What's wrong with cooperation?

(from the June, 2007 issue of National Fisherman)

Last fall I wrote in this column “recreational fishermen, commercial fishermen and all of the consumers who enjoy locally produced seafood are the real ‘grass roots,’ not front people for agenda-driven multi-billion dollar foundations. We are the ones with the true commitment to sustainable harvesting, because we demand that our children and their children and their children’s children have fishing as a part of their life, and that’s how we have to sell ourselves. Working together will take coordination, cooperation and a lot of forbearance by everyone who fishes, but do we have a choice?”  Reflecting this, and to the consternation of the antis, recreational and commercial fishing groups collaborated on relaxing unnecessarily rigid rebuilding standards during Magnuson reauthorization. We’ve been looking at other areas of cooperation since then.

The column, the collaboration and the promise of further cooperation must have been effective, because it appears as if research by Pew-funded Oceana, one of the premier anti-fishing groups, is to be used to get recreational and commercial fishermen back at each other’s throats.

I was sent (anonymously, which was neat in a cloak and dagger kind of way) materials from what I’d give a 99% certainty to will be the next anti-fishing media spectacular, this one comparing commercial bycatch with recreational catch. If handled as previous hatchet jobs have been, nothing will incite anti-commercial feelings among recreational fishermen more than this trumpeting of skewed data demonstrating that in fishery after fishery we’re throwing away more than the recreational anglers are catching. That should take care of any developing cooperative tendencies, shouldn’t it? 

Using worst-case data, the information I received paints yet another dismal picture of commercial fishing, typical of the “science” supported directly or indirectly by Our Favorite Charitable Trust (OFCT). Most of the data is from a study by a private consulting group, the Marine Resources Assessment Group (MRAG), bought and paid for by Oceana. I probably don’t need to add that Oceana got $9 million from OFCT this year.

Authored by OFCT supported researcher Ransom Myers, ex NMFS official and present MRAG vice president Andrew Rosenberg, and MRAG staffer Julie Harrington, the report focuses largely on bycatch data from the shrimp fisheries before Bycatch Reduction Devices and massive fleet reductions forced by low-cost imports, regulatory discards which are themselves a by-product of the management process, and unnaturally high populations of protected species such as spiny dogfish. It’s pejoratively titled “Wasted Resources,” a dead-on indication of its objectivity.

Recreational information is almost entirely from the discredited Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey.

The only significant commercial fishing information source other than the Oceana MRAG study was from the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Fishery Management Plan. Just about all of the bycatch in the HMS fisheries is due to regulations. The fishermen are forced to heave dead tuna or sharks or billfish over the side. This obscene waste could be stopped by injecting a little rationality into what’s one of our most highly politicized fisheries, allowing the fishermen to donate the bycatch to real charitable groups really interested in doing good. Every time this has been proposed, the so-called “marine conservationists” have objected strenuously and effectively.

If they hadn’t, what would Oceana campaign against?

I’ll bet dollars to donuts that no thought’s been given to including any discussion of the strides that have been made in bycatch reduction, though mentioning it here might serve as a gentle reminder to those well-funded folks on the “charitable” side of the fence. Fishermen don’t like bycatch. It doesn’t generate income, it puts extra wear and tear on the gear, it takes time and energy to deal with and it kills critters needlessly. From a number of viewpoints, it’s anathema to responsible fishermen. But will any of this be in what is eventually splashed all over the NY Times, the Washington Post or any of the other publications willing to print any anti-fishing propaganda that comes their way? As radio’s Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding used to say, “don’t hang by your thumbs.” 

Recreational fishermen and their representatives – at least those who work for organizations not compromised by all of those anti-fishing foundation dollars –see the writing on the wall. Our collective future lies in maintaining the viability of both recreational and commercial fishing, something that the foundation-funded “conservationists” have demonstrated zero interest in.

If our rudimentary attempts at cooperation can elicit this kind of response, we’re heading in the right direction. Once we involve the real consumers, we’re home free.

Nils E. Stolpe