The New York Times accuses fishermen of wanting “to keep vacuuming up depleted fish populations before they have a chance to recover.” In our northeastern commercial fisheries the facts show a much different reality.
The New York Times’ editorial of June 13, 2009 “Of Fish and Flexibility” accuses Senator Charles Schumer of filing a bill that would “poke holes in the Magnuson-Stevens Act” and “ allow the government to consider the economic consequences of fishing restrictions”. This ignores the fact that taking into account the economic consequences of fishing restrictions is already law.
National Standard 8 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that “Conservation and management measures shall… 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.”
Most fishing interests question the degree to which regulations in the past several years have upheld this part of the law.
Citing the fluke fishery, the editorial notes that it “has not yet been rebuilt”. Rebuilding the fluke population remains prudent, and it is true that fluke was declared by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council to be subject to overfishing. But a later review of the stock assessment determined that the natural mortality rate had been set too low. The Council increased the mortality rate, and fluke is no longer considered overfished.
Oceans and eco-systems are complex. Human institutions, our government agencies included, are subject to human error. They don’t always get it right the first time. Flexibility allows the opportunity to fine tune regulations when new information arises, as happened in the fluke fishery.
Flexibility also provides regulators the ability to adhere to the Magnuson-Stevens Actrequirement to “minimize adverse economic impacts”.
The Times accuses fishermen of wanting “to keep vacuuming updepleted fish populations before they have a chance to recover.” In our northeastern commercial fisheries the facts show a much different reality.
Each year, using “best available” data, NOAA scientists set limits for total allowable catch. However existing regulatory schemes have prevented fishermen from actually catching these amounts. In the most recent year, only two species (monkfish 101% and white hake 87%) of the ten species for which National Marine Fisheries Service statistics are available had commercial landings at levels near the total permitted. For most species, fishermen landed only 4%-52% of the allowed catch. For haddock and cod, two mainstays of the northeast fishery, only 32% and 48% of the limits were landed.
Uncaught fish are not sold at auction. Uncaught fish translate to dollars that did not go to working families, and taxes that were not paid to struggling municipalities in difficult times. Poor regulation has forced northeastern fishermen to leave half of their potential earnings – all of which would be legal and within-limit — in the sea.
Restoring the flexibility that was included in the Magnuson Act in 1976 will allow fishermen to harvest more of their total allowable catch, and to do so with minimal impact on other species.