Phil Ruhle, true believer

(from the Octber, 2008 issue of National Fisherman)

It was just barely two years ago when we lost “Hammer” Beidemann. Some of us in the commercial fishing industry lost a really good friend. All of us in the commercial fishing industry lost one of our most effective advocates.

And on July 23 it happened again. Phil Ruhle, ex-New England Council member, NOAA Conservation Hero, high-liner, gear developer, industry spokesman, “Smart Gear” Grand Prize winner and one of the nicest guys any of us are likely to meet, went down with his boat, Seabreeze, 45 miles off Cape May while coming in to offload 50 tons of squid.

It’s difficult to get my head around the idea that Phil’s not going to be there any more. All of us who were fortunate enough to have known him will know what that means personally. But all of us who are commercial fishermen or who are involved in supporting commercial fishing should know what that means to the industry.

Phil was an industry leader, but not because of any position he held. He was an industry leader because of who he was, what he did and of how he did it.

Not too long after the Magnuson Act, and the bureaucracy it mandated, became the overriding factor in fisheries, it became apparent that to be successful, fishermen were going to have to make attending meetings a part of their job. As daunting as that was, as time- and money-consuming, as frustrating and off-putting, Phil believed it and he lived it. But while doing so he remained a fishermen’s fisherman. With his son Phil Jr. he ran Seabreeze and they caught fish. And he also found – or perhaps made is the better word - the time and the energy to develop gear that, in the overhyped vocabulary in overuse today, was actually eco-friendly.

He was a supporter of and a participant in cooperative research. He was one of the primary industry folks involved in the so-called “Trawlgate” controversy a few years back, recognizing the importance of improperly calibrated sampling gear on the all-important stock assessments and working with NMFS personnel to improve their trawl surveys. He was named a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Environmental Hero, an award honoring NOAA volunteers for their "tireless efforts to preserve and protect our nation's environment" for this involvement.

He was part of the team that designed the Eliminator Trawl. He and the other members subsequently won the World Wildlife Fund Smart Gear International Competition “to reward and inspire innovative ideas to reduce fisheries bycatch,” coming out ahead of over 70 other contenders from 22 countries. Team member and University of Rhode Island Sea Grant staffer David Beutel said “the collaborative design and development of the Eliminator trawl is a great example of industry and scientists working together with managers to develop innovative solutions to reduce or eliminate bycatch.” This was Phil’s approach, not just to bycatch reduction, but to management issues in general.        

He didn’t get involved in management because he was appointed to the New England Council. He was there before he was appointed and he was there after he wasn’t reappointed. He took fisheries management seriously. He did his homework and could follow the management-speak “gobbledygook” about as well as anyone. The management system, its built-in frustrations, compromises, conflicts and downright inanities, sometimes got to him, but when it did he just about always seemed to maintain his sense of humor and, even more importantly, his sense of irony. He saw the system and the process for what it was, warts and all, but recognized that it was what we were saddled with and what we had to deal with. And he was among the best at dealing with it.

But apparently Phil did have his limits. In a profile of him written two days after Seabreeze was lost, Peter Lord of the Providence Journal wrote that NMFS’ failure to allow the timely use of the “Eliminator” trawl was the last straw for Phil and that his work with the agency was over.

Phil’s sacrifices to make the management system work, and to insure the future of the commercial fishing industry that depends on it, have earned him a tribute from all of us, those who knew him personally and those who didn’t. The best tribute that I can think of would be to adopt his approach; working within the system as much as possible but not accepting its shortcomings, and being willing to draw a line and not willing to step over it.

Nils E. Stolpe