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Environmental Bullies: How Conservation Ideologues Attack Scientists Who Don’t Agree With Them

March 11, 2016 — The following is an excerpt from a commentary from Dr. Molly Lutcavage, the head of the Large Pelagics Research Center in Gloucester, Massachusetts. It was originally published on Medium :

Back in the 90s, bluefin fishermen said that spotter pilots could see, in a single day, as many adult bluefin that were supposed to exist in the entire western Atlantic in just a few surface schools in the Gulf of Maine alone. No federal fisheries scientists would fly to validate the fishermen’s observations, so Dr. Scott Kraus, director of the right whale research group and whale aerial surveys, stepped in to find out. And he hired me to run the surveys after an inquiry about his sea turtle data. I’d completed an oceanography PhD, two postdocs, and recently left a job in the Dept. of Interior as an endangered species scientist to get back to research, which I loved. I had been studying leatherbacks, a warm bodied turtle, and bluefin tuna were a warm bodied fish. And incredibly interesting. My UBC postdoc supervisor, Dr. David R. Jones, was an expert on their blood. And there were huge gaps in biological understanding – in other words, a scientific frontier to explore!

In his clumsy communication to discredit our survey work, Carl Safina made no attempt to confirm the scientific credentials of the scientist running the study (me), nor her highly respected collaborator, Dr. Scott Kraus. In fact, by doing our job as scientists, using aerial survey methods to investigate real-time, surface abundance of bluefin schools, we were disrupting the ocean conservation group’s efforts, especially that of Safina, to list Atlantic bluefin tuna as an endangered species. Apparently, by whatever means necessary. The published spotter survey results eventually provided independent observations that rebutted Safina’s portrayal of western Atlantic bluefin as an endangered species down to a few thousand individuals. The study established the local assemblage as larger than one hundred thousand giant bluefin, at the surface alone.

Since our first research projects over 25 years ago, my lab and our collaborators and students have built a diverse body of peer reviewed science covering extensive aspects of the biology, life history, physiological ecology, reproduction, diet, oceanographic associations, and fisheries dynamics of Atlantic bluefin tuna. We published over 75 research studies on western bluefin. Most of it was new, or challenged the status quo of bluefin biology used in stock assessment. We documented a lower age at maturity, extensive, Atlantic-wide mixing, complex annual migration patterns, and effects of prey dynamics and ocean conditions on their movements. This holistic body of research showed the western Atlantic bluefin population to be far more resilient and larger than that being represented by some NGO’s. Yet this substantial scientific body of evidence, most of it noted by historic studies by Frank Mather and Peter C. Wilson, has been conveniently ignored by those with ideological agendas, even today.

Enviro Bullies rarely confront their targets face to face. Since the 1990’s, they’ve made pretty impressive attempts to mislead about bluefin science. And to influence US fisheries managers, politicians and the direction of research funding, all the way up to the White House. We stuck to our research goals, but when Congressional earmarks funding the Large Pelagics Research Center (LPRC), and its role model, the Pacific Fisheries Research Program, went away, we faced vastly downsized research budgets. Actually, just when the Centers had amassed a substantial body of credible, cutting edge fisheries science, and established their true worth, both pelagic fisheries science Centers went off the cliff, into real extinction. Meanwhile, major funding began streaming in to some ocean-focused NGO’s, and their spokesperson scientists.

In 2013, former students, collaborators and I witnessed the Pew Oceans Campaign and partners mislead, in their press releases and statements to US and Canadian fisheries managers, experts’ consensus regarding the status of the Atlantic bluefin population in Pews Fact Sheet representation of Best Available Science. And more specifically, that LPRC’s peer reviewed research that challenged their take away message, that the Atlantic bluefin population trajectory was downward, and that they were in danger. They labelled our work as well as consensus science from the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), as “unsubstantiated hypotheses”. Amanda Nickson, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Bluefin Campaign, phoned from Vancouver to berate my colleagues and I for responding to the Pew Fact Sheet, which dramatically misrepresented science. We had corrected it with our own fact sheet, and they were not happy to be called out by credentialed bluefin experts.

Maybe it’s because National Geographic’s Wicked Tuna reality show, on roll out, put me up against Safina’s video blurb about the overfished, endangered bluefin on the show’s website. What can you do when a lauded environmental writer, one with a PhD in seabird ecology, that receives accolades and is often the go to authority on Atlantic bluefin for the New York Times, National Public Radio, high media profile journals Science and Nature (even though he’s not exactly running a research lab, is he?), lacks the ethics most of us practice when we conduct science. To claim to be an expert where you are not, to mislead the public, to falsely disparage those that don’t support your ideology, to repeatedly and falsely allude to a woman scientist being bought by fishermen, “in their pockets”, whatever works, when his ideology or views expressed in books or blogs or lectures are shown to be false. Is this what conservation leadership has become? Incidentally, another blatant attempt to disparage and mislead was accomplished by Pew and their scientists in Quicksilver, by Kenneth Brower, published in National Geographic Magazine March 2014 story on Atlantic bluefin tuna.

The quotes looks pretty familiar:

Tuna science, always politicized, has recently become much more so. As it is no longer possible for ICCAT to simply ignore scientific advice, there is now an effort to massage the science. “There are inherent uncertainties about these stock assessments,” Amanda Nickson, director of global tuna conservation at the Pew Charitable Trusts, told me. “We’re seeing a mining of the areas of uncertainty to justify increases in quota.”

Industry-funded biologists propose that there might be undiscovered spawning grounds for Atlantic bluefin. It is possible, of course, but there is no real evidence for the proposition. The idea seems awfully convenient for an agenda favoring business as usual.

Wow, “awfully convenient for an agenda”, in this Nat Geo story repeating Pew’s positions and only their scientists that support it, Drs. Barbara Block and Safina. So now we have even more evidence that their representations are wrong. Jee, National Geographic Society Research and Exploration had actually funded two of my research projects. Let’s see if they print a correction.

Here we are again, Carl Safina. Yes, you’re certainly not the only enviro bully out there, not the only one wrong again, but this time, I’m calling you out. Let the ocean conservation community represented by Pew tuna campaigns and their chosen scientists see the latest, peer reviewed science finding on Atlantic bluefin tuna spawning areas in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, early edition on 7 March 2016 “Discovery of a new spawning ground reveals diverse migration strategies in Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus)” by Richardson and coauthors.

Read the full opinion piece at Medium

Scientists Find Possible New Spawning Area for Western Atlantic Bluefin

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [SeafoodNews] By Peggy Parker — March 8, 2016 — Scientists from NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) and the University of Massachusetts Boston have found evidence of Atlantic bluefin tuna spawning activity off the northeastern United States in an area of open ocean south of New England and east of the Mid-Atlantic states called the Slope Sea.

The findings suggest that the current life-history model for western Atlantic bluefin may overestimate age-at-maturity. If so, the authors conclude that western Atlantic bluefin may be less vulnerable to fishing and other stressors than previously thought.

Prior to this research, the only known spawning grounds for Atlantic bluefin tuna were in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea. The evidence for a new western Atlantic spawning ground came from a pair of Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) research cruises in the Slope Sea during the summer of 2013.

“We collected 67 larval bluefin tuna during these two cruises, and the catch rates were comparable to the number collected during the annual bluefin tuna larval survey in the Gulf of Mexico,” said David Richardson of NEFSC, lead author of this study. “Most of these larvae were small, less than 5 millimeters, and were estimated to be less than one week old. Drifting buoy data confirmed that these small larvae could not possibly have been transported into this area from the Gulf of Mexico spawning ground.”

Larvae collected during the cruises were identified as bluefin tuna through visual examination and genetic sequencing. To confirm the identification, larvae were sent to the Alaska Fisheries Science Center laboratory in Juneau, where DNA sequences verified that the larvae were Atlantic bluefin tuna.

A single bluefin tuna can spawn millions of eggs, each of which is just over a millimeter in diameter, or the size of a poppy seed. Within a couple of days these eggs hatch into larvae that are poorly developed and bear little resemblance to the adults. Larval bluefin tuna can be collected in plankton nets and identified based on their shape, pigment patterns and body structures.

High-value Atlantic bluefin tuna has a unique physiology that allows it to range from the tropics to the sub-arctic. As a highly migratory species, Atlantic bluefin tuna is assessed by the Standing Committee on Research and Statistics (SCRS) of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) as distinct eastern and western stocks separated by the 45 degree west meridian (or 45 w longitude). The U.S. fishery harvest from the western Atlantic stock is managed through NOAA Fisheries’ Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan.

For many years, global overfishing on this species was prevalent, resulting in substantial population declines. Recent international cooperation in managing catches has contributed to increasing trends in the abundance of both the eastern and western management stocks. The western stock, targeted by U.S. fishermen, is harvested at levels within the range of the SCRS’ scientific advice.

This research may change the long-held assumption that bluefin tuna start spawning at age 4 in the Mediterranean Sea and age 9 in the Gulf of Mexico. Electronic tagging studies begun in the late 1990s showed that many bluefin tunad, did not visit either spawning ground during the spawning season, despite being large enough to be of spawning age. This led some to say that these larger fish were not yet spawning, and that the age-at-maturity for western Atlantic bluefin tuna was 12-16 years, rather than 9 years, as was assumed in the stock assessment.

A consistent supporter of an alternate hypothesis was Molly Lutcavage at the Large Pelagics Research Center of the University of Massachusetts Boston. She believed tuna that did not visit the Gulf of Mexico and Mediterranean Sea were spawning elsewhere. Her research team used electronic tagging data from the Lutcavage lab to present an alternate model of western Atlantic bluefin tuna spawning migrations.

Only the largest bluefin tuna, those over about 500 pounds, migrate to the Gulf of Mexico spawning area. After these fish exit the Gulf of Mexico, they swim through the Slope Sea rapidly, on their way to northern feeding grounds. On the other hand, smaller bluefin tuna, ranging in size from 80 to 500 pounds, generally spend more than 20 days in the Slope Sea during the spawning season, a duration consistent with spawning. Lutcavage is a co-author on the study.

“Last year, we demonstrated using endocrine measurements that bluefin tuna in the western Atlantic mature at around 5 years of age. That study, and ones before it, predicted that these smaller fish would spawn in a more northerly area closer to the summertime foraging grounds in the Gulf of Maine and Canadian waters,” Lutcavage said. “The evidence of spawning in the Slope Sea, and the analysis of the tagging data, suggests that western Atlantic bluefin tuna are partitioning spawning areas by size, and that a younger age at maturity should be used in the stock assessment.”

Researchers also found that individual tuna occupy both the Slope Sea and Mediterranean Sea in separate years, contrary to the prevailing view that individuals exhibit complete fidelity to a spawning site. Reproductive mixing between the eastern and western stocks may occur in the Slope Sea and the authors contend that population structure of bluefin tuna may be more complex than is currently thought.

“Past analyses of Atlantic bluefin tuna population structure and mixing between the western and eastern Atlantic stocks may need to be revisited because they do not account for the full spatial extent of western Atlantic spawning,” Richardson said. “So much of the science and sampling for Atlantic bluefin tuna has been built around the assumption that the Gulf of Mexico and Mediterranean Sea are the only spawning grounds. This new research underscores the complexity of stock structure for this species and identifies important areas for future research.”

The authors expect these findings could potentially lead to a lower estimated age-at-maturity, a critical component of the stock assessment, and could reopen consideration of the nature and level of mixing between the western and eastern Atlantic populations. This new information will be considered along with other pertinent research as part of the regular ICCAT SCRS stock assessment process.

The findings were published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The scientific team for this study comprises researchers from NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) and Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC), the Large Pelagics Research Center at the University of Massachusetts Boston, the School of Marine Science and Technology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO). The sampling for this study was supported by NOAA, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and the US Navy through interagency agreements for the Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS).

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It has been reprinted with permission

Jersey Shore Fishing: Ray Bogan Appointed an ICCAT Commissioner

February 25, 2016 — Ray Bogan, who chose the law as his profession, rather than joining the famed family party boat business in Brielle, has been appointed as the U.S. recreational fishing commissioner to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).

Ray Bogan, whose law office is in Point Pleasant Beach and is also a captain, has been involved for many years in all aspects of fisheries conservation. He’s well-qualified to handle the new position as he’s been monitoring ICCAT activities for decades. In some cases, the overfishing of tunas in Europe and Africa may also impact local abundance. Though the title implies that ICCAT only manages tunas, they also develop conservation plans for other highly migratory fisheries. Since most of the rest of the world is only concerned with commercial fishing, ICCAT had to be dragged into protecting species with lesser commercial value. After being appointed to the first Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, I became that council’s representative to the Southeast Council in establishing tuna regulations within our then new 200-mile limit before the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) later took over highly migratory species management. At one meeting, an U.S. marine biologist said ICCAT wouldn’t do anything to conserve blue marlin until there were only two left – and both were males!

It’s not quite that bad now, but recreational fishing still takes a back seat at ICCAT. The bluefin tuna “conservation” regulations result in such minimal quotas for school bluefins that the cost of pursuing that recreational fishery can hardly be justified, while spawning giants are targeted with high commercial daily boat limits in order to fill quotas.

Read the full story at NJ.com

DAVID SCHALIT: Report from ICCAT

December 7, 2015 — The following is a commentary submitted to Saving Seafood by David Schalit, the Vice President of the American Bluefin Tuna Association:

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) used to be the regional fishery management organization everybody loved to hate. Its dysfunctionality was legendary. ICCAT became famous because it is the regional fishery management organization responsible for Atlantic bluefin tuna, the famously “iconic” and “charismatic” tuna stock that has been the subject of intense media interest for a very long time and the only tuna species to star in its own cable television series.

ICCAT’s Problem

In the mid-late 1990’s, due to concerns expressed by ICCAT scientists about the status of Atlantic bluefin, ICCAT began adopting measures to limit harvest of both east and west stocks. Only the west Atlantic harvesters heeded the advices of ICCAT scientists. European Union fishing countries and other eastern harvesters who target east Atlantic bluefin weren’t listening. During the next several years the east Atlantic stock was subject to consistent and increasing overfishing, illegal fishing and unreported fishing. In 2007 – the worst year on record for east Atlantic bluefin – ICCAT scientists estimated that catch in the east Atlantic could be as high as 60,000 MT, almost twice the allowed quota.

As a consequence, “the plight of the Atlantic bluefin” became the subject of ongoing public relations campaigns by numerous environmental organizations. Annual meetings of ICCAT in the years leading up to 2008 developed a circus atmosphere, consisting of a full complement of delegates, a large number of industry representatives, media and environmental observers as well as environmental activists who regularly demonstrated outside of the meeting venue. As a result, ICCAT meetings were regularly covered by media worldwide.

ICCAT’s Redemption

ICCAT finally began to redeem itself during its 2008 meeting when it mustered the political will to cease overfishing and begin the process of rebuilding east Atlantic bluefin stock. Today, both east and west Atlantic bluefin stocks have become a fishery management success story.

The New Problem

However, ICCAT may be returning to its old ways. This time, the problem is with Atlantic bigeye tuna. ICCAT scientists turned in a stock assessment on Atlantic bigeye this October indicating that the stock is presently overfished and with overfishing presently taking place. ICCAT scientists urged the adoption of conservation measures to immediately address this problem. Last week, the 24^th annual meeting of ICCAT was held in Malta. Unfortunately, when the meeting came to a close on November 17, ICCAT had failed to achieve meaningful conservation measures for Atlantic bigeye tuna. Sound familiar?

What Were the Objectives?

The scientists recommended steps that would lead to increasing “future chances that the stock will be at a level that is consistent with the convention objectives.” The primary means available to ICCAT for achieving this were a reduction in harvesting of mature bigeye in the central/south Atlantic and a reduction in bycatch of juvenile bigeye in the Gulf of Guinea skipjack fishery. Neither of these goals was met.

Major Harvesting Forces

The Atlantic bigeye tuna fishery consists of 8 major harvesters and 11 minor harvesters. The eight major harvesters (China, EU, Ghana, Japan, Panama, Philippines, Korea and Chinese Taipei) are, in total, a fleet of 659 longline vessels plus assorted “support vessels”, mostly fishing in the equatorial Atlantic, in deep water, for mature bigeye. The EU alone has 269 vessels in this fleet, and Japan has 245.

In addition, there are 51 purse seine vessels permitted by ICCAT to operate in the Gulf of Guinea skipjack fishery that are responsible for significant bycatch of juvenile bigeye and yellowfin. Of those 51 vessels, the EU (France and Spain) is the largest fleet, with 34 vessels.

To put this in perspective, in 2014, the 8 major harvesters were responsible for over 53,000 MT of bigeye catch, whereas the 11 minor harvesters, including the U.S. and Brazil, were responsible for just under 14,000 MT. (The U.S. reported 800 MT of catch in 2014.) And there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding the level of mortality on juvenile bigeye in the purse seine fishery.

The Negotiations

During the negotiations at last week’s meeting, the U.S., Brazil and a few other minor harvesters squared off against the very well prepared forces of the EU and Japan who had the backing of their formidable fishing industries. It is said that those who have “the most skin in the game” tend to prevail and so, notwithstanding the efforts of the U.S., Brazil and others to reduce fishing effort by these major harvesters, the EU, Japan and the 6 other major harvesters were the winners and Atlantic bigeye tuna was the loser.

Curiously, the major harvesters can make the claim to have reduced the overall TAC. Atlantic bigeye harvesting is presently governed by an Atlantic-wide TAC from which each of the 8 major harvesters are given a fixed, “not to exceed” individual TAC. Last week, the major harvesters agreed to reduce their combined allowed TAC from its present level of 79,000 MT to to 58,000 MT. This gives the distinct impression that significant conservation measures were taken. However, landings averaged over the last 5 years are below 58,000 MT. In actual fact, this agreement allows these harvesters another 9,000 MT above their reported landings of 2014. Consequently, no actual cuts in catch were made.

The Fiasco in the Gulf of Guinea

The problem in the Gulf of Guinea is an issue that has plagued ICCAT since the 1990s. ICCAT has made various attempts, beginning in the late 90’s, to reduce bycatch of juvenile bigeye and yellowfin typically weighing no more than 3-6 lbs, in the Gulf of Guinea purse seine skipjack fishery. According to the scientists, none of these attempts yielded any reduction in bigeye bycatch. Why?

At each ICCAT meeting in which this bycatch problem was addressed, the EU has tendered its own fully detailed proposal to address the problem. In each instance, their proposal involved a variation on the concept of a time/area closure in the Gulf of Guinea for a fixed period during each fishing season. Since the EU purse seine fleet is the dominant force in the Gulf of Guinea skipjack fishery, it is difficult to imagine why ICCAT would have ever seriously considered an EU proposal. Clearly, the EU’s interests are best served by thwarting any conservation action that would have a negative effect on its seining activities in the Gulf. However, in each instance, ICCAT has adopted the EU’s proposal. And in every instance, ICCAT scientists subsequently found that these closures did not result in the reduction of bycatch. Today, these facts are well known to ICCAT member countries. So, why did ICCAT, in last week’s meeting, adopt a new EU-authored solution to the problem of bigeye bycatch that is likely to achieve nothing? This, too, is reminiscent of the “old” ICCAT.

Final Outcome

We can point to other successes that came out of the ICCAT meeting such as significant progress on Convention amendments, eBCD and the development of harvest control rules; all important issues. But if ICCAT fails in its primary task – the “conservation of Atlantic tunas” – all other successful initiatives are diminished in importance because of that failure.

Fortunately for ICCAT, it has a chance to partially redeem itself at next years’ meeting, when it will address Atlantic yellowfin tuna, a stock that has some of the same problems as Atlantic bigeye. Unfortunately, ICCAT will have to wait until 2018 to have a chance to again address the issue of conservation of bigeye tuna.

Statement by U.S. Commissioner Russell F. Smith III at the Conclusion of the 2015 Annual ICCAT Meeting

December 3, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

This year’s International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) meeting was characterized by an unprecedented level of engagement from a broad range of parties that joined together to promote the sustainable management in ICCAT fisheries. This collaboration is critical to the effective work of ICCAT, and we hope that these relationships will continue to be fostered and strengthened in the future.

Negotiations on amendments to the 1969 ICCAT Convention were advanced to a near-final stage. The amended Convention will reflect modern principles, such as the precautionary and ecosystem approaches to fisheries management, clarify the Commission’s management authority, particularly for sharks, and improve the governance of the Commission.

In keeping with another major U.S. priority, the electronic system for tracking bluefin tuna catch and trade is near completion and is anticipated to be ready for full implementation in the spring of 2016. This should help address and prevent illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and help improve management of the stock by providing ready access to data about catch and trade.

Agreement was reached on the development of harvest control rules and management strategy evaluation as important tools to support future decision-making. This measure details the process by which alternative biological reference points (i.e., threshold and limit biomass levels, and the target fishing mortality rate) will be identified and tested by the Standing Committee on Research and Statistics (SCRS). North Atlantic albacore will be the first stock; a management objective has been defined and the development of harvest control rules will continue in 2016. The Commission will provide specific input in three areas for individual stocks: (1) management objectives; (2) acceptable levels of probability (e.g., of achieving targets or avoiding limits); and (3) timeframes for ending overfishing and/or rebuilding.

We are disappointed that the Commission did not do more to address overfishing of bigeye tuna despite the clear advice from the SCRS, which called for a reduction in the total allowable catch (TAC) and in the fishing mortality on the smallest juvenile bigeye tuna that are caught in the Gulf of Guinea. Tropical tunas support important U.S. commercial and recreational fisheries. With this in mind, we sought a more comprehensive approach to rebuild the stock with greater certainty, including a lower TAC as well as a longer and larger time/area closure to protect juveniles. Although these positions were rejected by the major players in the fishery, we will continue to manage bigeye tuna responsibly within the United States.

Atlantic-wide TAC levels for overfished stocks of blue marlin and white marlin will remain in effect until new scientific advice is available in 2018. We had hoped to include provisions to require the use of circle hooks to minimize post-release mortality, and related scientific research, but these efforts were rejected.

With respect to sharks, a new measure requires the release of porbeagle sharks encountered alive in ICCAT fisheries and, if catches of porbeagle increase beyond 2014 levels in the future, additional actions will be considered. The United States again proposed to prohibit shark finning at sea and to require sharks that are landed to have fins naturally attached. The number of co-sponsors for this proposal increased substantially, from 12 in 2014 to 30 in 2015, now more than a majority of all ICCAT parties. Despite this groundswell of support, a few parties declared their staunch opposition to this measure, and it was not adopted.

ICCAT invested a significant amount of time and effort to review the compliance of its 50 Contracting Parties with existing obligations, evaluating various reporting requirements as well as conservation and management measures. There was demonstrated improvement in ICCAT parties’ reporting of catch data and other information this year, but there is further work to do to ensure that all parties are in full compliance with all reporting obligations. The United States will continue to push ICCAT and its parties to be forward leaning and to prioritize the implementation of a robust and transparent compliance process.

Read the statement from NOAA online