<strong><em>By Ted Venke</em></strong>

No one has ever accused the federal fisheries management process of being too transparent. It is a Byzantine world of statistics, biology and, the murkiest ingredient of all, politics. It is a process that often yields confounding results.

Some of the most perplexing results ever seen in this arena are on the horizon, as the 2006 re-authorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires NOAA Fisheries to set annual catch limits on every stock of fish under management by Dec. 31, 2011. The agency is a long, long way from having science on all those stocks, meaning that it is preparing to set a slew of catch limits based on what amounts to a SWAG – a scientific wild ass guess.

The House of Representatives Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans, and Insular Affairs acknowledged that the situation is ludicrous. It held an oversight hearing this week entitled, “NOAA’s Fishery Science: Is the Lack of Basic Science Costing Jobs?” which is a very telling label for a hearing. Loosely translated, it means that legislators realize that managing public resources by SWAG has real-world ramifications and, to their credit, they attempted to find what most of us involved in fisheries management are seeking: Clarity. A straight answer. Common sense.

The Committee asked a diverse group of individuals to share their views and assess the impact of NOAA Fisheries’ distinct lack of science on the vast majority of stocks it manages. It was a unique opportunity. Congress was listening. It was a chance for parties to set the record straight and work toward a solution, and that doesn’t come along very often. But just when you thought the water was clearing, the tide kicked up more mud.

During the hearing, an outgoing member of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, George Geiger, referred to himself as a leader of Coastal Conservation Association as he attacked HR 2304, the Fishery Science Improvement Act, in his testimony. HR 2304 is a bill sponsored by Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) that, among other provisions, states that if the agency has not assessed a stock of fish in the last five years and there is no indication that overfishing is occurring, the agency is not required to set an annual catch limit.

CCA and the other leading marine conservation organizations in the country have thrown their support behind Rep. Wittman’s bill as a common-sense remedy to NOAA Fisheries ongoing science shortcomings. The bill is opposed, however, by most of the environmental community, which insists that a hodgepodge of partial bits of information that perhaps add up to an informed guess is somehow good enough to manage our marine resources. No other wildlife resource management agency operates that way, but damn the consequences and full speed ahead for marine resources, these groups say.

Mr. Geiger seems to believe that too, but strangely decided to cloud his affiliations and repeatedly referenced his leadership role in CCA Florida, giving Congress the impression that he was speaking for CCA despite his letter of resignation from CCA almost two years ago.

It wasn’t a passing reference – he mentioned it more than a few times in his written testimony and in his oral testimony. But he never mentioned his abrupt departure from CCA. To what purpose? To create clarity? No, if that was the case he would have articulated the philosophical differences that caused him to leave the organization in October of 2009.

No one in CCA asked Mr. Geiger to testify on our behalf. Jeff Angers, president of the Center for Coastal Conservation, carried the message for CCA as well as for American Sportfishing Association, Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, International Game Fish Association, National Marine Manufacturers Association and The Billfish Foundation.

It remains unclear who Mr. Geiger was representing. We know it wasn’t CCA – Jeff Angers was doing that. Was it Pew? His testimony certainly aligns with their opinion on the bill. Has Pew’s credibility dropped so low that it has to rely on someone who is apparently not connected with them, in this case an ex-member of CCA, in order to have its testimony presented? Why can’t Pew represent itself at a hearing?

It appears that while anglers are calling for clarity, some other groups are content to play a shell game. Whatever game was being played, it was hard to listen to Mr. Geiger or read his testimony without concluding that he was suggesting that he represented CCA. That kind of obfuscation is similar to the questionable tactics employed by environmental groups that have also attacked HR 2304 in dramatic fashion.

The Ocean Conservancy essentially labeled supporters of the bill – which has more than two dozen bipartisan co-sponsors and the support of the 300-member-strong Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus – as pro-extinction. The Natural Resources Defense Council breathlessly said HR 2304 would “gut the nation’s fisheries law.”

A bill that requires a stock assessment to set an annual catch limit for a stock of fish stands to gut the nation’s fisheries law? Gut?!
Rhetoric like that muddies every discussion on federal fisheries management.

The Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans, and Insular Affairs is to be commended for its efforts to seek solutions for NOAA Fisheries’ inability to implement the requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Act the way Congress envisioned in 2006. Unfortunately, at a time when everyone – Congress, anglers, commercial fishermen, the Councils, NOAA – sees the need to address those problems, there are still some who find it better to muddy the water than seek the truth.

<h2>Menhaden Management moves up the food chain</h2>

ALEXANDRIA, VA – Tangible management of menhaden in the Atlantic moved another step closer to reality this week when the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) voted to send a series of management options for this critical forage species out to public hearings.

Menhaden management has long been a sore point among conservationists as intense commercial harvest of the species in the Chesapeake Bay has added to factors believed to be negatively impacting striped bass and other gamefish all along the East Coast. The primary industrial harvester of Atlantic menhaden, Omega Protein, has never had its harvest effectively restricted and stands as one of the very few commercial fishing operations in the country to successfully avoid management measures that might impact its bottom line.

There is also a completely unregulated bait fishery that targets menhaden throughout its East Coast range. Comprised of boats of all sizes, from large mid-water trawlers to small skiffs, it supplies bait to both the commercial and recreational fishery. The quantity of menhaden harvested by that industry has never been comprehensively assessed, but it is undoubtedly significant. In addition, the fishery is believed to be expanding as northeastern lobstermen seek a substitute for the more strictly regulated, Atlantic herring, which is decreasing in abundance.

The most current menhaden stock assessment showed the stock was undergoing overfishing and abundance estimates were at the lowest level ever recorded. Current science indicates that the menhaden spawning stock biomass is at about 9 percent of a stock that is not subjected to any fishing pressure. With the vote this week, the ASMFC has put into play management options that could increase the spawning stock biomass to15 percent or more.

“This is the grinding process of management,” said Richen Brame, CCA Atlantic States Fisheries Director. “The science is finally catching up with the problems anglers and conservationists have been talking about for a long time, and now the process can move forward. The fact that these options are going out for public hearing is significant, but it is a slow grind to get where we want to be with this stock. You can bet the harvesters think this is a significant development.”

Whatever regulations are ultimately adopted will be interim measures that will likely be in place for three to five years until ecological reference points, generated from a Multi- Species Virtual Population Analysis can be produced, which will require stock assessment updates on bluefish, striped bass, weakfish and menhaden stock. When that analysis is conducted, it is very possible managers will have a much better idea of the population of menhaden needed to fully serve as the critical forage base for those popular sport fish.

“Almost everyone who has spent time fishing in the Chesapeake has seen how the industrial boats, aided by spotter planes, can wipe out whole schools of menhaden, removing them completely from the food chain,” said Frank Kearney, chairman of CCA Virginia’s Government Affairs Committee. “For a long time, anglers have felt powerless to impact the menhaden management process against a very well-connected and financially powerful company. Now that these measures are going out for public hearing, it feels like we have a chance to inject some sanity into this fishery and begin to manage it for the greater good, not just for the good of one company.”