It’s been rough waters lately for conservationists trying to protect America’s most vulnerable fish stocks amid mounting evidence that many of the nation’s species are making a dramatic comeback.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill want to relax fishing restrictions. States want to wrest control of fishery management from federal authorities, especially red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. Even the Obama administration, often an ally to environmentalists, is proposing changes critics say would weaken efforts to prevent overfishing.
“We think that the conservation requirements are working and more can — and should — be done to actually improve fishery management from a comprehensive point of view,” said Ted Morton, director of U.S. Oceans for the Pew Charitable Trusts. “It is disappointing to have to defend what is working from efforts to weaken and undermine it.”
Morton is referring to a recent wave of legislative and policy proposals pushed by fishing interests, notably recreational anglers economically stung by the tighter rules, that environmentalists say threaten to undo nearly a decade of success under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery and Conservation Management Act.
First adopted in 1976 and last updated in 2006, the federal law spells out how regional fishery management councils should measure a stock’s health and the tools it can use, such as catch limits, to keep a species from being overfished.
Such steps have been credited with helping an overall rebound: in 2014, 37 stocks were considered overfished, an all-time low and down from 55 in 2002, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries division.
The commercial fishing industry generally supports the current law. But many recreational fishermen and charter boat captains say the momentum to slacken the regulations is long overdue following the sacrifices they’ve had to make under a regimen of catch limits and short seasons they concede has helped near-depleted stocks bounce back.
“Magnuson is working for the fish but it’s not working (for the) recreational sector,” said Jim Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance. “We said from day one during the 2006 reauthorization, It’s going to start with summer flounder, sea bass, amberjack, red snapper. It’s across the board. You name the fishery and we’re getting shortchanged.”
The success of Magnuson-Stevens is helping to propel the political pressure to loosen regulations. Those efforts include:
• House passage last month of a bill reauthorizing Magnuson-Stevens that gives regional councils more “flexibility” when setting catch limits. The Senate has yet to pass its version.
Under the House bill, the status of a stock (and whether limits should remain or be lifted) would be evaluated less on traditional science and more on firsthand observations and data collected at docks from fishermen bringing their haul to shore.
Accurate fish counts are at the heart of the dispute between conservationists and fishermen. The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ watchdog agency, is conducting a study on the science behind fish counts.
• A proposed rule from the Obama administration to update Magnuson-Stevens that would increase flexibility in setting time lines for rebuilding stocks, give councils more leeway to manage fish populations where data on their health is limited, and clarify which stocks require conservation and management.
An analysis by Pew said such latitude would promote practices that increase the risk of overfishing “because fishery managers would be able to delay lowering catch limits, even when the best scientific information indicates that such action is necessary.”
• Proposals in Congress and among states to increase fishing of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, a stock that has become the symbol of recreational fishers’ frustration with federal management. Anglers say they’re seeing an abundance of the early maturing reef fish that can live to the age of 57.
Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., introduced a bill Thursday that would transfer management of the red snapper fishery from the federal government to the five Gulf States out to nine miles from shore. Currently, state management ends at three miles offshore in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. (Texas and Florida state waters extend to nine miles already).
“When I was growing up, we could fish snapper year round; this year’s recreational season was just 10 days,” Graves said. “Our state-based approach will eliminate failed federal fish management that saw only one weekend of red snapper fishing in federal waters, while preventing overfishing.”
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., has included similar language in an appropriations bill heading to the floor.
In many ways, the battle over red snapper is emblematic of the conflict over the nation’s fishing laws. Lawmakers are caught between environmentalists and the fishermen back home.
“It’s a politically tough place for decision-makers to be,” said Holly Binns, who oversees Pew’s efforts to halt overfishing in the Southeast, including the Gulf.
Fishermen are right about seeing lots more red snapper, but she warns that it’s not evidence of full recovery to keep the stock at sustainable levels. A 24-inch female that’s about 8-years-old produces as many eggs as 212 5-year-old females that are about 17 inches each, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“The tendency is once you see more fish, (it becomes) ‘That’s great. things are good. Let’s go back to a six-month season or four-fish bag limit’,” she said. “Everything we know tells us that would put us back to a pretty bad place pretty quickly with this fishery.”