density has increased slightly, according to the U.S.D.O.C. it won’t reach two people per square mile until 2008 (the following chart lists the state-by-state coastal population density). This is in strong contrast to the other coastal states, with coastal population densities ranging from 60 people per square mile (Maine and Georgia) to 1,777 (New York). While Alaska’s fisheries are considered to be among the world’s most well managed, as they rightfully should be, isn’t there another message in there as well? Why is managing fishing mortality effective in managing Alaska’s fisheries while it’s for the most part inadequate in other fisheries? New England and the Chesapeake Bay estuary are in no way unique. In fishery after fishery and for year after year, commercial fishing effort is reduced because fisheries management is all about reducing fishing mortality and not about much else. And while fishing effort is continuously reduced, the coastal population continues to climb and the attendant “natural” mortality continues to increase.

 And Natural cycles in fish populations

Some fish stocks vary cyclically. Among the most well-known examples of this are the extremes exhibited by west coast sardine/anchovy stocks. Sardines off California go through a “boom or bust” cycle, to be replaced by anchovies as their populations plummet. This cycle, which was responsible for the collapse of the sardine fishery that had supported Cannery Row in Monterey, is driven by changes in oceanographic conditions brought about by a short-term “climatic” cycle of a 50 to 60 year duration and has been tracked back several thousand years.⁶

Related to the El Niño cycle and other factors, regime shifts in the Pacific drive periodic fluctuations in fish stocks. While research is not as well advanced, regime shifts are at work on fisheries in the Atlantic as well.^7,8

One might argue that, in the face of declining fish stocks, rational fisheries management would demand a reduction in fishing effort, and in some instances that’s surely the case. But one could just as well, and more convincingly argue, that in rational fisheries management all sources of mortality should be identified and quantified and, to the extent possible, controlled. That should be one of the primary underpinnings of ecosystem management, but it isn’t happening. According to the management establishment, it’s only about fishing. Our fishermen and our fish are paying the price.

1  http://www.fishbase.org/Glossary/Glossary.cfm?TermEnglish=natural%20mortality

2  http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/sos/intro/

3 http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2487

4 http://erf.org/user-cgi/conference05_abstract.pl?conference=erf2005&id=146

5 http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/oxford/stripedbass/

6  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0109_030109_fisheries.html

7 http://www.ices.dk/iceswork/asc/2004/abstracts/abstracts/M.pdf

8 http://tinyurl.com/n7e8x

The Department of Agriculture philosophy

For as long as I have been involved in the commercial fishing industry, and that’s going back for what is approaching forty years, there has been a widespread feeling that “things would be better if this industry were administratively housed in the Department of Agriculture (DOA).” Whether at the state level, in state waters within three miles of the coastline, or the federal level beyond three miles, there’s always been a sort of wistful “wouldn’t it be great if we were over there” view of the DOA, and the reasons for this aren’t awfully difficult to fathom. The Department of Agriculture, no matter whether state or federal, is mostly focused on promotion, and fisheries agencies, no matter the level, are regulatory in nature, in organization and in attitude. This is glaringly obvious with the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal fisheries agency, which in recent years has become almost totally focused to the virtual exclusion of anything else on limiting – rather than enhancing – the commercial production of fish and shellfish.

I started out in the early 1970s in experimental/pilot level aquaculture, running what turned into a fairly large experimental waste heat aquaculture facility on the Delaware River south of Trenton, NJ which was funded by the National Science Foundation. Having finished the course work for a professional planning degree at Rutgers, I convinced the powers that be at the National Science Foundation (the grantor), at Public Service Electric and Gas Company (the grantee), and at Trenton State College (the primary contractor) that I should be “loaned” to the New Jersey Department of Agriculture to work on a state-wide aquaculture development program.

Needless to say, it wasn’t too long before I realized that New Jersey was never going to amount to much aquaculture production-wise. With some of the most expensive land, labor, energy and construction costs in the country, there were a whole bunch of other places where production aquaculture was much more feasible (Back then I had a colleague with a lot of experience doing international aquaculture development. His assessment was that nobody was going to get rich, or even stay in business, trying to do aquaculture in places where there wasn’t a large and ready supply of unskilled labor. With the exception of mollusk culture he was – and still seems to be – right on target.)

Making a long story mercifully shorter, I segued over to capture fisheries, dealt increasingly with industry members there and decided that I’d rather work for and with those guys than with a passel of largely ineffectual career bureaucrats. So I “switched sides” (admittedly the dismal prospects I personally saw for finfish culture had a lot to do with this transition).

While this was going on two prominent commercial fishing industry member from New Jersey, Gösta “Swede” Lovgren, who was the owner of a commercial dock in Point Pleasant Beach and Jim Harry, a clammer (both ocean and bay) from Ocean County, had some major philosophical differences with the Division of Fish and Game in the NJ Department of Environmental Protection about how they were managing their fisheries in particular and New Jersey (and beyond) fisheries in general. They be began to campaign to get fisheries moved to the NJ Department of Agriculture. Part of their strategy was to become involved with the Ocean County (NJ) Farm Bureau and the Ocean County Board of Agriculture.

Having just escaped from most of a decade’s worth of employment in the NJ Department of Agriculture and in that time becoming painfully aware of the lack of a serious commitment in that Department to supporting the fish and seafood program – almost the entire budget was provided by outside funding – I didn’t think that was a great idea in spite of the Departmental focus on supporting NJ agriculture production. I’m the move never happened and New Jersey Department of Protection is still in charge of managing the fisheries in state – out to three miles – waters (the federal Department of Commerce is in charge from three miles out to two hundred miles, the Exclusive Economic Zone or EEZ).

But they were successful in raising awareness in the agriculture community, both in New Jersey and nationally, of the importance of commercial fishing, and are owed a collective industry-wide thank you for the consciousness-raising they did both in and outside the Department of Agriculture in Trenton. A generation later the relations they established are still bearing fruit for the commercial fishing industry.

According to the 2018 State Agriculture Overview for NJ (https://tinyurl.com/y4yk645d) annual crop production was valued at almost $620 million. In 2016, the last year for which landings are valuable, New Jersey’s commercial fish and shellfish landings were valued at $184 million.

While the lion’s share of the credit for this belongs to “Swede” and Jim, there were other industry members who were, and who still are, working at advancing relations between the agriculture community and the fish and seafood industry. Among them would be Jim Lovgren, Gösta’s nephew, past president of the Fishermen’s Dock Cooperative in Point Pleasant Beach, third generation NJ commercial fishermen, founding board member of Garden State Seafood Association, former member of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (responsible for managing fisheries in the EEZ from North Carolina to New York) and long-time member of the Ocean County Board of Agriculture. Also Ernie Panacek, manager of the Viking Village Commercial Dock in Barnegat Light, past president of Bluewater Fishermen’s Association, and founding board member and past president of Garden State Seafood Association. And a number of other industry members who have seen significant benefits in maintaining (and growing) our connections with agriculture.

(And I can’t overlook the efforts of a number of researchers and academics at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, formerly Cook College, and especially those folks at the Cook College Cooperative Extension service via NJ Sea Grant. They have maintained a research presence in support of the fishing industry in spite of a well-entrenched academic bias towards more esoteric, less immediately practical research.)

“It was really great to see Brick tie up a whole bunch of loose ends, get the right people together and initiate a program that has the potential to in large part solve one of the biggest problems that is currently confronting commercial fishermen. I support his efforts fully and think I can say the same for the entire membership of the Fishermen’s Dock Co-op in Point Pleasant Beach.”(Jim Lovgren)

“We at Viking Village in Barnegat Light have already been working with the folks at Trinity Seafood in Lakewood, successfully getting 4,000 pounds of donated albacore tuna to people who need a helping hand. We are looking forward to a long relationship with the Brick, Marty and the Folks at Trinity and salute Tyson for providing the much needed start-up funding.” (Ernie Panacek)

Even back then what is known as “bycatch” was starting to attract public scrutiny – or if not the scrutiny of the public, at least the scrutiny of the anti-fishing environmentalists, who were becoming far more active and more well-funded by a handful of so-called “charitable” foundations back in the 1980s.

So what is bycatch?

Our coastal waters and the open oceans are frequented by billions of members of thousands of distinct species of living critters. These are generally invertebrates, fish, birds or mammals (with the occasional occurrence of “oddball” groups like reptiles or amphibians thrown in).

Obviously at least at times members of different species will be in the same bit of water at the same time. Just as obviously different sized members of the same species will be ditto.

It is illegal for folks to disturb, harass, catch, land, kill possess or fondle some of these species either any time or at particular times, either anywhere or in particular locations.

In spite of what some of the misinformed would have you believe, previous generations of fishermen have always worked to reduce bycatch, which according to Merriam-Webster is “the portion of a commercial fishing catch that consists of marine animals caught unintentionally.” It has never been an acceptable part of fishing. This even extended back to the days when our accessible waters and the critters in them were considered to be inexhaustible. Bycatch consisted of those marine animals which, because of species, size or condition were unmarketable and were grudgingly discarded.

With the advent of fisheries management – and of the creation of a multi-billion dollar self-perpetuating fisheries management bureaucracy that often seem more interested in managing fishermen than in managing fisheries – as well as an understanding and appreciation of basic ecological principles the issue of bycatch became much more complex and controversial. For any of a number of sound reasons, and for some unsound reasons as well, laws or regulations were imposed upon fishermen that limited what they could catch or keep. Fish or shellfish of particular species, outside of mandated size ranges, outside of specific seasons, of particular sexes or from particular locations were “forbidden” to commercial fishermen and a large part of the fisheries management establishment was devoted to insuring that these mandates were adhered to. Hence today fishermen are either required to not catch or to return to the seas both those fish and shellfish that are not marketable and those that are referred to as “regulatory discards,” those they are not permitted to have in possession because of season, size or species but would be readily marketable and consumable otherwise.

Bycatch seems to be an issue expressly designed for the anti-fishing activists, as well as for the recreational anglers who thought that they were much more deserving of the bounty of our seas than the non-fishing public. It is a weapon used by individuals and by groups who wish to get commercial fishermen off the water and to get a higher percentage of limited harvests of particular species shifted from the non-fishing public to the recreational fishermen. Unfortunately, however, it is a weapon that can end up harming innocent parties while having none of the anticipated or at least promised conservation benefits:

“Populations of Red Snapper Lutjanus campechanus in the Gulf of Mexico remain overfished, but overfishing has been ended. Historically, rebuilding plans were based almost entirely on the reduction of shrimp trawl bycatch mortality, which was believed to account for 80% of the total juvenile Red Snapper mortality. This estimate was based on the assumption that juvenile Red Snapper had low rates of natural mortality. Bycatch reduction devices were believed to be capable of reducing bycatch mortality by more than 50%, which would enable the stock to rebuild without any other management actions. Over the years, new information has shown that natural mortality rates of juvenile Red Snapper are four times higher than originally estimated, and bycatch mortality is presently estimated to comprise only about 4% of the total juvenile mortality. Hence, bycatch reduction, regardless of the means by which it is achieved, will not be very effective for rebuilding the Red Snapper stock.” (From the abstract of An Updated Description of the Benefits and Consequences of Red Snapper Shrimp Trawl Bycatch Management Actions in the Gulf of Mexico; Benny J. Gallaway, W. J. Gazey & J. G. Cole; 2017, in North American Journal of Fisheries Management at https://tinyurl.com/ralkrkp)

Some anti-fishing groups have attempted to bolster their campaign against commercial fishing by with efforts to eliminate bycatch. They generally employ specious arguments that all boil down to the “fact” that fishermen are not willing to do much to avoid bycatch because it is little more than an inconvenience to them. This is far from truth. A pound of a bycatch species costs a fisherman as much as does a pound of a targeted species; the fuel costs and the wear and tear on the gear and on the boat are the same and the labor in handling the fish or shellfish on board can actually be more.
Because of this, and because of the sheer waste involved, the fishing industry has been committed to reducing bycatch in fisheries in which it is a significant issue as much as is possible, but in particular instances it isn’t possible to reduce the bycatch to zero. In these instances an acceptable alternative would be to find uses for this unavoidable bycatch and people and groups in the commercial fisheries have made sporadic attempts to do so but until recently no one, at least no one that I was aware of, had put together a successful program.

Michelle Sheldon with The Delmarva Farmer, wrote “a Jersey Shore native is trying to help feed the hungry from some of the East Coast’s largest seaports and one the nation’s most regulated industries: Commercial fishing. Brick Wenzel has been rallying for support of a gleaning program like those through which farmers share a portion of their harvests with food banks, food pantries and soup kitchens. Fishermen have always done something like this, Wenzel said. ‘They never formalized it’” (https://tinyurl.com/wronj5k).

But in the past several years, because of pressures that have nothing to do with fishing or the oceans and a lot to do with a burgeoning (yet admittedly controversial) Social Justice movement, the public – and the political – focus has shifted towards issues like food security. Wikipedia states that “the final report of the 1996 World Food Summit states that food security ‘exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.’” Particularly when combined with the growing awareness of the many health benefits of a diet rich in marine fish in particular, bycatch utilization has developed a certain cachet.

“We’ve seen the waste take place, we’ve just never been able to do address it,” says Brick Wenzel with America’s Gleaned Seafood. But a new program launched in New Jersey Friday means that some of this wasted fish will be donated to Fulfill, the food bank of Monmouth and Ocean counties (https://fulfillnj.org). “That fish gets turned over to the people in Monmouth and Ocean counties who need it the most. And there are a lot of them,” says former Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, the CEO of Fulfill. It’s called gleaning – taking extra produce produced by farms and donating it to the hungry. And now the concept will be applied to the ocean. It is believed to be the first such program in the country.” (New Jersey fishermen to donate excess catch to NJ food bank, News12 New Jersey, 9/20/2019- https://tinyurl.com/w6n3ctd).

If anyone were to begin to address the issue of bycatch as an opportunity rather than as a problem, the timing couldn’t be better than it is right now.
Fortunately a commercial fisherman out of Point Pleasant Beach, Brick Wenzel, realized this a couple of years back. Equally as fortunately, Brick has significant experience in local politics in New Jersey, and as equally important, he has also been heavily involved at a leadership level in Ocean County NJ Farm Bureau, and on and on… In other words, Brick was the right guy at the right time. And it helped that he had been rubbing elbows with the New Jersey fishermen who have been so involved in the New Jersey agriculture industry for so long.

In Gleaned Seafood brings bycatch to the needy in the September 20 issue of National Fisherman (https://tinyurl.com/vfjyx5f) Kirk Moore wrote “America’s Gleaned Seafood executive director Martin McHugh used to head the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife. Finding a better way to handle bycatch has long been on his mind. “I wanted to do this when I was (state) director, because we had Hunters Helping the Hungry,” a volunteer effort that delivered venison to the needy, McHugh said. Of course, given the high level of management and regulation on commercial seafood harvest, it has taken a lot of work by Wenzel and McHugh to get a system that all the participants — fishermen, law enforcement, docks, processors and non-profit groups — could buy into. “It’s an ecosystem of people you need to make this work,” McHugh said. The New Jersey state departments of agriculture, environmental protection and his old colleagues at Fish and Wildlife have been especially supportive, he said. State and NMFS law enforcement agents work with the program, observing bycatch pack out into designated containers with tickets for delivery to Trinity. An early test run used 1,000 pounds of scup that were landed at a time of zero market demand and could be used to test the delivery system and processing, McHugh said. Boats working for the program out of the co-op include the draggers Arianna Maria, Kailey Ann, and Amber Waves. Organizers were anticipating squid and sea robins to be in the next round going out to Trinity Seafood (https://tinyurl.com/v9sc36t), a Sysco company in Lakewood, NJ, is another participant in the project and is responsible for processing and handling the donated product.

It’s obvious that setting up this program required a lot of contacts, a lot of credibility, a lot of coordination, and I’d be willing to bet, more patience than most of us would have. And as I covered up above, a lot of groundwork by a handful of committed New Jersey commercial fishing industry leaders going back for at least two decades.

“I feel this is a great example of a responsible use of a natural resource that benefits those most in need. The industry is using its resources, particularly its labor and time, to help reduce hunger and provide a great source of protein. High-priced campaigns, funded largely by the environmental industry to demonize commercial fishermen, have done nothing to help those in need. This proactive campaign does just that.” Ray Bogan, lawyer who represents a number of marine and fisheries organizations as well as active fishing families.

Is it worth the effort? How often do you see positive articles in the general media about commercial fishing? How often are arguments against the “waste” inherent to bycatch used to justify the imposition of onerous – and as we’ve seen most recently in the commercial red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico and the West Coast groundfish fishery (see NOAA Fisheries press release New Fishing Opportunities Emerge from Resurgence of West Coast Groundfish at https://tinyurl.com/rgndgfw and keep in mind that the resurgence that the people at NOAA Fisheries are so intent on patting themselves and each other on their collective backs about happened far before it was due to because the restrictions on fishing that cost so many millions of dollars and caused so much economic misery on West coast fishing families and their communities primarily to reduce bycatch were obviously far more severe – and punitive – than they needed to be). And how many people’s lives would be improved if they had reasonable access to some of the thousands of tons of bycatch that are wasted every year?

Steve Strunsky at NJ Advance Media for NJ.com wrote in Instead of throwing their catch overboard, fishermen are feeding the hungry in N.J. on 11/21/19 (updated on 12/07/19) “Homeless roofer Graig Miller and former Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno have at least one very personal thing in common: food insecurity. Miller, a 41-year-old Keansburg resident who described himself as an alcoholic, was among three dozen hungry adults and children gathered for lunch on a recent sunny day inside the soup kitchen and food pantry at Keansburg’s St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. He said the roofing job he thought he’d be doing that day didn’t materialize, so he was free for lunch. It was an Italian seafood stew made with whiting, calamari and stingray literally gleaned from sources that might otherwise have thrown it back in the ocean or, worse, a dumpster, because the market simply did not make it worth the cost of shipping.Awesome,” Miller, a fish lover, said of the fresh seafood dish, a healthy source of protein, rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins D and B2, and other nutrients. “They did a frigging great job.”

The aptly named Seafood Gleaning Program is the brainchild of longtime Jersey Shore fisherman Brick Wenzel, who landed the program’s first gleaned fish in August after spending two years putting together a production and distribution network. It includes the Fisherman’s Dock Cooperative in Point Pleasant Beach, whose members catch the fish; the Trinity Seafood processing plant in Lakewood, which freezes and packs it for distribution; and the nonprofit Fulfill food pantry, which regularly feeds 136,000 people in Monmouth and Ocean Counties with two warehouses and a network of 289 pantries, soup kitchens and women’s shelters. A $50,000 grant from the Tyson Foods Protein Innovation Fund pays for boxing and labeling.

Despite its health benefits, fresh seafood has been a rarity at soup kitchens and food pantries up to now, even though much of the fish caught in New Jersey and elsewhere goes to waste. But fishermen, business and civic leaders, and volunteers in Monmouth and Ocean counties are trying to change that, with a seafood gleaning program that has served and distributed over three tons of fresh fish at soup kitchens and pantries that had absolutely nothing wrong with it other than a lack of sufficient demand in the commercial marketplace. https://tinyurl.com/t5vcn3f.

Is it going to eliminate bycatch completely? Definitely not, but it holds the promise of reducing it significantly, and at the same time it will address in part the increasingly important issue of food insecurity.

Thanks to the hard work of Brick Wenzel and his colleagues and the generosity of Tyson Foods the pilot program has demonstrated that the concept is workable, but it’s going to take a lot of commitment by a lot of people to significantly scale it up. This is going to represent a significant investment by the commercial fishing industry, but it’s an investment that’s well worth making, both from the perspective of reducing bycatch and from helping people who can use a hand.

If you want a printed copy of this FishNet, it’s available in PDF format on the FishNet-USA website at http://www.FishNet-USA.com/Gleaning_Bycatch.pdf.

© 2020 Nils E. Stolpe

Sept. 6, 2018 Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet USA

www.fishnet-netusa.com

Let’s start with commercial fishing perspectives on wind farms in the North Sea:

Seventeen fishing vessels docked in the centre of Amsterdam, a city that built its wealth and prosperity on the herring fishery. Between 600 and 700 fishermen from Holland and Belgium arrived in the city for a peaceful but highly visible protest that was followed by dozens of journalists. The protest made primetime news slots on Dutch and Belgian TV, highlighting the problems the North Sea fishermen face. ‘European rules like the discard ban, plus the growing number of wind farms in the North sea, are a huge burden to the Dutch fishing industry,’ said Job Schot, chairman of the EMK action group that unites 125 vessels, making it clear why the fishing industry has brought its grievances to Amsterdam .‘If nothing changes, there will be no future for the next generation,’ he said, as a petition of demands for Dutch and European policymakers was delivered to Dutch MEP Annie Schreijer-Pierik of the Christian Democrat party. EMK is seeking for no more wind farms to be located on fishing grounds and spawning grounds, for more research to be conducted into he effects of wind farms on marine life, and for compensation for the indystry’s losses.

(From Fishermen take protest to Amsterdam, Fisker Forum, 03/06/2018, https://tinyurl.com/y7wh4ovw.)

“At the moment I’m having to steam three hours to catch fish,” he (Steve Barratt, commercial fisherman out of Ramsgate, England) says. “Two reasons I’m having to steam three hours: one, to try and avoid fish I have no quota for, and the other reason is the wind farm’s in the way.”

From a seaside bluff in Broadstairs, another harbor just up the road from Ramsgate, you can just make out the north coast of France. And much closer, a row of wind turbines — the same farm fisherman Barratt will head through later on his way to Dutch waters. That’s where I meet John Nichols, who helps run the local fishermen’s association. He says 10 years ago, fishermen here thought offshore wind was a pipe dream. By the time they got together to oppose it, it was too late. Nichols says New England’s fishermen shouldn’t waste time fighting wind farm developers.

Instead, he says, they should form fishermen’s associations to increase their bargaining power.”You can’t work against them, you’ve got to work with them,” he says. “But if you’re one fisherman going to a developer, he won’t have any time for you. But if you’re, in our case 40-plus boats, then they will listen to you. And I think that’s the most important thing: strong, it can be small, but strong associations.”

(From Why Some Fishermen Are Wary Of Offshore Wind Farms, Chris Bentley, 01/17/18, WBUR Boston, http://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2018/01/17/fishermen-wind-farms-england)

Moving on to:

New Jersey under Gov. Phil Murphy is fully committed to offshore wind, working toward generating 3.5 gigawatts of its clean energy by 2030. The Board of Public Utilities has been ordered to prepare to seek bids on more than 1,000 megawatts of wind power, and a Danish company with a lease for an ocean wind farm has opened an office in Atlantic City. So when the governor asked early last month for another 180 days to comment on the next round of vast ocean wind leases — this time in the much used and fought over New York Bight between the city’s harbor, Long Island and South Jersey — his request was very credible. Our view: Murphy gets state, fishing industry more time for wind energy plan, Atlantic City Press, 06/01/18, https://tinyurl.com/ya29dho8.

And then:

Notice that most of the growth in offshore wind energy – via wind turbines – is off the northeast states (that coincides with the presence of a wide continental shelf, a lot of suitably shallow water, and a high demand for electricity), America’s Future Has Wind In Its sails Sails, Magill, B., 2015, at http://www.climatecentral.org/news/america-future-wind-power-19020.
Last but not least:
The federal Bureau of Offshore Energy Management, which is in the U.S. Department of the Interior, was created in the aftermath of the greatest man-made catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (and the federal government’s catastrophic response to that spill and subsequent “clean up), is in the process of soliciting proposals for the development of wind power projects in several distinct “call areas” in the New York Bight.

“This announcement (Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 70 / Wednesday, April 11, 2018 / Notices, Pgs 15602 et seq.) also requests comments and information from interested and affected parties about site conditions, resources, and multiple uses in close proximity to, or within, the Call Areas that would be relevant to BOEM’s review of any nominations submitted and/or to BOEM’s possible subsequent decision to offer all or part of the Call Areas for commercial wind leasing.” (https://www.boem.gov/NY-Bight-Call-Area-Maps/)

Extending from the waters off Long Island on the north to Cape May at the southern tip of New Jersey, if these areas are fully developed then access to the New York Bight’s highly productive waters by fishing vessels from New Jersey and New York ports could be restricted to 4 narrow channels which are subject to a tremendous amount of maritime traffic 24/7. Not only would a tremendous amount of highly productive bottom be closed to commercial fishing, access to areas that remained open would be much more difficult and costly to reach. Rather than steaming directly to where they intended to fish, vessels would be forced to make detours around the wind “farms” that would add at best hours and at worst days to every fishing trip.

In spite of the fact that in the U.S. our experience with producing electricity with offshore wind turbines is virtually nonexistent, we are apparently well on the way to committing billions of dollars to the effort – and most of that effort is going to be in the waters off New England and the mid-Atlantic.

How much experience do we have with offshore wind turbines in the United States?

The Block Island Windfarm is made up of the only offshore wind turbines in operation off the United States today. It is 3.8 miles off Rhode Island’s Block Island and consists of 5 turbines, each having a 6 MW (Megawatt) capacity. The “windmills” are 600 feet high and can reportedly withstand a Category 3 storm. Their connection to the electrical grid is via a 21 mile cable buried in the sea bed that comes ashore in Narragansett, RI*.

But these wind turbines are hardly “state of the art.”

GE Renewable Energy has introduced the Haliade-X 12 MW, a 12 MW wind turbine that will be 853 feet tall with a rotor 220 meters in diameter generating “almost 45% more energy than (the) most powerful wind turbine on the market today.” (https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/turbines/haliade-x-offshore-turbine)

Note the height of 853 feet and the blade sweep of 410,000 square feet. Though I couldn’t find velocity figures for blade tip velocities for the Haliade-X 12, the Siemens B75 turbine, the largest capacity wind turbine in use today, has a reported blade tip velocity of 180 miles per hour (https://tinyurl.com/y92oz69f).

(Agglomerations of wind turbines are usually referred to, at least by proponents, as either “wind farms” or “wind parks.” Is it just me or do other folks fail to see anything either farm- or park-like in a bunch – sometimes numbering in the hundreds – of huge structures each as tall as the Eifel Tower with blades sweeping almost 40,000 square meters with every revolution? How bucolic. How peaceful! How misleading!)

It would take 83 Haliade-X 12 MW wind turbines to generate New Jersey Governor Murphy’s initial 1,000 megawatts, and 291 turbines to reach his goal of 3.5 gigawatts of offshore generating capacity off New Jersey.

New Jersey’s coastline is about 130 miles long. If Governor Murphy’s 291 wind turbines are equally spaced from Sandy Hook to Cape May, they would be about half a mile apart.

At least at this point it seems that the domestic commercial fishing industry will be sharing – or trying to share – the oceans with thousands of huge wind turbines, and thousands of miles of sea floor transmission lines and the electromagnetic fields that that they create*.

But how cooperative is that sharing likely to be?

In 800 megawatt floating turbines proposed off California (in WorkBoat 03/22/2016, https://tinyurl.com/y9jcps2k) Kirk Moore writes “the company (Trident Winds, LLC) says it has been talking to Morro Bay commercial fishermen too, and drew its proposed area with an eye to avoiding conflicts. On its website, Trident says “there is no exclusion zone required on the wind farm perimeter, but the area will prohibit commercial fish trawling and netting.” The total amount of bottom from which fishing with nets will be excluded will amount to 68,000 acres (or 106 square miles). Prohibiting what are among the most efficient – and sustainable – forms of fishing in over 100 square miles of productive ocean bottom doesn’t seem to be a particularly effective way of “avoiding conflicts.”

A report commissioned by the National Wildlife Federation, Catching the Wind (https://tinyurl.com/yb8hehgw), estimates that 16,249 megawatts of energy could be produced by offshore wind turbines from Massachusetts to Virginia. Using the estimate from Trident Winds of 8 megawatts/square mile above, this would mean that commercial fishing would be prohibited over on the order of 2,000 square miles of ocean in the mid-Atlantic and Southern New England. This, of course, would be on top of other closures mandated for a variety of management, conservation and preservation purposes.

And this doesn’t take into consideration any additional commercial fishing closures required for transmission lines or other “off the farm/park” infrastructure.
Putting this into perspective, the coastline from the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border to the Virginia/North Carolina border is about 600 miles long. In this area there are on the order of 9,000 square miles of ocean from the coast to fifteen miles offshore. Good luck on closing up to 2,000 square miles of this (plus transmission infrastructure requirements) to nets without conflicts.

To a very large extent the future of the domestic commercial fishing industry is going to depend on how well it integrates with the offshore power industry, and that is going to take a great deal of coordination and cooperation. And that level of coordination and cooperation isn’t going to happen unless the political will is there to guarantee that it does. It appears as if the European experience in the North Sea will provide a template of what not to do. Will we be able to learn from that – and will the research be done that will allow the same level of precaution to be applied to offshore wind turbines as is applied to fishing?
Fishermen’s

A group of fishing organizations, businesses, and communities, led by the Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), has moved forward with its lawsuit to halt the leasing of a planned wind farm off the coast of New York. The suit, filed against the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), is seeking summary judgment and requesting the court to invalidate the lease, which was awarded to the Norwegian firm Statoil to develop the New York Wind Energy Area (NY WEA).

BOEM’s process for awarding the lease failed to properly consider the planned wind farm’s impact on area fish populations and habitats, shoreside communities, safety, and navigation. This violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires an assessment of these impacts before issuing the lease, in conjunction with a full Environmental Impact Statement and an evaluation of alternative locations for any proposal. Ten commercial fishing industry organizations and three fishing communities are plaintiffs in a lawsuit (from Fishing Groups and Communities Move Forward with Suit Against NY Wind Farm, 9/19/17, at https://tinyurl.com/y6u9aps7).

Suing federal agency is exceedingly expensive, and having to bring a suit every time BOEM – or any other federal agency that threatens commercial fishing through its permitting process would be prohibitively expensive – and is obviously not the answer. Fortunately our federal fisheries are already being managed by six regional fishery management councils. It would be logical to give these Councils a strong role in the siting of development of offshore energy, transmission cables and other associated developments. Without that our fishing industry is going to be submerged by a tsunami of windmills, submerged data centers (see Microsoft deploys underwater data center off the coast of Scotland, 06/07/2018 at https://tinyurl.com/ydaujfn5, and associated hardware.

*In December I wrote EMF (Electromagnetic Field) Effects and the Precautionary Principle (https://tinyurl.com/yc5t7d7a). In it I addressed the paucity of research on the impacts EMFs generated by electrical currents on marine organisms and of the willingness of the environmental community to insist on the application of the precautionary principle to fisheries management while ignoring it as it applies to EMFs. Stated most simply, we don’t have much of a clue about their impacts – both acute and long-term – on the plants and animals that sustain our multibillion dollar fishing and tourism industries.

EMF (Electromagnetic Field) Effects and the Precautionary Principle
Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet USA
Copyright 2017 Nils E. Stolpe

http://fishnet-usa.com/

December 20,2017

The following is taken from an OSPAR Commission (https://www.ospar.org/) report from 2008. It clearly shows that at the time when interest in offshore wind turbines was really starting to grow there was very little knowledge of, nor had much significant research been done on, the effects of electromagnetic fields on marine or estuarine species, and what little had been done was on mature organisms, with little or no attention given to immature stages.

Background Document on potential problems associated with power cables other than those for oil and gas activities: Conclusions in regard to electromagnetic fields
Our current knowledge about effects of electromagnetic fields on the marine environment, in particular fauna, is not sufficient. Only a few preliminary conclusions can be reached.

Occurrence of magnetic fields associated with power transmission is best limited by field compensation to be achieved by an appropriate transmission system layout (preference of AC transmission systems or bipolarDC transmission system against monopolar systems). In case of monopolar transmission systems magnetic fields in close vicinity to the cable exceed natural ambient conditions significantly.

Directly generated electric fields are regarded to be controllable by adequate shielding. However, an induced electric field generated by the magnetic field occurs. In case of high current flows during power transmission the electric fields in proximity to the cable significantly exceed values typical under natural conditions.

Simulation studies revealed the potential for induced electric field mitigation by using highly specialized materials with high permeability or conductivity values for armouring of cables.

Development of modern materials with such properties has to be encouraged. Though cable burial will not effectively mitigate against magnetic fields and induced electric fields it is likely to reduce exposure of electromagnetically sensitive species to the strongest electromagnetic fields that exist at the ‘skin’ of the cable owing to the physical barrier of the substratum i.e. the greater distance to the cable, and cable burial should therefore be realized.

There is an apparent lack of information on electromagnetic fields emitted from communication cables (with electric components).

In regard to effects on fauna it can be concluded that there is no doubt that electromagnetic fields are detected by a number of species and that many of these species respond to them. However, threshold values are only available for a few species and it would be premature to treat these values as general thresholds. The significance of the response reactions on both individual and population level is uncertain if not unknown. More field data would be needed to draw firm conclusions but data acquisition under field conditions is complicated. (OSPAR Commission, 2008 – https://www.ospar.org/documents?d=7128)

An electromagnetic field (EMF) is “a field (as around a working computer or a transmitting high-voltage power line) that is made up of associated electric and magnetic components, that results from the motion of an electric charge, and that possesses a definite amount of electromagnetic energy” (Webster’s on-line dictionary). With the potential proliferation of offshore energy, telecommunications and internet infrastructure, (see “Fish Wars” or a Regime Shift in Ocean Governance? At http://www.fishnet-usa.com/Fish%20Wars%20or%20Regime%20Shift.pdf ), we can expect to see a corresponding increase in the propagation of EMFs in the oceans, and particularly in those parts of the oceans adjacent to population centers.

The Bureau of Offshore Energy Management (BOEM) has leased tens of thousands of acres of offshore ocean (for use from below the sea floor to hundreds of feet above the water’s surface) for siting offshore wind turbines, other electrical “generators” and the necessary support and transmission infrastructure. Part of the transmission infrastructure, in fact from the EMF perspective the most significant part, will be the vast network of transmission cables that will crisscross the ocean floors, potentially imposing significant (and perhaps insurmountable) barriers to some of the organisms that either live in proximity to or transit over such networks.

It’s plain from the quotation above that the scientific community didn’t have a clue about what these barriers might be, let alone how significant their impacts on marine fauna.

Several years later, in May of 2011, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) received a 169 page report with an additional 250 pages or so of appendices titled Effects of EMFs (Electromagnetic Fields) from Undersea Power Cables on Elasmobranchs and Other Marine Species (https://www.boem.gov/Environmental-Stewardship/Environmental-Studies/Pacific-Region/Studies/2011-09-EMF-Effects.aspx). The study was done for the Pacific OCS Region but wasn’t geographically limited and included an extensive bibliography that appeared to be world-wide in scope.

The Executive Summary starts “anthropogenic electromagnetic fields (EMFs) have been introduced into the marine environment around the world and from a wide variety of sources for well over a century. Despite this, little is known about potential ecological impacts from EMFs.”
From there it goes on for several hundred pages discussing just how much is not known about the effects of these fields on aquatic, estuarine and marine organisms, be they invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles or marine mammals.

For a little bit of history, BOEM was formed during and was a direct result of the political fallout from the BP debacle in the Gulf of Mexico – aka Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill – that began in April of 2010 (and the bureaucratic response of which I wrote about – see NOAA Inaction in the Gulf of Mexico at http://www.fishnet-usa.com/NOAA_Inaction.pdf and Fish and Oil: NOAA’s Attitude Gap at http://www.fishnet-usa.com/FishAndOil.pdf).

Needless to say, some dramatic political intervention was called for, and not surprisingly that intervention resulted in the formation of yet another bureaucracy, the BOEM. But this bureaucracy was supposed to differ from its predecessor agency in more than its name. From BOEM’s current website:

OUR VALUES

Responsible Stewardship: The bureau is responsible for stewardship of U.S. OCS energy and mineral resources, as well as protecting the environment that development of those resources may impact. The resources we manage belong to the American people and future generations of Americans; wise use of and fair return for these resources are foremost in our management efforts.

Science-Informed Decisions: BOEM is committed to using the best available science in bureau decision making. To fill critical gaps in the information needed to inform the wide range of decisions within the bureau, BOEM facilitates world class research by talented scientists in many disciplines. The bureau also employs a significant number of scientists and technical experts across a range of relevant disciplines that provide the foundation of human capital needed to make sound decisions at all levels of the organization.

Integrity and Ethics: As public servants, we adhere to fundamental principles of ethical behavior. The bureau as a whole is committed to conducting its business according to the highest ethical standards. In accordance with the examples set by BOEM leadership, each BOEM employee is expected to conduct their daily operations in a way that demonstrates both professional and personal integrity. This includes a commitment to the highest level of scientific and scholarly integrity.

The following quotes are from the report submitted to BOEM in 2011.

“Studies indicate that sandbar shark also respond to magnetic stimuli. A magnetic sense may assist with seasonal migratory movements of adults and juveniles through coastal waters along the eastern seaboard. Thus, this combination of sensory capabilities and natural history attributes makes the sandbar shark a good example species for potential responses to power transmission cables from offshore wind generation facilities on the US East Coast.” (Page 68)

“Based on evidence for sensitivity to either electric or magnetic fields, fish species from 12 families in 10 orders were targeted for review in this report. This includes 183 species of fish that occur in coastal waters (bottom depth <200 meters) of the continental US. Either direct evidence for these species or evidence for a closely related taxon suggested that these species should be prioritized for consideration of potential sensitivity to EMFs.” (Page 75)

“…in some cases, segments of long power cable runs can transect migration routes, feeding grounds, or spawning sites for those species sensitive to EM fields and alter their normal behavior. Such effects are currently unknown.” (Page 77)

“…if a species uses a magnetic sense for homing capabilities, these capabilities maybe affected in close proximity to certain cable systems.” (Page 77)

“Induced electric fields may also potentially affect functions such as prey detection or social interaction and reproduction.” (Page 78)

“No studies were found that have tested effects of power cable EMFs (AC or DC) on salmon.” (Page 87)

“North Atlantic right whales inhabit coastal waters to at least 200 m, and because they have been observed to be feeding near bottom (180 m), this behavior may expose them to magnetic field levels above their sensitivity threshold. There is no scientific evidence as to what the response to exposures to such a field would be however.” (Page 96)

“Scientific studies examining effects of EMF on marine mammals have not been conducted. However, it is possible that many marine mammals are capable of detecting the magnetic fields resulting from undersea power cables, particularly those species that can detect the Earth’s magnetic field and use it (in addition to other cues) for migration. Responses to exposure to cable-induced magnetic fields are likely to vary depending on the geographic region for the energy project, available habitat for each species, the resulting intensity of the EMF cables orientation and direction combined with local geomagnetic intensity. In addition, depending on the depth of burial, those marine mammals feeding on benthic organisms may excavate or uncover buried power cables. Potential responses from exposure to EMF may include a temporary change in swim direction, a more serious delay to the animal’s migration, possibly stranding if EMF from undersea cables resulted in magnetic minima.” (Page 96)

“Responses to exposure to cable-induced magnetic fields are likely to vary depending on the geographic region for the energy project, available habitat for each species, the resulting intensity of the EMF cables orientation and direction combined with local geomagnetic intensity. In addition, depending on the depth of burial, those marine mammals feeding on benthic organisms may excavate or uncover buried power cables. Potential responses from exposure to EMF may include a temporary change in swim direction, a more serious delay to the animal’s migration, possibly stranding if EMF from undersea cables resulted in magnetic minima.” (Page 98)

“Many displacement and sensory manipulation experiments have proven that changes in field intensity and inclination angle can cause turtles to deviate from their original direction. The mechanisms for sea turtles sensory abilities are not known and to date, there are no data on impacts from magnetic fields from underwater cables for sea turtles.” (Page 105)

“Sea turtles are known to use multiple cues (both geomagnetic and nonmagnetic) for navigation and migration. However, conclusions about the effects of magnetic fields from power cables are still hypothetical as it is not known how sea turtles detect or process fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field. In addition, some experiments have shown an ability to compensate for “miscues,” so the absolute importance of the geomagnetic field is unclear.” (Page 105)

“No direct evidence of impacts to invertebrates from undersea cable EMFs exists. Few marine invertebrates have ever been evaluated for sensitivity to electric or magnetic fields; and the available data for those that have been studied are limited. In addition, these magnetoorientation studies are focused on the behavior of mobile adults and the effects on their pelagic larval stages are poorly studied. Thus, discussion of potential impacts to invertebrates from anthropogenic EMFs must rely on speculation and very likely overlooks a number of sensitive species.” (Page 115)
“…disorientation within the range of the magnetic field surrounding some DC cables could presumably confuse or delay lobsters. Nonetheless, the (Florida or Caribbean spiny) lobster’s ability to rely on backup orientation and navigation cues and their adaptability to change in magnetic cues is not well known.” (Page 121)

“Acknowledgement of substantial gaps in our understanding of the effects of EMF in the marine environment should not be construed as a recommendation to avoid installation of new undersea cables until these gaps are closed however. The modeling presented in Section 4.1 is representative of the types of existing and proposed cables that are suitable to support the offshore wind (or other types of offshore renewable energy) industry and can be used to develop at least a preliminary understanding of field strengths of proposed cables. Coupled with the available information on the ability of various species to sense these fields, it is evident that there are spatial boundaries surrounding each cable beyond which the fields are unlikely to have an effect on biota. Historical use of undersea power cables (e.g., connecting islands and oilrigs to the mainland, offshore wind projects in Europe) provides no documented evidence in the literature of major impacts to marine species from EMFs although there have been few studies that have actually assessed the interaction between marine organisms and cable EMF. Given that the offshore renewable energy industry in the US is in its infancy, it is reasonable to believe that any potential risks of exposing particularly sensitive species or populations to EMFs from undersea cables can be substantially reduced by careful site selection, mitigation, and an increased knowledge base on the sensitivities and responses of marine species to EMFs to improve siting decisions. The current hierarchy of offshore wind project development anticipated in US waters, with early emphasis on the Mid-Atlantic and New England, allows us to focus on key species and research topics.” (Page 121)

This report demonstrates that no one had much of an idea of what the actual impacts of anthropogenic EMFs would be on estuarine/marine ecosystems even after several more years of intensive planning for and promoting of offshore energy production. So it was with some relief that I read near the top of the listing of BOEM values on their website that “the bureau is responsible for stewardship of U.S. OCS energy and mineral resources, as well as protecting the environment that development of those resources may impact” (my emphasis).

But it seems that to BOEM “protecting the environment” didn’t extend to EMFs. Three years after the above quoted BOEM funded report was completed, in Effects of offshore wind farms on marine wildlife—a generalized impact assessment (Bergström et al, 03/19/14), the authors wrote “there was paucity in studies on cumulative impacts and long-term effects on the food web, as well as on combined effects with other human activities, such as the fisheries. These aspects remain key open issues for a sustainable marine spatial planning (http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/9/3/034012/meta).

Then in 2016, quoting from A Review of the Evidence of Electromagnetic Field (Emf) Effects on Marine Organisms (Emma B*, Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, 11/28/16) “it was logical to conclude that the worst outcome for the future would be if cable manufacturers disregarded the best available scientific advice regarding the potential effects of subsea cables. Presently, there is insufficient evidence to suggest biological impacts upon marine organisms from EMFs. Nonetheless, there is a significant gap in understanding of any long-term impacts marine organisms might face” (http://www.rroij.com/open-access/a-review-of-the-evidence-of-electromagnetic-field-emf-effects-onmarine-organisms-.pdf).

Apparently, and assuming that Bergström et al and Emma B. completed reasonable reviews of the literature, the people at BOEM haven’t taken their agency’s assurance that it’s personnel would protect the environment as they would like us to think they had, because we seem to know little more about EMF effects now than we did in 2011 (or previously).
Evidently the authors of the BOEM report in 2011 had quite a different perspective on the environmental acceptability of offshore cable installations.

Of course this difference in perspectives brings up the precautionary principle, to wit “when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.” (Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle,1998).

For an interesting discussion of the application of the Precautionary Principle when dealing with human exposure to EMF see the World Health Organization’s The Precautionary Principal and EMF (L.I. Kheifets, http://www.who.int/peh-emf/meetings/southkorea/Leeka_Kheifets_principle_.pdf).

Anyone who is familiar with fisheries management, particularly as it has “evolved” over the last decade or so, is almost certain to be familiar with the Precautionary Principle. As applied to fisheries it means that fishermen should not be allowed to do anything until it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that what they wish to do won’t affect the fishery they propose to participate in, any other fishery, or the environment of the area where the potentially affected fisheries are located.

This makes it extremely difficult (if not impossible) to develop new fisheries or to expand existing fisheries – but some would argue that’s what fisheries management is for.

As far as the Precautionary Principle as applied to fisheries is concerned, Peter Shelley, Conservation Law Foundation Senior Counsel wrote in a 2009 CLF press release “we are dismayed that the NMFS chose to base its determination on untested hypotheses that leave the future of the wolffish to chance, rather than to use well-recognized principles of precaution to ensure its survival.” In April of 2012 in a CLF blog he wrote “we think catch levels were set too high, too little was done to reduce the growing cod catches of recreational fishermen, and nothing was done to balance fishermen’s economic and social pain by directing the small allocation of Gulf of Maine cod toward coastal fishing boats. The decision of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to accept the New England Fishery Management Council’s quota recommendation had little to do with precautionary principles and much to do with politics.” And in the CLF blog Talking Fish in November, 2014, “the precautionary principle should have triggered greater caution by the managers and the fishing industry in the face of mounting uncertainty about the health of the remaining cod biomass but it didn’t. Now, the price has to be paid.” (This isn’t to imply that attempts to limit fishermen or fishing via the Precautionary Principle are limited to Mr. Shelley or the Conservation Law Foundation. To the contrary – and in spite of Mr. Shelley’s attempts to lump fisheries managers in with fishermen as ocean “bad guys,” the (over)application of the Precautionary Principal permeates federal fisheries management at every level, in large part due to strenuous lobbying efforts by foundation funded ENGOs including the CLF.

And yet, in shilling for the recently sunk Cape Wind Project (see What Was Once Hailed as First U.S. Offshore Wind Farm Is No More at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-01/cape-wind-developer-terminates-project-opposed-by-kennedys-koch) another CLF release titled Conservation Law Foundation Applauds DPU Conclusion That Cape Wind is in the Public Interest in 2010 stated “the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) hailed today’s decision by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) approving a fifteen-year contract for the sale of Cape Wind’s power and renewable energy credits to electric utility National Grid, a crucial step toward advancing the country’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm. The decision, based on extensive expert testimony and other evidence brought forward by supporters and opponents of the Cape Wind offshore wind energy project, reached the important conclusions that Cape Wind’s long-term power purchase agreement is “cost-effective” and “in the public interest,” and will deliver substantial benefits for ratepayers and the Commonwealth. John Kassel, president of CLF, said, “The DPU’s decision to approve the Cape Wind power purchase agreement brings Massachusetts one step closer to realizing the economic and environmental promise of offshore wind energy (https://www.clf.org/newsroom/conservation-law-foundation-applauds-dpu-conclusion-that-cape-wind-in-public-interest/ ).

From the Cape Wind Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS at https://www.boem.gov/Cape-Wind-FEIS/) Section 9-2 Lessons Learned From European Wind Farms: (Emphasis added)

“In order to identify possible lessons learned from other offshore wind energy projects, MMS reviewed the monitoring results from a recent study on two demonstration wind farms in Denmark (Horns Rev and Nysted), which have been the subject of research and monitoring programs to examine the potential environmental impacts of offshore wind farm projects. Horns Rev, constructed during the summer of 2002, is sited 8.7 to 12.4 miles (14 to 20 km) off the coast of Denmark in the North Sea, and consists of 80 turbines totaling 160 MW. Nysted was constructed between 2002 and 2003 approximately 6.2 miles (10 km) offshore in the Baltic Sea, and incorporates 72 wind turbines placed in 8 rows of 9 turbines each, with a total installed capacity of 165.5 MW. The monitoring data at both sites consist of three years of baseline monitoring, monitoring during construction, and three years of monitoring during operation. The environmental monitoring program focused primarily on the effects of construction and operation of the offshore wind farms on the infauna, epifauna, and vegetation of the benthic community; on fish, marine mammals and birds; and on peoples’ attitudes towards offshore wind farms locally and nationally….

Overall, the results from the Danish wind farms suggest that with proper siting and placement of turbines, offshore wind farms can be engineered and operated without significant damage to the marine environment and vulnerable species. In general, the monitoring results show that the wind farms seem to pose a low risk to birds, mammals, and fish. The studies stress that appropriate siting is an essential precondition for ensuring limited impact on nature and the environment, and that careful spatial planning is necessary to avoid damaging cumulative impacts. Important differences between the two sites were observed in the results of some studies, suggesting that environmental impacts are likely to vary by location even with careful site planning. Therefore, it is difficult to generalize the results of this monitoring program to potential environmental impacts at other offshore wind sites including the proposed action….

Conclusions reached from the Danish offshore wind farms, therefore, showed generally minimal environmental impacts over the long term at these sites, but enough differences between sites to recommend caution in generalizing too much from these limited studies. New benthic habitats were colonized fairly rapidly, without strong observed effects on the surrounding soft bottom communities. The effects of the offshore wind farms were neutral with regard to fish density, species composition and abundance, showing neither positive nor negative effects. Results from the study on the potential effects of EMFs were inconclusive. Marine mammals, in general, were affected during construction temporarily, but their use of wind farm areas recovered during the operation phase, with the exception of the porpoises at Nysted, which exhibited long-term avoidance of the area. Bird studies showed general avoidance of wind farm areas for migration in most species, as well as avoidance by some species that otherwise use the area as a feeding ground. Collision rates with turbines for a large diving duck, the common eider, during migration, were predicted and observed to be very low….”

The study at Nysted also looked for effects on fish and fish behavior that might be caused by the EMFs created by submarine cables during the operation phase of the wind farm. The Nysted study was not conclusive on this point, but suggests that there is no strong effect. There was some evidence of either avoidance or attraction to the magnetic fields depending on the fish species. The data, however, did not rule out the possibility that physical conditions, not EMFs, along the cables might have caused the observations. Only one species, flounder, showed a correlation between the inferred strength of the EMF and increased avoidance of the cable. It may be invalid, however, to assume that other species do not feel an effect of the EMFs; a weakness of this study was that the EMFs around the cables were not measured directly, and the strength of the fields was inferred from turbine output only, which may not be sensitive enough to produce a correlation.

It appears as if research on the EMF effects of these two “demonstration” wind farms in Norway were as cursory and as inconclusive as those that have been reported by other researchers cited above, being extremely limited temporally and spatially and in species/life stages considered.

Yet the FEIS for the Cape Wind project was apparently good enough for the Conservation Law Foundation, the personnel of which write about their focus on their website “together, we can ensure a healthy future for New England’s ocean. The ocean plays an integral role in New Englanders’ lives, our economy, and our communities. But pollution, overfishing, and climate change threaten its health and our future. CLF has safeguarded New England’s ocean for decades – from blocking oil and gas drilling on Georges Bank, to curbing overfishing, to pioneering smart ocean planning across the region. Today, we’re fighting for a clean, healthy, and productive ocean – for today and for generations to come.”

Obviously to ENGOs like the CLF the precautionary principle doesn’t apply to possible EMF effects in marine or estuarine environments the way it does to limiting fishermen and fishing – or to excoriating fisheries managers who have the temerity to disagree with the CLF in general and Peter Shelley in particular on how to best manage the New England fisheries.

But as anyone with even an elementary understanding of fish, shellfish and fisheries knows, one of main characteristics of many fish stocks is migratory behavior – either North (cold) and South (warm) or inshore and offshore. These migrations are not necessarily confined to adults and are not necessarily accomplished by the critters themselves but may be aided by ocean currents. Can anyone say with any certainty that EMFs spread across these migratory paths won’s interfere with the migratory patterns of recreationally/commercially important species of fish/shellfish, or on other species which they are dependent on? Or won’t interfere with reproductive behavior or larval development? The science on these issues is severely limited, yet the ENGOs and management bodies that are not willing to allow any management actions without “definite” proof that such actions won’t have even a minimal downside are more than willing to permit the installation of extensive networks of EMF producing cables adjacent to or within some of our most productive – and heavily fished – areas. Evidently In these instances the Precautionary Principle isn’t all that important – or seemingly makes no difference at all.

Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet USA
August 23, 2017

www.fishnetusa.com

“The Regional Council system was designed to allow regional, participatory governance by knowledgeable people with a stake in fishery management” (click here)

A bit of history

When the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) became law 0n April 13, 1976, one of its primary selling points, along with reserving the fish and shellfish in our coastal waters out to two hundred miles for U.S. fishermen, was that the eight regional Fishery Management Councils that it established had as voting members both government employees who were involved in fisheries management and private citizens who were knowledgeable about fisheries. Ideally this made for balanced decision making, allowing for both the official view of what’s going on in particular fisheries and the on-the-water observations of people with an actual working knowledge of the fisheries, and with the Secretary of Commerce required to sign off on any fishery management actions. (It’s important to note that this was well before supposed environmental crises were supporting a multi-billion dollar industry.)

After decades of watching foreign fleets harvesting the fish in our near-shore waters, the enactment of the MSA generated a sense of euphoria in both the domestic fishing industry and in the investment community (encouraged by a very favorable investment climate fueled by federal underwriting of risk in the form of low-interest loans), with the predictable outcome of overcapitalization – too many boats working on extensive, though limited, fisheries resources.

In a number of instances this led to overfishing – removing more fish than natural production can replace.

Understandably chronic overfishing is undesirable. Accordingly the management regime responded, and responded appropriately, by enacting reasonable – and potentially effective – measures to reduce mortality. And these measures were (and would have been) in large part thanks to the input of the public members on the Councils. For the most part they realized that the welfare of the fishermen and the businesses and communities that depended upon them could be, and should be, balanced with the welfare of the fish. And they also realized that fisheries statistics, no matter how torturously they were manipulated, did not always tell the full story about what was going on in the oceans.

Unfortunately this was all occurring concurrently with the burgeoning of the environmental crisis industry, and fishermen became the targets of choice for some of its most powerful members (and for a handful of their mega-foundation bankrollers).

This resulted in the enactment in 1996 of the Sustainable Fisheries Act (SFA), a series of changes to the MSA which among other things removed almost all of the discretion from the federal management process. What this meant was that a complex tangle of largely inadequate estimates of fish stock parameters cranked into any of a number of computer models that were well beyond the grasp of just about everyone, and the with reductions applied because of the inadequacy of those estimates, would result in a determination of the permissible catch level in a particular fishery. This catch level couldn’t be exceeded, regardless of any other factors – and if it were, one or several ENGOs on the mega-foundation gravy train would sue the Secretary of Commerce.

And the last Magnuson reauthorization in 2006 “included additional mandates for conserving and rebuilding fish stocks and strengthening the role of scientific advice in fisheries management.” (National Research Council of the National Academies of Science, Evaluating the Effectiveness of Fish Stock Rebuilding Plans in the United States, (click here)

The trend in Magnuson-based federal fisheries management has been an increasing reliance in what is still tremendously imprecise fisheries science and a minimization of reliance on what is now known disparagingly as anecdotal information, even though it is generally based on on-the-water observations by people whose livelihood depends on “getting it right,” often stretching back for generations.

“Scientific concepts are characterizations of nature. However, science is imperfect in its characterizations. Consequently, the law sometimes oversimplifies scientific concepts or applies them inaccurately or in an unclear way. In practice, what is represented as being the law is actually a combination of Executive Branch policies and legal judgments constrained by court rulings. It may or may not be the best interpretation of the science, and there may be other reasonable scientific interpretations. Most importantly, interpretations of the law must be consistent with the realities of nature. The Act does not recognize the dynamic nature of fish stocks and the limits of science. Although the NS1G (National Standard 1 Guidelines) help, they provide little practical guidance for many, if not the majority, of stocks.” (National Research Council of the National Academies of Science, as above)

Best available? So what?

The Magnuson requirement that management decisions be based on the best available science rather than on science that is adequate to the task, coupled with the fact that since 1996 there has been no place in the process for the exercise of judgement based on on-the-water observation and experience belies the stated claim of the Councils on the home page of their website “to allow regional, participatory governance by knowledgeable people with a stake in fishery management” (http://www.fisherycouncils.org/). In essence fisheries policy in federal waters is entirely in the hands of the scientists, regardless of how inadequate their level of understanding is or how unproven their computer models. And the worse the underlying science is, the more the permissible catch quotas are reduced because of something called the precautionary principle.

We tried to fix it seven years ago

On February 24, 2010 the Keep Fishermen Fishing Rally was held on the steps of the Capitol in Washington. Sponsored by over 30 recreational and commercial fishing groups, it attracted an estimated 5,000 plus people who were fishermen, were in fisheries-dependent occupations, or were family/friends of fishermen. Another 5,000 plus people signed an on-line petition in support of the goals of the rally.

Two dozen federal, state and local officials spoke at the rally.

The rally organizers, the petition signers and the people who trekked from as far from the Nation’s Capital as Alaska to attend in-person, and the twenty-plus elected and appointed officials participated for one reason; the federal government’s fisheries policies were not working for the fishermen and some necessary changes to the MSA were long overdue.

What these changes boiled down to was that a restoration of the management flexibility that was an integral part of the Act since it was originally conceived, and that was removed by intense lobbying by mega-foundation founded ENGOs and the fishermen they had coopted, had to be restored if the recreational, commercial and party-charter fishing industries were to survive.

Then again five years ago

There was a follow-up rally two years later. In the words of the organizers:

The 2012 Keep Fishermen Fishing Rally in Washington on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol was a great success. The organizers’ expectations were exceeded in the number and the range of the federal and state legislators and other public officials who interrupted their busy schedules to address the assembled fishermen, focusing on the NOAA/NMFS excessively rigid interpretation and implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. This rigidity is unnecessarily forcing too many fishermen and folks in fishing-related jobs off the water and out of work while our fisheries are more productive than they’ve been for years. In 2012 it’s hard to imagine as politically diverse a group of Senators and Representatives sharing the same platform and repeating the same message. There were 21 Democrats and Republicans, ranging from the most liberal of the liberal to the most conservative of the conservative, and they were all there to support commercial and recreational fishermen and to get the Magnuson Act back to where its original authors intended it to be, with a reasonable balance between commerce and conservation with an emphasis on keeping fishermen fishing.

In spite of continuing industry and political support, the opposition to any changes by the anti-fishing foundations and ENGOs along with the ill-informed leadership in Congress and an agency that was disturbingly and increasingly “green,” the MSA has remained a text book example of top down bureaucratic control.

NOAA/NMFS at the Keep Fishermen Fishing rally

It’s interesting to note that the newly appointed NOAA Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, Eric Schwaab, while purposely not invited to speak at either rally, attended the first. While he was ostensibly there to meet with participants, he passed out a prepared statement saying in essence everything was ok with the Magnuson-Stevens Act and it didn’t need any changes. (For more on Mr. Schwaab’s visit to the rally to “talk to fishermen” see my column Fishermen find their voice, (click here)

This was a federal agency head who had been on the job for only a week. Unfortunately his words were nowhere near accurate in 2010 and they continue to be as equally inaccurate today. At the time everything wasn’t ok with Magnuson. Hence the rally. Ditto in 2012. Hence the second rally. And it’s still not ok now.

In spite of all of the effort and all of the political support back then, none of the proposed “fix Magnuson” legislation (see http://www.fishunited.com/msamendments.html) went anywhere. Fishermen today are still trying to contend with the same arbitrary and inflexible federal management regime that they were trying to contend with since 1996 when federal fisheries management was turned into a virtual strait jacket giving all of the breaks to the fish and none to the fishermen.

(See my So how are we doing 2017 edition at https://fisherynation.com/fishnet-usaso-how-are-we-doing-2017-edition for an indication of how the domestic commercial fishing industry has fared under  NOAA/NMFS leadership over the last two decades).

But it appears as if we can finally see some light at the end of this particular tunnel

On August 1 the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard held a hearing on Reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act: NOAA and Council Perspectives. Two witnesses testified: Chris Oliver, who only a month prior had left his job as Executive Director of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to become the head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, and John Quinn, Chairman of the New England Fishery Management Council and also of the Council Coordinating Committee (a group of regional Fishery Management Council leaders).

It’s hard to imagine two people better qualified to talk about federal fisheries management from the managers’ perspective. Between them they unquestionably have a thorough understanding of the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to how we are managing our domestic fisheries.

Excerpted from their testimony (the written testimony and video of the hearing are available at https://tinyurl.com/ycrly8wa):
The current Act works very well for most fisheries. However I believe that there are opportunities to provide additional flexibility to allow us to more effectively manage some of these fisheries, particularly those that have different catch accounting challenges or can benefit generally from alternate management approaches (C. Oliver recorded testimony @ 45 minutes, 20 seconds).

We also need to remember that practicality and common sense are important as we engage strategically. We look forward to working with Congress on fisheries management issues in a holistic, comprehensive way that builds on its success and considers the needs of the fish, fishermen, ecosystems, and communities (C. Oliver, written testimony).

We acknowledge that rebuilding often comes with necessary and unavoidable social and economic consequences, but targeted changes to the law would enable the development of rebuilding plans that more effectively address the biological imperative to rebuild overfished stocks while mitigating the social and economic impacts. For example, increased flexibility in rebuilding timelines would allow for a better balance between the biology of the fish and the socioeconomic needs of fishermen (J. Quinn, written testimony).

While the anti-fishing “conservationists” would have everyone believe that the MSA was written to protect the fish, and that if the fish are “taken care of” the fisheries that depended upon them will prosper, this obviously hasn’t been the case in fishery after fishery. One of the reasons for this is the inflexibility that was injected into the MSA by the Sustainable Fisheries Act (SFA). Both Mr. Oliver and Dr. Quinn recognized this in their testimony.

So what’s so bad about overfishing?

One of the major selling points employed by the proponents of the  SFA was that it was supposed to end “overfishing” in every federally managed fishery by some arbitrary date (generally within ten years), and that this was to be accomplished regardless of the impact on fishermen, fishing businesses and fishing communities.

From the outside looking in, one could think that this is a good thing, but is it really?

In the first place, a fishery can be declared “overfished” even if it only supports an insignificant fishery. When this happens, more important fisheries which unavoidably catch these species – known as a choke species – as bycatch will be shut down when their allocation of the choke species is caught. So there can be super-abundance in a far more valuable fishery but if catching that particular species involves unavoidable bycatch of the technically overfished choke species, the more valuable fishery will be shut down regardless of how much of its quota has been harvested.

There is overfishing that is bad – that’s the kind where catching too many fish is allowed to go on year after year. But then there’s overfishing that isn’t bad – that’s the kind where catching too many fish for a limited (and carefully monitored) period is allowed to get a fishery, port, or region over a bad spell. If it’s a matter of shutting down businesses because they can’t get enough fish or shellfish to operate or of keeping them open and allowing what is very possibly an arbitrary quota to be exceeded for a season or two with no permanent damage to the stock, why not go with the latter?

The answer today is because the Magnuson Stevens Act won’t allow it.

And then there is the term “overfished,” a misnomer of classic proportions

At present, when a stock falls below a minimum biomass, it is described as “overfished” and a rebuilding plan is required. While fishing can be the cause of a reduced stock, there may be other reasons as well, such has warming ocean waters or degraded habitat. An alternative term could be useful for describing fisheries that are depleted as a result of non-fishing factors, unknown reasons, or a combination of fishing and other factors….  Furthermore, the term “overfished” can unfairly implicate fishermen for depleted conditions resulting from pollution, coastal development, offshore activities, natural ecosystem fluctuations, and other (perhaps unknown) factors (J. Quinn, written testimony).

Are there not enough fish because the waters in the normal range of the species are now too warm? The fishery is “overfished.” Not enough fish because domestic pollution (think birth control meds or other non-industrial pollutants) has reduced the fecundity of the species? The fishery is “overfished.” Not enough fish because another species is out-competing the managed species (think spiny dogfish)? The fishery is “overfished.”

If a fishery is deemed to be overfished, regardless of the reason, the managers must cut back on fishing, regardless of whether it can or will do anything to actually address the cause(s) of the supposed “overfishing.”

Obviously this is a public relations bonanza for anti-fishing organizations as well as for any entities (Drug manufacturers?  Water treatment facilities? Generating stations? Seismic testers?) that might be engaged in actions that could significantly impact fisheries. Not enough fish? It can’t be blamed on any other industry, it has to be the fishing industry because if it wasn’t the fishermen’s fault it wouldn’t be called overfishing!

So where are we now?

We have what appears to be almost universal appreciation of the inexactitude of fishery science. That “almost” is there to exclude some fishery scientists and a host of anti-fishing activists (aka marine conservationists) who use that inexactitude as a weapon against fishermen.

We have a federal law which, when it was written in 1976, recognized how inexact fishery science was and addressed that inexactitude by including in the management process “knowledgeable people with a stake in fishery management,” whose experience and judgment could make up for the shortcomings of the inexact science.

The influence of these knowledgeable people in the management process has been steadily eroded by the anti-fishing lobby for well over two decades and is now at the point where it is almost inconsequential. The science and the scientists are in charge, but there are no requirements for the science employed other than that it has to be “the best available.”

We have two of the top managers in the federal fisheries hierarchy who have recognized – and who have gone on the record supporting – putting some much needed flexibility back into Magnuson. The imprecision and unfairness of using “overfished” in instances where there aren’t enough fish in a stock due to any of a number of non-fishing reasons, and the fact that the welfare of domestic fishermen, fishing businesses and fishing communities should be as important to the fishery management establishment as the welfare of the fish have been brought to the attention of Congress by impeccable witnesses with no ulterior motives.

Now it’s up to our supporters in Congress to finally take this ball and run with it. We in the U.S. have what are among the most productive coastal waters in the world and yet we are importing over 90% of the seafood we consume. We have a fishing industry that is as collectively conservation- minded as any. Let’s get back to a federal management system that recognizes the limits of today’s fishery science and gives due credit to judgment and experience.
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(Note: the concept of overfishing itself is fairly complicated. In Congress Must Make Magnuson Recognize Existence, Content of National Standards in Fishery Plans, Brian Rothschild, Montgomery Charter Professor of Marine Science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, wrote:

“Arriving at a determination of overfishing depends on the choice of model (there are several). The magnitude of a overfishing “value” generally differs among “models”. For example, overfishing can be defined in the context of production models, age-structured production models, or yield-per-recruit models, each of which gives a different view of stock status. It is also often the case, amidst this profusion/confusion, that all of these definitions are just simply ignored and replaced by arbitrary “proxies” that rely upon highly uncertain age-structured production models.
Consider also that two different forms of overfishing are well-known: “stock overfishing” and “recruitment overfishing”. Each is determined on the basis of different information requirements. Each has different conservation content.”

The article is available on the Saving Seafood website at http://www.savingseafood.org/opinion/dr-brian-rothschild-congress-must-make-magnuson-recognize-existence-content-national-standards-fishery-plans/ and I highly recommend it.)
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FishNet-USA – What do you do with it?

I know that a lot of commercial fishing industry people receive FishNet-USA, but I don’t have a solid handle on what gets done with it after you receive it. I hope that you all read it. I know that some of you do because I’ll get an email or two after every issue complimenting me on it. But I don’t have much of an idea what happens after that.

Accordingly I’ve put this note together to let you know what I think you should do after you read it – assuming that you agree with at least some of what I’ve written, and that you’d like to have other folks read it.

First, and in my estimation most importantly, federal legislators should be made aware of positions on various issues which you and I agree on.

The probability of a Representative or Senator wading through several thousand words on fish and fishing is approaching zero. They pay their staff for that.

The probability of a Congressional staffer reading anything not coming from a constituent is almost as low.

That’s where you should come in. First off, you should know who your Senators and Representative are. That’s easy. For Senators go to https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm and for your Representative go to https://www.house.gov/representatives/find/. Then you call each of the their offices and ask to speak to the staffer who handles fishing/environmental issues. When you get to the right staffer introduce yourself, tell him or her where you live, where you work, what you do, and that occasionally issues come up that you want the Congressman/woman or Senator to be informed about. Ask for the staffers’ email addresses, then forward relevant information you are concerned with – like Magnuson reauthorization – to them with a note that you’d be happy to discuss the issues via a phone call And include your phone number and address.

Establishing a personal relationship with staffers and then “imposing” on them (don’t worry, that’s what they are there for) is the most effective way of getting to a Federal Legislator, but please be selective with the issues you contact them about. And also, if you get the idea that they aren’t going to be interested in reading three or four (or more) pages of fish stuff, put together a brief synopsis focusing on how you and their other constituents will be affected and get that to them.

You should do the same thing with reporters, producers, etc. who cover fishing/ocean issues. At this point all of the media people are looking for issues. They’ve got 24 hours a day of space/time to fill and if it’s controversial, so much the better.

The people and the organizations who are working against your interests have a lot of resources, a lot of time, and a lot of influence. We could have more, but we’re only going to if more industry people make a concerted effort to do so.

Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet USA
July 27, 2017

(Note that I am only addressing the NOAA/NMFS reliance on bottom trawl survey data in finfish stock assessments. I am not questioning the value of the wealth of biological and physical data that this long – running series of surveys generate.)

“The spring and autumn bottom trawl surveys conducted by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center are the longest running continuous time series of research vessel sampling in the world. The autumn survey began in 1963; the spring in 1968 (Azarovitz 1981). These surveys cover the ocean environment from 5 to 200 fathoms deep, from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to well beyond the Canadian boarder [sic]. About 300 half-hour trawl sets are made at sites (stations) randomly chosen prior to the beginning of each survey. The objective of each tow is not to catch large numbers of fish, but to capture a representative sample of the various species and relative numbers in a given area. The distribution of trawling locations is allocated according to a statistical method that divides the region into a number of smaller areas (strata) with similar depth characteristics. The method is a stratified-random sampling design, and is commonly used for a wide variety of statistical estimates, including exit polling for elections. In the history of the trawl surveys, only three research vessels — NOAA’s FSV Henry B. Bigelow, FRV Albatross IV and the FRV Delaware II — have been used to conduct these surveys.” Click here .

“The NEFSC bottom trawl survey is a fisheries independent, multi-species survey that provides the primary scientific data for fisheries assessments in the U.S. mid-Atlantic and New England regions,” NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Click here

For the fishing industry in the mid-Atlantic and New England the results of the two annual – with three annually for a few years ending in 2008 – bottom trawl surveys are more important than any other factor in determining what the upcoming harvest in several dozen fisheries will be.

According to NOAA/NMFS these surveys have provided and continue to provide “the primary scientific data” for fisheries assessments from North Carolina to Maine (fisheries assessments are the periodic – generally held every 3 to 5 years – scientific/bureaucratic exercises. In NOAA’s words “NOAA Fisheries’ scientific stock assessments are critical to modern fisheries management. Using data gathered from commercial and recreational fishermen and our own on-the-water scientific observations, a stock assessment describes the past and current status of a fish population or stock, answers questions about the size of the stock, and makes predictions about how a fishery will respond to current and future management measures.”)

Needless to say, these stock assessments are of overriding importance to anyone who is dependent on fish and fishing, and the annual bottom trawl surveys provide the scientific underpinnings for management decisions in those fisheries for the majority of species in the Northeast region.

This being the case, I thought that it would be instructive to examine the relationship between the survey results and the commercial landings for some of the species which the surveys sample. I used what I judged to be the twenty-one most valuable/important species and ignore several (sculpin, little skate, etc.) which I judged to be of less commercial significance.
So how accurate are these bottom trawl surveys – and the stock assessments which depend on the information they generate? I doubt that there are easy answers to these questions, and I’m certain that if there are, I don’t have them. But in an attempt to provide you with enough information to at least begin to consider such questions I’ve charted the survey results and commercial landings going back to 1963 for twenty mid-Atlantic/New England fisheries. As in my last FishNet, (So how are we doing? (2017 edition) A Report on our Domestic Commercial Fishing Industry (click here) instead of considering the actual survey results and landings I’ve charted each annual datum as a percentage of the maximum for that species (i.e. the 1977 total survey count for scup – blue line – was 18,549, 30% of the maximum total count of 61,818 in 2015, the 1977 total survey weight – red line – was 830 kilograms, 35% of the maximum of 2,387 kilograms in 2010, and the 1977 commercial landings – green area – were 8,699 metric tons, 35% of the maximum landings of 19,015 metric tons in 1963).

In 1963 when only one trawl survey was done the total weights/counts for that survey were used, in subsequent years when two or three surveys took place the total weights/counts were divided by two or three respectively.

Beneath each species chart I have recorded the maximum (100%) numbers for fish sampled each year, weight of sampled fish, and commercial landings.
Below are thumbnails of twenty-one charts.

Larger images are available. Click here

While the charts are all similarly sized, keep in mind that they represent fisheries with landings that ranged from 3,000 to 120,000 metric tons valued at $2 million to almost $200 million per year.

The table below details the maximum survey results (count and weight) for each fishery (the 100% point in each chart above), maximum landed weight and value (corrected for inflation), the weight and value of the 2015 landings and the percentage of the maximum landed weights represented by the 2015 weights.

Among the secondary questions that this raises are 1) are the trawl surveys – at least in the Northeast – worth their cost, 2) should the trawl survey results be accorded the importance in stock assessments that they are, 3) is the situation similar in the other NOAA/NMFS regions, and 4) is there a more cost effective way to generate more useful/relevant data?  But the most important question – particularly in view of the last column in the above table (2015 landings as % of Max) is how much the of the domestic commercial fishing industry is being sacrificed on the NOAA/NMFS/ENGO alter of sustainability? The commercial landings of these 21 species in 2015 were on the average only 21% of the maximum landings for each species since 1963. Such a level of underfishing surely isn’t what sustainability –  or conservation – is supposed to be about.

Finally, for reference, I used a random number generator to get 53 random numbers between 1 to 100 and treated the generated numbers as I did the survey weights and numbers. Below I superimposed the graph of these numbers over the Atlantic Croaker landings graph. (There was no particular reason I used croaker landings. Any of the 21 species would have served the same illustrative purpose.)

The most obvious take-away message I could glean from all of this is that, at least to a statistically unsophisticated eye there is no apparent relationship between the trawl survey results and commercial landings among all twenty-one species that I focused on. I can’t say that when the sample numbers and/or weights go up the landings will increase correspondingly or that when the landings go up the sample numbers and/or weights will go down correspondingly. In fact the random numbers chart, to my perhaps untrained eye, could be substituted for any of the twenty-one other charts and nothing about it would jump of the page at a reader.

Among the secondary questions that this raises are 1) are the trawl surveys – at least in the Northeast – worth their cost, 2) should the trawl survey results be accorded the importance in stock assessments that they are, 3) is the situation similar in the other NOAA/NMFS regions, and 4) is there a more cost effective way to generate more useful/relevant data?  But the most important question – particularly in view of the last column in the above table (“2015 landings as % of Max”) is how much of the domestic commercial fishing industry is being sacrificed on the

NOAA/NMFS/ENGO alter of sustainability? The commercial landings of these 21 species in 2015 were on the average only 21% of the maximum landings for each species since 1963. Such a level of underfishing surely isn’t what sustainability –  or conservation – is supposed to be about.

(I’m encouraging comments on this FishNet and will distribute those that I receive, either pro or con. Thank you,)

The comments are open on this page.

Another push for catch shares

FishNet-USA/May 11, 2016

Nils E. Stolpe

http://www.fishnet-usa.com/

(Don’t get the idea from this that I oppose any fisheries management regime. What I do oppose is having the future of particular fisheries determined by people and/or organizations and/or corporations with no meaningful ties to and no concern about the existing industry and the people in it. Irrespective of whether the decisions have their roots in in corporate, ENGO or foundation board rooms, the halls of academe or “investment” seminars, as the ongoing debacle in the New England groundfish fishery so clearly and tragically demonstrates, if the fishing industry doesn’t have final say in the imposition of measures that its members will be working with, the affected communities will suffer.)

With talk in the air of an upcoming Magnuson Act reauthorization which is coincident with the 40^th anniversary of its passage, the proponents of catch shares in general and individual transferable quotas in particular, are mounting a public relations barrage in a continuation of their efforts to “privatize” our fisheries.

Most recently, the April 19 New York Times Opiniator column How Dwindling Fish Stocks Got a Reprieve by freelance journalist Sylvia Rowley, touted the benefits of catch shares by citing the example of the West coast groundfish fishery. It also quoted catch shares proselytizer and NOAA ex-head Jane Lubchenco, back on the Environmental Defense board after her brief sojourn in the almost-real world of the federal bureaucracy, on catch shares: “If you have 5 percent of the pie, you’d like to see the pie grow.”

Implicit in all of the pro-catch shares rhetoric, as Ms. Lubchenco’s quote above amply demonstrates, is the idea that this particular form of fisheries management is necessary for healthy fisheries. She apparently believes, or wants us to believe, that fishermen who don’t own a part of a fishery aren’t interested in having a larger part of that particular pie.  In fact nothing could be further from the truth. “Successful” fisheries management requires only three things. The first is an accurate determination of the significant sources of mortality on a fish or shellfish stock and the relative magnitude of those sources. The second is ensuring that all of those sources of mortality that can be controlled are controlled. The third is determining on an ongoing basis what the acceptable (sustainable?) levels of harvest are and assuring that those levels are maintained.

Of course this is hardly possible in the context of so-called fisheries management today, which is in reality fishing management. In that context, which we seem to be stuck with, the three requirements are a bit different. The first would be an accurate determination of what the sustainable level of harvest is (i.e. the quota). The second would be the design management measures that insure that the quota is caught but not exceeded. The third would be the enforcement of those management measures.

As far as the fish or shellfish are concerned, how the quota is divided up is irrelevant.

In fact, Ms. Rowley’s words reflect this. She writes that in the years from 2000 to 2015 “the tally of federally managed fish populations that have been rebuilt went from zero to 39” and then a few paragraphs later “the total number of federal fisheries using catch shares rose from five in 2000 to 16 in 2015.” In its annual Status of the (fish and shellfish) Stocks report to Congress for 2015, NOAA Fisheries reports on the overfishing status of fish and shellfish stocks. From 2000 to 2015 the stocks managed via catch shares increased from .5% to 5% but the number of stocks where overfishing was not taking place remained at 91%. The proportion of fisheries managed by catch shares went from an insignificant level to a minimally significant level, yet the overall health of the stocks, as measured by the proportion of them in which overfishing was occurring, didn’t change at all. Could it be that Ms. Lubchenco’s “catch shares revolution” is, to quote Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice, “full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing?” (Note that NOAA Fisheries recognized 905 stocks in 2000 and 313 stocks in 2015.)

So why are the people at EDF, including Ms. Lubchenco both while she was there, when she was in charge of NOAA and now that she’s back at EDF, so bullish on catch shares if it makes no difference to the critters in question? Perhaps because it allows them to use their tax exempt millions to finance fishing operations and dictate how the fishermen they are financing have to fish, sort of like having fishermen owe their souls to the company store (See The California Fisheries Fund, EDF’s unique way of controlling fishermen and fishing, at California Fisheries Fund Click here

Or perhaps it’s to fatten the bank accounts of EDF and/or its friends, directors, members, etc. From the transcript of a talk by then EDF West Coast Vice President David Festa to the Miliken Institute Global Conference in 2009:

“You know, so how do I – you know, but I know that if I fix all that, I can be profitable in the future. So I pull together investors and I buy the factory and I sink a whole bunch of money into it and, you know, retrain workers and then get paid back on the profits on the other end.

Well, why can’t we do that with fisheries? Well, first – and I hope David will address some of this – first, we have to have commitment from the government to the regulatory change.

And then, second, we have to have capital. And that’s where I think public-private partnerships come in because the government has the mandate and the authority to change the rules, but it doesn’t have as much capital as it once had.

The private sector has the capital but, of course, doesn’t have the responsibility of defending the public trust way the government does. So it’s a perfect partnership.

So that’s the second thing that I think needs to happen.

How much money is to be made out there, and how do we think about the risks associated with this? You know, that’s where we need your help.

Just one statistic, in all of the catch-share fisheries that have transitioned over, the value of that fishery tends to increase by – or the shares in that fishery tend to increase by a factor of four. That’s an average. The current U.S. industry is a $5 billion industry.

So, you know, it’s not – it’s not telecommunications-size money, but it’s real money.”

(In http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/public_comment/20110830_Helliwell_email_2_attachment_1_of_2.pdf on page 11.)

Now there’s a novel idea – turning over the ownership of a heretofore public resource to private sector investors so they can profit from the harvest and sale of that resource. Of course Mr. Festa didn’t mention that the world’s seafood supply has become so large and that the transportation of seafood from anywhere to here has become so cheap that the U.S. fishing industry has little or nothing to do with setting prices anymore. So where’s Mr. Festa’s investor’s profits likely to come from? Out of the holds of the fishing boats and out of the pockets of the fishermen, it would seem.

But even more troubling is the control that “outside” groups would gain over fishing – or not fishing.

As EDF’s California Fishing Fund does such a good job of demonstrating, it’s not who owns the fishing permits, it’s who – or what – controls them that matters. Suppose that an ENGO serving as the “company store” for a large number of permit holders in a particular fishery decides that boats should not be fishing in a particular area. If the agreements that the permit holders had with the ENGO allowed it, the ENGO could simply dictate that the boats could no longer fish there. Bye, bye fishing community (or communities)!  To suggest that this wouldn’t happen would be to ignore the devastation that various ENGOs have, with no qualms or compunctions, inflicted on logging communities in the Northwest for almost three decades.

Catch shares schemes are supposed to be designed so that no person or other entity can own over a certain number of permits in a particular fishery. In the first place, over several hundreds of years, corporate law has been evolving more and better ways of protecting the privacy of corporate owners. Piercing the corporate vail isn’t a trivial legal exercise, nor is the ability of a federal agency to do it successfully a foregone conclusion.

But that’s not the worst case scenario. We’re all far too familiar with the apparently unbridled thirst for power and profit that afflicts many of our largest corporations, as we are familiar with the increasing competition for ocean access by a host of industrial interests for mineral extraction, energy development, transmission cables/pipelines, offshore aquaculture, transportation and who knows what else. Many of these corporate interests could afford to acquire – then shut down – fishing rights in large areas, perhaps allowing them to dispense with what to some corporate leaders must be those annoying distractions, fishermen.

As a purely speculative what if, what if the people at Microsoft decided that a large part of their business in the future was going to be in offshore, submerged data centers (see Microsoft Plumbs Ocean’s Depths to Test Underwater Data Center Click here ). Obviously such data centers would benefit from being close to the demand for them – users of the so called “cloud.” And what if the optimum locations for some of these data centers, the wave/tide generators that powered them, and the cables that connected them to onshore internet hubs were in prime fishing areas? What would it take for Microsoft – or a foundation with close ties to Microsoft – to gain control of the permits of those bothersome fishermen who wanted to continue fishing where they had for generations and to have them fish elsewhere, or to have them ride off into the sunset with their saddlebags stuffed with Microsoft dollars? How divorced is this scenario from what Mr. Festa and EDF, ex NOAA Head Jane Lubchenco and, perhaps inadvertently, Sylvia Rowley and the New York Times are pushing.

And what’s to stop them?

(2015 revenues for some larger corporations: Walmart – $482 billion, Samsung – $305 billion, Exxon-Mobile – $268 billion, Apple – $233 billion, Amazon – $107 billion, Hewlett Packard – $111 billion, Microsoft – $93 billion, Google – $74 billion, Dell – $59 billion, Intel – $55 billion, Sunoco – $44 billion. The across the dock value of U.S. commercial landings in 2014 were $5.5 billion.)

It’s interesting to note that Ms. Rowley saw fit to include W.F. Lloyd’s tragedy of the commons, which was popularized by ecologist Garrett Hardin in 1968, as a pro-catch shares argument, though she made it by using what it would be difficult to classify as anything but weasel words, Ms. Rowley wrote ‘overfishing is often seen as a classic case of what economists call the “tragedy of the commons.”’ What Lolyd and Hardin were describing could only be considered unregulated commons, with no limits in place to control their use. Such is hardly the case in U.S. fisheries (or in many other fisheries around the world).

Our domestic fishermen and our domestic fisheries are among the most regulated in the world, and anyone who thinks he or she can draw parallels between any of our federal fisheries and Lloyd’s/Hardin’s unregulated commons should spend an half an hour or so doing some rudimentary background research.* Even the Wikipedia entry for “tragedy of the commons” states in the second paragraph “commons is taken to mean any shared and unregulated resource….” (my emphasis).

Jim Ruttenberg, media columnist for the NY Times wrote in his 05/05/16 column that political journalism had lost sight of its “primary directives in this election season.” One of his three directives was “to resist the urge to put ratings, clicks and ad sales above the imperative of getting it right.” While he was writing about coverage of national electoral politics, this directive should apply to every kind of journalism, and it should apply every day. I hope that Ms. Rowley was paying attention.

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*Background research is something that print and broadcast journalists used to do, or used to have done, in those olden times when “getting it right” was as important as Jim Ruttenberg still thinks it is.

“Flotsam is floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo. Jetsam is part of a ship, its equipment, or its cargo that is purpose-fully cast overboard or jettisoned to lighten the load in time of distress and that sinks or is washed ashore” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flotsam). They are used together to indicate potentially valuable materials floating on the seas’ surface.

I use this title for periodic FishNets in which I address several issues that should be of value to anyone with an interest in oceans and fisheries in a somewhat abbreviated manner.
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More astroturf “activism” in herring management

Wikipedia – “Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message (e.g. political, advertising, or public relations) to give the appearance of it coming from a disinterested, grassroots participant. Astroturfing is intended to give the statements the credibility of an independent entity by withholding information about the source’s financial connection.”

It was not quite a year ago that I wrote The Forage Fish Fakeout (http://www.fishnet-usa.com/Flotsam_Jetsam_2012.pdf), in which I chronicled the most egregious examples of astroturf activism that I have come across in the world of fisheries. Undertaken by the Pew Charitable Trusts, or the organizations that the Pew Trusts has created and or funded, a succession of organizations ostensibly representing independent fishermen interested solely in the good of fish and fishing had mounted a multi-year campaign to drastically restrict or completely shut down fishing for menhaden, herring and other forage fish (smaller fish occurring in huge numbers that not too surprisingly are fed upon by other fish, sea birds, marine mammals and Homo sapiens).

A listing of the foundation-funded “research activities” that I compiled last year:
• 1998 – Conservation Law Foundation – $30,000 – “To promote responsible herring management.”
• 2004 – National Coalition for Marine Conservation – $558,000 – “To secure an amendment to the Interstate Menhaden Management Plan that would reduce or eliminate fishing of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay, in order to protect the broader ecosystem of the Bay.”
• 2004 – Aquatic Farms Limited – $142,000 – “To assess the amount of competition between catch of small forage fish for direct human consumption and for reduction into fishmeal and fish oil for use as aquaculture and agriculture feed.”
• 2004 – Research Foundation of the State University of New York, Stony Brook – $750,000 – “To establish the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force that will develop and recommend ecosystem-based standards for the sustainable management of forage fisheries.”
• 2004 – Research Foundation of the State University of New York, Stony Brook $145,000 –
“To advance ecosystem-based fishery management by evaluating the status of understudied fish and other marine species in several regions of the United States that are impacted by the commercial fishing industry.”
• 2005 – National Coalition for Marine Conservation – $200,000 – “To ensure a new regulatory cap on the industrial harvest of Atlantic menhaden is implemented and enforced.”
• 2006 – National Coalition for Marine Conservation – $100,000 – “To support efforts to initiate new regulatory actions that will preserve adequate populations of forage fish which support healthy populations of predators, including numerous species of marine mammals, seabirds and fish.”
• 2006 – Gulf Restoration Network – $210,000 – “To support efforts to stop overfishing, secure conservation-based limits on unintended bycatch of marine life, and to conduct research and prepare a report on management reforms needed in the Gulf of Mexico menhaden fishery to reduce harvests to protect the forage needs of menhaden predators and reduce bycatch of sharks and marine mammals.”
• 2007 – Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermens Association – $180,000 – “To provide general operating support policy reform campaigns for herring and groundfish.”
• 2007 – Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermens Association – $596,000 – “To support a New England forage fish campaign to ban or severely restrict destructive trawling, reduce allowable herring catches.”
• 2008 – Research Foundation of the State University of New York, Stony Brook – $3,000,000 – “To conduct scientific research regarding sustainable fisheries management and conservation of threatened and endangered fish.”
• 2008 – Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermens Association – $722,000 – “To support activities to reform the Atlantic herring fishery.”
• 2008 – Earthjustice – $212,000 – “To reform New England’s Atlantic herring fishery.”
• 2008 – Marine Fish Conservation Network – $125,000 – “For work intended to ensure the full implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act and to promote the sustainable management of forage fish species ($100,000) and for general support ($25,000)”
• 2009 – National Coalition for Marine Conservation – $30,000 – “To develop guidance for conservation of forage fish through an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management.”
Note that of the over seven million dollars in “research” listed above none is devoted to contributing to the basic biology of forage fish, the fisheries or the fishermen they interact with. It’s apparently a foregone conclusion in some circles – not, of course, in the circles populated by the scientists and bureaucrats who are responsible for managing our fisheries – that catching forage fish is bad. This apparently is regardless of other factors like what’s really going on in our oceans, what conservation measures have already been adopted by the fishermen or how effective they have proven to be.

Because the fisheries management establishment has refused to take the word of the Pew claque that these fisheries need to be shut down, in the intervening years the pressure to do that has been characteristically relentless – and characteristically expensive. In the latest example of Pew formed/funded organizations jumping on the “get the forage fishermen” bandwagon, Earthjustice just announced a lawsuit in which it is representing several small recreational fishing groups, claiming that by the Council’s declining to move ahead with Amendment 15 to the Mackerel, Squid and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan, NMFS is not providing adequate measures to “protect*” blueback herring and alewife and American and Hickory shad.” This is in spite of the fact that both the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and NMFS fully explained their reasons for proceeding as they have been and extending assurances that the management provisions now in place would adequately protect both river herring and shad (for more on this see Is this any way to manage a fishery? at http://www.fishnet-usa.com/Any way to manage.pdf).

Of course this isn’t good enough for the Pew people. Who needs solid science if you have that sense of righteous indignation that generally accompanies cashing those huge checks? Should it surprise anyone to learn that Earthjustice has received over $20 million from Pew?

I guess if you have a few billions of dollars in the bank you kind of believe that things should be run your way, even if you had nothing to do with – or maybe because you had nothing to do with – earning any of those dollars yourself.

(For a surprisingly rational discussion of the forage fish issue on the west coast, see Glen Martin’s blog on the Huffington Post website titled Of Little Fish, Cute Mammals, and the Law of Unintended Consequences at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glen-martin/pacific-herring-shortage_b_1987810.html.)
*Neither of which are considered endangered or threatened.
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And on the subject of who’s doing and who’s not doing real research to better determine the status of our managed stocks – The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and the University of Southern Mississippi, operating under a five year National Science Foundation grant and with industry partners currently including Garden State Seafood Association, the National Fisheries Institute Clam Committee, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Atlantic Capes Fisheries, Inc., LaMonica Fine Foods, Lunds Fisheries Inc., the National Fisheries Institute Scientific Monitoring Committee, Surfside Seafood Products, and L.D. Amory and Company of Hampton, started the Science Center for Marine Fisheries, or SCeMFiS in March of this year.

Eric Powell, the Center’s Director, says that it is “unique in being the only federal-industry partnership that permits the fishing industry to retain a leadership role in designing the science program. This assures that sustainable fisheries will remain a focus of project design and that the science products will directly address the issues faced by the fishing industry.”

Roger Mann, who is the Director at VIMS, said that research at SCeMFiS “will use peer-reviewed science to help improve sampling methods for fisheries surveys, enhance population-dynamics models, develop new approaches to reducing discard, reveal geographic and biological variations in stock structure and dynamics, among many other benefits.”

Compare the design and operation (and source of funding) of SCeMFiS to the above listed “research” initiatives that it’s hard to think were designed, bought and paid for with anything other than a particular goal in mind – the overly restrictive control then the closure of a fishery based on no new science and in spite of the fact that the existing management process has given every assurance that the fishery is being managed properly and sustainably. How would you rather our fisheries – or any of our natural resource dependent industries – be managed?

For more on the SCeMFiS see the VIMS March 27 press release at http://www.vims.edu/newsandevents/topstories/scemfis.php.
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Sustainability certification – A couple of months back the General Services Administration and the National Parks Service were rightfully taken to task by Members of Congress for demanding that a seafood served in NPS facilities be la-belled as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), an international third party seafood certification business with headquarters in London. Considering the initial and ongoing costs of MSC certification, this would have been an impossible requirement for most domestic seafood suppliers in spite of the fact that any seafood from a permitted federal fishery in the US is de facto sustainable.

In a letter to Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski GSA Assistant Commissioner Darren Blue wrote “GSA believes that that American managed fisheries do not require third-party certification to demonstrate responsible and sustainable practices…. As soon as GSA became aware of your concerns, we worked with HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to revise the Guidelines. The new Guidelines continue to reflect the best of Federal fisheries management policy and practices, but they omit any reference to third-party certification systems.” This might be a loss for the MSC – and for its ENGO/Foundation supporters – but it’s unquestionably a gain for knowledgeable seafood consumers and the domestic seafood industry.
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Sleeping with the enemy? – Many of us in the domestic fish and seafood business were taken by surprise by an announcement that Diversified Communications, the corporate owner of National Fisherman magazine, Pacific Marine Expo and the Seafood Source website, had partnered with Pew SeaWeb to produce a series of annual seafood sustainability “summits.”

If you haven’t been associated with fisheries issues for very long, or if you have been trying to ignore what’s being done to domestic seafood producers – those are the people who are on the wrong side of those “we are importing over 90% of our domestically consumed seafood” numbers – SeaWeb was one of the first organizations to “declare war” on US fishermen.

In a column for Commercial Fisheries News in April of 2001 I wrote:
One of the more active efforts to influence public opinion on fisheries is spearheaded by SeaWeb. On its web site, SeaWeb describes itself as a “project designed to raise awareness of the world ocean and the life within it.” Its primary funder is the Pew Charitable Trusts. Early in its existence, SeaWeb commissioned a public opinion survey to determine which ocean issues would best “engage the public interest.”
The introduction to the results of the survey, which was conducted for SeaWeb by the Mellman Group, stated “Americans believe the ocean’s problems stem from many sources, but oil companies are seen as a prime culprit: In fact, 81% of Americans believe that oil spills are a very serious problem. This is followed by chemical runoff from large corporate farms (75% very serious), improperly treated water from towns near the coast (69%), contaminated seafood (65%), and trash, oil, and chemical runoff from streets (65%).” Overfishing evidently wasn’t considered “a very serious problem” and was lumped in with “the loss of critical species” to make the cut as a “meaningful indicator” of trouble.

But in an article on the poll in SeaWeb’s November 1996 monthly update, the only specific threat to the oceans mentioned was overfishing. Along with three paragraphs of vague generalities was this statement: “71% (of respondents) agree that overfishing is threatening the health and stability of the marine environment.” Nothing about oil spills, runoff, contaminated seafood, or any of the other “problems” identified in the survey, only overfishing. Is this engaging or is it redirecting the public interest?”

There seemed to be much more redirecting than engaging (remember that back then the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Prince William Sound, AK was still fresh in peoples’ minds).
Continuing in the same column:
In January 1998, SeaWeb announced the “Give Swordfish A Break” campaign, centered on a domestic consumer boycott of swordfish. In a 1998 article in the St. Petersburg Times (FL), titled “En Garde for Swordfish,” reporter Bill Duryea detailed the SeaWeb strategy behind the “Give Swordfish A Break” campaign. “The first thing (Sea-Web Executive Director) Vikki Spruill did when she went looking for a fish to save did not have to do with fish at all,” Duryea wrote.
Having decided that the most effective way to “engage the public interest” in ocean problems was through the food on their plate, Spruill, Duryea wrote, “needed a certain kind of fish. A poster fish, if you will. Shrimp and salmon rank at the top of the most popular seafoods, but half of the shrimp and salmon sold in the United States are farm-raised, tempering their status as overfished. Besides, shrimp lack a certain weightiness. ‘We wanted something majestic,’ said Spruill. Number 3 on the popularity list, according to Spruill, was swordfish, whose firm-fleshed steaks had become a mainstay of fashionable restaurants across the country.”
It wasn’t about the swordfish. In fact, according to Mr. Duryea it wasn’t about any fish at all. It was nothing more than a hook (sorry!) to capture the public’s interest. Regardless of that, the US swordfish fishermen – who had been engaged in an ongoing and successful program to rebuild swordfish which predated Pew SeaWeb’s discovery of swordfish by years – paid dearly for this national “don’t eat swordfish” campaign which was underwritten with Pew dollars.

A quick examination of its website showed that SeaWeb has branched out quite a bit since its “formative years,” but those years have left their impressions on some of us with long memories (or reasonably organized archives). Diversified Communications will be putting together an advisory board for these joint sustainability summits. Who is appointed to this advisory board, and the connections of those appointees to the independent domestic seafood industry (i.e. not married to the jaundiced Pew view of domestic fisheries by virtue of direct or indirect funding) should have a tremendous impact on how this DivCom/Pew SeaWeb venture is viewed by the fishing industry.

We’ll be watching.
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Fishosophy – Last month I announced the formation of the Fishosophy blog on the American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists website (http://www.aifrb.org/). Two entries have been added which have a bearing on the “flotsam” and “jetsam” here. The first is Faith Based Fisheries by Ray Hilborn. Written in 2006 but unfortunately as relevant today as it was back then, it is in essence a discussion of the lack of solid science behind much of the fisheries research and reporting on fisheries issues.

This is followed by Brian Rothschild’s keynote address at Pacific Marine Expo last month. Brian, who is the President of the recently formed Center for Sustainable Fisheries, writes about reforming the Magnuson Act, a well-intentioned piece of legislation when passed into law in 1976 which has been largely distorted into a weapon used against the domestic commercial fishing industry.

Flotsam and jetsam – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org   In maritime law, flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict describe specific kinds of wreck. The words hav…